Steamed Rice

Rice is something we Filipinos cannot live without, even now that I am out of the Philippines. I think it is equivalent to potatoes and bread to the Americans and the Canadians. This reminds me of one funny experience I had with my son's friend.

We invited my son's friend, (a caucasian) camping three years ago. I wasn't quite sure if his mom was going to allow him to join us so I did not include him in my plans. This camping was an all-Filipino camping. Just a day before we left, my son got a call. He was joining us afterall. I rushed to the grocery store to buy bread and hotdogs particularly for him.

Well, in our cooler, I had tocino, longganisa, marinated tapa, daing na bangus and a few canned goods. Our friends brought tuyo, dried squid and daing.

Our breakfast on our first day was tuyo, longanisa, you know the usual Pinoy stuff. He was shocked we had rice for breakfast. That was not it. There's more. Because there were rows and rows of campsites, to get to the lake, my son and his friend would pass through our friends's sites and they would be invited for breakfast. Ah of course, camping to us is indulgence. It's where we could have our tuyo cooked without worrying that the smell would stick to the carpets.

As the day progressed, he noticed that everyone seemed to be eating all the time. In one of our friends' campsites, they got invited for breakfast. He secretly asked my son if it was dinnertime already. "Are you kidding? It's only 10 o'clock in the morning!" is what I heard my son say to him.

He was even offered a fried dried squid. He was a little mortified to eat even just a tiny piece but he tried anyway. "Tastes like chicken" was what he said. Of course, a friend suggested that he try it with rice.

Slowly, as the days went by, he was getting acculturized. No, he was polite enough not to ask for bread but I made sure that he knew that we brought bread for him if ever he was going to find a need to have bread.

I haven't seen this kid for a long time after our camping but latest I heard from my son is he preferred rice over bread and potatoes now.

Seafood Curry

On my way to Indonesia a couple of years ago, I had a lay over in Singapore. In one of the fastfoods in the airport, I had this. Seafood is big in Singapore or that's the impression that I got. I tried it at home and it worked. Here's how I did it:

Ingredients:

2 tbsp of cooking oil
1 medium onion quartered
200 gms of shrimps, shelled and deveined
200 gms of big squid, cut in bite sizes
200 gms of baby octopus
200 gms of abalone
1 medium carrot sliced in serving sizes
1/2 of green peppers, cut into bite sizes
1/2 of red peppers, cut into bite sizes
200 gms of baby corns
1 tbsp of curry powder
1/4 tsp of turmeric
2 tbsp of fish sauce (patis)
1 tsp of corn starch dissolved in 1/4 water

In a frying pan or wok, heat oil. Add onions and cook for a minute. Add the seafood and carrots and let cook for about 5 minutes. Add the baby corns and peppers. Season with fish sauce. Just before serving, add the corn starch. Stir to make sure that the corn starch does not stick at the bottom of the pan. Test if corn starch is cooked before serving.

Strawberry Smoothie

Just around the block where we live is a newly opened Bubble Tea store. When I first tried its stuff, I was totally hooked to it. You see, we live just "across the bridge". That's how we intimately call our place when we talk to our friends who live at the other end. Across the bridge from us is very Metropolitan, where real business happens. On our side is where all the people working in the metropolitan area go home to at the end of the day. We are centrally located in this city.

Back to the bubble tea store. Because we live right in the heart of the city, after dinner, we'd go out for a walk and more often than not, spend a few bucks at this bubble tea store. I once watched intently how they made their smoothies. Well, there was nothing complicated about it. A tablespoon of caramelized sugar, strawberry flavored syrup, a few strawberries, a few ice cubes and a couple of tablespoons of Coffeemate Creamer. Turn the blender on for about 2 minutes and voila..sttrraaawwberryyy smooothie!

Coffee Creamer? Oh, so that's why it was so tasty! That just put me off actually. I love fresh milk in mine. So what I did just before the onset of summer where strawberries were in abundance was bought tons of strawberries and froze them. I am guessing that they will be gone just before autumn. My son has become an expert on preparing this that just right after dinner, he'd be offering to serve you a glass of strawberry smoothie.

There is no set measurements when making a smoothie but here's a more or less workable guide:

To make 4 glasses you will need to put the following into the blender:

12 pcs or more of frozen strawberries
4 glasses of 1% milk
a few cubes of ice cubes

Turn your blender on until the strawberries and the ice cubes have turned into what else but a smoothie?

I do not add sugar to our smoothie.

Beef Kaldereta

All Filipino Foodies have this in their blogs. It's one of the more popular recipes you'd ever encounter in every Filipino gathering, believe it or not. Oh well, where I am anyways.

I should not be posting this but I still would like to add this to my collection of recipes for my children's sake. My daughter is not really into cooking and everytime I ask her to prepare some ingredients for me for a particular dish, you'd hear her whine about how she doesn't know what should be in this and that recipe. Thanks to our ever improving technologies. Well, now she doesn't have any alibis anymore. All I ask her to do is log in to the internet and get it from my blog. Brilliant, huh? She's more into baking, and yes and she can follow instructions to the dot.

My son is more the daring type who wants to believe that he can do it just by watching me. Well, it doesn't turn out to be that easy. I still see him go into my blog for instructions so here you go guys, have fun cooking this recipe.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp of olive oil
2 lbs of top sirloin cut into cubes
6 pcs of bay leaves
1/4 tsp of peppercorn
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 medium onions, quartered
1 500 gm can of stewed tomatoes
2 pcs of medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 pcs of medium carrots, cubed
1 tsp of sugar
about 200 gms of olives
100 gms of green peas
Red peppers (see my note below)
salt or soy sauce to taste


Heat oil in a saucepan. Add beef and saute until brown. Add the bay leaves, peppercorn, garlic and onions. Cook for about 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add water and stewed tomatoes. Cover pan and let boil. Lower the heat to a minimum and simmer for about an hour or two or until beef is tender.

Once beef is tender, add potatoes and carrots and simmer for about 10 minutes. Add sugar, olives and green paste. Add salt or say sauce to taste. I added about 3 tbsp of liver spread but this is optional. Usually the taste improves if left in the fridge overnight.

