In the past I was younger, but now ... Vatapa

That's a ridiculous thought! In the past I was younger. Although I know that for sure, I am not quite so sure whether I'm already feeling it. Today at work already half way through, I thought it could be over now, because my energy was gone and yesterday evening I was totally shattered. Somehow, it seems, I can't do the things anymore I was able to do five years ago. Somehow! Ah, that is really ridiculous! There ought to be a different reason for all that.
On the other hand, today, I am able to do things I wasn't able to do five years ago. Something like this ...

That's a Brazilian dish called Vatapa, a stew with fish, prawns, cashews and coconut milk. Fine, I had read something about it a month ago and we already had an entry with this dish for Bloggers Around the World quite at the beginning, but I didn't read anything about it lately.
So today, I just went for it without looking at any recipe, with just the key-thoughts in mind: you have to use fish, prawns, cashews and coconut milk.
Well, I let you know some more details now ...

Ingredients:
Splash of vegetable oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 medium sized red peppers, roughly chopped
1 small red chilli
4 small tomatoes, quartered
100 g salmon
100 g prawns
100 g cashew nuts, roasted and salted
165 ml coconut milk
150 ml water
3 spring onions, chopped up
A hand full of chopped fresh coriander
Salt and pepper

Method:
First heat up a sufficiently large pan with the vegetable oil and start with the chopped up onion in it until those pieces go soft. Try not to cry while chopping the onion, though.
Good, if you want to serve the dish with rice, it might take as long from this point on as it takes to prepare steamed rice, at least in the way I use to do it.
Back to the pan, we add the red peppers, chilli and tomatoes. Cook for a few minutes, so the vegetables start to soften up a bit, but we still want to have some crunch on those peppers in the end.
Time for the fish, prawns, cashews, coconut milk and water to join. Bring everything to the boil and let it all simmer for 10-15 minutes. If you want to reduce it more, increase the time, but then the rice will already be ready before you are finished (that shouldn't be any problem) or the peppers might go to soft. Choose for yourself, what you like.
Just before you are finished, check the taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper, if you have to.
Now add the spring onions and chopped coriander. It's time to serve, it's time to eat, it's time to enjoy. I did!

I would say now, this dish is for the World Cup Bloggers Around the World as Brazil is playing Germany today. For Germany I only have some beer in the fridge. No, I don't think the colours of the labels have any meaning as to the German flag, although on this photo it might look like it. 

I might try the left one of them later today. It's called Marc's Chocolate Bock. That sounds intriguing. I would never have thought about buying those beers would it not have been for a 20 % discount at the shop due to the World Cup. This 20 % was on any kind of beer. So people were really pushing out beer from the shop in truck loads.
Anyway, I will see whether that beer was worth its cost. After all one of my workmates recommended it to me. He knows a lot more about beer than I do, but then on the other hand, everyone has to find out for himself, what he likes or not.

Enough about beer! I am not going to do any advertisement for beer here right now. No one asked me to and I have no time for it now.

Well, I also want to add this post to the No Waste Food Challenge. I wouldn't want to miss that one this month. This month Anne from Anne's Kitchen is hosting on behalf of Elizabeth from Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary. After all I saved those red peppers from annihilation as they were far too advanced toward that direction already. Good, it was time for the prawns, too as they were freezing away in the freezer already.

As a conclusion ... I might not be 20 anymore, but since then I have learned a lot and I don't want to trade in this experience ...