Battle of the Bulges

So tonight there’s a little lesson about my heritage. I am part Portuguese. You can thank this woman for all that entails.

Meet.. my mom. The Portuguese are Latin, romantic, passionate and hospitable. Please interpret that last word to mean that everything and I mean everything revolves around food. Now my mom, bless her heart, weighs about 98 lbs soaking wet but eats enough to sustain a baby elephant. Where the food goes, only the Lord will reveal it to me? And yes, THIS is the burning question I will ask when I sit on God’s lap and uncover the hidden things. But I digress.

The Portuguese love to cook, eat, cook & eat and most importantly FEED YOU. I can remember when I was a little girl the first thing my vovo (Grandma) would do is sit me down at the kitchen table and start bringing food over to me. This leads me to one of my favorite foods that I grew up with.. Portuguese chourico. Basically, chourico (as seen on Emeril.. BAM!) is pork, fat, wine, paprika and salt. Then it’s smoked. For more info, click here. Once that whole process is done with, you can eat it unheated in a sandwich or like many of us like to do, we sauté it with a bit of olive oil, throw in some onions and call it a day. I have a ‘thing’ when I visit Massachusetts which if you are all caught up on your reading know that I was there last week. I stock up on Chourico because it’s very hard to find outside of New England. I found chicken chourico in Maryland once but that was almost blasphemous.

Tonight, my featured dinner:

It turns out to be approximately 4 pts per serving. Then throw in a salad lightly dressed with olive oil and red wine vinegar and you have a 6 point meal… YUM!