Recipe: Brazilian Black Feijoada

It's been just shy of 8 years since I wrote this recipe I invented which was my early attempt at making a simple, easy Brazilian feijoada dish. Looking back on it, I'm super embarrassed at how lazy I was. Well, since then, I have made feijoada dozens and dozens of times for my family meals and it's gotten better and better. I think just in the past few months I've finally perfected it. For years, I didn't think it was possible for a non-Brazilian to manage to make this dish—its specific flavor was so elusive, especially without authentic Brazilian Sazon packets—but now I think I finally figured it out. And if blue-eyed, white-skinned, Idahoan me managed to cook it, you can too, no matter where you're from!

Brazilian Black Feijoada

"Uma delicia auténtica!"

 Ingredients

• 3 slices bacon, chopped
• 4 oz. pork, cubed
• 3 beef hot dogs, 2 brats, or 1 smoked sausage, sliced
• ¾ large onion, chopped and divided
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 cans black beans, drained*
• ½ tsp cumin
• 1 tsp. smoked paprika
• ½ tsp cracked pepper
• ¼ tsp. ground coriander
• 2 bay leaves
• cilantro, chopped

Directions

1. Brown the bacon, pork, and hot dogs in a cooking pot over medium high heat.
2. Set aside meats and sauté the garlic and half of the chopped onions in the bacon fat.
3. Add beans, seasonings, the rest of the onions, and 2 cups of water to the pot* and bring to a boil.
4. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 10 minutes, then add the meat and simmer for another 15 minutes or until the flavors are combined and the pork is stained from the black beans. Stir occasionally. Add more water if it starts to get too thick, or uncover if it's too thin for you.
5. Add salt, pepper, and water to taste and to the desired thickness, and add desired amount of cilantro (or Italian parsley if you don't like cilantro)—I usually go with a half a bundle or so.
6. Serve with hot sauce, farofa pronta, Brazilian vinagrete salsa, sliced bananas, mashed potatoes, pão de queijo, steak, chicken, or whatever else you want, on a bed of Brazilian rice. Click the links for good recipes for each of those.
7. Enjoy!

*If you'd like to do it with dry beans in a pressure cooker, instead use ½ pound (1 cup) dry black beans soaked for an hour or so, 2 teaspoons of salt, ¼ teaspoon of baking soda, and 2½ cups of water. Pressure cook all the ingredients together (except cilantro) for 35 minutes with a natural release.

YIELD: About 5–8 servings.

Washes down well with...  Guaraná, Sprite, or fresh mango, guava, or passion fruit juice.

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*Found at some Latin food markets

Recipe: Ultimate Chili Spud

Being an Idahoan, I love potatoes. I remember inventing a potato recipe when I was a kid called Potato Snax, and if I could eat one food every day (in any variation), it'd probably be potatoes. When I was in middle school, my school had a Potato Bar, and I soon took to making chili baked potatoes at home and improving the recipe over time. This recipe represents the best recipe I can come up with. It's a bit on the high side when it comes to number of ingredients, but I promise the taste medley you'll experience in this hearty dish will give you a flavor buzz.

Ultimate Chili Spud

"Idahoan perfection!"

 Ingredients

• 1 russet potato
• Sea salt
• Cracked pepper
• Nalley brand Walla Walla Onion flavor chili
• ¼ cup chopped onions (or more if you want)
• Frank's Red Sauce
• Grated medium cheddar cheese
• Sour cream
• Green onions or chives
• Bacos
• Ground coriander
• BONUS: Real bacon bits

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
2. Scrub and wash the outside of the potato. Stab the everloving heck out of it all over with a fork. The more you stab, the crispier it'll be.
3. Spray the spud with oil and roll it in sea salt, then put it in the oven on the rack. Let it bake for 1 hour.*
4. Remove the hot potato out of the oven and brush off the excess salt off the outside. Combine the onions with the uncooked chili, as well as a spank or two of Frank's sauce. Cook the chili in the microwave according to directions (it's like 3 minutes). 
5. Cut the potato in half lengthwise, then mash each side to spread it out on the plate. Add butter if you want (but I never notice the flavor, so it's probably just a waste of calories and fat), and cracked pepper.
6. Place a hearty amount of chili on the potato (I usually put half a can), and sprinkle with cheddar cheese. Put several spoonsful of sour cream on top and sprinkle with chopped green onions/chives, bacos, bacon bits if you have them, and a dash of coriander.
7. Enjoy!

YIELD: 1 spud, which is usually what I eat by myself. It could be divided in half if you don't have as much of an appetite for potatoes as I do.
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Washes down well with...  Ice cold milk.

