Orange choc chip muffins

I haven’t cooked or baked much these days – husband and I are trying to lose some weight so our dinners are pretty much salad + grilled beef for him and salad for me, sometimes an omelet, too. Nothing fancy.
There was a holiday here last week and we went to the beach to hang with my family. I cooked a bit there but didn’t take any photos. It was a lot of fun because I had the most special helpers in the kitchen: my sister, my stepbrother’s 8 year-old son – who is an adorable child and like my nephew – and an 11 year-old cousin. They kept arguing to see who would measure the ingredients, beat the batter… :)
We made pizza, hot dogs and also 2 recipes from this book – the kids went crazy with the photos and took forever to decide what they wanted me to prepare. I ended up making a delicious lime pie – Jessica’s request - and also a brownie with a chocolate icing from another recipe.

I don’t want to bore my lovely readers with the lack of recipes, so I’m posting these muffins, which I made when Jessica last visited me.
They’re good and very tender, but next time I’ll add more orange zest.

Orange choc chip muffins
adapted from here

210g (1 ½ cup) all purpose flour
100g (½ cup) sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
113g (½ cup) unsalted butter
120ml (½ cup) fresh orange juice
¾ cup mini semisweet chocolate chips
2 eggs
grated zest of 1 orange

Preheat the oven to 190ºC/375ºF and grease 12 muffin cups.
Sift flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Add sugar and chocolate chips and blend well.
Melt butter. Remove from heat and stir in orange juice, eggs and orange rind. Beat.
Stir liquid into dry mixture and blend just until moistened.
Spoon into muffin cups and bake for 15-20 minutes or until done.

Makes 12 – Jessica and I got 10

Giant stuffed steak

I was looking for something on my other blog archives when I saw a stuffed pork loin I made last year. Then I decided to make something similar, using beef instead.
There’s a dish here called “bife à rolê” that my husband likes a lot – steaks are filled with chopped carrots, bacon and green olives, secured with toothpicks and cooked in a simple broth (most people here use a pressure cooker for that). It’s similar to bracciola, except for the tomato sauce.
I created a giant “bife à rolê”, stuffed with farofa and served it with fresh homemade tomato sauce – click here and here if you’re interested in my other recipes with farofa.
Although I thought the farofa had disappeared at the end, João loved this dish.

Giant stuffed steak

450g rump/top sirloin, cut as a very large steak
1 ½ tablespoons olive oil
½ small onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons finely chopped bacon
2 tablespoons pitted and chopped green olives
1/3 cup breadcrumbs
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
salt
freshly ground black pepper
boiling water, enough to cover the beef – you may use beef stock if you like, but be careful with the amount of salt
your favorite tomato sauce

Make the farofa: heat olive oil in a small saucepan, over medium heat. Add the bacon and cook until golden. Add the onion and cook until golden as well. Add the breadcrumbs, olives and parsley, season with salt and pepper, mix well and remove from heat. Set aside to cool. Place the steak open on a chopping board and season with salt and pepper. Spread the farofa on the center and roll the steak, closing all the sides so the stuffing won’t fall out. Secure with cooking string:

In a large saucepan, heat butter over high heat until it’s melted. Add the stuffed steak and cook until all the sides are evenly and nicely browned.
Add the boiling water (or stock, if using), season with a bit of salt, close the lid and cook until the beef is tender – I used a pressure cooker (in a hurry!).
Remove from the pan, cut the string and remove it.
Heat the tomato sauce and spread it over the steak.
Slice it when serving.

Serves 2 very well, with rice, potatoes or a nice salad.

Walnut camafeus

For this Monthly Mingle, I wanted to make something Brazilian – brigadeiro crossed my mind. But I decided to make something a little bit fancier and prettier.



Camafeus are bite-sized sweets served in parties here, especially weddings - it is a Portuguese candy that has become part of our cooking traditions.
I tried to find more info about the origin of camafeus but didn’t – I read many, many years ago somewhere that its name comes from cameo, but I’m not sure.

I used a recipe from a Brazilian website.

Happy Birthday, Meeta! And happy blog anniversary!

