Chicken and Coconut Milk Risotto

Sauteed Vegetables with Olive Oil and Sea Salt

A better choice

Yesterday I showed my little assistant's favorite pasta, but here's mine and Hungry Dad's preference - Whole wheat penne with vegetables and ground beef, sprinkled with mozzarella.
Little assistant is not too excited about this dinner, but he knows he must eat it. We're just working on him eating it faster - whenever he doesn't sit in front of his favorite pasta, he can take up to 2 hours to have his dinner.
On that note, I find it funny that I grew up with my Dad always telling me "Eat slow. Eating slow is good for you. There's no rush, take your time." And now I tell my son "Please hurry and eat faster! Hurry up and eat! Chew and swallow, c'mon, faster!"

My assistant's favorite food right now

I have always tried to introduce my son to many different flavors and foods. He has eaten, aside from portuguese food and all-american food, japanese food, indian, chinese, korean, mexican and many other foods that we want to make sure at least he tries. But he's a simple guy and would be happy eating just bread and drinking milk.
For the past year he has been into phases and for months all he wanted to eat was "white rice with meat". And for more that I tried to vary the types of meat or how I cooked the rice, it pretty much had to fit within his description or it was a constant fight for him to eat at all (have I ever mentioned he's a picky eater?).
The current phase we're on is the "pasta that I like" category. That means a pasta made with a white sauce. However I make the sauce it doesn't matter, with cheese or not is indifferent, as long as it's white and creamy. And whatever goes with the pasta can be or not or his approval. His very favorite, though, is scrambled egg and ham with his white pasta.

ThanksGiving dinner preparations

Pumpkin jam cookies


Fresh cranberries


Cooking the cranberries to make cranberry sauce


Cranberry sauce with Port wine


Letting the bread dry out to use in stuffing


Turkey Stuffing made with bread, sausage and bacon


Making bread


My assistant working the bread dough


Plain bread, chouriço bread and olive bread


Bread, cheese, olives... the meal could end right here that we'd be happy


herbs for the turkey


Turkey broth to make the gravy.


Stuffed turkey with herb butter.
It came out perfect. The meat was very moist, cooked perfectly until it reached 165ºF and then I let it rest for half hour before slicing it. While it rested, I made the gravy, which is not pictured, unfortunately.


Glazed carrots


Simple green beans

Not pictured there was also creamy mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with maple syrup, and mushrooms with garlic. The traditional pies and ice cream for dessert couldn't be missing from this traditional american dinner.

Pumpkin Jam

Every year around this time, I like to make pumpkin jam. It's something that my mom used to make and I feel it's a little bit of my childhood. I love the flavor of this jam and my little assistant does too, which makes me very happy. We eat it with bread or crackers with cheese, as seen below.
I only used about half of the pumpkin to make the jam and have frozen the rest for soups.

A Fall Sunday dinner

Butternut squash soup and open-fire-roasted chestnuts that we made on our firepit.

The kid doesn't like hot soup, so couple ice cubes and a piece of bread make the soup more appealing to him.


Served with cayenne pepper for an extra kick and sesame seeds for some texture.

Asian inspired

Shiitake mushrooms are probably one of the most nutritious mushroom. It contains high amounts of vitamin D, and since the part of the world where we live is not as sunny as my native Portugal, I feel I should cook with them more often. Shiitakes are used in vietnamese, chinese, japanese, and korean cuisines and I wish I knew how to cook them better, but nonetheless, here's an improvised dish made with clear noodles and ginger and sesame sauce.

Salads of color

Homemade bread

Making bread is so easy. Or lets rephrase that - once I found an easy way to make bread that I have been making my own. It's called no-knead bread and that's because it doesn't need any kneading. We let time do the work. So instead of working on the dough until it's smooth and elastic, we let it sit in a bowl long enough until it rises on its own, about 12 to 18 hours. It's a brilliant method and makes it so accessible to people that don't have the patience to be kneading bread on a saturday afternoon.
The No-Knead bread recipe is not a new method. The technic of letting bread rise on its own over time without needing to be knead, has been used for centuries. But this recipe seems to have been introduced to the US, or at least made popular, after The New York Times published the recipe in 2006. It was since then that I tried baking my own bread and haven't stopped since.
The final result is a rustic loaf, crisp on the outside and soft on the inside.

Strawberry Champagne Cocktail

This year me and Hungry Dad celebrated our 10th anniversary with this beautiful and delicious cocktail.
It's so good that I could have it every weekend.
Here's the recipe that I used.