*If you don't have time to cook it in the oven, forget all of the salt and oil processes and instead microwave it on a plate in the microwave for about three minutes on one side and three minutes on the other.

Recipe: Gourmet Chicken Ramen

Everyone knows missionary crusaders eat a lot of Ramen noodles if they're available in the country they're serving in, and I was no exception. It's cheap, easy, and light on the stomach when you just want a quick, small before-bed meal. But I wanted my miojo (as the Brazilians call it) to also be delicious when I ate it. I made all kinds of variations, from Hot-Dog Ketchup Gumbo to Firemouth Beef. Like all meals I make over and over, eventually I perfected this meal to be so delicious that my wife actually craves it and requests me to make it. I've been really proud of this recipe, since it's so easy and delicious to make when everything else sounds like too much of a hassle.

Recipe #7: Surpresa

On my crusade to Brazil, I quickly noticed that I had to figure out good ideas for breakfast, since all Brazilians eat is bread and coffee (or if you don't drink coffee, cevada or chocolate milk), which is BORING and not filling. So I came up with this blend of hearty and delicious ingredients and called it "Surpresa" (Portuguese for "surprise"). I made it every morning during the phase when I invented it. That included dicing an entire potato before I began cooking. It was exhausting and took a while, but it was worth it. And since hash browns exist in the US, you can make it with half the effort!
Also, I remembered a few months later that my dad on his crusade to Canada had also invented a dish, called "Missionary Surprise," and it had most of the same ingredients, except ground beef was substituted for ham, his recipe used cheese on top, and he had it for dinner!

Recipe #6: Crunchy Punk1n S33dz

This pumpkin seeds recipe may be plagiarized from somewhere else, but I can't remember since I can't find the original. So I'm just going off the assumption that, like many other recipes I've made over the years, it's probably a mixture of a couple of recipes I found. Which makes it original! (Please don't sue me)

Crunchy Punk1n S33dz

"Made with 0% olive oil! (Cuz olive oil's gross)"

 Ingredients

• 1 or more pumpkins
• Water
• Salt
• Cracked pepper
• Paprika

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Oh wait. Don't do that yet. They're not ready to cook.
2. Disembowel the pumpkins by cutting a hole in the top or bottom and scraping out everything inside. Set the seeds aside, discard the guts, and carve/sculpt the pumpkin and put it out on your front porch with a candle inside it.
3. Wash the seeds to remove as much of the pumpkin intestine as possible. This can easily be done just by swishing them around in a bowl of water. Drain as needed.
4. Put the pumpkin seeds in a large bowl with enough water to cover the seeds (they'll probably float, but that's okay). Add 1½ tsp. of salt to every cup of water in the bowl. Let it sit overnight.
5. Now preheat up the oven to 400°F in the morning before work. Drain 'n' strain the seeds.
6. Put the seeds in a single layer on a cookie sheet lined with tin foil. Sprinkle with more salt, cracked pepper, and paprika. Put the sheet in the oven and let it roast for 15–18 minutes.
7. Remove the seeds from the oven. They may be done at this point if they're golden brown (one or two of the seeds might be burnt). If not, sift and turn them over on the sheet with a wooden spoon and return to the oven for 5–8 more minutes.
8. Done! Let them cool and then feel free to enjoy. If you want, you can spray them with a bit of oil and toss them with more seasonings like garlic powder, cinnamon and sugar, ranch powder and smoked paprika, or anything else. These are the crunchy variety of pumpkin seeds, not the chewy, oily kind. They'll be a great high-magnesium snack for you during your work day!

YIELD: 1 mess of pumpkin seeds per pumpkin used.
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Washes down well with...  Water. Them's pretty salty, so you'll probably want to keep on washing 'em down.

Recipe #5: Pizza Omelet

When cooking, I really like to mix up genres. I think it would be so fun to make a list of different burgers to make, for example, and see how many different twists I could put on them—nacho burger, Chinese burger, Italian burger, etc. This idea came when I wanted to put a twist on the common breakfast omelet. I was partially inspired by a pizza-flavored pastel I had in Brazil that was really good.

Pizza Omelet

Recipe #4: Gringo Feijoada

If I haven't mentioned it before, I went to Brazil for two years. Among the cultural things I learned to love was their incredible cuisine. It is incredible how simple ingredients like beans and rice can make absolutely delicious meals in Bahia, Brazil. The ingredients are sometimes hard to find here in the States, but the following recipe is one that I invented that, while very American, at least does the flavorfulness of Brazilian lunches justice.

Gringo Feijoada

"Uma delícia não-brasileira!"

