Halloween Spider Truffles

I am planning this year's halloween party food and decided to share my usual halloween potluck dish here: Brazilian chocolate truffles (brigadeiro), dressed like spiders. The recipe is easy. I have already posted it here. You only need to add the following ingredients:

1 tube of black ready-to-use icing (you can buy the Wilton brand here)
1 bag of candy buttons (you can buy them here)
black candy sprinkles

Preparation:

Follow the recipe as described here.

Then decorate:

Roll the truffles in the black sprinkles. Put them in the candy cups. Arrange the truffles in a dish before starting the rest of the decoration.
Add a little drop of the icing on the flat side of a candy button. "Glue" the candy button on a truffle. This is one "eye". Repeat this process until you have all the truffles with 2 "eyes".
Then carefully add a round drop of the icing on each eye.
Finally, spread some icing on the truffles, creating the legs.

Grilled Cauliflower in Curry

I had this idea the other day, based on some cauliflower salad that I buy sometimes from Whole Foods (I believe their cauliflower salad contains also some garlic and almond flakes). It was simple and easy to make, and my son loved it. I served it with barbecue steak, brazilian style (the only spice in the meat was coarse salt).

Ingredients:

1 whole cauliflower
1 tbs curry powder
3 tbs olive oil
salt

Preparation:

Cut the cauliflower in florets. Discard the leaves.
Mix the curry powder, salt and olive oil in a large bowl. Add the cauliflower florets and mix well, so that the florets get all covered with the curry paste. Let it rest in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
Grill the cauliflower, turning once, for a a few minutes (around 10 minutes) until they are softer and lightly darkened.
Serve.

Easy Creme Brûlée

I made this recipe the other day to my "craving gourmet son". Sometimes he feels like eating some difficult to find things (unless I make them!). So after a week of begging I had him help me bake it. This is a French dessert. It's also a Spanish dish, it's called "catalan cream" in that country. Brûlée means "burned", because the sprinkled sugar on top is burned. You can use a cook's torch to burn the sugar. I don't know the other way, using some metallic utensil.

Ingredients:

3 egg yolks

100 ml (3 oz.) milk

1 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon sugar to sprinkle

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 250 oF.

Mix the egg yolks, milk, cream, sugar and vanilla. Pour in porcelain ramekins (or other oven-safe cup). Place the ramekins with the cream in a rectangular cake pan and bake for 35 to 40 minutes.

Once out of the oven, sprinkle the remaining sugar over each ramekin with the cream. Using the kitchen torch, burn the sugar until it turns golden. Let them cool for a while, or take them to the fridge for a couple of hours before serving. Note that if the creme brûlée is in the fridge for too long, the burned sugar is no longer crunchy.

Easy coconut and parmesan cupcakes (queijadinha)

This is a very easy recipe from Brazil. My grandma made a lot when we went to her house as kids.
I made the queijadinhas (pronounced "kay-ji-dee-nia") for Thanksgiving this year.

Ingredients:

4 eggs
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2 cups grated coconut
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup coconut milk

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 390 °F.
Place all ingredients in the order listed above in the blender and turn it on.
Pour the mixture into a cupcake baking sheet lined with paper cupcake cups.
Bake for about 40 minutes or until it starts to brown on top.

Notes:
If you want to enhance the cheese flavor in the queijadinha, add more parmesan.
For less dry cakes, bake them in water bath (putting the cupcake sheet inside a rectangular baking sheet containing hot water). But it is a lot more work, you have to be careful not to "bathe" the cakes in the hot water when you remove them from the oven (it happened to me).

Baked Fish Tagine with Chermoula sauce

One more delicious recipe from the Moroccan cooking workshop promoted by Creative Cultural Weavers. I can't wait to make it at home. Enjoy.

Chermoula/Tchermila is a sauce you can use with any white fish, cooked in the grill, boiled or in the oven. You can keep it several days in your fridge.

Ingredients:

For 1 kg/2lb  of cod or halibut, cut in pieces of 4"/10cm you will need:

1 bunch of coriander
1 bunch of parsley
5 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon hot or mild pepper
1 cup olive oil
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
salt

Onions
Carrots
Potatoes cut into half
Bay leaves
Cherry tomatoes
Bell peppers

Blend coriander, parsley and garlic in a food processor. Then add the cumin, pepper, olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and blend everything. Heat it (but do not boil).

Preheat the oven to 430F.

In a large pan, put onions, carrots, potatoes, bay leaves with half of the mixed spices (Chermoula/Tchermila) and cover with water. Cook for 20 min.
Optional: you can  add olives .

Generously coat the fish fillets with the remaining Chermoula and let it rest on a plate.

Pour the cooked vegetables into a big baking dish with a little bit of the broth. Lay the fish over the vegetables.

Top the fish with cherry tomatoes, bell pepper slices  and lemon slices.

Bake it for 20min.

Zaallouk (Eggplant appetizer)

I went to a Moroccan cooking workshop organized by CCW, Creative Cultural Weavers, our cultural group. Thank you, girls, for the organization and for the recipes. I am copying the first one here, together with my photo of the dish.

Ingredients:

2 eggplants
1 can of crushed tomatoes
2 cloves of garlic
1 onion
basil
olive oil

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 450F.
Wrap the eggplants with aluminum foil and bake for 40 min to 1 hour.
Put olive oil, garlic, onion in a pan.
Cook on medium heat. Pour the tomatoes, basil, salt and keep cooking for 10 min.
Once the eggplants are baked, cut them in half, scoop the inside, discarding the skin, and add to the tomato sauce.
With a hand mixer, roughly blend the mixture.
You can serve the Zaallouk over grilled slices of ciabatta.

Ricota Pie

This one is for Delara. Sorry for being late for Easter, but I was so busy cooking that I didn't have time to translate and post the recipe. Also, my picture does not show the way the pie really should be (like a cheesecake), because I left a lot of the gelatine out and the result was that it turned gooey. But I have made this pie many times, it works, provided you add ALL the gelatine that says in the recipe.

Ingredients:

Cookie Base:

7 oz coarse crushed Graham cookies (or Maria, or McVities Digestives)
3.5 oz butter, melted
oil or cooking spray

Ricotta Cream:

1 lb ricotta cheese
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon lemon juice
creme fraiche, measured in condensed milk can (1 1/3 cup), or the "media crema" that sells in the Latin foods section of the supermarkets
1 packet (28 g, approximately 1 tablespoon) unflavored gelatin powder
3 egg whites

Sauce:

5 tablespoons raspberry jam
3 tablespoons water


Preparation:

Cookie base:

Line a springform baking pan with parchment paper. Spray or brush oil on the sides of the pan.
Mix melted butter with the crushed cookies and spread the mixture in the pan, gently pressing with a spoon.

Ricotta Cream:

Smash the ricota with a fork and pass it through a sieve into a mixing bowl. Pour the condensed milk over the ricota and mix well with a spoon. Add the zest and lemon juice, the creme fraiche and mix well. Dissolve the gelatin according the package instructions. Add to the ricotta cream and mix very well (better if mixed in a blender, it will get silkier). Finally, beat the egg whites and gently incorporate them to the cream.
Pour the cream over the cookie dough and bring to the fridge for about 5 hours.

Sauce:

Put jam and 3 tablespoons of water in a small saucepan and take to a low heat, stirring, until it becomes a thin syrup.Let it cool.

Remove the pie from the springform pan, pass the cake to a serving plate and pour the sauce over the cake.