Sweet potato biscuits / Broas de batata doce

In many Portuguese households it is traditional to bake small biscuits for All Saints Day. Small children then go from house to house asking for "Pão por Deus", and are given some of these cookies, small cakes or biscuits, often made of pumpkin, fennel or sweet potato [although nowadays many also get candy or money]. One of my favourite biscuits during this season has always been broa de batata doce [a small sweet potato biscuit]. 

Yesterday night was a bit colder than usual, which immediately reminded me of those cold November days. I couldn't get my mind off those biscuits so... [you guessed it]

Boil 0,5 kg of sweet potatoes. When their done, wait until their cool and peel them. Mash them with a fork.

In a tupperware, mix the mashed potatoes with about 30g of margarine, 1 egg, 200g of sugar, 1 teaspoon of fennel and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. 

Slowly incorporate 250g of flour [until the mixture no longer sticks to your fingers]. Let it sit for about 4 hours.

With the help of two spoons [or with your hands] make small oval biscuits and place them in an ovenproof dish over greaseproof paper. Brush them with egg yolk so they will get a seductive golden colour.

Let them cook in the oven for 15 minutes at 200ºC.

They're perfect with tea or coffee. And don't be surprised if everyone says they love them. 

Enjoy!

***

Em muitos lares portugueses é tradicional confecionar pequenos biscoitos ou broas para o Dia de Todos os Santos. As crianças vão então de casa em casa, a pedir por "Pão por Deus", e recebem algumas destas bolachas, bolos ou biscoitos, frequentemente feitos de abóbora, erva-doce ou batata doce [embora hoje em dia muitas recebam também  doces ou dinheiro]. Um dos meus biscoitos preferidos nesta época sempre foi a broa de batata doce. 

A noite de ontem esteve mais fria que o habitual, o que imediatamente me fez lembrar daqueles dias frios de Novembro. Não conseguia tirar aquelas broas da minha cabeça e por isso... [adivinharam]

Coze 0,5 kg de batata doce. Quando estão cozidas, espera até que arrefeçam e retira-lhes a pele. Esmaga-as com a ajuda de um garfo. 

Num tupperware, envolve as batatas esmagadas, 30g de margarina, 1 ovo, 200g de açúcar, 1 colher de chá de erva-doce e 1 colher de chá de canela. 

Lentamente incorpora 250g de farinha [até que a mistura já não se cole aos dedos]. Deixa-a repousar durante cerca de 4 horas.

Com a ajuda de duas colheres [ou com as mãos] faz pequenos biscoitos em forma oval e coloca-os numa travessa forrada com papel vegetal. Pincela-os com gema de ovo para que obtenham uma cor dourada sedutora.

Deixa-os cozinhar no forno a 200ºC durante 15 minutos.

São perfeitos com chá ou café. E não te admires se todos dizem que os adoram. 

Bom proveito!

Black beans, sausage and white rice / Feijão preto com salsicha e arroz branco

What have I done to diserve this?

Today I spent the whole afternoon getting a new digital tv and internet package for my parents [I can't believe that they'll have more download and upload speed than I have at home! Hmm... That's definitely a reason for visiting them more often], then we had to fix my car's headlight, and after that... oh well, it didn't leave me any time to cook something more complex for dinner.

But no worries: I always have a couple of meals as a back-up plan when this happens. Do you have some as well?

So tonight we had black beans with sausage and white rice.

Pour olive oil in a pan and add half an onion and 2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped. When they're soft, add a can of black beans - with the sauce. Season it with salt and hot sauce, add sliced sausages and let it cook for about 10 minutes, until the sauce starts reducing [but not too much - you'll want that juice over the rice!]

Serve with white rice [boil 1 cup of rice in 2 cups of water seasoned with salt] and a tomato and lettuce salad.

***

O que é que eu fiz para merecer isto?

Hoje passei a tarde inteira a tratar de um novo pacote digital de tv e internet para os meus pais [Não acredito que vão ter mais velocidade de download e upload do que eu tenho em casa! Hmm... É definitivamente uma razão para os visitar mais vezes], depois tivemos de arranjar um farol do meu carro, e depois disso... bem, não me deixou tempo nenhum para fazer qualquer coisa mais complexa para o jantar.

Mas sem stress: tenho sempre algumas refeições como plano B quando isto acontece. Também tens?

Por isso esta noite jantámos feijão preto com salsicha e arroz branco.