 Ingredients

• 1 tsp. minced garlic
• ¼–½ onion, diced
• 1 can black beans
• 1 can Bean-with-Bacon soup OR canned pinto beans
• 2 all-beef hot dogs, sliced
• 4 slices bacon, cut into pieces and cooked
• 1 tsp. pepper
• 1 tsp. cumin
• 2 tbsp. (or more) cilantro

Directions

1. Sauté the onions and garlic until sautéed.
2. Add can of black beans (with juice) and can of bean with bacon soup to pot. Add ½ bean-with-bacon soup can of water.
3. Add hot dog slices and bacon, then stir in spices except cilantro. I also added Brazilian spices, but I'm sure you won't have access to those. :(
4. After awhile, when you're ready to eat, throw in the cilantro.
5. Eat over Brazilian rice (see below) with Frank's Red Sauce and cuzcuz*, farinha†, or farofa‡. It's also good with beef on the side, or chicken, or a fried egg. 

YIELD: Like 3 or 4 servings.
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Directions for Brazilian Rice

1. Sauté some onions and garlic until sautéed.
2. Add a cup of rice, and stir around until the rice turns an opaque white color.
3. Put in two cups of water, and salt/spices to taste.
4. Bring to a boil, cover, and let simmer for 10-12 minutes.
5. Remove from heat and let sit for 5 minutes.
6. Fluff with a fork, eat beneath Feijoada (see above).

YIELD: About 4 or 5 servings. Eat the extra serving with chicken or something if you want.

Washes down well with...  Guaraná (Brazilian soda), Sprite, or exotic fruit juice/punch like mango.
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*Not actual couscous, it's made from corn. Try your nearest Latino store and look for Flocão brand.
† Mandioca or cassava flour. Probably easier to find than cuzcuz.
‡ Farinha that's been sautéed with bacon and onions. It's a Brazilian thing. Don't worry about it if you've never tried it.

Recipe #3: Deconstructed Salad

I'm not a huge salad kind of guy. If I have the choice at a restaurant, I'll usually go for the soup, since I am a huge soup kind of guy. But I do like salad and vegetables. Sometimes I even crave them. But this recipe I invented is the most craveable of all. The Cruncher Salad combines the crunchiness of a vegetable dip tray with the personality of a side salad. Why chop all of them up when you can make a salad inside your own mouth?

Deconstructed Salad

"No assembly required!"

 Ingredients

• Lettuce
• 1 handful baby carrots
• 1-2 stalks celery, trimmed
• Half a cucumber
• Ranch dressing
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 facet bell pepper, or 2 or 3 mini peppers (optional)
• A few black olives (optional)

Directions

1. Cut a wedge out of the head of lettuce and place on your plate.
2. Put a handful of baby carrots around and over the lettuce.
3. Toss the celery stalk, cucumber and green pepper on there too. 
4. Drizzle with ranch dressing.
5. Grind pepper onto the salad.
6. Method of eating: Take a bite of the lettuce, then eat a baby carrot, a bite of celery, cucumber and green pepper. Enjoy the satisfying crunch of vegetables that haven't been cut up! It's a salad being made and eaten at the same time in your mouth!

YIELD: 1 salad.

Washes down well with...  Any actual entrée, such as steak, a burger, chicken, etc. Oh, and probably water.

Gourmetting Your Ramen and other food tricks

If you're anything like my wife and me, both in college and little time to eat good outside of Sundays and maybe Saturday mornings, you probably find yourself arriving home at night too tired to make anything beyond a pot of Ramen noodles or some condensed soup. Any food really, if you eat it often enough, begins to taste like wood. I like to be creative and turn to our spice rack to jazz up our mundane meals into surprisingly scrumptious dishes! Try these simple tips to make your food taste just a bit better.

Garlic Tomato Soup
Add a tablespoon or more of garlic salt to your tomato soup to add a delicious, zesty bite to it. It goes down deliciously on a cold day. Other good additions are basil and hot sauce.

Gourmet Miojo
Miojo is Brazilian for "Ramen noodles." Though American miojo isn't quite as good as the miojo down there, I try to adapt some of the creative twists I took when I subsisted mainly on this cheap nighttime supper. For chicken-flavored Ramen noodles, my wife loves when I add freshly ground pepper and basil to it when it's finished boiling. It's surprising how much better a simple "backup" dish like Ramen can taste with just a few spices. Hot sauce is also a good addition to Ramen, and I prefer mine unbroken in the package, with just a little bit of water left.

For an interesting twist to your miojo, crack an egg into it while it's still boiling. It will turn your dish into a protein-enriched meal and thicken it too.

Better Tuna Fish
This might be a placebo effect, but I find that if you prepare tuna fish the night before you eat it, it tastes a lot better. Something about it sitting in the fridge overnight seems to allow the mayonnaise to absorb better or something. I like tuna better gray-colored than pinkish.

