Day 12 - Spain - World Cup Eating Challenge

I can honestly say that this World Cup has had a lot of surprises. I really thought Spain was going to make it out of group stage so I wasn't planning on attempting Paella until much later in the cup. This last round of group stage games has led me to do a lot of shuffling and I'm kind of sad about some of the countries that I'm going to have to skip. Luckily, I was able to shuffle my plans and get Spain in.

I had already been planning on having a couple of friends over for dinner. When I saw my country options, I immediately knew I was going to do a big Brazilian black bean stew. However, that clearly didn't work out and nobody minded when I said I was switching to Paella.

I scoured Pinterest and settled on the recipe I thought would be the most authentic. I followed this pretty closely except for a handful of changes. I'm pretty allergic to mussels so those were out. The only chorizo I could find at Safeway was more of a ground chorizo than a sliceable sausage. I thought about switching it out but I really wanted the flavor profile to be the same so I stuck with what I had. I also skipped the saffron. When I saw that it was $20/ bottle, I figured we'd manage without it. The paprika and chorizo both have such strong flavors, it didn't seem like it would matter. In the end, I was right about the chorizo. It kind of broke apart when it was cooked with the rice and really infiltrated it with tons of flavor. There were no discernible meaty chunks but you could taste it throughout. I really love the flavor of chorizo so this made me super happy.

I have always loved Paella so I'm really pleased that I was able to make it on my own and that it came out so tasty. I'm also pretty happy with the cost. This ended up being one of the more expensive dishes but I know I could make it again with a much lower cost. Half of the expense was just seafood and I would be totally happy just making it with shrimp. I actually ended up buying too much broth and rice so I have more than enough to make this dish again. All I would need to buy are more shrimp, chorizo, and another bell pepper. I could definitely round all of that up for about $12. That's definitely not bad for how much is made. It fed all four of us easily with enough for me to take leftovers.

My guests also brought a salad which went really well with it. Paella is pretty heavy so having fresh veggies on the side helped a ton.

So honestly... how soon is too soon to make this again?

Day 11 - Belgium and USA... again... - World Cup Eating Challenge

 In my blog writing history, there's something I haven't done too often but I really, really love.... a picture post! Sunday I had one of those days where I took pictures of everything. I was probably the most annoying person on Instagram and Facebook but the end result was a lot of fun pictures... and a gif. Anyways, I thought it would be fun to go through my awesome day of eating by telling you a story in pictures. A pictory.... or something.

I really love any sort of feedback I get from my blogs. I see stat numbers but I don't really get a sense of people's reception unless I get comments or responses. So when my friend Caroline tweeted me a suggestion, I was really excited. She said that if Belgium and the USA play each other, I should do chicken and waffles. I was already planning waffles for Belgium, but I noticed the USA played the same day. It was an awesome idea and I was totally down. So here's the step by step of how I had a totally paleo friendly chicken and waffle breakfast.

Step 1 was definitely getting my chickens all coated. The best paleo flour replacement is tapioca flour. I'd already used it in a few other recipes and I knew that it would make the best crust for the chicken. This is loosely based off of the Nom Nom Paleo Food 4 Humans chicken nugget recipe. The main variation is that she brines the chicken overnight to give it flavor. I really prefer putting seasoning directly in the flour. I feel like this gives the most flavor. 

I used almond milk as the binder. My chickens got a nicely milky bath and then rolled around in the tapioca flour until they would good and covered. This had the negative side of effect of being ridiculously messy. 

The chickens were now ready for some good new fashioned frying. Paleo forbids canola oil and frankly that stuff is really bad for you. However, you need an oil that has a high heat otherwise it will burn. The two best options are avocado oil and ghee. Avocado oil is awesome and Costco sells a giant bottle of it for about $10. I happened to be out though so I opted for ghee. Ghee is clarified butter. Basically, it's grass fed butter that has had the milk fats removed. In normal butter, the fat burns really easily and (as I've learned from experience) will cause your chicken to burn really easily. You won't get that with ghee or avocado oil so they're awesome for frying. 

