Bowl Licker

I am told this South American recipe has many names – Pandebono in Colombia, Cuñapes in Bolivia and Pao de Queijo en Brazil. No matter what you call this bread, it is plain good! Pandebono is very easy to make and is perfect as an appetizer or as an accompaniment to lunch or dinner dish. The bread is anything but cheese forward. It is very subtle and it is the cheese that seems to give the bread a dough-ish consistency.

Pandebono

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

3 TBS butter, softened

1/3 cup milk (may need to add 1 TBS more if mixture appears dry)

1 egg

1/2 lb queso fresco

2 cups Yuca Harina (flour)

Mix all ingredients in a food processor, until well blended. Mixture should resemble the consistency of a creamy polenta or whipped cream cheese. Using a TBS, place bread dough on an ungreased baking sheet, spacing each bread 1/2 inch apart. Cook at 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes. Bread should bounce back (and not dent), when lightly touched in center. Before removing from oven, place bread under broiler for 2-3 minutes until it is lightly browned.

Yields 12 breads

Rosa introduces us to another new found favorite recipe!

I was recently asked to write a guest post for my good Twitter Gal Pal, Jennifer Perillo. While we’ve never actually verbally spoken, we have had many a conversation and recipe exchange and she is someone I eagerly look forward to meeting in September for BlogHer Food in San Francisco. I’ve excerpted a portion of the piece I wrote, slightly more personal than my usual posts…hope you enjoy it!

For the Love of Bread….
I’m not here to merely talk about my carb addiction to bread (yes, glorious bread) but more about digging down to the very crust of it all. Because it is for me, at the very root of the bread-addiction, to be blamed almost entirely upon my family and my heritage. Growing up with a strong, if not occasionally overpowering, Italian heritage is clearly seen in the foods I crave.

While my father’s side cooked predominately with a Northern Italian flare it was my mother’s side that cooked Sicilian (or Southern Italian) food. It is truly difficult to say that one region’s cooking is better than the other, as there is such a variety of food combinations once you move beyond the stereotypes of the ever delectable pasta and pizza. So eating what my mother prepared from her built in index of home cooking enabled me to eat a lot of Sicilian foods. She also cooked a number of other worldly wonderful dishes but this is about my recollection of those fantastic Sicilian dishes as recently recaptured on our Food-cation this past week.

The basic ingredients to 80% of the recipes are: breadcrumbs, garlic, oregano, basil and olive oil. Spending the week with my mom at her vacation home is always a food extravaganza – so worrying about squeezing into my bathing suit during the afternoon would be a wasted empty effort. No matter how huge I may feel, I am told that I always have room for dinner AND desert…oh, and wine since it technically = water, or so it did in the New Testament, so it shall at our table too.

(Yes, I am a tease…to read the rest, you will have to take a visit to In Jennie’s Kitchen)

One side-bar to note: we were only six people eating the 64 meatballs but what we didn’t eat we could easily turn into meatball sandwiches for our beach-side fun. Doesn’t everyone want to eat meatball sandwiches while sitting in their swim suit at a beach filled with skinny folks who are practically drooling at the sight of your lunch? Sure they are skinny but you are eating a slice of heaven.