Note: When I served this, I realized I forgot to add something and my husband quickly added that I should have added red peppers. So there you go guys.

Lunar Rhubarb Cake

This is a long overdue promised recipe to Mrs. Tweety. Unfortunately, I lost my recipe when I moved offices or shifted to a new computer, I do not know which is which. Anyhow, it took me a long time to ask for a recipe from my boss' wife. As soon as I got it, I right away baked it and decided to post this right away for fear that I might lose the recipe one more time. I know Rhubarb Season is now over but hopefully Mrs. Tweety, you will still find some rhubarbs in your Mother-in-law's backyard.

Since I have been making this for a long time, my boss' wife just dictated the measurements over the phone.

I heard that the reason why this is called lunar rhubard cake is once it's baked, the top resembles the crater of the moon. I haven't been there so I cannot attest to that. I can only say that this recipe is a hit.

Here we go Mrs. Tweety:

You will need:

For the cake:

1/2 cup of butter
1 1/2 cup of white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp of Vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp soda
1/2 tsp of salt
1 cup buttermilk
2 cups of chopped rhubard (about 1 cm)

For the topping:

1/4 cup of butter
2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup of brown sugar

Cream butter, sugar and egg. Add Vanila. In a separate bowl, mix flour, soda and salt. Add to the creamed butter and sugar adding 1/3 of the butter milk at a time. Dredge rhubard in flour before folding into the mixture. Pour mixture in a 9 x 13 greased pan.

Cut butter in brown sugar and cinnamon powder until the mixture resembles coarse oatmeal. Spread evenly on top of cake mixture and bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

My niftiest toy

Yes, you read it right. This is my niftiest toy. I love cooking hamburgers on coal but only when I am outdoors and the weather is fine. There are days when it's raining and I simply want a homemade hamburger.

This one is smokeless and teflonated so I don't have to worry about cleaning so much afterwards. What's cool is this is dishwasher safe.

The downside? I can't cook sweetened barbecues. They burn right away.

I have had a few experiements with this griller. I also cooked longganisa and various sausages here.

I am a true Filipino

This season at blogkadahan, our topic is about being a Filipino. Guess what? It's my turn, so I'll see you there.

'just to let you know too, we played a game at blogkadahan. I started a story, Tito Rolly picked up my last line and added his own until we were able to come up with, i'll say a short novel. It was funny and fun at the same time. Each individual came up with his/her story that highlighted his/her personality.

The story is not over yet. If you were going to add to our story, how would you have done it? Maybe you can give me an ending to this story.

Manggang Hilaw

So how else is mango eaten? If it's not ripe, we Filipinos eat the mango with bagoong or salt. Mangoes are sour when they're not ripe yet.

There is this belief that the first indication that a woman is infanticipating is when she craves for "mangga'ng hilaw". For me it is all myth. I heard it before that the craving for sour things has something to do with the biological changes in your body when you are expecting or even when women are about to go through their monthly cycle. I will have to leave that to the people who have something to do with Science.

These mangoes were apparently green when they were shipped from Mexico. I knew I was in for luck when I saw them still green. Oh they might be expensive if I had to convert my money into Philippine peso but there was just no comparison between saving your money as opposed to having the most sought after fruit during this season.

(O hayan Manong Techguy..me manggang hilaw na ako, me bagoong pa).

Dessert Comes First

Check this out. Another foodie. Well actually, a food magazine writer. She thinks dessert comes first before the main course. How 'bout that? She specializes in dessert reviews from what I gather from her site. Unfortunately, I will only have to look at the pictures. I can't have a cake bigger than my palm. Blame it on slow metabolism and age. I will just have to find out where to go to for the best desserts while in the Philippines.

Avocadoes

These avocadoes were smaller than the medium navel oranges that we bought. I was telling my children that in the Philippines, these avocadoes would have been 3 times this size. What was amazing was how expensive these avocadoes are where I am. A piece was almost equivalent to Php 45. In the Philippines, I could have had as many as I wanted for free, right in my grandmother's backyard.

Back in the Philippines, avocadoes are eaten as a dessert. Right, where you just add sugar and evaporated milk in the middle where the seed came from and then scoop the flesh with a spoon, making sure that by the time your done eating, the milk and the sugar are gone as well. I have yet to think of a time when we used it in salads. As I moved outside of the Philippines, I discovered that you can do other things with avocadoes other than having it for dessert.

Others make guacamole for chips, some use them for sushi and still others mix them in salads. My father mushes them though in a glass complete with condensed milk.

Avocado is high in cholesterol but it is the good cholesterol we are supposed to have. Phew!

Nachos

Sometimes it is more expensive to prepare this at home than to buy it from your favorite restaurant. However, we were so desperate to have something to munch on while watching TV one night and I just threw in whatever I found in my fridge.

I love preparing Greek Salad and so it wasn't difficult to find tomatoes and olives in my fridge. I also was in luck to find a teeny weeny bit of sour creme from a lasagne I earlier cooked. I'm also a lover of Ceasar's Salad, thus the bacon bits. Melted cheese!!! Yes, that's what I missed. It was fun and I am sure my family did not mind.

Remember to put the chips in the oven toaster for about 10 minutes at 250 just to keep them crunchy. Finely chopped green onions and mild salsa add a lot of zing to your nachos. Chili Beans are also helpful. If ever you cook chili con carne and have some left-overs no matter how small the amount is, I recommend that you put them in a Ziploc and toss them in the freezer. They might come in handy on desperate nights when convenience stores are already closed and you're just craving for nachos.

Seafood Kare-kare

This is one of my memorable dishes when I was dating my boyfriend, now my husband over 17 years ago. This is easier to cook than you think.

You see when you're cooking the beef Kare-kare, the one that really takes your time is making your meat tender. Here, all you have to do is steam your shells and any other seafood you would like to add like squid and shrimps and then add them to your kare-kare base.


