Days Until 2012: via

I’m a little bit excited to tell you all about week #5. I grew up in a very multicultural area, and I eat a whole lot of Portuguese food. However, I’ve never cooked any Portuguese dishes in my life. I’m grateful for my mom, my best friend’s mom, Mr. O and all the excellent restaurants in the city for the Portuguese food they make me. Now I can finally report that I am no longer a Portuguese food cooking virgin! Last week I cooked Shrimp Mozambique which is tied with Portuguese Steak as my favorite Portuguese meal. I usually order the Surf & Turf when I go out so that I can get the best of both meals.

So here is what things usually look like when I start cooking, especially if I’m following a recipe online. I did follow one recipe pretty much straightforward, but it just wasn’t spicy enough for my little Portuguese tongue, so I kept adding more hot sauce and wet crushed red pepper (but this was at the total end).
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First thing in the pan was the onions and butter. I’m kind of in love with onions lately (well, I’ve always been in love with them). I just love cooking with them. I don’t use a lot of butter in my cooking, but this dish calls for mucho butter.

Look at the fun mix of spices and stuff! Next time I will add more than two Goya packets. I’ll probably do 3 1/2!

Mr. O was kind enough to photograph me in the act of mixing the shrimp in with the sauce. He’s so great 🙂

Yum! At this point, I just want to put my face in and eat like a maniac. Good thing I have enough sense to understand it will burn the shit out of my face. This is the point where I added more hot sauce and more wet crushed pepper to taste. I think by adding more Goya packets, I wont have to do this next time, but we will see.

Tada! Final Product! I’m really proud of myself; it was so good. Traditionally, Shrimp Mozambique is served over fries and rice, but we decided to plate it over some spaghetti. We also made some garlic bread, which was super awesome to dip in the sauce. I think we made three pieces of garlic bread (two for Mr. O and one for me), but I ate his second piece. Yum Yum Yum.