Verte azeite numa caçarola e adiciona meia cebola e 2 dentes de alho, picados grosseiramente. Quando tiverem amolecido, adiciona uma lata de feijão preto - com o molho. Tempera com sal e picante, junta as salsichas às rodelas e deixa cozinhar durante 10 minutos, até o molho começar a reduzir [mas não demasiado - vais querer esse sumo por cima do arroz!]

Serve com arroz branco [coze 1 chávena de arroz em 2 chávenas de água temperada com sal] e uma salada de tomate e alface.

Prunes in a blanket and tropical spicy mix

I love it when a meal offers little explosions of flavour: salty BOOM! spicy BOOM! sweet BOOM! fresh BOOM! soft BOOM! crunchy BOOM!

This was my dinner. I admit it: I needed something like this tonight (if the previous post wasn't a good hint), especially because I only had a sandwich for lunch (Sunday, lazy Sunday).

Here are some of the main ingredients for this meal.

First, prepare the Prunes in a Blanket. Select the prunes you want to use [I recommend 2 per person, since the whole meal will have a wide variety of flavours] and wrap each of them in a thin slice of bacon. Use a toothpick to close the wrap. 

Heat some olive oil in a pan and add half an onion and 2 garlic cloves [chopped]. After 2 minutes, add minced meat [previously seasoned with salt and freshly ground pepper]. Stir a little until it develops a golden colour and finally add 1 dessert spoon of hot sauce and about 100g of tomato sauce. Let it cook in mininum heat until everything is finished [about 12 to 15 minutes].

You can do pretty much everything else at the same time now.

- Cook basmati rice [again, the amount depends on one's taste and the number of people the meal is for] in boiling water seasoned with salt for about 8 to 10 minutes. Just before that, have a taste. When it's no longer hard [but not mushy yet] it's time you take it off the stove. Run it under cold water to stop it from boiling.

- Fry the blankets in a frying-pan - no oil or grease, please! Turn them from time to time.

- Grill asparagus [3 per person] and when they're done sprinkle some salt over them.

Finally, just before plating everything, add a mix of tropical fruit pieces in syrup (papaya, guava, pineapple) to the minced meat. Stir. This will add a sweet extra layer to the spicy and salty meat.

Enjoy!

Banana-milkshaking off bad vibes

This is my last Sunday before work starts again. And no, this is not a post about how these holidays will be missed: I'm one of those who love my job and couldn't wait to get back [of course: weekends of 3 to 4 days would be greatly appreciated, but I guess that's asking for too much, isn't it?]. 

But I'm half-expecting the first conversations to be something like "Oh... I was so well in bed... I wish I were still on holidays...". From me, all everyone is getting is "I MISSED YOU SO MUCH." From the heart.

... or maybe this is just because I spent the whole afternoon ironing. So after I was done I felt I needed something refreshing and sweet at the same time to compensate for the things-I-can't-escape-from time. As some of you might have noticed, my tag menu on the sidebar is rather loooong. But it does fit a purpose. One of my biggest mistakes is the way I manage the ingredients I buy: sometimes I end up not using half of the items I have before time has a "not suitable for use anymore" effect on them. So I often google for recipes that might help me use up those ingredients. Today I had a couple of bananas that were too ripe for my liking. Perfect timing! I gave half of one (in small portions) to my dog as a treat [saw it in Dog Whisperer - love the show - and I don't know why I hadn't come up with that one before] and used the other one and a half to make a classic banana milkshake.

Simply pour 6 ice cubes, 2 cups of milk, 1 or 2 bananas, and 1/4 cup of sugar (I used a lot less - 3 tablespoons - because the bananas, being so ripe, were sweet enough) into a blender.

Mix for 20 seconds and pour in a glass. 

You can have some fun decorating it as well. I used some mint leaves today.

Enjoy!

Pork pudding sausage and Apple Pie - the anti austerity edition

I know I've been quiet. The thing is, the past few days have been unexpectedly exciting - with great news on the job front and some thrilling purchases at Ikea [aromatic herbs garden, here we go! - I'll post photos when the project is done]. It's funny how positive thoughts and events attract other positive events, isn't it?

However, our PM was set to announce some not-so-brilliant news concerning new austerity measures during MY dinner time, and I was NOT going to allow that to change my mood. Well, I knew a football match (Portugal vs Luxembourg) was coming up, which is always the best thing after a political announcement that affects millions of lives like this (we won, by the way), but I needed some extra motivation. So, I dove in my fridge and looked for ingredients to try and cook something I had never done before. Just to take my mind off of it all. 