Ingredients:

10 pieces of mussels
10 pieces of clams
10 pieces of prawns
1/4 cup of slices of squid (the one you normally use for calamari)
1/4 cup of abalone (optional)
or any other seafood you want to add

10 pieces of long beans cut into 1.5 inches long
1 medium eggplant
1/4 tin of canned banana blossoms
4 tbsp of peanut butter
1 pack of Mama Sita Kare-kare mix (yes, I cheated), diluted in about 1 cup of cold water

Steam the seafood for about 8 minutes or until shells slightly open. Set aside.

In a saucepan, saute the eggplant and long beans for about 5 minutes. Add the banana blossoms. Add the diluted kare-kare mix and the peanut butter. Let boil for about 1 minute and then reduce the heat to avoid the mix from concentrating at the bottom of the pan and getting burnt eventually. Add another 1 cup of hot water. Sitr in the steamed seafood. Cover the saucepan and let it simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Serve hot.

And I made sure that Techguy will not ask me about the bagoong again. Don't forget to serve your kare-kare with bagoong like the one above. (Okey ba manong?)

Poutine

To some who are not familiar with this recipe, 'thought this might help

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And you thought that poutine can only be ordered at A & W or New York Fries? Think again. This poutine was homemade with whatever I can grab from the fridge. This was my son's bowl. It's a crime to our palate but there is such a word as "splurging" which we're entitled to once in a while.

I had a bag of fries in the freezer for quite a while and I thought I needed to get rid of it without throwing the bag into the garbage. Well, I also call myself lucky because I had quite a few bacon bits from a Ceasar Salad I prepared for our office lunch earlier; hmm....leftover gravy from a pot roast dinner and a bit of mozarella from a burger dinner, some green onions too? Phew, New York Fries call this "The Works"..I call it "Mommy's work

Words of caution: You can add anything you want. My picture is only a guide. Diced tomatoes can help. A little bit of olives as well. Lotsa cheezeee.. Just don't forget that too much carbo is not good for you. And don't come back to me saying that there is such a word as "splurging" because I told you there was so.

Black Eye Beans with Katuray

I was a little bold with this recipe. I cooked some black eye beans with a piece of smoked hock the night before but forgot to buy the vegetables appropriate for this kind of beans (if there is such a term). In the meantime, I asked daughter to prepare some katuray and tomatoes as a side dish. Daughter obliged but we were both running out of time. In half an hour, we were supposed to be at her school for a concert. It was too late to run to the grocery store to buy some vegetables.

I tried being creative. I sauteed the tomatoes and onions and then added the beans and the sliced hocks. I added the katuray and seasoned the dish with bagoong. Ah, I am glad I did it. It was such a perfect combination.

Salmon and Halibut Fish Trims

When I first moved to this other side of the world, the world's western hemisphere quite a few years ago, fish heads and tails were being discarded or sold for fishing or crabbing purposes. You can even get them for free from the fish market if you were friends with the vendor.

Time surely changed. As more Asian immigrants arrived, the vendors have learned that there was gold in these trims. I used to frequent a tourist spot downtown for these trims. However, last summer, I was stunned that they were sold out first thing in the morning on sunny weekends. It used to be that the trip was all worth it. We had to take a ferry from our parking across to the island.

Anyway, someone asked me what I was going to do with all these "nothing-but-fish bones" thingies when I was buying them. I told her that I could cook a lot of dishes like salmon adobo, fisherman's stew, and many more. They were not mere fish bones. They were salmon and halibut fish bones and lots of flesh on them. The fishbones on the picture was enough for a potful of fisherman's stew.

I gave her my blog address and told her to go see my recipes. I hope I have contributed something to humanity by doing this.

Tuyo't Tinapa atbp

Another meaning of "indulgence" to me. Tuyo (salted dried fish), tinapa (smoked fish), itlog na maalat (salted eggs) and kamatis. Tuyo is ideal when the weather is balmy or rainy and cold. These are best eaten without using any cutleries. Yes, you got me right. You eat them with bare hands. Make sure you wash your hands and have a chair where you can raise your leg while savouring these food...'nd lots of water to wash the saltiness of the tuyo.

Yellow Tail Merlot

Lookin' for a good wine? My husband is not a "tomador" but he can down a bottle of wine in a jiffy. Not quite true. He does drink occasionally. He is fuzzy when it comes to wines and hard drinks. Whever we go out for fine dining, he tries to observe what good restaurants serve. Usually, he thinks that good restaurants do their homework of finding good wines to compliment what they serve. It does makes sense, doesn't it?

Anyway, during my daughter's sixteenth birthday, he discovered this merlot called Yellow Tail imported from Australia. The cost of a glass was half of what you had to pay for when you buy a bottle of this from the liqour store. Think about how many glasses there would be in a glass.

My husband has become wiser. The other night, he bought steaks and a bottle of wine and we had fine dining at home. How's that for indulgence?

Philippine Mangoes

They do look like Philippine Mangoes. In fact they're tagged as Manila Mangoes. But when you look at their small stickers, they're imported from Mexico. It is my second year to find these in the market. Fairly young. Should I be happy or should I be sad?

First, I am happy. The mangoes taste the same as what we have in the Philippines, particularly the ones from Zambales. The texture, the grain, the juice, the sweetness. Just right for my tastebuds. That means I don't have to crave for these anymore. They're readily available.

I am however sad for my country. My caucasian friend once told me that the best mangoes he's ever tasted were the ones from the Philippines. I thought this is just one of the opportunities that my country has missed, exporting something like this one. Now Mexico has looked into this, and given its accessibility to the US and Canada, it will definitely bite my country. If only my country will pay attention and give a closer look at what it is missing in terms of exporting opportunities. If only the leaders of my country stop the bickerings and start thinking about what is good for everyone. But I am glad to find out that bickering does not only happen in the Philippines but where I am as well.

By the way, I am a little bit surprised that my officemate of Polish origin appreciated very much when I showed her how to eat mangoes.

Arroz Caldo

Arroz Caldo is a comfort food for me. When I am tired, when I am sick, when I just do not feel right, I think of arroz caldo. Of course, the day I came home one day was just one of those days. I right away thought of cooking arroz caldo.