Once the chickens looked ready, I let them sit on some paper towels for a while so some of the grease could be absorbed. I probably cooked my chicken way longer than I needed to. Because of the coating, it's hard to tell if they're done. Raw chicken is really not ok so I definitely let them sit in the frying pan for a while. I don't think they tasted overcooked at all and I was happy to eliminate my risk of salmonella.

I seriously love tapioca flour for paleo baking. It's not perfect and there are definitely times when almond or coconut flour work better but it's great to have around. Trust me, I'm stocked up. I've seen it around in stores more and more frequently but this sucker came from Amazon. I get a lot of my paleo dry goods there. 

And trust me - there are a lot of paleo dry good to stock up on. I'm never without a variety of grain free flours and just about every kind of nut you can think of. 

Next up were the waffles! My friend Shannon had made these Paleomg chocolate waffles for Easter last year so I looked up the recipe as well. I thought that it wouldn't make a lot of waffles and my boyfriend is a big eater so I decided to double the recipe. I figured that if we had leftovers I could bring them to work for breakfast.

I remembered that Shannon said they were a little dry and she put extra something in them to remedy that. I figured she must have meant milk so I used a whole can of coconut milk instead of the 2/3 called for. I also put in a cup of almond milk. The almond milk helped a lot but it wasn't quite right for the waffles. I think adding more liquid was the key but putting more coconut milk would have been a better solution. Even with that, the waffles were still a little dry and definitely soak up syrup.

After I was done waffling, we had a ton of them. I've been eating waffles for three days now and there are still two in the fridge. I'm going to be waffled out soon!

Breakfast was pretty amazing though! I don't eat a lot of carbs so while I usually have a plate full of food, it ends up being 1/3 meat and 2/3 veggies. This was waayyyy more filling than that. I only actually ate half of the above and even after a 3 mile run, I was not hungry.

For an extra touch of Belgium, I also found this gluten free Belgium lager at Whole Foods. The label proclaimed that it was grain free, gluten free, soy free, and a million other things. I'm honestly not really sure what was left for it to be made of. I'm guessing it was made quite a bit like a cider though. It tasted like a mix between a lager and pear cider so it was probably cider plus hops. I liked it but probably wouldn't buy it again.

Then it was time to get ready and head out to watch the USA game. I was really happy about my patriotic sweater so I told Dan to take a bunch of pictures of me. Google turned them into a gif which was pretty awesome and creepy at the same time. The Googles are becoming pretty self aware and it's frightening. 

Before we left though, we had a ton of fun getting silly kitty pictures. Cats are so ridiculous. 

We had a really fun time watching the USA game even if it didn't end quite the way we wanted to. A friend organized a viewing party so at least we had great company and it was close enough that we walked home. I kept wanting to stop in bars on the way back but Dan talked some sense into me... until we passed the Folsom Street Foundry. It's an event space / bar near our apartment that's never open... and it was open so we stopped in for a drink...

And saw the best wine menu ever. I mean, it would be better if there was more selection but I was tipsy and it was in the shape of a wine glass so I was incredibly amused.

Sunday was a super fun day for us both in and out of the kitchen. Hopefully I go camera crazy a little more often so you can have more picture posts!

Day 10 - Iran - World Cup Eating Challenge

Growing up, my family didn't go out to eat a lot. My mom is a great cook and we regularly had home cooked dinners, but when we did go out, we often went out for Persian food. It was pretty interesting when I got to college and wasn't familiar with Thai or Indian food like my friends. Persian restaurants weren't too common around Berkeley so it really faded from memory... until I was looking up Iranian recipes. It completely skipped my mind that Iran is Persia and that these would be the same cuisine. I decided to take a trip back in time and go out to dinner at a Persian restaurant.

I was really happy to find one that was nearby my apartment - Anar Restaurant. I was going to an event in that area that day anyways so it all worked out perfectly.

One of my favorite dishes of all time, is really well made tatziki. While I know this is Greek, I was really excited to see a similar yogurt dish on their menu. I ordered it as a starter and my friend Scott got a roasted eggplant dish. They were both really good on the flat bread and the yogurt went really well with my main dish too.

