Mussels In Red Sauce

The Ingredients

• 2 pounds of mussels (frozen or live)
• 1 small can of tomatoes with chilies
• 1/2 cup of white wine
• 1 medium onion
• 3 cloves of garlic (minced)
• 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 Tbls of tomato paste
• Italian seasoning
• Salt
• Pepper

The Recipe

1. If you bought frozen mussels you can just boil them in the bag they came inside of until they open up. If you are dealing with live mussels then you need to boil them live until they open up.  The whole thing should only take about 10 minutes in boiling water.
2. On a large deep frying pan saute the onions in the olive oil.  
3. After a couple of minutes add the garlic.
4. Let it cook for about 2 minutes then add the wine.  Reduce for a minute.
5. Add the diced tomatoes with chilies, the tomato paste, and all the seasoning. 
6. Let everything simmer for about 3 minutes. 
7. Remove your mussels from the boiling water and add to the sauce.  If you are using the frozen kind pour the mussel juice from the bag into the sauce.  It's full of flavor.  If you boiled live ones, then just add about 1 cup of the boiling water to the sauce.  
8. Serve with bread, white rice, or by itself.

The Experience

These mussels are the easiest thing to make.  I get mine at Walmart.  It's frozen but it's excellent in taste!  I actually can't tell the difference from eating the recently live ones to these frozen farm raised ones.  You can be very creative with sauces!  I have tried white sauces in the past but I like this one the best.  You can literally eat 15 of these mussels very quickly.  They are inexpensive and make a very beautiful and impressive presentation.  Sometimes I add them to fish dishes as a garnish!  For the Birthday party I made 4 pounds.  Calculate 2 pounds being enough for 2 to 3 people.  Depending how hungry they are.  I usually like to have more than enough.  Running out of food to serve is not a good thing.  Here's a tip... if you have a heating tray use it!  These mussels get cold very quickly while serving.  I will continue to make these but I might get creative with my next sauce!  We'll see!

Brazilian Style Chicken Strogonoff

The Ingredients

• About 20 chicken breast tenderloins 
• 1 Large red onion
• 2 tsps of minced garlic
• 1 large can (28oz) of diced tomatoes with chilies
• 1 small can of corn
• 1 small package of white mushrooms 
• 1 cup of raisins
• 2 cups of chicken stock
• 1 1/2 cup of heavy cream
• 1/2 cup of ketchup
• 1/2 cup of white wine
• 1 tbls crushed red pepper
• 1 tbls of nutmeg
• 1/4 cup of parsley
• Salt 
• Pepper
• Garlic powder
• Hot sauce
• Potato sticks
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil

The Recipe

1. Heat large sauce pan on high.
2. Chop the onion into small pieces.
3. Once the pan is hot pour some olive oil on the pan and put in the onion.  Mix well and let it cook while you prepare the chicken.
4. Cut chicken tenderloins into small 1 inch cubes and season them with salt, black pepper, and garlic powder.
5. Add the minced garlic to the onion and let cook for about a minute.
6. Place chicken in the pan and mix everything together.  Your goal is to brown the chicken a little bit before adding sauce to it.
7. On a large deep frying pan add 1 tbls of olive oil, the tomatoes with chili, the wine, and the chicken stock.  Season with more salt, pepper, hot sauce, crushed red peppers, and nutmeg.  Let it simmer for about 5 minutes.
8. Add the ingredients from the deep frying pan into the large sauce pan with the chicken.
9. Put in the corn, the mushrooms, the raisins, and the ketchup.
10. Mix everything well and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. 
11. Add the heavy cream and lower the heat to medium. Do not let it boil. 
12. Add the parsley and turn off the heat.  Let it sit for a couple of minutes and then serve it over rice and sprinkle some potato sticks on top.  If you want to make it extra special you can make your own potato chips.