Once I stepped in, I boiled 8 cups of water, threw the bones and other parts of chicken breasts I always saved from other recipes while I changed into my home clothes. I set the stock aside, separated the bones from the flesh and discarded the bones. I set the meat aside.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp of oil
2 chicken bouillon
1 tsp of minced garlic
1 tsp of finely chopped ginger
1 finely chopped onion
1 cup of uncooked glutinous rice (malagkit)
6 cups of water from the chicken stock
patis to season
5 tsp of finely chopped green onion
calamansi or lemon

In a saucepan, saute the garlic until lightly brown and set aside. On the same pan, saute the garlic and onion. Add the boullion. Add the stock set aside from boiling the meat . Add the rice and the meat. Cover pan and simmer for about 20 minutes making sure that you stir the pot once in a while. Season. Serve in a bowl. Sprinkle with the sauteed garlic and green onions.

Calamansi would help enhance the taste of your arroz caldo. Also, some add boiled quail eggs to theirs.

Indian Chicken Curry

Officemate says this is called chicken masala. I must warn you though that loving this recipe does not happen overnight. For some, it's an acquired taste. It wasn't a popular one at the office initially.

Ingredients:

5 tbsp of olive oil
1 kg chicken
1 tsp. turmeric powder
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 tsp. ginger powder
1 tsp. garlic powder
2 tsps chilli powder
2 tsps coriander powder
Salt to taste

1/4 curd or yoghourt

Cut chicken into pieces and marinate with curd and salt for about an hour. Set aside.

Heat oil in a sauce pan. Add onion and fry till until translucent. Add turmeric, ginger and garlic powder. Stir well. Add chilli and coriander and about 2 tbsps water. Stir well until the oil comes out clear.

In the same saucepan add the chicken. Cover and simmer on gentle heat till chicken is done adding about 1/4 cup in the process.

Serve with rice.

Satay Hot Pot

Another acquired taste for me. It took me sometime to love the taste of the base. I first tasted this in Indonesia the other year. Apparently, the base seems to be common in Malaysia and Singapore as well.

The base can be prepared ahead and can be frozen. I used a blender to mix the following ingredients:

2 cloves of garlic
2 inches of cinnamon sticks
5 cardamoms
thumbsized peeled ginger
1 mace
1/2 tsp of peppercorns
2 coarsely chopped medium onions
5 bay leaves

Blend the ingredients until you reach paste-like consistency. Use only an amount enough to give flavour to your soup. Wrap the left over in plastic wrap and freeze it for future use.

Now here's what you need to prepare the Hot Pot.

1 cup of fish head with flesh (white preferably)
1 cup of mussels
1/2 cup of prawns (optional)
about 1/4 cup of peeled radish
1/2 cup of snow peas, cleaned
1 cup of green leafy vegetables

In a saucepan, boil 3 cups of water. Add the soup base. Season with salt. Once the water boils, add all the ingredients at the same time putting the green ones last or on top. Watch that once the soup boils, you have to take the saucepan out of the burner and pour the soup in a serving bowl.

Serve.

Why do you blog?

Dinner scenario at home is now slowly changing. Two weeks ago, my son was away for his sailing lesson. Last weekend, he went for a YAG cruise required by his being a sea cadet. I find that weeknights are slowly changing as well. If a few months ago we'd eat together at dinnertime, not anymore. My daughter goes to her piano lessons on Thursdays so I'm forced to do side trips for cooked food so she doesn't have to rush. Oh and many more in between.

So when I used to cook for dinner, sometimes I now blog and blog hop. Blogging is so fun. So how did I start blogging?

Rewind, a year and a half ago. I was looking for a recipe on the net and guess what? I found this blog originally known as the Radical Chef. What was impressive was that the cook was not only a good cook but also a lawyer. It used to be that whatever she had the night before would be our dinner the next day. I've literally watched her blog grow to what it is now. I have not met her personally as other bloggers have, like Jet and Jay but someday when I get to meet her, I am sure we'll have so many stories to share.

Sassy as I fondly call her (lifted from her journal) has at some point put on her sideblog a list of other Filipino Bloggers. One click did the trick and led me to Doc Emer's blog. Wow, so even a doctor has a blog! I would read comments on his posts and Tito Rolly, a teacher would be one of them. Curiosity killed the cat? Nope, the cat has nine lives and so Doc's blog led me to the rest.

The fun did not end there. I was able to become part of a Food blog circle. I've been to different kitchens, stealing recipes or exchanging ideas with them. We do cyber parties now too.

Starting was not easy. Blogging does require a lot of your time. Since I concentrated on my food blog, I made sure that I made a photo of everything I cooked, which made my family wait forever before they could start to taste my recipe. It's all right because they learned the art of anticipation and cooperation. They would prepare my camera while I am cooking and grab the appropriate plate or bowl so that all I need to do was just scoop into the plate or bowl what I cooked, take a picture and eat away.

Blogging is very rewarding. I've even met people from different countries like Mrs Tweety, Fish Fish and Obachan. But the most rewarding part of it all is I became part of this and I got a beautiful template for free from her.

It is intimidating at first. You don't know what to expect. But you know what? As long as you do your blog to your heart's content, you'll be fine.

It's your turn. Why do you blog?

It's my turn at Blogkadahan

Okey, today's my turn at Blogkadahan. Remember about my invitation in March?

For some who do not know what Blogkadahan is, it's a group of eager, happy bloggers but not necessarily famous ones. It was initially a group of bloggers who in one way or another shared similar interests in various ways and points. Eventually, the group has grown and a brilliant idea of making it into a mega-blog was hatched. Because of its rapid growth, the group put a halt into accepting more members with the idea of managing the small group first and eventually grow again. When? I have no idea but logistics are being put into place now.

The group did not mean to leave others out. In fact it welcomes the idea of others to form their own groups. We are aware that a lot of our readers have expressed interest in joining us. Hey, there might be some light to your wish one day. Everyone is always welcome to say something there.

A reader e-mailed me to write in English so he can understand what I was saying. Mark, I will with our next topic but I am a little bit pickled on this....the next topic deserves to be written in our mother tongue.

