Living Deliberately: July 2014

As you well know, the World Cup has been going on the past month. What I didn't know was how much of a fan I am!! I've never been one to watch any sport, especially on tv, but I religiously watched Brazil play in the World Cup. :) It's the first World Cup that I've ever paid attention to. I was studying abroad in Israel during the 2010 World Cup, otherwise I probably would've cared to watch Brazil (I served my mission in Brazil 2008-2009).

This month was filled with soccer and....Brazilian food!! Everytime Brazil played I made something good to eat with my nieces and nephews. Here are some of our exploits:

Sorpresa de Uva (Grape Surprise)

put one tablespoon of butter into a pot
add an entire can of sweetened condensed milk
Heat over medium heat, stirring constantly (wooden spoon or wire wisk) until when you tilt the pot, you see the mixture easily sliding away from the bottom of the pan. This is usually after it's been boiling a little while. When in doubt, cook longer.
Pour the mixture out onto a greased plate to cool
When it's cool, add 1ish cups of powdered sugar little by little, kneading it into the dough
Add a drop or two of green food coloring
Roll a little ball of the dough and then spread it around a green grape
Do this until all of the dough is gone.
Stick them in the fridge until cool

It's pretty delicious. Even though ours did NOT turn out like the picture! (we didn't cook the mixture long enough over the stove...)

I'll give this recipe 4.5/5 stars. It was still a fun, delicious treat, even though ours look like aliens. :)

Brigadeiro, Beijinho, and Bem Casado (respectively, brigadier, little kiss, and well-married)

Brigadeiro, Beijinho, and Bem Casado are all varients on the same tune. I had made brigadeiro and beijinho dozens of times, so they don't count, but this was my first time making Bem Casado (essentially the previous two put together).

Brigadeiro starts like Sorpresa de Uva: 1-3 tbs of butter and a can of sweetened condensed milk over medium heat. This time you add 3 tbs cocoa powder to make it chocolate. Remove from heat at the same point (when it's "freeing" itself from the bottom of the pan), cool, and make little balls. You roll the little balls in chocolate sprinkles. E pronto! (and ready!)

Beijinho is the same thing except coconut flavored instead of chocolate. You add 3 spoons of flaked coconut to the mixture on the stove and then roll it in flaked coconut instead of sprinkles.

Bem Casado is the marriage of the two! Rolled in sugar.

Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the ones we made, but hey--these ones are cuter anyway! I do have a picture of the variant we made up ourselves...brigadeiro branco (white brigadeiro--it's just the butter and sweetened condensed milk) rolled in a variety of different things! Coconut, sprinkles, sugar, and cinnamon sugar. The cinnamon sugar mixture "won" and earned the nick name "snickerdoodle bombs."

Stroganoff de Frango (Chicken Stroganoff)

One of my favorite Brazilian dishes! It's chicken in this creamy pink sauce over rice. I've made it before but wanted to try a different recipe. I ended up making a hybrid of FOUR recipes. Here's what I did:

oil in the bottom of a pan with a good amount of diced onion and fresh garlic (well I didn't do that part but I would've if I'd had fresh garlic!)
Add in 3 chicken breasts' worth of diced chicken, and cook on medium heat

add half a bottle or so or this: They don't have "creme de leite" in America and this is the closest thing.

add in a little more than half a small can of tomato paste
add a drained can of corn
Now play with it until it "looks" right and tastes right... which is why Brazilian cooking is SO hard!
I added several squirts of ketchup and a spoon of mayonnaise (which one of the recipes I'd looked at recommended). My old recipe used Worcestershire sauce and also added mushrooms (which I enjoy but didn't think my nieces and nephew would)
When it's "ready," serve over Brazilian rice (put some oil in the pan first, add diced onion and garlic, when the onion is translucent add the rice, and stir it all together, then add the water) and top with crushed Ruffles! In Brazil they sell these chips as tiny sticks, which are the perfect topper for this dish, but crushed Ruffles will do!

We made this lunch during the epic failure of a game that was Brazil vs. Germany. It was so sad. We consoled ourselves in good food. My sister told me that every time I made a treat, Brazil won, and when I made a meal, they lost. Which of course was very sound logic, so I made a treat for the last game. ...and they lost. Alas correlation does NOT imply causation! dang it..

Bolo de Brigadeiro (Brigadier Cake)

The cake is pretty much like a normal chocolate cake made from scratch. The frosting is brigadeiro, but with some creme de leite (I used the last of that Mexican crema) added at the end to give it more consistency for spreading. Then you throw chocolate sprinkles on it. You should have seen me trying to coat the sides with sprinkles...it's hard!