Pao de Queijo - Brazilian Cheesy Rolls

Did you miss me since I didn't get my post up yesterday? Life is busy. Baby girl has been super needy this past week. She must have been going through a growth spurt or something because she'd only sleep about 4-5 hours a night between feedings. 4 or 5 hours certainly isn't bad for a 5 month old, but she can sleep 7-8 hour stretches.  Luckily, last night she slept from around 8:30pm to 6:45am, so I think the growth spurt is over and we're getting back to normal again. Whew!  I've also got a couple of big things going on. I started the C25K training plan a couple months back. I'm almost done and I have my first 5K in about 3 years coming up in a few weeks.  I also decided to try my hand a direct sales and became a independent distributor for Premier Designs, and even though I haven't started doing home shows yet it is keeping me busy. So, we'll keep this post simple.

I'm sharing this recipe I found over at Our Best Bites for Brazilian Cheese Rolls.  I really have no ties to Brazil other than knowing people who have been there. My husband went to Brazil for a few weeks once. I have a cousin who served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint in Brazil and a sister-in-law who also served a mission in Brazil.  My only real experience with Brazilian food is The Rodizio Grill. My hubby and I have also started cooking feijoada. I'm sure it's not traditional, but it is a good way to use up leftover spiral ham. Anyway, these little cheese rolls make the perfect little side dish to some feijoada. 

Pao de Queijo

• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1 cup tapioca flour (sometimes labeled tapioca starch) no substitutions- You should be able to find it in the Bob's Red Mill Section of your grocery store.
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/4 C grated cheddar cheese* (preferably medium or sharp)
• 1/4 C grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place egg, milk, oil, tapioca flour, and salt in blender and blend until smooth. Add cheeses and pulse 2 times. Immediately pour batter into a mini muffin tin (if your muffin tin isn’t non-stick, spray lightly with non-stick spray first), filling each well about 3/4 full, or just slightly less. If desired (and I recommend), sprinkle a bit of Parmesan cheese on top and/or a tiny sprinkle of kosher salt.

Bake for 15-20 minutes until puffed and golden. Remove from oven and cool for a few minutes before removing rolls from pan. Serve warm.  These  don’t re-heat well  at all so eat them all while they are nice and fresh.

Yield: anywhere from 16-24 rolls, depending on how full you fill your muffin pan. I fill the wells about half full and get the full 24.

Strawberry Shortcake Ebelskivers

We've actually been getting a lot of use out of the ebelskiver pan we received for Christmas.  They may be a little bit more work to make than regular pancakes but the work is definitely worth it. They are so light and fluffy. This recipe doesn't actually stuff the ebelskivers. It would be a good recipe to try if you have never made ebelskivers before, since they are a little easier to flip with out any stuffing.

Strawberry Shortcake Ebelskivers

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs separated
• 1 cup whole milk
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
• Strawberries
• Sugar
• Whipped Cream

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. In a small bowl, lightly whisk the egg yolks, then whisk in the milk, melted butter and vanilla extract. Add the yolk mixture to the flour mixture and, using a wooden spoon,stir until well blended. The batter will be lumpy.
In a clean bowl, using and electric mixer on high speed, beat the egg whites until stiff, but not dry, peaks form. Using a rubber spatula, fold about one-third of the egg whites into the batter to lighten it, then fold in the rest just until no white streaks remain. Use the batter right away

Brush the wells of the Ebelskiver pan with melted butter and place over medium heat. When butter starts to bubble, add about 2 tablespoons batter into each well. Cook until the bottoms of the pancakes are lightly browned and crisp 3-5 minutes. Use 2 wooden skewers or chopsticks to turn all the pancakes and cook until lightly browned on the second side, about 3 minutes longer.Transfer the finished pancakes to an oven safe dish and keep warm in an oven preheated to 200F. Sprinkle the warm pancakes with powdered sugar. 

Chop strawberries and mix with a little bit of sugar. Top ebelskivers with strawberries and whipped cream.Yield: about 21 pancakes.