Remember..come and visit me at Blogkadahan and when you do, don't forget to leave a trace.

Lobsters for May 25th

Okey..the list is getting longer..hmmm..mrst is coming..karen too..don't miss the boat guys!

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I hope you guys will come prepared to feast on these lobsters. The timing couldn't be better for Mama Stel's party. Kamayan is allowed, I hope. Time to take off those manicures, just for a day. Mama Stel, just be ready with a bowl of water and sliced lemons in it please to keep their fingers from the smell afterwards. And oh, the towels Mama to wipe their hands dry after.

We get these lobsters for a low price during the month of May. In fact, there is a store here which sells them at half the price on Mother's day. For three years now, we've made it a tradition to indulge on seafood on Mother's day. I saved some for Stel's party of course. The steamed ones on top can be enjoyed with a small bowl of vinegar, salt and minced garlic. That's all you need. Sawsaw galore.

Wait don't go home yet if you don't want the steamed ones. You get so disappointed easily. I really plan to come prepared. Here's for you guys who are "seafood-cooked-in-coconut-milk" lovers. Paborito ni Tito Rolly 'to. (Tito Rolly puwedeng kumanta ka na lang. I'll take care of the food)

I cooked these with lots of finely chopped ginger, minced garlic, 2 tbsps of alamang, finely chopped medium onion and a can of coconut milk. I made sure that I reduced the coconut milk from a can to almost 1/4 or lesser by letting it boil for quite a while. And then I added the rest of the ingredients and cooked them for about a minute or two. 'added the lobsters afterwards. I seasoned the dish with love (and a little salt if needed, otherwise the alamang will do it).

You see, our friends are so used to this package deal when inviting us. I mean, when one of us in the family is invited, everyone goes. I had to warn my family that they can't join me though because Stel's is quite a ways. With the fare alone, I'd go bankrupt.

Anyhow, to appease my son, I let him take pictures of the lobsters. I left 2 pieces for them, don't you guys worry.

I can't wait. My barkadas will be there: JMom, CeliaK, Mommy Beng, Ms Thess, Annabanana and Schatzli. Of course I am so excited to meet Cacofonix, Stef, Atinna and Cheh. Others are still welcome. We've got lots of time. Right Mama Mia?

On a side note, you guys are invited to my house warming next month. Mommy Beng made a complete overhaul of my kitchen. She's moved the pots and pans around. I plan to hold a barbecue party. Let's have a casual get together. Barbecue, Wine, Cheese. Hey, Tokwa't Baboy will be nice.

How do you like my new template?

Oh please spare me! It is not my fault that I get a lot of oohs and aahs today. Blame it on Mommy Beng, a computer-savvy, first class web-designer, focused and determined techie to create a template for me.

I did not ask for it. Well, it's a lie. I did envy her web templates and I kept rubbing in that I wanted one too every time I went to her site. She used to claim she was just an amateur, one learning how to get around the designing of pages. LIAR!! Look at what she did to my site? She made it look like it was made by a pro. Now I have to cook something to fit this classy template!

Just to warn you, this cost me a lot. A lot of sleepless nights of excitement, that's what. She hinted that she was going to make me one awhile back and I knew she really meant it.

Anyway, so much for bragging. Thanks for this classy template Mommy Beng. May I have more templates to come from you! Mommy Ting loves you.


PS: Did I tell you guys that I had this for free?

Garlic Flavoured Mashed Potatoes

This is my daughter's masterpiece. Thanks to numerous unannounced visits from friends and relatives. I have had short notices in the past and usually, they're just laying off for a few hours in our city before they move on to their next leg.

Usually, I do not want to pass up the chance to spend even just a few minutes with them especially if I haven't seen them for ages. Given such short notices and usually I work from 9-5 and my daughter usually is home before 4, she has more time to go to the grocery store to buy potatoes, fresh beans and a whole chicken.

Aha, there you go. Mashed potatoes go well with baked chicken and steamed vegetables like carrots, beans and cauliflower. What makes her mashed potatoes taste good? Club House Garlic Plus Seasoning and a couple tablespoons of margarine and her gravy sauce.

I have taught her once to make gravy. I must say she's been good in keeping notes because she still has that note to keep her company in the kitchen. She has modified my initial recipe and I admit that hers is better.

Dare to have an unannounced visit? Well you know what to expect.

Egg Fried Rice

My officemate one time asked me why I always take home the leftover rice everytime we have a "chinese dish" for lunch at work. See, my officemates throw them out. Not me. My parents have always taught me not to be wasteful. Mother always reminded me to think about the people starving in other parts of the world whenever I threw out food.

Now that I have a family of my own, oftentimes I seem to mimic what my mom used to tell me. Well, I've become more creative than her. She often fried the rice just with garlic. I fry mine with garlic, egg and green peas. Other days I add diced ham or whever I have leftover barbecue, I add it too.
The process is really easy.

Here's what you need.

2 tbsp of olive oil
2 cloves of finely chopped garlic
2-3 cups of leftover rice
1 egg
1/2 cup of green peas

In a pan, heat the oil. Saute the garlic until brown. Add the rice. Create a hole in the middle and add the egg, cooking it for about a minute. Mix the rice with the egg. Add the green peas and cook the rice for another 3 minutes stirring it occasionaly making sure that the rice does not stick and burn at the bottom of the pan.

Serve hot.

Mezethes

I know I shouldn't be blogging about this now. It's way too late. Well, you see my daughter turned 16 a month ago. I am a sucker for milestones. I celebrate every milestone. I invited 10 of her friends. I had to be careful because her group was a mixture of all races and they all observed different religious practices. One girl does not eat beef while another one does not eat pork.

Spring just sprung when we two were deciding. I had thought of bringing the girls bowling and drive them to a pizza house afterwards. My daughter thought it was gay, nevertheless she went with me to the bowling alley to take a look. She had to be careful. Not all her friends were invited and she didn't want to hurt the feelings of the rest she did not invite. She wanted it to be an intimate one. She's been invited to other "16th birthdays" lately. Afterall, all her friends are turning 16 one way or another this year. The bowling idea did not make it to the top of her list. Instead my other suggestion of having it at a Greek Restaurant was a hit.

