Arroz Doce/Rice Pudding

Ok this is a recipe I got from Dellalo.com Their recipe was for Rice pudding and strawberries but I just used the Rice pudding part Plus made a few alterations because the measurements they gave for the liquids weren't enough and left the rice a bit tough still.

Rice pudding should be creamy, sweet, and soft.
It's also a nice cheap treat for those of us who are watching our cash flow.

You'll need:

3 cups of whole milk
6 tablespoons of sugar
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 cup of arborio rice
Note: You can pretty much use any kind of rice but I think Arborio helps make the pudding creamier.
Pinch of salt
1-1 1/2 cups of water

In a pot bring water and milk to a boil. Add all the other ingredients and cook for about forty minutes. Stir frequently or you'll end up with the milk burnt and stuck to the bottom of the pan....which I might add from experience is NOT fun to clean! Also watch the pudding cook, if it seems the rice is still too tough and there's little liquid left add a tiny bit more of milk to it. Also adjust the taste of the sugar if it seems to not be sweet enough.

To check if it's done just taste a little bit of it, it should be creamy and the rice nice and soft maybe even close to mushy if you prefer it that way.

For fun half way through add some raisins and let them cook with the pudding. It'll add some extra flavor to it.
If serving at a little get together put them in their own small individual serving dishes and sprinkle cinnamon on top : )
Hope you give this a try!

Foamy the Squirrel Plans

Ok I'm planning a crochet project. Which means I'm trying to find various patterns to make something I want, which I might add is a pain in the rear.

Idea: Make a crochet amigurumi of Foamy the Squirrel or Pill-zee

For those of you who don't know what this is it's a comic/cartoon made by Jonathan Ian Mathers.
Foamy is a ranty squirrel who drops f-bombs constantly in his cartoons and yet is capable of pointing out truths and things many people don't have the courage to say. It's a bizarre cartoon but for some reason I can't help but watch.

For those of you who are young or have young children DO NOT watch these or near children. It's highly inappropriate contains highly sexual and profane content. Just a warning. But for those of you who are of age and are going to be curious watch away. Maybe you too will become part of the Foaminian Cult (joke, watch show to understand reference)

So the idea mostly is first to attempt to make Pill-zee the cute pill popping glasses wearing, hypochondriac with so many mental problems it becomes hilarious.

So far I found a nice pattern on etsy for the tail ^___^ progress is looking good!

Once I start this I'll take pictures. And hopefully can get a pattern out for people who want a foamy or pill-zee of their own...and maybe in the future I can do a bedly (don't think is writing his name correctly) which  is the British squirrel : )

Comment let me know what you think

Does anyone have any requests recipes? drinks? Crochet or Knitting Requests??


COMING SOON TO A YOUTUBE NEAR YOU!!!

A Video on Crochet or Knitting symbols. All hail those who can read universal charts!!!

Have a great day/night everyone!

Recycle, make lemonade

So It's summer it's hot what do you need? Lemonade ^___^ Now don't go off and buy some cutesy little pitcher just to make lemonade. Recycle a bottle you have. Whether it's a bottle of Coke or Pepsi to even a Perrier bottle. I personally bought one of those fancy schmancy "artisan" water bottles made out of glass. One drank all the water then washed the bottle and filled it up with tastey home made lemonade. So now I have a nice bottle WITH screw top cap.

Here's how I make lemonade:
Ingredients:
Water
splenda (the little packets)
lemons or limes (1 per two cups of water)

Instructions:
For every 2 measuring cups of water use one lemon or lime either one is good
and I tend to try to avoid sugar for health reasons so I use splenda but if you like the real stuff go ahead and use it : ).
So to every 2 cups I use 2 to 3 packets of splenda.
Mix that all up and put it in your bottle. I made 4 cups of it and filled it up to the top.
Now just put it in the fridge and let it chill  ^___^ see? easy! tastey! try it you'll love it : )

Couve (Collard Greens)

So I'm back and It's the fourth of July! HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!! ^___^

I'm posting up my recipe for Couve, or Collard Greens in English. This recipe is very popular in Brazil and I always ask my grandma to make it for me when I visit. Because I admit it no matter how hard I try and I feel like it's this way for many people, no matter how hard you try it's just NEVER as good as your grandma's.

So here's the list of ingredients:

1 garlic clove diced
Collard Greens, about 6 leaves (large, more if they're small)
1-2 TBS olive oil
salt to taste



Trust me this is VERY easy and it goes well with white rice, and lets not forget it's CHEAP...good for those like me who are trying to save a buck ^^;

Wash your collard greens and cut the stem off. Even make sure to remove the stem part from the middle part of the leaf because it'll get chewy. Then stack the leaves ontop of each other and roll them as tightly as possible. With a sharp knife slice the rolled collards as thinly as possible.

