And a trip to Greece.
I didn’t blog last week. I was a tad depressed. This authoritarian takeover of the United States is just so sad. A lot of people feel hopeless and helpless. I know I do.
Sometimes, I feel like the worst of it is that this regime is filled with such loathsome, stupid, moronic imbeciles. I mean, if they were smart, well-mannered people, I could understand why so many people voted for them. But they’re not. They’re ridiculous.
They look ridiculous. They talk ridiculous. They act ridiculous. It’s stunning how ridiculous these people are.
I’m sorry to say that they mirror a large portion of American society: idiots. American Idiots.
So, I didn’t blog. But we did cook. First, we turned toward Brazil, a country that arrested and jailed their shitler. Something the fuckweasels over here couldn’t be bothered to do. Hey Brazil! You go girl!
In your honor, we made galinhada. It’s a chicken and rice dish. The one at the Sea World Seven Seas Food Festival looked like just a chicken thigh on top of yellow rice.
We chose to make classic galinhada. And it was fabulous!
Probably the best thing we’ve had so far. We used this recipe. We went with the optional turmeric, peas, and corn, but used regular long-grain rice instead of parboiled. We used 3 c of broth instead of 2. If I make it again, which I probably will, I’d go ahead and use 3 1/2 c of broth and cook it a bit longer to make sure the rice is tender.
This past weekend, we made baklava, something I always like to sample at food festivals. We didn’t make our own phyllo dough. That would have been hilarious, but we just weren’t up to it. And it was easy to find at Publix, in the frozen desserts section.
I thought it was going to be really complicated, but it’s not. You simply lay a sheet of phyllo down in a buttered pan, brush melted butter on it, and repeat for a total of about 10 sheets. Then you spread a mixture of nuts and cinnamon, and then five sheets with butter, more nuts, etc. And you end with about ten sheets of phyllo.
The recipe we used was not a very good one, however. For one thing, it called for a 16 oz bag of walnuts, but 4 cups of walnuts chopped finely. One bag only gave us 2 cups. So, instead of running to the store, we used a bag of pecans we had to make up the other 2 cups. I don’t think that was the problem with the result, which was very dry.
Our package of phyllo wasn’t forty sheets, like the recipe suggests, but 36. So we had top and bottom layers of 8 sheets each, instead of 10. No big deal.
The amount of nuts in ours seemed too much. And it was, like I said, dry.
It even looks dry, doesn’t it? If I ever made it again, I’d get the right amount of walnuts, for one thing and chop them a bit finer. And I’d make much more of the honey syrup. I’d pour that on until I had proper sticky baklava!
It tasted good, despite its dryness, and it was a lot of fun to make…probably because there were two of us. But we both think it would be better to just buy some baklava rather than make it again. Still…maybe…
That was it for the last couple of weeks. I hope everything is going okay with you and yours. Let’s try to get through this as best we can. I mean, seriously, it’s like the country’s being run by the Three Stooges and their friends. It has to end badly for them, right? It just has to!