Just before the Hors D' Oeuvres were served, the girls thought of singing her a "happy birthday" song. My husband, my son and myself were a little embarrased. What with the crowd watching us? Mind you, the restaurant was quite busy and almost all the tables were taken. We were set up right in the middle but it was quite a huge group. Guess what? The crowd clapped for her after they sang. And then the picture taking followed. Man, you could tell these girls came prepared. We were like in a photo shop.

Oh, and did I tell you the girls asked for seconds? the pita bread was just so good and the restaurant's tzatziki and hummous were the best I've ever had so far. The girls were so full even before the main course was served. As if they haven't caused me enough embarrassment, the girls wanted my daughter to open her gifts. And so she did. Oh, it was such a riot. Some of the girls said it was their first time to go to a Greek Restaurant.

They decided to go and take some sunset pictures after dinner. It didn't take them long. It was so windy that night and something funny happened..they are ran out of battery for their cameras.

Well, how about Starbucks? I took them to a chocolate house instead and we were lucky enough that a band was playing that night.
Now my children are growing and already are starting to drift away from us. Their activities seem to consume all the time I used to enjoy having dinner with them. I'd be very glad if we all sat down together for 3 dinners a week now.

Sweet and Sour Meatballs

Using my most precious Lee Kum Kee Seasonings in pouches, I was also able to cook a very inviting dish not only by how it looked on this picture this but at how it tasted too. The ingredients are really readily available and you won't need much to be succesful in cooking this. Red and Green peppers, onions, eggs, ground pork, ground pepper are all you needed, aside from the infamous Lee Kum Kee of course. Hmm, flour to bind the meatballs too.

Ingredients:

For the meatballs:

1 lb medium ground pork
1 egg
1 tbsp of finely chopped onion
2 tbsp of flour
Salt to taste

Mix everthing in a bowl. Form the mixture into meatballs. You can either deep fry the meatballs or just bake them. Once the meatballs ar cooked, set them aside. Deep frying the meat balls gives you a bit of crunchieness in them but if you are conscious about fat, baking would be just fine.

For the sauce

1/2 green pepper, sliced into bite sizes
1/2 red pepper, sliced into bite sizes
1/2 medium onion, sliced into bite sizes
2 pouches of Lee Kum Kee Sweet and Sour Sauce

In a pan, saute the onions for about a minute. Add the red and gree peppers. Do not overcook the peppers. A minute might be just fine. Pour the sauce and let boil. Turn off the burner and mix the meatballs in. Voila, it's not delivery..it's home-cooked..

Kare Kare

When I was in the Philippines, I used to prepare Kare-kare by cooking the whole ox tail, cut in about 2 inches lengths and a bit of the beef skin overnight using charcoal. I would fill our "kalan" with lots of coal and just leave it boiling in a big pot with lots of water in it. It wasn't actually as tedious as others thought. The thing is, you just have to know whether the meat is done or not. You know that the oxtail pieces are ready if you can poke them and the skin with a fork and they are as soft as a chiffon cake.

Now that I am not in the Philippines anymore, a pound of oxtail is so expensive and the skin is discarded by the shop before it even makes it to the shelves. The real atchuete could hardly be found. I noticed though that our importers from the Philippines are learning what to export these days although the ready mixes have become helpful to me now. I learned from my friends that they use tripe instead of the skin. I now use a combination of tripe, brisket and oxtail and lately i also started using the pressure cooker instead of the coal. I still do not get the taste I used to have when I was in the Philippines, but better than nothing, anyway.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb of tripe sliced in bite sizes
1/2 lb of brisket
1 lb of ox tail
2 medium eggplant, cut in about 1.5 inches lengths
1 can of canned banana blossoms
about 10 pcs of long beans cut in 1.5 inches lengths
Pechay (optional)
2 packs of Mama Sita Kare-kare Mix
1/2 cup of peanut butter

Cook the tripe, brisket and ox tail in a pressure cooker. Adding about 6 cups of water. Cook for about an hour. Once cooked, add the eggplant, banana blossoms and long beans. Add also the peanut butter. Mix kare-kare mix in 1/4 of water and add to the pot and stirring the pot occasionally to avoid the mix from burning at the bottom of the pot. Add the pechay last and make sure you don't overcook.

Serve with Guinisang Alamang (Shrimp Fry)

Filipino Style Spaghetti

We went downtown one day purposely to eat at a well-known Filipino Restaurant. My kids are not racists. In fact they grew up in an environment where "multiculture" seems to be the most common heard word if you are talking about anything social. However, they could not help themselves from paying too much attention to this couple sitting in a corner eating rice and spaghetti. Well, the man was caucasian and the lady was of course a Filipino. "Rice and spaghetti, whoa, too much carbo" said my daughter. Funny how they thought about it.

Of course, the man probably could not complain. He was in a different territory, if you know what I mean. At the back of my mind was a different question, "is their spaghetti here sweet?". Filipinos are so fond of putting sugar to anything they cook. My kids could not remember it but once I mentioned to them about "Greenwich", they finally remembered that indeed, Greenwich' spaghetti was sweet. I tried reminding them about the Philippines one day and cooked this for them.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb of ground pork
1/2 medium onion coarsely sliced
3 pcs of hotdogs, sliced
1 can of 225 ml tomato sauce
2 tbsp of white sugar
salt to taste
spaghetti noodles cooked according to packaging instruction
1/4 cup grated cheddar cheese

In a pan, brown ground pork. Add onions and cook until translucent. Add hotdogs and cook for about 2 minutes. Add the tomato sauce, sugar and salt. Cover pan and simmer for about 10 minutes on slow heat.

Serve noodles with sauce topped with cheese and garlic bread.

Sauteed Vegetables with Ground Pork

My children once complained that they were getting tired of my usual vegetables with chili sauce and sesame oil. Tired and weary, I asked them to cut any vegetables of their choice and I was going to make something out of them. My son brought out the frozen peas and my daughter cut some potatoes, carrots, cabbage and green beans.

