There are days when we wake up without any inspiration to cook, right? Of course, every once in a while, the desire for lasagna, a pie or a feijoada is strong enough to send us to the kitchen and stay there for a while, but there are days when that's not possible.
And thinking about these days – or every day, since with routines becoming more hectic and busy, there is little time left for cooking – we have put together a list of easy, practical and delicious recipes. It has from delicious dishes for lunch or dinner to late afternoon snacks, with vegetarian and vegan options, for everyone's taste. :P
Vegan Moqueca
One of the most traditional dishes of Brazilian cuisine, the moqueca – usually made with fish – received an adaptation here: the fish goes out, the banana comes in. The ingredients are these here:
Olive oil (to coat the pan)
1 onion cut into slices
1 red pepper cut into rounds
1 yellow bell pepper cut into rings
3 bananas cut into slices
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup of water
1/2 girl's finger pepper
1 cup coconut milk
½ cup of palm oil
cilantro to taste
Black pepper to taste
Chives to taste
The process is very easy: sauté the onion in olive oil, add the peppers and then the sliced plantains. On top, you add the chives, salt, black pepper and a cup of water. To finish: chopped pepper, coconut milk and palm oil. Just let everything cook between 5 and 10 minutes and voila, your moqueca is ready! From Bahia directly to your plate. Delicious, right?!
microwave pizza
Sometimes I feel like eating pizza, but the wait or the price can discourage us a little. But who says you can't make your own pizza at home, using only the microwave, in less than 10 minutes? Then follow the thread.
For the dough, the ingredients are:
1 egg
½ tablespoon of sugar
½ tablespoon of salt
½ cup of milk
1 cup of wheat flour (it's worth sifting before putting it in the pot)
2 cup spoons of oil
½ spoon of baking powder
Now just beat everything until the dough is uniform. After that, grease the microwave dish itself – of course, after sanitizing it – and place the dough in it, spreading it over the entire surface. Just put it in the microwave for 5 minutes at maximum power and stuff it however you want.
After that, you cover the dough with tomato sauce and, on top, throw the filling of your liking. You can stuff it with different types of cheese, fried pepperoni (you can make it toasty if you put the slices in the air fryer), shredded chicken... There's stuffing for everyone. Done that, return the pizza to the microwave for another 2 minutes and your pizza is done. 🙂
healthy zucchini chips
Zucchini is one of those ingredients that fit into 1001 recipes. There's lasagna, soufflé, stew and even chips – and seriously, it's too good! Check out the recipe, which is super quick:
1 zucchini cut into thin slices
2 eggs
2 cups of breadcrumbs
¾ cup grated parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder [can be fried, cut very small too!]
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon chili pepper
The process is very simple: mix all the dry ingredients in one bowl and in another, you beat the eggs. Take the zucchini, dip it in the eggs, then roll it in the mixture of flour, cheese and spices (which can be replaced according to your taste!). And then just put it in a mold and send it to the preheated oven at 230 °C, for 15 or 20 minutes, turning the chips halfway through the time to get crispy on both sides. Of course you can do it in the air fryer too! 🙂 Like it? And the best thing about this recipe is that it can be made with several other vegetables, such as yams, eggplant, carrots and much more!
Ratatouille
The dish that made Disney's mouse one of the most famous characters in recent years (and yielded one of the coolest video games of our childhood) is very simple and healthy. Basically, you just cut all the ingredients into slices, put them in a mold and… voilà! Your Ratatouille is done! 🙂 These are the ingredients
1 eggplant cut into slices
1 zucchini cut into slices
1 yellow bell pepper cut into slices
1 red pepper cut into slices
4 tablespoons of olive oil
½ onion, thinly sliced
½ chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
5 chopped seedless tomatoes
2 tablespoons of basil
2 tablespoons thyme
1 bunch of rosemary
black pepper to taste
salt and spices to taste
At first, you will cut the zucchini and eggplant into slices and sprinkle some salt or ready-made seasoning on top of them. Leave these slices resting for a while – they will form water at the bottom of the container and you should throw that liquid away and then dry the slices with a paper towel. Next, you put a drizzle of olive oil in a frying pan and place the slices to brown – just so they lose a little more liquid and become thicker/dryer.
In that same skillet, after browning the slices, add a little more oil and sauté the onion, garlic and then add the tomato, rosemary, black pepper, basil and thyme. Just leave it there for a while, until it dissolves.
Once this is done, just cover a refractory with this tomato paste, and alternately place the slices of vegetables – eggplant, zucchini, peppers and onions. To close, drizzle with a little olive oil and spices to your liking, cover with aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes in a preheated oven at 200ºC.
banana cake in mug
For the filling:
½ mashed banana
1 tablespoon chocolate chips (you can use small pieces of chocolate anyway)
Liquids:
1 egg
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
2 tablespoons of honey
3 tablespoons of milk
¼ teaspoon vanilla essence
Sponge:
7 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons of cocoa powder [chocolate will do, but the flavor is not the same!]