The Experience

I can't believe I now know how to make this dish!  Every Brazilian grows up eating this at least once a month!  It is also very popular with red meat!  Using the tenderloins was a really good idea because they cook so fast.  The whole thing took about 35 minutes to make and it was well worth it.  Some say it's a fattening meal but who's counting calories anyway? lol  Browning the chicken first really added a lot of taste to the strogonoff.  I love heating sauces on another pan because when you do combine everything the cooking process never stops due to cold liquid. Oh, by the way, definitely have some hot sauce with you when you eat this!  This is also a great meal to make when you have lots of company coming over and you don't have the cash nor the time to cook a fancy meal.  It's a total crowd pleaser and it's very fulfilling.  There's not need to serve anything else with this.  Dessert is always welcomed though!  I'm about to go have some of Mirella's internationally famous rice pudding! 

Baby Back Ribs

The Ingredients

• 2 full racks of baby back ribs (about 2 1/2 pounds each)
• 1 Onion 
• 1 Cup of brown sugar
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 tsp of paprika
• 1 tsp of chili powder
• 1 tsp of cumin
• Hot sauce

The Recipe

1. Dry your rib rack with a paper towel.
2. Mix brown sugar, salt, pepper, paprika, chili powder, and cumin.
3. With your hands rub the dry mix all over the ribs. 
4. Chop the ribs into 3 or 4 pieces so that you can fit them into the slow cooker.
5. Roughly chop the onion and also place it in the slow cooker on top of the ribs.
6. Pour 2 cups of your favorite BBQ sauce over them.  I love Sticky Fingers Sweet Carolina Sauce so that's what I used.
7. Add your favorite hot sauce.
8. Close your crock pot and cook on low for 8 to 9 hours.
9. Carefully remove ribs from the crock pot and let them rest on a plate.  Leave the fattening liquid behind.
10. Pour some more bbq sauce over the ribs and serve with whatever sides you like.

The Experience

When I saw these baby back ribs on sale a couple of days ago I knew I was in for a treat!  This was probably my favorite dish so far!  I ate so much!  I could've let the ribs marinade in the bbq sauce for a few hours but since I was cooking them in the crock pot I didn't really see the need for it.  Rubbing them with my dry rub mix was a lot of fun too.  It always seems weird for a Brazilian to put sugar on meat!  The combination of the sweet and hot taste is simply divine.  It only took me about 10 minutes to prep everything and clean up.  The rest was up to my new favorite kitchen tool... the crock pot!  I definitely didn't want to pour the remaining liquid on the ribs so it was good that I had extra sauce.  Who needs the extra fat anyway?  I served these baby backs with roasted steak potatoes!  YUM!!!  Perfect combination!  They were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.  I will do a post on roasting potatoes in a few days so stay tuned for that one!  Definitely make this at home!  The whole meal cost about $25 to make and was enough for 4 people.  Try getting that deal at a restaurant!  Ribs is one of those foods that you crave every once in a while so now that I can make them myself I'll be craving them a lot more often!

Jumbo Stuffed Chicken Quarters

The Ingredients

• 4 Jumbo chicken quarters
• 1 cup of broccoli
• 2 cups of corn meal
• 1 stick of butter (room temp)
• 4 Cloves of Garlic (minced)
• 3 Tbls of tomato paste
• 1/2 package of dry French onion soup
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Adobo
• Salt 
• Pepper
• Chili powder

The Recipe

1. Preheat Oven to 350
2. Quickly steam the broccoli, remove and chop into small pieces. 
3. Season your chicken with adobo. Go for it on the seasoning! 
4. In a bowl put in the corn meal, butter, 1 Tbls of tomato paste, garlic, salt and pepper to taste, and broccoli. 
5. Combine all ingredients with your hands.
6. Clean off some of the fat of the chicken but leave skin intact.  With your fingers go under the skin and create a pocket. 
7. Little by little insert stuffing into the pocket.  Make sure you have enough for all four chicken quarters.
8. Brush some olive oil in a large casserole and lay down the chicken skin side up.
9. Rub the remaining tomato paste on top of the chicken and coat with some olive oil.
10. Sprinkle dry French Onion soup mix over the skin of each quarter.  
11. Put in 350 degree oven for 1 hour. 
12. Brush some of the oil over the chicken before serving.