With the help of about half a lb. of ground pork, I made this dish. I seasoned it with fish sauce and voila! Sauteed Vegetables!!

Spicy Eggplant

Okey, on this one, I used Lee Kum Kee Spicy Eggplant seasoning. Cooking it was also simple. I used the white onions here. First, cook the ground pork until brown. In the same pan where where you cooked the pork and add the onions. Cook until translucent. The add the sliced eggplants. Once the eggplant is cooked, add the seasoning. Voila, it's as good as what you order from Chinese restaurants.

Word of caution: Spicy. I love it.

Black Bean Garlic Chicken

Okey, just to give you an example of what I was talking about here, I fried(shh) a few pieces of chicken wings and set them aside.

In a pan, I sauteed about 1 tsp of finely chopped ginger few shallots just for a few seconds. I did not want the shallots to become transparent. Added the fried wings in and poured the seasoning. In this recipe, I used the Black Bean Garlic Chicken one. You have to be careful not to cook it for a long time because the sauce dries up easily.

Just before serving, add the onions in. It's that simple.

Actually, at the back of the sachet, the instruction on how to cook this was only 1 sentence, and I am not kidding.

Lee Kum Kee Seasonings

Okey. It took me a while to figure out I was doing something wrong in the way I was posting my images. I thought it was just blogger having problems. Somebody, please give me a knock on my head.

Anyway, these past few days, these Lee Kum Kee Seasonings have been my constant companion in the kitchen. I am loving the fact that I only need green onions, red onions or shallots (if available) and meat of your choice. I hope I won't get used to it. Talk about having too much MSG in your system. We'll, they're good once in a while and it saves you from buying endless bottles of say oyster sauce, black bean sauce, etc. when you only want to cook a small amount once in a while.

Beef Stew

Beef stew cooked without using any cheat seasonings. It never tasted so good.

Ingredients:

2 lbs. of stewing beef cut in bite sizes
1 cup of water
1 medium onions, quartered
5 medium potatoes, quartered
2 carrots, sliced in bite sizes
2 celery stalks, cut in 1 inch long
1/2 each of red and green pepper, cut in bite sizes
1 can of 225 ml tomato sauce
salt to taste

Dredge beef in flour and fry until brown. Throw into the slow cooker. Add water and cook for about 2 hours or until beef is tender.

In a separate pan, fry potatoes until cooked. Set aside. On the same pan, saute onions for about 1 minute. Add carrots and cook for another one minute. Add celery and potatoes. Add cooked beef and tomato sauce and simmer for 10 minutes. About 2 minutes before serving dish, add the green and red pepper and cook for about 1 minute. Add salt to taste.

Carrot Cake

You don't need to look very far for a moist carrot cake recipe. This is it. Brag, brag brag and brag some more. It's not mine though. An officemate who hails from UK shared her recipe to me. It truly is delicious. Try it.

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 ½ tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
½ cup oil
2 cups grated carrots
1 small can pineapple, drained

1. sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon into a bowl

2. add sugar, oil and eggs and mix

3. add carrot and pineapple and mix (mixture is quite moist)

4. place into 13 X 9” pan and bake at 350 degrees F for approximately 40 minutes or when it fails to leave fingerprint when touched in centre

Cream Cheese Icing

1 4 oz package cream cheese
½ cup butter
2 cups icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla

1. measure all ingredients into a bowl and beat until smooth

2. spread over top and enjoy

Embutido

A very traditional Filipino Dish. Sausages, Eggs, and vegetables rolled into a layer of ground pork.

Ingredients:

2 lbs of ground pork
2 eggs
ground pepper
soy sauce to taste
1/4 cup flour

4 boiled eggs, quartered
2 sausages, quarted (I used honey-dijon sausages)
1 medium carrots, peeled and quartered
2 pcs of dill weed pickles, quartered

Mix the first five ingredients in a big bowl. Flatten the mixture on a wide and smooth chopping board or on a clean counter top. Arrange the last four ingredients in the middle and roll the ground pork making sure that all the last four ingredients are not sticking out of the ground pork mixture.

For some, they wrap them in tin foils and bake them. I just drenched the rolls in flour of flour and fried them in a pan.

For a healthier recipe, I also add grated carrots, thinly sliced celery, pickle relish in the mixture.

Want to know more about me?

Visit me at Blogkadahan. Unfortunately, it's written in Tagalog. Visit me just the same. It's a group of Filipino bloggers with different personalities and varied interests.

Hey, you're welcome to say something there.

Katuray with Bagoong and Tomatoes

Pardon me but I do not know the English name of this vegetable (??). I just know that they come from well, not so tall trees. My parents-in-law grow this at their backyard and everytime I go home to the Philippines, I always have this for breakfast. Weird huh! Well, breakfast to them is between 10:00 and 12:00. Okay, okay..it's brunch.

Nothing extra-ordinary in preparing this. I only make sure that I clean the flowers(??) first before I cook them in the pan with nothing but maybe about 1 tbsp of water. Not even. I only cook it for a short period of time making sure they don't shrink a lot. Once they're cooked, I mix about 1/2 of sliced tomatoes, about 1 tsp of sliced red onion, 1/2 tsp of bagoong sauce and 1 tsp of calamansi.

They say that it's good in bringing down your blood pressure if you have a hypertension, but with the bagoong, I am actually wondering how. You can't skip adding bagoong. Believe me, it's not as good without it.

Seafood Pan Soup

Food for a recovering blogger. That's me. I just recently had a surgery. Now I can say it was nothing serious, really! It slowed me down a bit. Now I have a lot of catching up to do. Please be patient. This is really so simple.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp of olive oil
1/4 cup of shelled shrimp meat
1/4 cup of steamed salmon
1/2 medium onion, coarsely chopped
1 medium zucchini, coarsely chopped
1 medium carrot, coarsely chopped
1 can of Campbell's tomato soup
1 cup of Tomato Clam Juice
2 cups of water
salt to taste
1/2 tsp of dried basil

In a saucepan, heat oil. Add onions and cook until onion becomes translucent. Add carrots and cook for about a minute. Add zucchini and stir for about 30 seconds. Add shrimp meat. Add the can of tomato soup, Tomato clam Juice and water and let boil. Simmer for about 5 minutes. Season with salt and add dried basil. Add the salmon last and cook only for about 1 more minute. Stir the soup occassionaly to make sure that the soup does not stick at the bottom of the pan.