Walnut camafeus

250g ground walnuts
2 cans (395g each) sweetened condensed milk
½ tablespoon cocoa powder
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, room temperature
3 eggs
3 egg yolks

Decoration:
walnuts cut in 4 pieces – for this recipe I used 180g walnuts
fondant*
edible golden glitter
clear spirit – I used cachaça

Place all the ground walnuts, condensed milk, cocoa powder, butter, eggs and egg yolks in a large saucepan. Mix well. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly – when the bottom of the pan starts to show and the mixture gets thick, remove from heat. Pour into a large greased plate and set aside to cool. Don’t use it unless it’s completely cool.
Grease your hands with a little butter and grab small portions of the mixture. Form into small “sausages”, about 3.5cm long and 2cm thick. Set aside.
Place the fondant in a glass bowl and set over gently simmering water and until it’s melted – keep it warm otherwise it will harden again. Very carefully, drop each “sausage” into the fondant and remove quickly, covering it completely. Place over waxed paper. Place a ¼ walnut over each candy – you need to be quick and do this while the fondant is still soft.
Place the camafeus in paper cases.
I painted each ¼ walnut before using them: place some edible golden glitter in a very small bowl and add a few drops of clear spirit to dissolve the powder. Mix until a thin paste forms. Using a small paintbrush, paint each ¼ walnut and place on waxed paper. Set aside to dry for at least 2 hours.

*too complicated to make at home. I used store-bought – it’s not expensive and will last for a long time

Makes 120 camafeus

Nutella filled cookies

My husband is not into sweets but he tells everybody about the cakes, cookies and other stuff I make. It’s funny because I don’t even know more than half of those people. :)

When I started going to his dentist, the receptionists who work there kept asking me about my recipes, sweets, etc.
“Joao says they’re wonderful” – said one of the girls. “But he won’t even try them”, I replied. That was even funnier – how is he supposed to know if the sweets are good?

To clear that out, I baked these cookies and took them to the doctor’s office – maybe now the girls will believe my husband again. :)

Nutella filled cookies
adapted from Modern Classics Book 2

65g (2 oz) cold butter, chopped
32g (¼ cup) icing sugar
68g (½ cup) plain flour
2 ½ teaspoons cornflour (cornstarch)
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 egg yolk
Nutella

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF.
Process all the ingredients in a food processor until a soft dough forms – my processor is tiny so I made this by hand.
Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Roll teaspoonfuls of the mixture into balls, place on baking trays lined with nonstick baking paper and flatten slightly.*
Bake for 5-7 minutes or until the bases are lightly cooked – the first batch was too soft so I baked the remaining cookies for 10 minutes.
Cool on trays.
Sandwich the cookies with chocolate ganache – I used Nutella. They’re really delicate, so be careful when spreading the filling.

* the cookies on the book were really flat – maybe I should have used less dough in each ball.

Makes 22 filled cookies – I got 18.

Baked salmon and witlof (endive)

Fish – definitely, one of my favorite types of food. I grew up eating fish at least once a week – my mom used to say that fish was good for the brain; one should eat it to get smarter. :D

I had a very good piece of salmon in my freezer and I decided to use it for dinner. I had Karin’s recipe in mind, but didn’t find goat’s cheese in the supermarket I stopped by. So I opted for something else.

I liked the fish but didn’t like the baked witlof so much. :(

Anyway, this recipe made me glad because I’ve had this book forever but I’d never cooked anything from it.
There are no amounts in this recipe – you’ll have to adapt it to the number of people you want to serve.

Baked salmon and witlof (endive)
from The Cook's Companion

Toss sliced witlof with melted butter and scatter around a slice of raw salmon on a sheet of buttered foil or baking paper. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper.
Fold up the parcel and steam for 5 minutes or bake at 200ºC for 8 minutes – I baked it for 10 minutes but it was not good for my taste. I opened the parcel and baked for another 8 minutes.
Serve with a squeeze of lemon, a garnish of parsley and boiled potatoes – I had mine with chopped carrots, cooked in olive oil and onions, sprinkled with chopped parsley (not pictured).