Recipe: Stuffed Pumpkin!

Not only did I get a WONDERFUL long weekend away with friends this Easter, I also got a great new recipe! Stuffed pumpkin!

My friend, and fellow blogger, broke down how you make this tasty (and very pretty) dish.

For starters you need a pumpkin. Since I baked the above pumpkin for just me and Mr. Rant, I purchased a half a pumpkin. Over Easter my friend bought a full pumpkin and cut it in half to create two to stuff.

So put your pumpkin half(s) upside down on a baking sheet. No need to take out seeds or anything. It's easier after baking.

Leave pumpkin on low heat (about 180 degrees C) for upwards of an hour. Be careful not to burn it or to take it out too early. If taken out to early the pumpkin meat is kind of hard.

That leaves the filling. I like to think of this as a junk pumpkin. You can fill the bad boy up with anything you like! In the above pumpkin I used a yummy combo of leftovers.

It has: Bacon, spinach, ricotta, pesto sauce, capers, 7 grain rice mix, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

When you make your filling, pre-cook whatever needs to be cooked. I fried up my bacon pieces then mixed in my spinach to cook it. I then added the pesto sauce and capers and let that simmer. I mixed in the olive oil and ricotta with salt and pepper. At the very end I added in my already cooked grain mixture.

Mix the filling well.   Once the pumpkin is done in the oven, carefully pull it out and scoop out the seeds. Put your mixture into the center of the pumpkin and pop back into the oven for another 5 minutes or so.

Take out, put on a plate like the above picture, and serve!

Yummy, pretty, and you look like freaking Martha Stewart! 

Pancake Tuesday

Photo by: http://www.blondeshotcreativeblog.com/2009_11_01_archive.html

My boys woke up this morning and requested pancakes. That would normally be a total pain-in-the-ass request at 630am but I found it endearing. It's an American food! My boys requested something American!

I'm a sucker and am fulfilling their request for homemade pancakes. I can't help it, it's a good breakfast and it's a piece of my childhood. As much as I love their little lives here, I do like them having a bit of a taste of what I knew and loved as a kid.

And you know what, that is coming in the form of little circles of goodness. Of course my pancakes are homemade and contain grains and a vegetable. My childhood pancake came in a box and was smothered in syrup and powdered sugar.

Mmmmmmmm Maple syrup and Powdered sugar...

Anyway, you can find my recipe here: mmmm pancake recipe

I've since started adding oatmeal and ground flax seeds. Not too much and not too little.

Add a little juice and you have a good start to your day. 

RECIPE: Grandma's Homemade Cough Syrup

Vovó Zilca meeting my youngest and her 5th great-grandchild

So Grandma was nice enough to share her cough syrup recipe with me and now I will share it with you.  Look at how efficiently this train of information works! You ask, I deliver.

Diabetics beware! This is an old school recipe. That means that it comes with a lot of sugar! I'm just happy it doesn't have something crazy like whiskey in it.

What you need:

2 Cups Sugar
1/2 cup water
Well washed leaves from 1 stem of Ruta graveolens (also called common Rue)
2 tablespoons of bee honey (I don't know of any other kind of honey but since she specified...)

How to Make it:

• You first need to caramelize the sugar in pot on the stove. Be careful not to burn it! It can not be burnt! 
• Once nice and caramelized, add 1/2 cup of water. Mix well over low heat.
• Now is the tricky part. Take the leaves and mash them into the caramelized sugar and water mixture. We are talking serious mashing. I don't know how the woman does it but you can't see any leaf in there when she's done. 
• Let cool a little
• Add in the 2 tablespoons of honey and mix well

And there you have it! Something tells me that it's not as easy as it seems. The stuff is the perfect consistency. It's amazing. Then again, after making a few thousand batches I bet it becomes second nature.

Finally, put it in a glass jar and this bad boy will last you for a while. Here's a picture to see what my fresh batch from Grandma's kitchen looks like:

Disclaimer: I have never actually made it. It would be a bitch slap to the Grandmother's face if I didn't call her and request it. She has called me twice since this morning to discuss the syrup.  When it was finished she said that she would find a way to get it to me tonight. Since it was late and raining, she did not expect me to come over with the boys. I told her I would be there first thing in the morning. 

A half hour later she called back. She told me she loved making the syrup for her great-grandson and that I was to call her for anything and everything I need.  

Then asked to talk to my husband. 

She told him was sending his cousin to bring the syrup so that my youngest could start taking it first thing in the morning. 

Sweet and stubborn, just like I like my Grandmothers-in-law! 

Recipe: Amish Hash Browns Brazil style

Photo by: http://www.foodonthefood.com/food_on_the_food/recipes/

Dinner time was coming close and I had no idea what I was going to make for the family.  Since I hate throwing away food, I usually look in to see what will go bad first. I had some old potatoes and collard-greens (couve in Portuguese).

Since my boys hate mashed potatoes, the weirdos, I had to come up with something else. Thank you www.allrecipes.com!