Also, don't put too much mayo! That can ruin a good tuna sandwich. And never use Miracle Whip. It's called "salad dressing" for a reason.

...although I've never used it for that either. It's only good on like, ham sandwiches.

Microondas Burrito Magnifico

Just because you don't have time to brown beef and cook refried beans to make your own burritos doesn't mean your microwaved "little donkeys" have to be boring! Throw on some cheese when you've got 30 seconds left on the clock. After it's cooked put a dollop of sour cream and salsa on it and for a crunch—seriously, try this—a handful of crumbled tortilla chips! Turn your appetizer into an entrée. There have been times when I've even had some spare jalapeños and leftover rice to add. Be creative and resourceful!

Sandwiches

I got the idea from the restaurant Gator Jack's (Subway does this too, probably) to put salt and pepper on my ham sandwiches. It's a great addition and very simple. I had to be very creative last summer when sandwiches day in and day out got tedious to eat. I even unwittingly invented a delicacy when I accidentally bought sweet pickles instead of dill pickles and put them on my turkey sandwich. Try it yourself! When in doubt, put on a layer of sauce that normally wouldn't go on a sandwich, such as Thousand Island dressing or steak sauce. You never know!

I'm also beginning to discover that whiter cheeses go better with meat sandwiches than yellower cheeses like cheddar, but it's still a work in progress...

* * *

Maybe I'm just a food fanatic (my favorite show happens to be Man v. Food), but I don't believe food should just be for nourishment. Throw a random spice in your next mundane dish and see what happens! I've had my share of disgusting inventions (just ask my wife), but now and then I'll find something that becomes a new sensation in my kitchen. It's worth it all when, rather than a last resort, my wife actually gets a craving for Gourmet Miojo.

Recipe #2: Synergy Flameburgers

I'm a big burger fan. Besides steak and a baked potato, there's almost nothing I crave more often. I've eaten burgers with a vast variety of toppings; fried eggs, shredded chicken, onion rings, and even corn. This is the most delicious burger I've been able to invent at home; I took ideas from Five Guys, A&W, and perhaps others.

Synergy Flameburgers

"The whole is tastier than the sum of the parts!"

 Ingredients

• Toasted sesame seed buns
• Beef hamburger patties
• Sliced, jarred Jalapeño peppers
• 2 strips bacon
• Lettuce
• Pickles (hamburger chips are best)
• Ranch dressing
• A-1 steak sauce
• Medium cheddar cheese
• Mayonnaise
• Onions

Directions

1. Fry the bacon, drain most of the grease, then sautté the onions in the remaining drippings.
2. Season the patty(ies) with seasoning salt and lemon pepper. Grill until desired doneness(Yes, that's a word). Place slice of cheddar cheese on each burger to melt.
3. Spread mayonnaise on the buns. Put a small amount of A-1 steak sauce on the underside of the hamburger patty.
4. Arrange the burger and toppings in the following order:
1. Jalapeños
2. Onions
3. Patty (and cheese)
4. Bacon
5. Pickles
6. Ranch
7. Lettuce
5. Serve with seasoned potato wedges. Comment on this blog with your opinion.

YIELD: 1 burger per bun/patty combo. For a heartier, meatier meal, add TWO patties!

Washes down well with...  Pop, soda, or soft drink. All are great.

Recipe #1: Compost Toast

I invented this utterly DELICIOUS recipe when I was 12, inspired from "Suicide drinks" and similar foods. Its deliciousness has never gone obsolete. What's your opinion?

Compost Toast

"Just like Austin used to make!"

Ingredients

• 3 slices bread
• Margarine
• Peanut Butter
• Sugar
• Cinnamon
• Jam(strawberry is best)
• Honey*

Directions

1. Preheat the toaster to 310 degrees. Just kidding. Just toast the bread slices till they have that sort of light brown shading on them.
2. Put the remaining ingredients on the toast in the order listed. This order has been tested many times and is the only way the Compost Toast can work correctly**. Tampering with the formula could result in gross toast.
3. Eat the toast and be prepared to repeat. It may be necessary.

Yield: 3 slices(I purposefully made it easy to divide: 1 slice = 1 Compost Toast. But you'll want at least 3)

Washes down well with...  Milk. Juice would taste gross after so much sweetness.
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* Honey was not part of the original formula of '01, but it has been found to add and not subtract from the savor of Compost Toast.
** The margarine serves to melt into the toast so that it adds a robust flavor and makes it so the peanut butter doesn't melt. Sugar and cinnamon on top of this but beneath the jam does seem impractical, but mixed with the jam on top with the honey does not bode well. The preceding order and formula is approved by Austin.