Meme - 5 things about me

The lovely Toni, from the Daily Bread Journal, has tagged me for a meme - there you go, 5 things about me you probably don't know:- I was fascinated by books and comic books so my mom would read to me all day long - I mean it. I wanted her to read to me all the time, and when my father arrived home from work he had to read to me, too.One day, my mom came to the conclusion that it would be a lot

Chocolate fingers

João loves chocolate fingers so I decided to make them at home. I found a recipe on this website and since I’ve made several recipes from there I thought I should give it a try.Just a few ingredients, a soft dough that comes together quickly and that makes a lot of cookies – I halved the recipe and got 50 fingers, 9cm each.My husband loved the cookies - he doesn’t want the store-bought version

Walnut braided bread

I had a sudden urge to make bread – that happens, sometimes – but didn’t have many ingredients at home.There was a bag of walnuts that would go rancid pretty soon unless I used them – and that’s what I did.I used a recipe from a Brazilian website and, instead of filling the bread with apricots and jam, I used brown sugar and chopped walnuts.The dough is soft and comes together really quickly. I

Dulce de leche brownies

I don’t mean to make my dear readers rush into their kitchens in a sudden urge to bake, but these are the most delicious brownies ever!Since I made the brownies for my sister’s birthday party, I cut them bite-sized and placed them in fluted paper cases – but I’m sure they’d be wonderful cut in larger pieces, served with ice cream. Yummy.The brownies were a hit among the 13-year-old girls.Recipe

Tail of round with shallots

The minute I saw this recipe I knew I had to make it for João – he loves beef, he loves onions.It was taken from a book I have – it’s a compilation of recipes from a Brazilian food magazine. I made few changes, nothing big.João really liked the dish and asked me to make it again, with one condition: to use striploin instead of tail of round – he told me it has much more flavor.Since I don’t eat

Spinach and radish salad with mozzarella rolled in breadcrumbs

I’ve always loved vegetables – as a kid, I used to ask for a tomato or raw carrots as my afternoon snack and I would eat a huge bowl of watercress or arugula watching TV with my mom – I was a weird child, you might think. :)Surprisingly, this is only the second salad I publish here.I’d been keeping this recipe on my “to do” list – which is so big it’s actually a folder - for such a long time and

The amazing orange cake

This might sound biased coming from a person who loves oranges, lemons and limes as I do, but this is one of the best cakes I’ve ever made – really.The “amazing” on the title suits this cake perfectly!I found the icing a little too sweet, so I intend to make this cake again and drizzle it with nothing but freshly squeezed orange juice.I’ll publish the original Jill Dupleix’s recipe but must warn

Arthur’s cake (or the weirdest Mickey Mouse you've ever seen)

We went to Joao’s nephew’s birthday party a while ago and I was responsible for baking the cake.After finishing the cake I decided I was NOT going to post it – that Mickey Mouse looked so weird…After hearing all the guests’ comments at the end of the party, I changed my mind. JI used store-bought rolled fondant to make Mickey Mouse.The cake and sugar syrup recipes I got from the teacher I took

Pastel

Pastel is a very common food here in Brazil – at least in the south-east, where I live.It is sold in open-air markets and usually eaten with a glass of caldo de cana – a.k.a. garapa – which is sugarcane juice. It’s delicious!Some of us like to add a tablespoon of “vinagrete” - a kind of salsa made with tomatoes, onions, bell peppers and parsley – to our pastel before each bite:It’s easy to buy

Bill’s choc banana bread

I had ripe bananas in my freezer and needed to use them – so I printed Ivonne’s fantastic recipe, fixed it on my freezer door then started preparing and measuring the ingredients to bake.There was a problem, though - the bananas were much too soft and I couldn’t dice them – I ended up mashing them.Checking the Internet I found this Bill Granger's recipe on Nigella’s website.The bread is delicious

Chocolate chip scones

I first heard of scones when I started visiting foodblogs – we’re not familiar with them here in Brazil. That’s why I decided to bake some.The recipe I used was taken from this site and, even though I haven’t had any other scones besides these, I was pretty happy with the result – they were tender and had a light texture, great with a glass of milk.Trying to cut back some of the calories, I didn’

Ricotta and walnut ravioli

My dad loves pasta – I used to cook it for him twice a week, sometimes even more.My husband is even crazier about it – he asks for spaghetti all the time! :)One day, at home, I was showing him some of my favorite blogs and he saw Deb’s raviolis… Needless to say he started asking for homemade raviolis and only stopped yesterday, when I finally faced my fear and decided to make them.I don’t have a

Carrot cake – Brazilian style

My mom used to bake cakes and make desserts every week. I’d always take a slice of freshly baked cake to school to eat as a snack between classes.This cake is one of the most common cakes here in Brazil and it’s different from the American and European carrot cake recipes I’ve seen and made.We blend the carrots with all the other ingredients and the cake has a beautiful and intense orange