I found my inspirations: Amish Hash Browns. This is particularly great since I love me some breakfast for dinner. Here's their recipe:

1/2 cup flour

1/3 cup yellow cornmeal

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

5 cups peeled and shredded potatoes

1/3 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

1 onion, minced

1/4 cup vegetable oil

• In a large bowl, mix together the flour, cornmeal, salt and baking powder. Add potatoes, 1/3 cup of oil, eggs and onion and mix until evenly blended.
• Heat 1/4 cup of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Drop heaping tablespoons of the potatoes into the hot oil, flattening slightly. Cook until browned on the bottom and then flip and cook on the other side. Keep in a warm oven while frying the rest.

Since the whole point to this was to use the ingredients I had in the house, I substituted the cornmeal for farinha de mandioca. I also washed and finally chopped my couve (collard-greens), pre-cooked them a bit with some filtered water and olive oil in a pan, and mixed them into the mixture. Nothing makes a Mom happier at dinner than her kids eating something green. 

I also cooked ONE semi-heaping tablespoon so that they weren't too big.  That also cut down frying time. 

Served with  a side of meat and BAM dinner is done!  Both kids and Mr Rant ate everything and gave rave reviews!

Wow, just one more reason to love the Amish. 

Chicken Recipe: It's what's for lunch

http://www.stephaniemetz.com

I thought I'd take a stab at posting a recipe. I feel it shows a little bit of my domestic side. Per magazines and photoshopping, I will only be showing my good side.


I found some chicken legs on sale at my local supermarket yesterday. I know what you are thinking, SCORE! Questionable chicken for dinner!  


Anyway, I like me quick and easy food. Nothing that will create stress and/or leave me trying to finish up with two children biting at my ankles.  I went to www.cooks.com and found what looks like a fast, tasty, and with ingredients I have in my kitchen.  It goes something like this:


6 chicken legs and thighs, skinned and trimmed of fat
Skim or low fat milk
1/2 c. plain bread crumbs
Vegetable oil spray
1/3 c. Parmesan cheese
1 tbsp. dried parsley flakes, crumbled
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Place chicken pieces in shallow bowl or pan; cover with milk. Let soak for 15 minutes or longer in refrigerator.

In a shallow bowl, combine bread crumbs, cheese, parsley flakes, and pepper. Dip soaked chicken pieces, one leg at a time, in breading mixture, coating on all sides. (As you can tell, I don't know how to follow directions. It's part of my charm)

Set the coated pieces on a greased baking surface, preferably non-stick. Lightly spray chicken with vegetable oil spray.
Bake in preheated 375 degree oven for 45 minutes. Delicious and simple with the flavor of fried chicken, but without the calories.


Bom Apetite!

The future Jello Shots of Brazil

The nice people at My Jello Americans: The Future of Jello Shots came up with a Jello shot right up a Brazilian´s alley.

Yes, it´s the flan jello shot. Now not only a dessert but a method to get under-aged people wasted.  FYI, flan is not Brazilian. We call it Pudim down here. Basically a Potato/Potatoe situation.

This is the very complicated recipe:

Flan:

Knox

Caramel infused Vodka

Congelli caramel custard

Sweetened condensed milk

Check out their site for some other interesting ideas, including vodka infused Oreos...

Mmmm Pancake Recipe

There came a day when I had to stop having family and friends pack Bisquick boxes and learn to make pancakes from scratch.  Now, I still felt the need to bring baking powder. While I had started a phase of "learning to cook in Brazil" as opposed to pretending I didn´t, I just didn´t want to deal with this one. Plus, one Costco trip and you have yourself a lifetime supply. By the way, I think it´s the royal red fermento down here. That´d be my guess.

Anyway,  Danielle asked me for my pumpkin pancake recipe.  Here it goes:


You need:


1 cup flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda 
2 tbsp oil
3 tbsp sugar
1 cup milk
1 egg
1/2 tsp salt
 Piece of pumpkin cut into small pieces


Boil your pumpkin until soft.  Drain and mash well.  I like to add a little bit of brown sugar when it´s warm. 


Mix together dry pancake ingredients.  Mix in egg, milk, and oil.  Mix well.  Add in mashed pumpkin.  Mix well.  


Cook.  

And Enjoy.  

A wonderful pizza dough recipe and goodbye Dominos

I wanted to share with you a wonderful pizza dough recipe.  http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,164,149163-224198,00.html

I have a black thumb when it comes to gardening and it seems that it also seeps into my baking. Nothing rises.  Nothing grows. I can only manage to make brick like flat bread.  It's sad. My bread, me, my family for feeling like they have to eat it anyway.  Sad.

Well, a small war was won tonight with the production of this wonder dough and pizza.  It comes out quite fluffy but is very tasty.

Take that Dominos pizza in Rio. I'll be keeping my money and you can take your R$40 large pizza and shove it in your hee haw.  Momma American over here will be producing her own processed goodies from now on.