Brazilian cheese bread (pão de queijo)

One of the fun things we did recently on vacation in Aruba was having dinner in a Brazilian steakhouse, a churrascaria, featuring amazing grilled meats that are brought table-side in skewers, sliced to order.  It's an endless parade of succulent barbecued meats you enjoy with a generous buffet of side dishes.  

Throughout the years, the idea of going to a churrascaria had popped up but we never actually found the occasion to go.  My husband and I thought our meat-loving "little" guy (who is almost a teenager now!) would enjoy it so we took advantage of going to one when we were in Aruba.  We were right about the young one enjoying it; in fact, we all loved it. 

I could go on and on about the delectable meat - the juicy and succulent picanha (top sirloin) cut and such - but what I wanted to focus on here today is something that was served in a little bread basket at our table at the steakhouse.  They turned out to be Brazilian cheese bread, or small cheese rolls or puffs, called pão de queijo.  

My husband fell hard for these little rounds of cheese bread!  I thought they were good (I mean, it's cheesy bread so what's not to like) but I have to admit I was more focused on eating Brazilian black beans, rice, and sampling all the meat.  But I do remember the rolls - particularly not only for their great cheesy flavor but the uniquely chewy texture that made them so interesting.  

They are not your typical fluffy, soft breads rolls but more like French gougeres but with a very different interior texture.  Brazilian cheese bread is soft and slightly crisp on the outside but dense and incredibly chewy inside.  The key is they're made with tapioca flour, which give it its distinctly chewy, stretchy texture.  

My husband was really smitten by the little Brazilian cheese bread and kept talking about it.  So naturally, I came home and read up on it a little bit and decided to try making them after finding a recipe.  It was a fun project and they turned out very well!  My husband swears they're just like the ones we had at the restaurant.  I say they're close enough and more importantly, we had a lot of fun talking about and tasting these at home.  It's always fun to relive vacation memories and make them last by recreating it in some way.  

Weekend dinner!  This meal featured Jacque Pepin's recipe for crispy chicken thighs and of course, the Brazilian cheese bread 

Easy English muffin recipe!

Here's another first for me and something else I didn't expect to be making myself at home: English muffins!  I can hardly believe I made these and how incredibly easy it was!  I'd already hit the jackpot recently with the easy bagel recipe but, believe it or not, these English muffins could well be even easier and just as good.  I'm floating on cloud nine in the kitchen lately.

English muffins are actually one of my favorite things.  Whether slathered with almond or peanut butter, or in breakfast sandwich form, they feature heavily in my breakfast routine.  I really never felt the urge to make them given how complicated and mysterious the process seemed - from the yeast dough to shaping them into tart rings and then cooking over a griddle rather than baking in the oven.  I was satisfied with the English muffin bread recipe I learned a couple years ago.

So what changed?  Well, I was watching Gesine Bullock-Prado's show (which is really terrific), Baked in Vermont, and she said making English muffins was as simple as making pancakes!  She said she wasn't kidding, and let me tell you...she really wasn't kidding!  

I was a little skeptical that it might be too good to be true but there was little risk to trying so I decided to make a half batch of 4.  I literally stirred the dough together right before I left to pick up my son from school and the dough was ready when I got home.  Using instant yeast, it only takes a half-hour rise before the dough is ready to be cooked over a griddle!

I did not use tart rings to cook these English muffins.  I simply shaped them with wet hands into a rough round; I don't know about you but the English muffins I buy are never perfectly round and I'm more than fine with that.  The dough is sticky and is firm and thick enough to handle and to hold its shape.  I cooked the first side for about 10-12 minutes under medium-low heat, then flipped it and let the other side cook for the same amount of time.  It was truly minimal work and I was shocked!

I was amazed to see English muffins in my kitchen in such a short time and almost equally surprised when I sliced it open for breakfast the next day and saw nooks & crannies accounted for!  I used an equal mix of all-purpose flour and white whole wheat flour.  Since these are made via a quick rise, I thought they would be quite bland but I think the whole wheat flour added a great nutty flavor to them that I always enjoy.  They were really terrific - just toasted and slathered with butter and whatnot.

