A Brazilian Christmas dessert

With Christmas approaching, it can be difficult not to think of friends and family. One Santa Monica College student from Brazil, Lua Pepper, has two young children for whom she cooks traditional Brazilian desserts for Christmas. Pepper came to the U.S. to study in 2005 after she got accepted to the English as a Second Language English program at University of California, Los Angeles. There through UCLA Extension, she studied film and graduated from the general media program. Driven by her passion or film, Pepper attended SMC to attain an associate degree in film, hoping to then transfer to UCLA for a bachelor's in Linguistics.

Even though Pepper is studying film and linguistics, she has already begun working with film as an assistant director back home in Brazil where she occasionally goes back to work on a feature film.

As holidays are a special occasion, Pepper shares her personal recipe of a Brazilian dessert, yucca flower with banana and cranberries. To enjoy this delicious food, follow the recipe and the directions bellow. Enjoy!

Yucca Flower with Bananas and Cranberries:

1 cup of butter

1 onion

3 bananas in small pieces

1/2 cup or dried cranberry

1/4 of pound of yucca flour

Cooking Directions:

Place the onion and butter into a pan and cook until golden. Then add bananas and further cook until golden. When the bananas and onions are ready, put in the cranberries and let them cook for a minute. Finally, add yucca flower; cook for two minutes, and serve!