Brazilian Moqueca
January 30, 2009I wrote this post back in 2009 when we were still living in Southern Brazil. Our friends in Maringa invited us over to teach me how to make Brazilian Moqueca. The post recaps that experience and shares the recipe Moqueca de Camarão that I put together after this hand-on cooking lesson.
I have a pretty exciting food journey for you today. Okay, at least it was exciting for me. 
Last weekend a friend of mine invited my husband and me over for lunch. Her husband was going to teach me how to make Moqueca! Moqueca de Camarão to be exact.
Moqueca de Camarão is a dish from Bahia in the north. It is basically a shrimp stew served over rice, often with farofa. My friends had just taken a vacation to Salvador in Bahia and were happy to show me how to make it.
This was very exciting for me for two reasons – 1) I had never had or made the dish before. 2) I found out that a fish shop here sells fresh (not frozen) shrimp. I’ve been living here 18 months and just now found that out!

We have not yet been to the north of the country, but we hear the north and south of Brazil are like two different worlds. This was my first time eating Moqueca and I loved it. It was such a nice change from the red meat overload we get here. I’m looking forward to making it myself very soon.
I have the recipe to share with you, but I have to warn you there is a secret ingredient that I have not found out how to make yet. We’ll call it a seasoning paste. I’m pretty sure it was a paste made from garlic, cilantro, parsley and cumin, but I don’t have exact measurements. I’ll let you know when I find out for sure. It was similar to sofrito, but I’m not sure it is the same thing here.

Let’s get started.
First, this dish is made with azeite de dendê. This, I have learned, is what we call palm oil. This is traditionally used in the dish, but any oil will do if you don’t have access to it.
Next, the dish is made in a clay pot. I plan to try to get my hands on one before we move back to the States and pray it doesn’t break in the shipping process.

Ingredients were already chopped and ready to go when I got there. I was pretty much a witness to the whole thing, but I got good pictures. Anyway, I am estimating amounts based on what I saw.

Moqueca de Camarão
2 medium onions, sliced
2 green peppers, sliced
4 cloves of garlic sliced
3-4 tomatoes, sliced
1 Tbsp seasoning paste
1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
¾ to 1 cup coconut milk

Add shrimp and cook until barely cooked through. Stir in coconut milk and simmer. Place lid on pot and continue to simmer for 7 to 10 minutes. Serve over rice.

In addition to the rice he also made farofa. Farofa is a toasted mandioca flour most often served with meats and rice and beans. Mandioca is also known as manioc, cassava and yuca. Mandioca is also used to make tapioca – just to throw in some more info for you there.


We had an awesome tapioca dessert too, but I’m going to save that for another post. Enjoy your Moqueca!

My Agave Research and More Sugar Confusion
January 29, 2009Madhava Agave Nectar
The Truth about Agave Syrup from Living and Raw Foods
White sugar vs raw sugar from Green living tips
White Sugar from a processor of Brazilian sugarcane
Lemonade Award
January 28, 2009I have a feeling lemonade is the last thing on everyone’s mind in the US. I doubt ice, snow and power outages are making you think of summers on the back porch with a tall glass of the good stuff. I hope things are well where you are and you are staying safe and warm.
Daydream with me just a bit that those summer days are just around the corner because I have good news to share. Tangled Noodle honored me with the Lemonade Award! How cute is that?
If you haven’t checked out Tangled Noodle, put it on your list right away. She has a unique perspective on food and life and her posts creatively intertwine her family and ethnic background. You will learn a lot. Her post about The Faces Behind the Food really hit home with me. I love food history and appreciate those who hang on to those cultural traditions.
So now I get to hand out a little sweetness of my own. I’d like to give the award to one of my regular reads Eating Well Anywhere.
This was one of the first food blogs started reading. Laura is full of helpful kitchen tips, answers your most creative food questions and shares wonderful recipes made with fresh ingredients. How about some Chili with Wheat Berries? I bet she has one somewhere for amazing lemonade.