Equally, they made excellent bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches!  My son actually said these English muffins are better than the regular ones that I buy.  That is a serious testimonial.  I just couldn't believe I made breakfast sandwiches using homemade English muffins.  It took me a few days to get over the wonder of that...

I love multigrain bread

Happy New Year!  My goodness - it's really 2014 already!  While it may take me a while to remember to write '14 from now on, I'm ready to throw confetti onto the New Year and hope it's the start of a happy and healthy one that's filled with causes for celebration for us all.  

For my first post of 2014, I thought I'd go with bread - that most basic, nourishing, nurturing food that most of us would find hard to live without.

Multigrain bread made with 7-grain hot cereal and pumpkin seeds

I love bread in general, and you might recall my love of english muffins (I straight-up just love carbs), but multigrain bread is one of my very favorite types.  I adore the flavor from the grains and seeds embedded inside.  The nuttiness and texture you get from a loaf of good multigrain bread is so addicting and satisfying.  I love it so much that I tend to talk a lot about places, restaurants, where I can get a good slice or roll of it.  Here's an example...my husband and I used to go to a little restaurant in New York City called King's Carriage House.  It's a cozy place and their food - as in the actual dishes - was terrific (whether for lunch, brunch, tea, or dinner) but what I always think about is a great multigrain roll they served there.  Am I a little odd for putting so much emphasis on the bread?

So for me, good multigrain bread just makes me smile and brightens up my day a little.  It's the little things in life!  And when it's good, I feel it hardly needs anything more than a light toasting because the bread itself is so full of flavor all on its own.  I love to savor it and appreciate all its nuances.

That said...a little salted butter or some jam (as my husband likes to have it) - not to mention ham and eggs on the side for breakfast - never hurts either.  But honestly, I think it's really delicious all by itself.

So given my passion for it, you can imagine I wanted to try this recipe from America's Test Kitchen when I first saw it.  It was bookmarked for a long time, I made a couple of other bread recipes first to get a little experience under my belt, and now I've done it.  And I'm so happy to report that this bread - this monster of a loaf - turned out completely delicious!  It certainly hits the mark in flavor and texture.  It has nuttiness and chewiness in spades. 

The "secret" or shortcut to attaining the multigrains in the bread is hot 7-grain cereal.  Why is it when you want to buy 7-grain cereal at the supermarket, all you can find is 9-grain!  Not wanting to mess up the recipe in any way, I ordered a four-pack case of 7-grain cereal via amazon.  And I'm glad I did.  Not only have I been enjoying bowls of the stuff for breakfast occasionally, this bread is worth searching out the cereal for.

I felt such a sense of accomplishment taking this bread out of my oven and onto our table.  If I can do it, you can bet it was fairly simple.  I have very little experience in bread-making, having only worked with yeast a handful of times and in the last few months only.  What I've learned is that it's a fluid, live process - one you have to flow with and adjust around.  It's honestly exciting and a bit scary at the same time.  Just when I'm feeling confident everything is going according to plan (or the recipe), I'm thrown a curve ball.  In this case, the bread was rising faster - and more - than I expected.  I had to switch the bread pan I intended to use to accommodate the size of the loaf! And what a big, lofty, fluffy (not tough or overly dense) loaf it turned out to be!  It worked.  It really worked.

Bread-making is clearly a skill honed with time and practice, and while I'll never be any expert, it is definitely rewarding.  The other week (before this experiment), I found myself out of bread and with bad weather making it inconvenient to go out and buy some.  So I made my own!  That is a very cool feeling, to make your own bread and provide your family with a basic that is at the same time very special.  I feel empowered as I'd never envisioned being able to make multigrain bread myself, at home, by following a recipe.  Thank you, America's Test Kitchen!

Aside from trying to make good eats to share and linger over with my family at the table, this whole thing of puttering in the kitchen, playing with flour, and what have you, is also about learning and discovery in an area I'm passionate about - food!  I hope to learn more and make a few more discoveries this year...