Brazilian Cheese Bread (Pao de Queijo)

Picture taken from simplyrecipes.com

My apologies for my blogging lethargy :-/. Excuses can be made, such as, "oh I was busy moving", "oh, my sister's wedding", "oh, I'm just super lazy and forgetful". Yeah, probably the latter is mostly true...my bad! Anywho, I recently made this amazing and incredibly easy brazilian cheese bread this week and who better to share the recipe with than me fellow food bloggers. If you haven't heard of or visited Espetus in Hayes Valley, then I highly recommend you satiate your carnivorous itch and try this place. It is like a Brazilian, ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT meat buffet. Well, sort of buffet. Waiters circle your table with different cuts of meat for you to choose from, including chicken hearts. There is also a wonderful salad bar to accompany the meal, which may be overkill with the amount of meat that they serve you.

While waiting for our first round of meat, they bring out these absolutely great cheese bread appetizers for you to snack on. They were so good that our table requested multiple plates, in addition to the meat and salad bar. They were chewy, cheesey, puffy goodness.

Luckily, while perusing the food blogging world, I stumbled upon a recipe for pao de queijo. I love recipes that take no time to make and come out so great that you are likely to impress your friends with your "culinary skills".

Recipe Taken from http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/easy_brazilian_cheese_bread/

Ingredients:

1 egg (room temp)

1/3 c. olive oil

2/3 c. milk

1/2 c. tapioca flour (found at Whole Foods - Bob's Red Mill)

1/2 c. packed grated cheese - used Queso Fresco

1 tsp. salt

Special Equipment: mini cupcake tin

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and lightly greaser cupcake tin.

Blend all ingredients in a food processor until smooth. The batter will be a smooth, runny consistency - more so than pancake batter.

Spoon 1 tablespoon of the batter into each cupcake holder.

Bake for 15-20 minutes (I did full 20 minutes) until puffy and golden. Be sure not to open the oven a lot cause the puffs will deflate.

When done, cool on rack and then consume immediately =).

**You can store extra batter in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Kettlecorn!

My recent obsession, inspired by SMT's groupons to KettlePop, is kettlecorn. Fortunately, kettlecorn is easy to make on the stovetop!

Original source: Allrecipes

Ingredients/tools:

• Stock pot with snugly-fitted lid
• 1/4 cup - popcorn kernels (these are cheapest in the natural food section-- just get about $1/worth)
• 1/4 cup - canola oil
• 1/4 cup - sugar (probably less-- just eyeball it)
• Salt

Steps:

1. Pour the oil in the pan and place on medium-high. Add in three kernels of corn.
2. When the kernels pop, the oil is hot enough. Add in the remaining popcorn kernels. Add in the 1/4 cup sugar, distributing in the sugar equally across the bottom of the pot. Place the top on the pot.
3. Immediately lift the pot about 1 inch above the stove and begin shaking the pot over the heat. The idea is that you don't want the kernels or sugar to crystalize in any one place on the pot. After about a minute, the kernels will begin to pop.
4. Be careful-- popcorn creates steam, so steam will try to escape the pot, particularly when you remove the top!
5. When the popping slows, remove the pot from the heat and sprinkle liberally with salt to taste.

Enjoy!