 Take your garlic clove now and dice : )



When that's all done take a pan and heat it up. Add the olive oil and let the oil heat up a bit. When it's heated add the garlic and sautee for about five seconds, garlic cooks way too fast. With that add the collards and stir. Keep stirring them and watch as they start to wilt. When they're all wilted, mind you not burnt just wilted, they're done : ) Add salt to taste.

Hope you try it out : ) For a more step by step check out my youtube video.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKmouXPWcLk&feature=channel_video_title

More coming soon!

Bife Milanesa

So continuing on with the Birthday celebrations for my mom I made her favorite foods. All Brazilian of course. I made black beans, white rice, couve, sliced tomatoes with olive oil drizzled on top of them, and her favorite Bife Milanesa. Which is basically fried beef steak.

So this is what you'll need to make it:

4 Thin steaks
2 eggs
flour
breadcrumbs
oil for frying (I use vegetable oil, sometimes vegtable and olive oil mixed together)
pepper and salt

Take out the steaks and put them on your cutting board. Using a tenderizing mallet beat them senseless....ya I know that sentence made no sense at all, the steaks are dead I know, but I liked typing it.

Then take the steaks and sprinkle salt and pepper and coat them in the flour.

Take your two eggs, crack them open and beat them with a fork. Dip your steak into the egg mixture then coat it with the bread crumbs.

In a small frying pan, put in the oil and heat it up. When it's ready cook one steak at a time.
To test the readiness of the oil you can drop some breadcrumbs into it. If they float up it's ready to go : )

The steaks will cook really fast, seriously I'd say under 4 minutes, so don't take your eyes off them and turn it once. They'll look nice and golden brown.

Also a note on the breading. My mom is a personal fan of using american style breadcrumbs with italian seasoning. It is really tastey. My personal preference though is using panko. But that's up to you.

Here's the finished plate for my mom's birthday dinner : )

Instructional Youtube video to come soon! I took so many pictures while making this.
Also recipes to come with youtube videos:
1) Bife com cebola, beef with onion
2) Couve, sauteed collard greens, (pictured up top)

Birthday Cake!

So today is my mom's birthday. I decided to make her a cake : )

I used a Duncan Hines instant cake mix, I chose French Vanilla.
To top it I used heavy whipping cream and made obviously whipped cream ; )
In the middle of the two layers of cake is tapioca pudding.
I decorated it with strawberries which I cut to look like little flowers. All in all I think it's pretty cute.

To make the whipped cream all you need is:
2 pints of whipping cream
sugar and vanilla extract to taste
Using a mixer whip the cream into glorious submission adding vanilla and sugar gradually.
You can cheat and put the mixer on high that forms it pretty fast but I tried to do it slowly I think it takes longer to break down that way : )
I didn't over sweeten the whipped cream since I believe whipped cream should be a very light and airy treat not over powering

Obviously after decorating the cake it went straight into the fridge for safety : )
I also had way too much whipped cream left...and of course tons of strawberries so I mixed it all together until the concoction turned a light pink color. It's a nice tastey summer treat if you don't want to have that cake.

We had the cake today after it chilled in the fridge. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out taste wise. It was light and you didn't get that over powering sugary taste you get with other cakes....I seriously feel like I didn't have cake, which is dangerous because then you could eat way more than you originally planned hehe.

I hope you try it yourself
I sure had fun making it

Here's a link to the youtube video for it :   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-17nenzCzI&feature=channel_video_title

Scary Cute...Not

Hi!

Ok here's my review of scary cute by Annie Obaachan. Well superficial review since I didn't really go in depth and crochet some of the patterns. So please just take this into consideration. I'm personally hoping my mind will change and I will actually come to like this book, i repeat HOPING.

 Well first I was hoping for better monsters. These supposedly cuddly scary but cute creatures are far from what I was hoping. I actually only like two of the patterns. The others look like the author got rather bored and had no actual inspiration to create a creature that resembled a monster. One example is called Special E.T. (photos to come in the future) looks like a deformed dog toy where it's head barely resembed the shape of E.T.'s...then again maybe that's why they called him "special." In my opinion if you want to learn how to make different crochet shapes this is an ok book for a beginner to look off from, but to actually purchase and say "hey look at this monster I made"...well to be polite that's a different story... although I do admit they would be rather child friendly so they won't get scared. Yet I'm still in pain over the fact I paid $20 for this. Once again I remain in hope that I might in time like this book.

But if you do like the funky shaped monsters seriously buy and give it a try. Annie Obaachan actually does give a good description on how to crochet and build these things.

So ya there's my superficial review/rant on the book Scary Cute by Annie Obaachan. I'll see if I can post some pictures from the book later...problem is I just can't seem to find my camera...major problem....