The Experience

As soon as I saw these jumbo chicken quarters at the supermarket I thought to myself "hum, I can stuff those puppies!" That's exactly what I did!  Now, I could've put some bacon in my stuffing which would've made it amazing but I decided to go the vegetable route.  I already had a bag of frozen broccoli in the freezer so it made sense to me to mix it with the corn meal I had in the pantry.  The important thing is to mix the butter with your stuffing.  This allows the butter to drip down the chicken leaving the meat extremely tender and tasty!Butter is one of the four answers to everything:  Jesus, Chocolate, Butter, and Cheese.  Whenever someone is eating something and they say, "wow, this is so good!  What's in it?" If the answer is not Jesus, Chocolate, or Cheese, then it must be Butter!!!  If you don't have broccoli you can use almost any other vegetable.  Some that I will eventually try include zucchini, okra, spinach, mushrooms, and kale.  All with the same ratio from the recipe above.  Just like all other dishes that require you to get your hands dirty this was extremely fun and easy to make!  Unless you can't stand touching raw chicken meat with bones.  I actually got a kick out of getting under the chicken's skin! LOL  The result was a success!  I served it over some spinach seasoned with lemon and extra virgin olive oil.  I wanted to make some rice and beans but I wanted to balance out the meal with a lighter accompanying side.  My love handles will thank me later!  I will definitely make this again but next time I want to try it with a different vegetable just to see how it will taste.  The chicken was delicious and tender!  If you want to change how you bake your chicken this might be the way to go for you!  Have fun making it and remember to always Season Your Food!                         

Beef Bourguignon

The Ingredients

• 3 lbs of beef chuck (stew meat)
• 6 strips of thick bacon
• 1 lb of mushroom
• 2 large golden potatoes
• 1 carrot
• 20 pearl onions
• 2 tbls of tomato paste
• 2 cups of red wine
• 1 cup of beef broth
• 1 onion
• 1 bay leaf (crumbled)
• 3 sprigs of thyme
• 2 garlic cloves
• Salt
• Pepper
• Flour

The Recipe

1. If using a big piece of pot roast like I did you need to trim the fat and cut it into 1 inch pieces.  If using pre-cut meat then start with step 2.
2. Season the flour with salt and pepper then coat the meat pieces (This keeps the meat juicy)
3. Put pearl onions in really hot water to help remove the skin. 
4. Fry the bacon then remove it and cut into 1 inch pieces. Place in slow cooker.
5. Sear the meat in the bacon fat.  About 7 minutes.
6. Remove the meat and place it in the slow cooker (For 3 lbs of meat you'll need at least a 7qt slow cooker).
7. Pour about 1/4 cup of the wine into the hot pan and scrape the bottom of the pan to release all the flavors.  Pour into slow cooker straight from the pan.
8. Chop onions, potatoes, carrots, and mushrooms and put into slow cooker.
9. Remove skin from pearl onions and insert into slow cooker.
10. Mince the garlic and put it in the slow cooker along with the thyme, some salt, pepper, and bay leaf. 
11. Pour the wine and the beef broth.
12. Cook for 6 hours on high. 

The Experience

It was Valentine's Day and I wanted to make something special for my girls.  I cooked breakfast while I prepared the slow cooker!  That's what's awesome about the crock pot.  You are free to do other things!  I found this way tastier and healthier than the pot roast I made a couple of weeks ago.  The meat was leaner and I trimmed a lot of the fat.  The mushrooms tasted amazing!  I used to buy pre sliced mushrooms but now I will only buy the whole thing and slice them myself.  I left them a little bigger and the result was perfect.  Something else I tried for the first time was pearl onions!  They're sweet and very tasty!  The bourguignon was served with just rice which made it stand out a lot!  It's a very fulfilling meal and great the next day with some fresh rice or even in a hoagie like I had it today!  I loved preparing this dish and I'll be making it again soon!  If you are having guests over this is a perfect dish to serve.  Remember, Season Your Food!