I decided to keep it really basic and get a chicken and lamb kebab plate. It was so good and I loved the Persian rice. It was something I remembered a lot from my childhood trips to Persian restaurants and I was happy it still tasted great. The only thing I would change would be to put a little less rice and a few more vegetables. This might not be too authentic but even one more tomato would have been really appreciated. Scott and Dan ordered a pomegranate chicken that I stole a couple of bites of and it as really good as well. The servers even gave us a bottle of the pomegranate sauce to take home.

I was a little shocked at how empty the restaurant was. We did go right when it opened  but we didn't see anyone aside from the servers. Apparently it's only been open a few weeks and  there are definitely some opening pains. The don't have any sort of alcohol permits yet and obviously they haven't gotten the word out. I'm hoping some more people stumble upon this place though as it does have great Persian food.

Day 9 - Ecuador and Switzerland - World Cup Eating Challenge

Friday my friend Scott was coming over for dinner and copious amounts of wine so I was excited to find a fun dish to make. I also had a great plan for dessert. Pinterest has really been my crutch through all of this so I used it to try to nail down the night's dinner. I searched for Ecuadorian, Honduran, and Costa Rican recipes and came across one for Chicha Chicken that looked amazing.

The recipe recommended marinating the chicken in chicha sauce but I was unable to find any so I went with the back up plan of orange juice and white wine. I also decided to make some of the sides recommended. Plantains were an easy and clear choice. It also suggested mango or avocado so I made a little side salad of those fruits.

All of it was so delicious. I would definitely make that chicken again in a heart beat. Being Brazilian, fried plantains were pretty common in our house. My mom tended to make them with cinnamon and sugar and serve them as more of a dessert. I did season mine with a little cinnamon but they definitely were not sweet. They were actually amazing with a little bit of sea salt.

The "salad" was of course amazing. It's tough to go wrong with mango or avocado and it gave a real tropical feel to the dinner.

For dessert - I decided to do a little Swiss fondue. I'm pretty guilty of online impulse shopping and the fondue set was part of a flash sale that I had eagerly participated in. Even though I've had it for years, I've never used it so when I was thinking up a Swiss dish, I knew this would be perfect. We easily plowed through a bag of Enjoy Life chocolate chips and two packs of strawberries while drinking wine and watching Lost. It was definitely an amazing dinner and a really fun night.

Things got pretty weird after all that...

Day 8 - Japan - World Cup Eating Challenge

Day 8 was a true case of my best laid plans gang aft a-gley...

When I thought of this challenge, one of my first plans was to find a way to work sushi in. I knew this would be a little difficult on the "cooking" side of things though. Ironically, not for the reason you would suspect. Most people think of sushi and figure it would be really hard to make the rolls. I actually took a class on how to do this and fashioning some temaki, nigiri, or maki doesn't worry me so much. However, I have a lot of concerns about the quality of raw fish I'm eating. I just don't feel comfortable that the fish I buy at the supermarket would be high enough quality to eat raw and I wasn't feeling like doing the fake fish California roll thing.

But I had a plan! I saw an idea on Pinterest for a tuna plate with a side of avocado. I currently had 5 avocados at home (down from 8) as a result of poor planning and sales at Whole Foods so I thought this would be perfect.

My solution for the raw fish was great too. At Costco they sell cut up raw tuna with different sauces and things. I felt more comfortable with this than cutting my own raw fish and it felt like a healthy alternative. However - once I got to the tuna stand, I knew this wasn't going to work. There were four options for the tuna and they were all drenched in sauce. The only one that didn't look too bad was a wasabi flavor which I'm not a fan of. I was pretty disappointed but at this point I was hungry and I wanted some sushi so I decided just to get a pre-made sushi roll package.

While pre-made sushi doesn't compare to getting it fresh at a restaurant, I actually really like it. It's one of my favorite grab and go meals and they are typically pretty affordable. This one only set me back $11 and it was huge. I normally don't eat a lot of rice but I like to make an exception for sushi. It really does bind the rolls together and in moderation, I don't think it's that bad. I'd had a huge workout on Wednesday and I knew my body could handle the extra carbs and calories.

So Costco - you kind of let me down yesterday but you also came back with the save. Just to show that there were no hard feelings, I made sure to buy a new cook book (The Paleo Kitchen - so excited!) and a pack of cider. Ok, I did those things for me.