½ teaspoon chemical yeast
⅛ teaspoon of salt [the famous “1 pinch of salt”]
In a container, just knead the banana and add the chocolate drops. In another, add all the liquids and mix well, just as in a third container you must mix all the ingredients for the dough. Once this is done, throw the mixed liquids together with the mixture of the dough, stir well and separate two gates. Put ¼ of the mixture in each, then cover with half the filling in each scene, and lastly the rest of the dough, divided between the two mugs as well. You can even put a slice of banana on top to make a charm. :P
And with all that done, just put it in the microwave for 1 minute and 10 seconds, or up to 1m25s, at maximum power. And then? Just enjoy it – and there are two servings, that is, you can share it with someone. 🙂
microwave lasagna
And when you open Instagram and see that memory of the family lunch with the famous lasagna of your uncle in the middle of being a cook… I miss you (and a lot of mouth watering), right? Well here we have a super easy lasagna recipe for the microwave. The ingredients are:
120g ricotta
50g of spinach
2 tablespoons of chopped parsley
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese, divided
½ teaspoon of salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
120 ml of tomato sauce
4 ready-to-bake lasagna sheets, broken in half
120g of mozzarella
This one has no error. In a pot, you will mix the ricotta, spinach, parsley and 1 tablespoon of Parmesan cheese. Then, assemble the lasagna in a pot that can be heated in the microwave (preferably glass): a layer of tomato sauce, 2 sheets of lasagna, the ricotta mixture and the grated mozzarella. Then you can repeat the process: another layer of sauce, 2 sheets of pasta, the ricotta mixture, more tomato sauce and, to finish, more mozzarella and the rest of the parmesan. That done, just put the pot in the microwave for 7 minutes, at full power, and enjoy this delicious dish. 🙂
Condensed milk pudding with lactose-free paçoca
The pudding is a century-old dessert, but it gets a new variation every day – there’s pudding with fruit, with ice cream, with tapioca… This here is our traditional condensed milk pudding, in a super practical recipe, without lactose and with a touch of paçoca.
2 cartons of lactose-free condensed milk
300ml of lactose-free semi-skimmed milk
2 eggs + 1 yolk
8 pieces of paçoca
1,5 cup of sugar
First, melt the sugar in a pan over low heat to make that sensational syrup/caramel for the pudding. Separate the shape – the round one, with a hole in the middle – and cover the entire inside with this mixture.
In the blender, mix condensed milk, milk, eggs and 6 pieces of paçoca. Beat everything and, after having greased the mold with the caramel, pour the mixture inside. Now all you have to do is place the mold in a bain-marie in the oven, which must have been preheated, at 180ºC, for 1h30. After that, turn it off, let it cool and put it in the fridge for 3 hours, and then misinform. Finally: crumble the other 2 paçocas over the pudding, and enjoy this wonderful recipe.
Cheese bread with 3 ingredients
Few dishes are more like Brazil than cheese bread. From Rio Grande do Sul to Amazonas, the recipe from Minas Gerais is part of the daily life of every Brazilian and, amazingly, it is not so difficult to make at home. Look what you need:
500g of your favorite type of cheese, grated [ideally semi-hard cheese or fresh parmesan, others can make the pasta melt in the oven]
1 can of cream
Sprinkle [sour, preferably]
After grating the cheese (if you don't buy it grated), mix it with the cream in a bowl until it reaches a uniform consistency. After that, keep putting the manioc flour in the bowl until the mixture reaches a point where it doesn't stick to the spoon or hand – this way you'll be able to make the bread balls. Once this is done, just create the balls and place them in an oiled mold, with a space between each one of them, and place them in a preheated oven at 200°C for 30 minutes. That done, bon appetit! 🙂
Ham and cheese pie
You know that food that tastes like breakfast at grandma's house? Then this ham and cheese pie is one of those. Super practical, the pie can be a great breakfast or afternoon snack – or both.
300g of wheat flour
150 ml of water
juice of ½ Tahiti lemon
65 ml of oil
shawl
100g grated provolone cheese
4 slices of ham
100g of grated Parmesan cheese
2 boiled eggs cut into slices
100g cream cheese
First, the dough: Mix the flour, water, lemon juice, olive oil and salt in a bowl and mix until you have a homogeneous dough. Once that's done, separate the dough into 2 equal parts – you'll need to open both parts on a table so that they are a little bigger than the shape you're going to use. Then, cover the mold with the first part and place the provolone cheese, the slices of ham, the parmesan cheese, the eggs and the curd cheese cut into strips. Cover everything with the second part of the dough and place in the oven at 180ºC, already preheated, for 40 minutes.
Once ready, just enjoy and remember the food from home. It's not that difficult, is it?
So, do you have any recipes to indicate to Ulivers? Send it on our instagram, the @UlivingBrazil, and also tell us if you made any of the recipes and if everything went well (or not)!
