Cooking When It's Cold and You Wish You Were Somewhere Else

More on the Portuguese-world: some food that I've been trying.

It's still cold today after our April snowstorm, so here are two recipes to warm the heart and the body. Both recipes are adapted from other sources:

A variation on pasteís de nata from Portugal.

Ingredients
1 cup milk
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 cinnamon stick
2 peels from a lemon, about an inch long each
1 cup white sugar
1 tsp good quality vanilla extract
6 egg yolks
500 grams frozen puff pastry, thawed
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C.) Lightly grease 12 muffin cups and line bottom and sides with puff pastry.
2. Combine milk, cornstarch, sugar, cinammon and lemon peel in a saucepan. Cook, stirring, until mixture thickens. Place egg yolks in a medium bowl. Slowly whisk 1/2 cup of hot milk mixture into egg yolks. Gradually add egg yolk mixture back to remaining milk mixture, whisking constantly. Add vanilla extract. Cook, stirring constantly, for 5 minutes, or until thickened. Cool, remove cinnamon and lemon pepel.
3. Fill pastry-lined muffin cups with mixture and bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until crust is golden brown and filling is lightly browned on top



Wonderful tapioca from Brazil
I had this in São Paulo: it's great, even though my family doesn't like tapioca..

1 cup small, instant tapioca

1 cup water to soak the tapioca (if the box says to use water)

3 cups red grape juice OR

2 cups red wine mixed with 1 cup water (or enough to make the liquid required for the instant tapioca

About 1/2 cup sugar, or to taste

Soak tapioca for about 1/2 hour, if the box says to. Add grape juice to tapioca (or the wine mixed with water and sugar to taste). Bring to boil over low heat stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Then let cook for about 1/2 hour (until tapioca is clear), stirring occasionally so it doesn't burn. Or follow direction on box. Refrigerate. To serve, spoon into a small bowl.