Coconut Key Lime Pie with Toasted Coconut Crust

It's a good thing Sheryl at Lady Behind the Curtain sends out emails reminding us about the dessert challenge about a week before we are supposed to post our desserts, because I almost forgot.  This month the challenge was to use coconut and lime.  My mind automatically went to Key Lime Pie.  I fully expect to see at least one other key lime pie linked up in this dessert challenge link party. To be honest I know it's not exactly a novel idea, but I have a great love of key lime pie that started with high school marching band. You see, our band always worked the beverage stands at the Taste of Colorado for our big fundraiser.  Near our beverage stand was a stand for a Cajun restaurant. They had the most amazing key lime pie.   Anyway, since I nearly forgot about the challenge I needed to find a recipe to use ingredients I had on had. Luckily, I happened to have sweetened coconut hiding in my cupboard. Also very lucky, key lime pie uses some very basic ingredients. However, key lime pie doesn't generally used coconut, so I thought I could find a recipe that incorporated coconut milk.  As luck would have it Martha Stewart had a recipe for a coconut key lime pie that popped up very near the top of my Google search results. This recipe uses coconut milk. Perfect! During my Google search I came across the idea of using toasted coconut in the graham cracker crust.

Coconut Key Lime Pie with Toasted Coconut Crust

adapted from Martha Stewart

• 3/4 cup sweetened coconut flakes, divided
• 2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 butter, melted
• 1 13.5 oz can coconut milk
• 1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
• 7 egg yolks
• 1/3 key lime juice

Spread coconut on a cookie sheet and bake at 325F for 5-6 minutes, or until golden brown.  

To make crust: mix together 1/2 cup toasted coconut, graham cracker crumbs, brown sugar and melted butter. Take 1/3 cup of graham cracker and mix remaining 1/4 cup toasted coconut and set to the side to use as a topping on the finished pie. Press the remaining graham cracker mixture up the sides and the bottom of a pie plate.

To make pie filling: Whisk together coconut milk, sweetened condensed milk, egg yolks and lime juice until smooth. Pour filling over pie crust. Bake at 325F for 45-55 minutes until pie is set, but slightly wobbly in the center.  Cool on wire rack for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, then refrigerate for at least 3 hours.   If desired top with whipped cream and reserved graham cracker and toasted coconut mixture.

Notes: I didn't have 7 eggs I only had 5 eggs so I used 2 whole eggs and 3 egg yolks. I also didn't have enough graham crackers to make 2 cups of crumbs so I add 1/2 cup Honey Nut Cheerios crumbs.

Peanut Butter Banana Oat Cookies

A while back I posted a recipe for Healthy Oatmeal Banana Cookies.  I keep seeing the idea all over pinterest and fitness forums.  However there is always a difference. Nobody puts apple sauce in there cookies. I decided I would try that since I usually have bananas but don't normally have apple sauce on hand. I have to say that I'm happy with the results and think I like the texture better without the apple sauce. I've also decided this is the best way to use up my bananas when the are about to go bad. This little recipe is perfect. One banana yields about 6 - 7 cookies, so they are super guilt free in my opinion anyway. The have healthy ingredients and if I eat all of them it's only 6 cookies, not 2 dozen.  However the recipe is super easy to double or triple, depending on how many bananas you need to 

Peanut Butter Banana Oat Cookies

• 1 banana
• 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
• 3/4 cup oats
• 2 tablespoons peanut butter
• 2 tablespoons mini chocolate chips (or any other  mix ins you desire)

Mash together banana and lemon juice. Add oats and peanut butter to bananas and mix well. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop spoonfuls of dough on to a cookie sheet. Flatten each spoonful into a cookie shape. (These cookies don't spread so they will bake into whatever shape you leave them) Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until edges are golden brown.

Stash-Buster Challenge - Cabbage Patch Doll Hat

I didn't get a lot of crochet finished this month. I happy to say That I've made quite a bit of progress on baby girls blanket. After using up another 12 ounces I'm almost done with the base of the blanket, then all I'll have left will be to make a few more appliques and sew them on, but it's still not finished. I also had another sale for a turtle prop that I had to make, but I had to but more yarn for that one so that wasn't a stash-busting project.

So the only stash-busting project I finished was a cabbage patch doll hat for baby girl's 4 month pictures. I can't take credit for the idea. I saw it on pinterest, but I can't link pack to the original, because when I clicked on the image pinterest came up with a message that said something along the lines the link had been deleted, because users reported the image directing them to a shady website. iused 39g (1.3 ounces) of yarn to make this hat.

What's next for May? Well, my main focus is that blanket. I really need to finish it.  I also have plans to make another hat for baby girl's 5 months and maybe some mits for her to because she likes to scratch her self and those little store bought ones are just a little too small for her hands now.

 Lanas De Ana 

Linda's Crafty Corner