Vinho quente (hot wine)

10 portions
20 min

1 littre of red wine
1 1/2 cups of sugar
10 cloves
zest of 1 orange
zest of 1 lime
1 cup of water
1 apple, diced in little cubes
cinnamon sticks (as many as you like)


Boil everything for 10 min. Serve it hot, preferable in ceramic mugs

Quentao II

Instead of cachaça, this one uses red wine:

10 portions
time of preparation: 20 min

3 littres of red wine (not dry)
300ml of water
10 cinnamon sticks
4 pieces of ginger
10 cloves
ground cinnamon (to sprinkle on top)

Make an infusion with all the ingredients (apart from the wine) and let it boil in low heat for 15 min.
Add the wine and serve it very hot, with cinnamon sprinkled on the cup.

Obs1: the smaller the piece of ginger (with greater surface) the stronger the flavour)

Obs2: Be careful not to boil it for too long after you add the wine or the alcohol will evaporate.

Quentao I

Quentão (pronounced Kan-ton) is the typical beverage of the june celebrations.
For this one, cachaça is absolutely necessary (but it's been getting easier to find, with the popularization of caipirinhas)

Time of preparation: 40min
10 portions

1/2kg of sugar
juice of 6 limes
1/2 cup of water
1/2 Littre of cachaca
10 cloves
3 cinnamon sticks
1 tspoon of ground ginger


Prepare a syrup with the sugar and water. Add all the other ingredients, let it boil and reduce the heat, cooking it for 20 min. Remove it from the heat, sieve and serve it hot (very).

Avocado smoothie

time of preparation: 5 min
2 smoothies

1 small avocado, with no skin and no seed, chopped
1/2 litre of milk
3 tbspoons of sugar

Put it all on a blender and mix it for 2 min. Serve it in tall glasses with ice, if you want.

Caipirinha

Today is friday, alcohol dose day for us, and we are making the most famous alcoholic drink in Brazil: caipirinha. You can click on the link (it will open a wikipedia page) to know the history of the drink.

First things first. We have a guest writing this entry. Although I'm brazilian, I'm ashamed to admit that I'm no good in preparing this. My husband (who is english) has mastered the caipirinha and is going to write the rest of the post.

Ok, if you want the true brazilian drink, you need cachaça or aguardente (they are the same thing) and you can find them in alcoholic beverage stores. If you can't get your hands into some, you can also use vodka, although the name changes for caipiroska, or you can use rum (Caipiríssima).



Now, here's.....Phil!

Caipirinha's are deliciously refreshing, quite deceptively so as they are more alcoholic than you think.....
The first time I had a caipirinha was in Sao Paulo after a 11 hour flight from lisbon (that i actualy went Stanstead - Porto to Lisbon to Sao Paulo over 2 days) It was my first time in Brazil, the day before i was about to meet my girlfriends parents and ask them for her hand....
Vanessa took me to a streetside bar on a hot and humid Sao Paulo street, and she told me i must try a caipirnha, i was game for anything, and oh my god it was good, and i was already in love with brazil.
I had to learn to make one, so i could be accepted by my in-laws when they visit... So here goes.

Ingreedients
You will need a small tumbler glass for each drink
Limes (one per drink)
Crushed Ice - lots
Sugar - LIght brown sugar is best, but nrmal white cane sugar works fine too
Cachaça

Preparation
Roll a lime on a chopping board, putting as much weight as you dare (without busrsting it) to free up the juice of the lime.
Chop off the top and tail of the lime, to reduce the amout of peel we end up with.
Cut the lime into 6ths. Place 3 pieces of the lime into the bottom of the glass (predominately peel side up), sprinkle a teaspoon of sugar ove the lime. Place the remaining 3 pieces of lime
in the glass as before and sprinkle another spoon of sugar ontop.
Next take a muddle (or rolling pin) and crush the lime and sugar in the glass using a slight twist, continuing untill the lime-juice and sugar solution comes above the level of the lime-skins.
next fill the glass up with crushed ice. and poor on as much cachaça as you can fit in the glass.
you can either serve this with a straw, so you can suck the sweet and sour solution off the bottom. or you can stir (gently as the glas will be very full) and just drink out the glass, or you can shake it in acocktail shaker and serve.

Feel free to add more sugar to taste, as every lime is different. you're looking for a balance between the sweet and sour.

Enjoy on a hot summers evening...

Black Cow (Vaca Preta)

Vaca preta is a beverage made of vanilla ice-cream and coke, drank mostly in summer time. People in Brazil usually go to Ice Cream Parlors on summer, sit on the side walk and order banana-splits or vaca preta and enjoy it.

It is sooo very easy to make!
Time of preparation: 2 minutes

2 balls of vanilla ice cream
2 cups of coke
1 tall glass cup
straw
1 spoon (best if it is a long one, for ice cream)

In a tall glass cup, put the ice cream and add the coke, filling it up to the border. Add the straw (to drink the soda mixed with coke) and the spoon, so people can mix it more and eat the left overs of the ice cream. In Ice Cream Parlors, in Brazil, this beverage is served with the small bottle of coke used to fill the glass on the side, so you can refill it.