Trying Some New Bars
January 27, 2009
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 cup whole wheat flour
¼ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
½ cup honey
½ cup vegetable oil (I used soy)
1 tsp vanilla
½ cup prunes, chopped
½ cup soy nuts
1/3 cup unsweetened, flaked coconut


A Country without a Food
January 26, 2009As a relatively new nation drawn from many different immigrant populations,
each with its own food, Americans have never had a single, strong, stable
culinary tradition to guide us.
Links to a Healthy Weekend
January 24, 2009
Happy Weekend! I’m not sure about everyone else, but this week went by so fast for me. I didn’t get to do all the blog reading I wanted to, but I did find some interesting things this week.
I hope you enjoy them as much as I did. Have a great weekend and I’ll see you on Monday!
Healthy Discoveries had an interesting post on Nia (Neuromuscular Integrative Action). I had a coworker back in the States who taught this, but unfortunately I was never able to try a workshop. It looks sounds so interesting hopefully someday I’ll get the opportunity.
Zesty Cook had an awesome recipe for easy beer bread. I love beer bread! I think I’ll make mine with Guinness.
Will the recession make you fat? My husband sent me this article from MSN this week about how having less money to spend on meals may cause people to choose less expensive, unhealthy foods. Certainly something to think about.
Back in Skinny Jeans had a post about eating out less and hosting dinner parties to save money. First of all, I love hosting dinner parties. I don’t save much money that way, but I guess if you rotated hosting with friends you could.
I do want to say that one of the best ways to save money is stop eating out. This is the main way my husband and I save our money to travel. In Brazil, it is much less expensive so we tend to do it more often, but when we lived in the US we probably ate out about twice a month.
I would always come across people giving me the “must be nice” attitude when we would head out for a trip. Meanwhile they were spending buku bucks on lunches out every day. Eating from home can really save the dollars!
Goats: The Green Way to Kill a Weed
January 22, 2009I’ve got a bit of fun info for you today that is somewhat related to both food and the environment. For the last few months I’ve been trying to figure out a way to incorporate goats into one of my posts.

Although I didn’t talk about it much at the time, when I was home visiting my family over the summer 4 of my parent’s goats were pregnant. I got to experience the birth of 6 baby goats including 2 sets of twins! I’m smiling now just thinking about how much fun it was.
I saw them over Christmas all puffed out to keep warm in the cold temperatures and this is what brought the topic of goats to mind again.

I was flipping through a magazine this past weekend and I finally found my goat topic – kudzu. Kudzu is a vine/plant that was imported to the US from Japan in the mid-1800s and was first used to prevent soil erosion. Soon it took off and got completely out of control, mostly in the southern parts of the US – Georgia, North Carolina, etc. Now it is considered a very annoying weed. Some states have even mandated that people remove it from their property.
This is where the goats come in. As you know, and I assure it is true, a goat will eat anything. So instead of herbicides which don’t work anyway, land owners are using goats to clear the kudzu from their property. Apparently the goats love it and nutritionally it is pretty good for them, according to what I’ve read.
When I came across the story it struck me as such a positive example of an environmentally safe way to eliminate a weed. No chemicals or dangerous materials, just a cute goat munching away. And of course, it gave me an excuse to share my photos.




Stuffed Zucchini
January 21, 20091 small onion, grated
¼ c parsley, chopped
1 egg
3 tbsp ketchup
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
1/3 c grated parmesan
¼ c dried bread crumbs
1 lb ground turkey
3 to 4 zucchini, halved and hallowed out
1 ½ c marinara sauce (I use my homemade version)
Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee
January 20, 2009
As you know I recently returned from a trip to Jamaica. There are many things I love about visiting Jamaica, but one that tops the list is Blue Mountain Coffee. When we go I have to bring back some of this amazing stuff. To me, it is truly the best in the world. I’ve had a lot of different coffees including 100% Kona and none can compare to real Blue Mountain Coffee.


I love coffee of all kinds and it is one of those things that I believe can benefit our health. I’m not saying you should drink it if you simply don’t like it (tea is great too), but those of us who enjoy it shouldn’t be worried.
It may reduce the risk for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.
It may have a protective effect against some cancers.


Back to the Blue Mountain stuff. A few years ago I had the chance to go on a bike tour of the Blue Mountains in Jamaica and check out this coffee for myself. I’ve posted a few pictures below.
And I just couldn’t leave this post without giving you a recipe. I made these late last year for a friend here in Brazil. I didn’t have Blue Mountain coffee at the time so any finely ground variety will work well. Careful! They pack a huge coffee punch. I was amazed at how good they are and plan to make them again soon. Enjoy!!
15 tablespoons (2 sticks minus 1 tablespoon) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tablespoons finely ground Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee beans
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray 13x9x2-inch metal pan with nonstick spray. Combine sugar, butter, cocoa, ground coffee, and salt in large bowl. Place bowl over saucepan of simmering water and whisk until butter melts and ingredients are blended (texture will be grainy). Remove bowl from over water; cool mixture to lukewarm if necessary. Whisk in eggs and vanilla. Add flour over and fold in.









