Global Chefs Visit Brazil

Pão de Queijo - Gluten-Free Brazilian Cheesy Bread

Today was a very busy day for our Global Chefs campers!  We traveled to Brazil in every way we could  - without leaving Ohio!  We made and ate delicious Brazilian foods, went on a scavenger hunt for plants and animals native to the Amazon rainforest, listened to fun Brazilian music and made some colorful Brazilian crafts!  

We started our journey as we did yesterday when we visited Kenya, by finding today's country on our world map and coloring it in. We went over some basic facts about Brazil and got our passports stamped.  We also colored in the flag of Brazil and a picture of a toucan and an orchid.


We visited the rainforest biome in the Conservatory and went on a scavenger hunt to find flora and fauna native to Brazil.  We checked out the amazing chocolate tree and smelled its flowers (they do not smell like chocolate!) and visited Mic and Max, the Conservatory's blue and gold macaws.  We sang Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Baa Baa Black Sheep to Mic!  We explored the South Pacific Island habitat, which is currently full of thousands of butterflies - many of them from Brazil!

Back in our camp classroom we made colorful carnival masks and paper plate butterflies (I was inspired by the Tropical Blue Morpho Butterfly activity from Kids World Citizen!).  While we worked on our crafts and made snacks, we listened to Brazilian music on Pandora - some campers danced a little too!  

For our snacks today we made several delicious Brazilian foods!  First up was a Brazilian Avocado Smoothie from from Alive.com.  Many of the campers have had avocado before, but were wary of drinking it in a smoothie.  The avocado flavor was very strong, we could also taste the lemon juice and honey.  My co-worker and fellow counselor, Nicole, and I thought the smoothie was ok, but very thick.  None of the campers liked the smoothie, though they did all try it!  Fifteen campers gave this recipe a 'thumbs down.'

We had a mini feast for our afternoon snack of Brazilian Black Bean Soup from The New Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen, Brazilian Pão de Queijo (cheesy bread) from Kids World Citizen and Sweet Brigadeiros (chocolate Brazilian party candy) from Kids World Citizen.  The campers chopped all of the vegetables for the soup and rolled the bread dough and brigaderios.  The camp favorite today was the brigaderios - fifteen campers gave it a 'thumbs up!'  The soup and cheesy bread were also very popular, both had twelve 'thumbs up.'  Nicole and I thought everything was delicious - especially the cheesy bread (which was made from tapioca flour and is naturally gluten-free!).  I don't shy away from making snacks with wheat in them in my cooking camps (touching wheat does not make me ill), so it was nice to be able to sample everything we made in camp today!  

We had a lot of fun visiting Brazil - tomorrow we sail to French Polynesia!

I am linking this post about our adventure learning about Brazil with Around the World in 12 Dishes and with the Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop #6!


For more international craft and recipes ideas, check out my Pinterest board Global Chefs + Crafts!