That's when I thought of a pork pudding sausage and apple pie.

Remove the skin from 1 pork pudding sausage and cut it into pieces. Heat it in a frying-pan.

Peel an apple and cut it in tiny cubes. 

Add them to the frying-pan and mix everything together. When the pork pudding sausage is golden brown and the apple cubes are soft, take them away from the stove and let the mixture cool.

Cut circles of pastry dough big enough to cover individual pie molds (I find it best to run my hands through flour before doing it). 

Then fill the molds with the sausage & apple mix. Cover it with another circle of dough, pressing the upper and bottom rims together, closing the pie. 

Brush the top part with egg (previously beaten) and let the pies cook in the oven for 20 minutes at 180ºC. By then, they should be of a delicious golden colour. Let them cool a little before serving. 

Since these pies are enough to keep you satisfied, I think a light lettuce and walnut salad (with the simplest of dressings: salt, vinegar and olive oil) goes really well with it.

Enjoy!

Don't put your lemons all in one basket: "Condensed milk and lemon pie" tip

These hectic past few days, with the closing of the seasonal football market in Europe, made me wonder. Why is it that so many people are struggling to save money to survive and every day we hear news of another football player being bought for astronomical figures? Sure, they deserve it I guess: they are part of a team's success, they bring people to the stadium, big companies are attracted to spend money on the team in exchange for advertising, and eventually many people keep their jobs as long as the team is sellable, but... I don't know. It sounds offensive when most people could use a tiny fraction of that money to improve their lives. Bitter sweet feelings I guess.

Which reminded me of lemons and my mom.

I had a whole basket of lemons at home but my mom convinced me to bring some of hers. "You can never have too many lemons," she said. And she's right, isn't she? Especially when they are as juicy as the ones which grow in her backyard. But now I'm stuck with all these lemons so I've decided to start using them tonight, with a bitter sweet Condensed Milk and Lemon Pie.

First, the base. Easy: crush a packet of biscuits in a food processor, add 150g of melted margarine and incorporate the two - although you might need more, depending on the ovenproof dish you use. 

Cover the dish with greaseproof paper and with the back of a spoon press the mixture. That will be the bottom part of the pie. (And yes, that is another batch of yummy Turtle Chocolate Pretzels).

While you prepare the filling, let it cool in the fridge for about 15 minutes until it is firm.

Now you can start the filling. Open a can of previously cooked condensed milk and put it in a bowl. Add 4 yolks and start whisking. Then pour the juice of 2 lemons (you can add more or less, depending on how bitter or sweet you prefer your pie to be) and finally some lemon zest. Delicious aroma... Whisk everything together, take the base out of the fridge and pour the filling on the base.

Let it cook in the oven for about 15 minutes (it's safer because of the eggs). 

Decorate with lemon zest and let it cool in the fridge.

I'd recommend serving it the next day.

Chocolate Pretzels: Turtle Power!

I was reading beautiful Delishhh the other day and as soon as I saw the photos of the Rolo Pretzel Turtles I knew they would be the perfect Sunday treat, so I just had to try and make them, no matter how hard they could be. It turns out that, as said, it was really easy - so, lucky me!!! Ahahah! All the more time I have this Sunday to clean the house! ........ Oh... wait. 

First, spread a sheet of greaseproof paper on a tray. Then place as many little pretzels as you want. 

I didn't have any Rolo chocolate candies, so I used what I had: chocolate candy filled with hazelnuts. But a fun part of it all would be the "turtle look", so on the other half I used squares of a dark chocolate bar I was going to save for sadder days.

And it just gets easier! Put the tray in the oven for about 5 minutes to 180º for the chocolate to soften a little bit - it depends on the chocolate, really. I found that in my case I had to give it about 7 minutes, so the best solution is to keep checking if it needs more time when it reaches the 5-minute limit.  

Take the tray out of the oven and squish the softened chocolate with a walnut (only the not-stuffed ones, of course). There you go: Heroes in a half shelf!

Don't forget to let them cool before you serve them.

I was also thinking how nice these would be as a Christmas or birthday gift (in a little bag, a colourful ribbon and some special words).

Anyway, a special Thank You, Delishhh: you made my Sunday morning really delishhhious!