Round of 16, Day 4 - Japan - World Cup Eating Challenge 2015

So I obviously am super behind on Eating Challenge posts. Life has been happening really hard over here and this just hasn't been my priority. Without going into detail, my family has been going through a loss so I've been visiting them as much as possible. I also was preparing for my own trip to be a bridesmaid in a long time friend's wedding meaning that I had a lot of work to do before leaving. Life was definitely at it's hardest for a couple of weeks there and it took all of my remaining energy to just keep doing the challenge. I didn't have any extra for words. However, I'm back from my trip and I've been able refresh and get back some of my inspiration. I also have a new challenge on deck so there's a lot to look forward to.

But right now - let's talk about sushi. Sushi is just super pretty and the ingredients speak for themselves so how about a picture post? Great? Great.

The only thing keeping me from doing sushi before was the fish. I've always been nervous about the quality being good enough to eat the fish raw. I went to a specialty fish market and asked about which fish was sushi quality. I decided to go with some ahi tuna and salmon.

I wanted to do a hand roll along with sashimi. I had done a sushi class before and remembered some of what to do.

I put in some rice, cucumber, avocado, and then my fish.

For the sashmini, I wanted to get a little creative so I arranged them into flowers with cucumber and avocado stems. I also bought a nice sake to pair with it. 

But that's not all... I ended up buying way too much fish. This is one of those amazing problems that I'm all too happy to have. I decided to try to change it up a little and sear the tuna. 

I then cut up the tuna, salmon, and some avocado slices. It's hard to see but it's all on sheets of nori (seaweed). I called it a de-constructed sushi roll.

I ended up just eating little pieces on the slices of seaweed and it was amazing.

This ended up being a really easy day where the quality of the ingredients spoke for themselves and didn't need me messing them up. I would love to go back to the fish store and get more salmon and just slice it up and enjoy it like this again.

Round of 16, Day 3 - Colombia - World Cup Eating Challenge 2015

Colombia was another repeat. I decided to give arepas another shot. Unlike some of my repeats, these didn't turn out so well. I have a lot of trouble with arepas, pupusas... basically any Latin American bread-like products. This was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to tackle again and see how my skills have improved.

I used a different but similar recipe this time. My only issue with it was the cheese. It says "queso blanco" which I assumed was "queso fresco" when I made my shopping list. I think they actually meant more of a monterey jack kind of cheese. Queso fresco is more of a salty high fat cheese that makes a good topping. It added a lot of salt to my arepas and wasn't quite as melty as other cheeses would have been. 

Otherwise, they turned out was better. I used wax paper to flatten out my dough and I just shaped them by hand. I was able to cook two at a time and the mixture, even though I only did about 2/3 of the amount, made a lot of arepas so it kept me occupied for a good hour.

For toppings, I had carnitas, guacamole, salsa, the extra queso fresco, and some jalapeno. I was planning on making the carnitas but I didn't think to take my 8 pound pork roast out of the freezer until about 11am so that wasn't going to cut it. I know that the Del Real Foods carnitas are actually really high quality (local meat and gluten free) so I went with that as a quick fix. I'll still make our pork roast later this week when I have some free days with no games.

It all came together so well. It's basically a little gluten free sandwich. The flour is corn and there is also cheese so it's not paleo but it's not the worst thing for you either. We have lots of extra arepas too so I'm set for a few lunches this week. That's definitely been a nice bonus to this challenge!

Day 10 - Spain - World Cup Eating Challenge 2015

This one might look a little familiar. Last year, I did Paella for Spain as well. I had been meaning to make it again all year so when I decided to do the challenge again, I knew Spain would be a full repeat. I even used the same recipe. The only changes were that I didn't use clams this year (they weren't very popular last year and don't keep well) and I topped it with some parsley since that was in a lot of the pictures and would be a nice note of freshness.

First things first, I laid out my ingredients. I also used chicken, peas, and parsley which aren't shown here. 

I don't have an actual paella pan but I have a very large frying pan and it does the job really well. 

After I cooked my chicken, I put in my bell pepper and chorizo.

When those were done, I added my tomatoes and chicken stock.  After that came to a boil, I added the rice and put the chicken back and let it simmer. Once you add the rice, mix it once and then not again. Add the shrimp in and when the shrimp turns pink, remove them.

When there is very little liquid left, put in the peas. It probably should have had a little less liquid but I'm impatient and was hungry.

Once the rice looks totally cooked, add back your shrimp and some parsley.

Then enjoy!! Paella feeds a lot so it's a great food for hosting. I invited over my neighbors and it was enough for 6 people to have heaping plate fulls and a little left over for my lunch. 

I also picked up some of this Reserve Rioja at Bevmo. It had great smokiness and was a good pairing with the strong flavors of the paella. I'm happy it was one of the 5 cent wines because it was an amazing wine. So good, in fact, that I might be drinking the second bottle while writing this....

Facebook Page Launched!!!

This is just a little mini update but I'm happy to announce that I've launched a Facebook page for this site. I'd ideally like to grow the readership of this blog outside of my friend group (and if you're already one of those people then thank you for following along!!) and so I created a page dedicated to this blog.

