Pastéis de Nata [Portuguese Custard Tarts]

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This is of those recipes that I pull from my memory bank.  During a business trip to Brasil a gazillion years ago, I came across these little morsels.  During my stay there and after many glorious trips to local restaurants my host discover my great love affair with pastries and he insisted in stopping in a pastry shop for me to sample some of the local goodies.

When I saw these in the counter, and asked what they were made of, and once the baker told me in broken Spanish, it took me less than a minute to have one in my hand for me to take a bite.  And once I did, I installing fell in love with this little egg tart.

These sweet mini pastries have travel a long way from it’s original home.

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Madeira Cake

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Do you have those moments where a craving strikes you out of the blue.  And you need to have it now or the end of the world will happen.

Ok, well, *cough, cough* NOT the END of the world.  But, it does come close.

It happened to me on Saturday.  I was sitting pretty, reading this book (which by the way, if you have not read it yet – you best get cracking, because its AWESOME) when suddenly I wanted needed something sweet.

But, I did not want ice cream, or a piece of Baci, or a spoonful of nutella.

My usual go-to “kill the craving” options.

At first I thought I was sick.

But then I closed my eyes to visualize what I really wanted and an image appeared out of nowhere.

I wanted cake.

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Mediterranean Chicken [on the fly]

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That is what I’m calling this last minute, “lets-see-what I have in the refrigerator to cook the chicken with”.

As I mentioned before, I’m supper gutsy when it comes to cooking savory recipes.  I tend to go a bit off the beaten path and cook with my heart and with no set of rules. 

Sort of like how my mother cooks - By the seat of our pants.

I cannot help myself from deviating as soon as I start any given recipe that I’m trying out.  I blame the fact that I read tons of recipes – I have over 100 cookbooks, 5 different subscriptions to major food magazines and over 50 feeds to food blogs that I read daily in my reader.  When I want to make a recipe with one single ingredient, I tap all of these motivation sources by pulling bits and pieces of every single thing that I read, saw or even tasted.

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