Day 7 - Cameroon - World Cup Eating Challenge

Once the ball got rolling on this challenge, I realized how fun it would be to really branch out and try something I wasn't at all familiar with. I scoured the internet for Cameroonian and Ivory Coast recipes. A lot of dishes involved some heavy stews and dishes that not only wouldn't be enjoyable in summer but also would require a lot of ingredients that would be difficult for me to get together.

However, I was really excited to find a recipe for Cassava Fries. Cassava, also known as yucca or tapioca, was definitely something I'd seen at my local Hispanic market and I remember enjoying yucca fries in Brazil once. I also thought it was cool that these two different continents, South America and Africa, both used this ingredient in so many of their dishes. This was definitely the way to go for me.

The yucca itself is actually pretty difficult to work with. You have to peel the thick brown skin off. It's a little sticky and doesn't smell amazing. From there, it needs to be cut into chunks and boiled for 10-20 minutes until it's more tender.

When it was soft to knife point, I made sure any extra rind was off and also cut out the vein that runs through it. I cut it into fry strips and heated up my grease.

My recipe recommended lard or fat over oil so I used duck fat. The first batch got to the "golden brown color" the recipe said to look for but they didn't really feel done for me yet. I cooked them all longer until they looked more burnt than done. 

My issue with the fries wasn't flavor - they taste fine and I really liked my seasoning of garlic salt, chili powder, and paprika. However, the inside of them has a kind of gumminess that I know is typical for tapioca. I just could not get over the texture and only ate a few of the fries. I couldn't bring myself to throw them away though because it felt ironic to waste a dish from Africa even if it was very inexpensive to make. If anyone wants some cassava fries - I have a whole bunch I could give you. 

Back in the day when I was really experimenting with cooking and wasn't as comfortable with techniques and seasoning and how different products act when cooked, I had a theory that about half of the recipes I tried would work. It's been a while since I thought of that because cooking with high quality products and fresh produce has made it really easy for me to try new things with great results. However, this challenge is definitely pushing me outside of the box and closer to that 50% mark. After not loving these fries or my mac and cheese, I'm happy that Day 8 is taking me back out to a pre-made product.

Day 6 - Korea - World Cup Eating Challenge

I can still dress Brazilian!

Changing focus from teams that are winning and my favorite teams has really shaken up my schedule. My original plan had been to take every opportunity to make Brazilian dishes. However, I realized that would mean I'd miss some opportunities for other teams. Therefore, Tuesday became Korean day and next week I'm taking up my last chance to make Paella. It's funny how this challenge has really evolved from "I want to make Brazilian food" to truly eating globally for a few weeks.

One of the things I really wanted to do was try to cook as many of the dishes as possible. I've been spending quite a bit of time on Pinterest looking up recipes. However, it became clear that for some of the countries, the amount of items I'd have to purchase to even make a simple dish would just be very prohibitive or I didn't feel confident that I'd hit the mark. I realized that there were some instances where I'd be much better off just grabbing a bite out.

So I was very happy when I saw that Seoul on Wheels was going to be at the Soma Streat Food Park on Tuesday. It was perfect - I could go grab a bite of Korean food and watch some of the Brazil - Mexico game in the sun.

Seoul on Wheels, like many popular food trucks, has taken ethnic food and incorporated it into more casual dishes like tacos, burgers, and fries. I was hoping for something a little more traditional so I tried ordering dumplings but they were all out. There were other items like kimchee and rice bowls that I could have opted for as well but I wasn't in the mood for them so I settled on tacos.

I got short rib and chicken tacos and they were really good. The short rib was a dollar extra and had a lot of fat and cartilage left despite being boneless. I think I would have preferred trading that out for another meat option. The chicken, however, was amazing. Both tacos had great sauces and flavor and they were perfect for a light lunch.

Phew, I was really worried there

While I have your attention, I also just want to sing the praises of the Soma Streat Food Park. When it came into my neighborhood a couple of years ago, it was so hard to not try to go there every day. It's such a convenient dining option and perfect for groups with varying tastes. Dan and I love watching football there on Sundays with some bottomless mimosas and watching a bit of the World Cup there provided a similar experience. I actually couldn't believe how crowded it was for a weekday. Definitely check it out!