Just trust me, these are really good.  A note though, use thicker pork chops for this.  I used what it turns out were really thin pork chops and they got overcooked almost immediately. Pork chops with prunes 8 pork medallions or 4 manly sized pork chops 16 prunes 1 onion, diced 1/2 a cup of… Continue reading Pork chops with Prunes (yes, really)

The name is kind of weird, but you can think of this as sort of a Brazilian answer to pico de gallo.   It’s really nice by itself on chips, or on top of feijoada.  I had a bunch left over after a dinner, so I also scrambled it with eggs and queso fresco, that was… Continue reading Brazilian Vinaigrette

I made these on a whim about a month ago because the recipe sounded different.  Most of the way through I realized that I was basically making croquettes.  Not a bad thing, just a weird thing to realize half way through. The real reason I’m posting the recipe, though, is because I thought the cream… Continue reading Tefteli (russian croquettes) in cream sauce

The biggest pain in the ass here is finding the damn rice.  Took me forever because it turns out this rice is “fancy” and not sold with a regular rice of the common people.  But it ends up tasting really good, so if you don’t mind being a class traitor, it’s totally worth it. The… Continue reading Mushroom Risotto

I tried making this because my family gave me a whole bunch of frozen tomatoes.  The only thing you can really do with frozen tomatoes is stew them down, at which point you can make spaghetti sauce – which I already had a ton of in the freezer – or I figured you can take… Continue reading Chocolate Barbecue sauce

The name is kind of an inside joke.  When we were kids we didn’t know what this was but we loved it, and we were constantly asking my mom to make “noodles with stuff in it.”  Incidentally, we also referred to vegetable fried rice (which we also loved) as “rice with stuff in it”.  I… Continue reading Noodles with stuff in it

Okay, so you’re going to have to bear with me here if you aren’t familiar with this dish.  It isn’t chili like you’re probably thinking.  No beans, it has cinnamon and chocolate in it, you eat it over spaghetti…it’s different.  It’s really good, but it’s kind of weird. Ingredients: 2 pounds ground beef 1 large… Continue reading Cincinnati Chili

So, these things are delicious.  They are really great on top of the cochinita pibil that I posted earlier.  I made them to go with it a while ago, and after the meat was all gone, one of my friends just ate all of the remaining pickled onions by themselves. It turns out the pickling… Continue reading Pickled onions

This is a Mexican style pulled pork, but not taco-and-burrito-tex-mex Mexican, more like Mayan Mexican, if that makes any sense.  It honestly isn’t like anything else I’ve ever eaten.  The annato seeds are the secret ingredient, if you can call it that.  Great dish. A note on the banana leaves:  totally optional, but the smell… Continue reading Cochinita Pibil (Puerco pibil)

I just finished this today and I made sure to measure out the ingredients so I could write this up.  This really is a pretty great curry. Also, a note on the portions:  I tend to make things in bulk so I can just freeze a lot of it.  So this makes a pretty good… Continue reading Thai Style Red Curry