Here is the link for the page:
https://www.facebook.com/nikkilincblog?ref=hl

You should Like my page if any of the following apply to you:

• You like my blog posts
• You like me
• You like wine
• You like food
• You like the idea of using paleo or gluten free alternatives to traditional recipes
• You like learning about International or Global dishes
• You want wine tasting suggestions
• You like weekend adventures
• You like travel
• You're kind of nerdy 
• You're curious about wine pairing

And if you don't like any of the things above well, you might not like this blog or my Facebook page but maybe check it out anyways?

Semifinals, Day 1 - Brazilian Feijoada and Even More Cheesy Bread - World Cup Eating Challenge

Updated to include link and modifications at the bottom of the post.

That was just heartbreaking. I knew Brazil losing was a very possible outcome for that game but no one wants to see their team completely fall apart. It's really hard to watch a game where it looks like your team just stopped playing. I really had no motivation to do the challenge Tuesday. I had already decided to cook the dish for whichever country lost, but I was so disappointed with the game, it was hard to bring myself to do it. I basically just wanted to turn off the TV and be like this:

But I knew I needed to see this through....

Since the game was decided in the first half an hour and I don't like torturing myself, I decided to use the second half to get my shopping done for the challenge. I had long been planning to do Brazilian feijoada - an amazing traditional black bean stew.

Beans are kind of a wonderful thing in Brazil. In a country with a bit disparity between the rich and the poor and a very small (but growing!) middle class - it's so interesting to find a dish that is eaten at all economic levels. While certain aspects of it might change - I love the idea that this is a unifying dish across all classes. In all the time I've spent in Brazil with my family, I don't think I ever went more than a couple of days without seeing feijoada on the table. Even at my parent's house in the US, it was weird to go a week without black beans. It was definitely one of the harder things to adjust to when I went to college.

As for cooking them - the first still was to boil the beans to start getting them tender. Beans take forever to cook to the right consistency and I wasn't getting the head start of soaking them so boiling ahead of time was crucial. 

The one thing I didn't like about my recipe was that is told me to drain the liquid. One of my favorite things about feijoada is just the inky color of the sauce and I feel like a lot of that went down the drain when I poured the beans into the colander. 

Next, it was time to take out my trustiest kitchen tool - the crock pot. If you don't have a crock pot, get one. This isn't like the admittedly silly waffle maker or the helpful but not necessary lemon squeezer. If you like to cook amazing food but have a job or a life or anything else that keeps you from being at home for 10 hours to check on your dish, a crock pot will save the day. Even if you don't have a job or life and are at home for 10 hours a day, they way the crock pot cooks things just gives you then most tender meats and it's still nice to be able to set it up and walk away while the cooking just happens for you. The slow cooker is easily the best cooking tool I have.

So I poured my beans into the pot and got started on the rest of the ingredients.  

What makes the black beans feijoada instead of just feijao (which just means beans) is to have tons of meaty goodness in there. I had a pork shoulder, short ribs, and sausage to add. The recipe also called for a ham hock. I had no idea what that was so I grabbed this salt pork. I'm pretty sure it's just a giant chunk of bacon. When I got home, I read the recipe again and realized the ham hock was just a big ham bone. Oops - oh well, BACON!  

I cut up my cured ham in to little pieces and quickly seared the outside then through it in the crock pot. I did the same with the pork shoulder and short ribs and then added garlic, onions, and jalapeno. I seem to keep getting more jalapeno in my eyes than my dishes though. I think it's time I invest in some kitchen gloves. 

The reason for browning the meats a bit before throwing them in the crock pot is just to give them more flavor. I don't know why but browned foods are always more delicious and while the crock pot will make a meal tender and juicy, it won't add that browning aspect. 

I let everything sit in the crock pot for a few hours while I finished work and then took a nap. See? This is why the Crock Pot is awesome. I was cooking while taking a nap. I was cooking while working. Crock Pots literally make multitasking the easiest thing in the world. 

Once the feijoada was almost ready, I threw in the sausages. I used the same liguica from the Portugal challenge since it was so delicious. Most sausages are already precooked so this is more of a heating up. If they had been in the slow cooker the whole time, they probably would have disintegrated. I've done this before. It's not ideal.

I paired my Brazilian stew with some Brazilian cheese bread and enjoyed it all over a bowl of quinoa. I don't really eat a lot of rice so I like using quinoa to fill that void. 

After that I just took a lot of gratuitous pictures of cheese bread. Turns out, that's all anyone cares about. I get more hits because of cheese bread than anything else. To be fair though - the stuff is basically crack. I had the last three pieces for breakfast today and was super bummed. I think I need to go home and make more...

Whew, because of the space between games now, this was the first post that wasn't ready and scheduled to go out ahead of time. I guess I'm caught up!

Update:
  Here's a link to the recipe I used and I've outlined what I changed:
- no oragne juice, that seemed weird to me, i just added enough water to cover the beans and some of the meat
- cured ham instead of ham hock
- coriander bc I forgot
Things I would do differently:
- not drain beans after rinsing
- actually get the ham hock. my cured ham was good but there were a ton of fat chunks that I had to pick out while eating.