Serve hot in a bowl and top with steamed rice.

Vegetables with Imitated Crab Meat

Probably, you think that vegetables are not part of my diet because of all the dishes I prepare. The truth is, they always are part of my every meal. 'got to have vegetables all the time. Lately, I have been working for 12 hours a day in preparation for something that I need to undergo in a few days. I will be out of the office for quite a while and since it's our busiest season, 'gotta get myself make up for the days I would be missing. Paying in advance, huh? Well, I am taking a month or so off from work in December for our trip to the Philippines that's why.

Back to cooking, meat is always something I need to add to my stir fry but these days, they're getting scarce in my freezer. I have bought quite a few seafood because I want them in my chowder. Well, no time to make chowder but i've got lots of imitated crab meat and somehow I need to have vegetables so this is what I made out of it. Sauteed vegetables with imitated crab meat.

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries for Valentine's Day

Yes, this is what I got for Valentine's Day. My boss' wife was quite health conscious and thought that we can enjoy Valentine's Day without indulging in pure chocolates. If you look closely, the fruits were dipped in Dark and Milk chocolate. I did not notice that until my children were fighting over the dark chocolate ones. These might have cost our boss' wife a fortune considering that these were bought from a very elegant chocolate house. But hey, she gave me an idea for next year.

Maui Ribs

If it was not for Lance' question, I would have saved this again for future posting. I know, I've got a few to be posted but because I am so preoccupied with so many things these days, I kept on saving them in one disk. You can call it procrastination too.

Anyway, to answer Lance's question, yes this is Maui as in Maui, Hawaii. I am not sure though if this originated in Hawaii. The sauce was given to me as a gift by a client. A little tangy and sweet. I just marinated a few side ribs. The side ribs were also described as sliced the maui style. I haven't been to Maui so I don't really know. Anyway, as I said earlier, the ribs were quite tough. For one reason, we baked them first and then flame broiled. I also think that my husband left them in the broiler longer than he should have had.

Spinach with Dried Cranberries and Sliced Orange

Kraft has lately been introducing various fruit-flavoured dressings in the market but this particular dressing has made it to my all-time weekend checklist.

The dressing went well with this: 200 gms of baby spinach, 1tbsp of coarsely chopped red onions, 1/4 cup of dried cranberries and a an orange sliced in bite-sized pieces. I only used about 1/4 or lesser dressing.

My family couldn't agree more especially that we had maui ribs to go with it. It was quite a bout though because the maui ribs were tough.

Schatzli and Grace

A Pinay from Greece...I've read a lot of Pinay blogs from the Philippines, the States, Asia but not from Greece. Here's her Food and Travel Blog and her Diary...very interesting...and very intriguing..

How about another one married to a Frenchman but is currently living in Angola? Visit Grace' site and find out how inviting her main courses, appetizers and desserts are.

Banana Split

Banana Split anyone? Just 2 scoops of vanilla-flavoured ice cream topped with chocolate fudge and ground nuts and a couple slices of bananas to make it into a truly banana split. Yummy!

Will Brown Cow do? mmmm...aybeee.

Chicken Afritada

Can't get to Sassy Lawyer's site? Her server is down and so she created a temporary site. Here's the link:

One familiar Filipino dish I love cooking. I'd like to call this a chicken stew because cooking this is like cooking a beef stew sans tomato sauce. Instead, I used the Mama Sita Caldereta Mix to make it more appealing. You don't need a lot to prepare this.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp of olive oil
6 pieces of nugget potatoes, peeled and cut in quarters
1 lb of chicken breast cut in small pieces
1 medium onion, quartered
1 medium carrot peeled and cut into about 2 cm thick
1/4 cup of water
1/2 red pepper
1/2 green pepper
1 pack of caldereta mix

In a deep saucepan, heat oil. Add potatoes and cover pan. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionaly. Add chicken. cover pan for another 5 minutes or until chicken is tender. Add carrots and onions and cook for about 2 minutes. Add water and let boil.

Season with caldereta mix. Add the red and green pepper and the frozen green peas. Cover pan for another 5 minutes. Turn off oven and let stand for about 5 minutes. Serve.

Guinataang Gulay

I need a Bicolana to please tell me the name of this recipe. This is the equivalence of the Ilocanos' Pinakbet. The ingredients are the same except that with Pinakbet, your sauce is bagoong and with this, your sauce is coconut milk.

I was thinking it was called "balaw" but my sister said balaw is actually alamang to them. When I was going to college in the Philippines, I was associated with some people from Bicol. I am not talking about just 2 or 3 people. They were like ten and I worked with them everyday. This was almost their daily lunch. My association with them made me start to like food cooked in coconut milk. In fact I learned how to cook a few of their recipes. This was my favorite though amongst all their recipes.

Ingredients:

1 onion coarsely chopped
4 tbsps of alamang
1 can of coconut milk
1/2 cup of shredded tinapa
1/2 lb of pork, thinly sliced
1 bunch of string beans, cleaned and cut into about 1.5 inches in length
2 eggplants, cut in circular or oblong like sizes
1 bitter melon cut in 1 cm think
5 pcs of green long chilies, preferably the hot variety
1 cup of cleaned malunggay leaves

In a pan, cook about a/4 cup of the creamiest part of the coconut milk for about 10 minutes or until the cream becomes almost like an oil. Saute the alamang and onion in it. Add the pork and cook for about 1 minute. Add the Tinapa. Pour the remaining coconut milk until it boils. Add the vegetables, except the malunggay leaves, stir and cover pan. Simmer for about 15 minutes or until vegetables are cooked. Stir the malunggay leaves in and cook for about a minute. Serve.

Ususally, the taste improves if left overnight in the fridge.

Imbaliktad

As soon as I saw this recipe at Manong Mannurat's blog, I knew my husband would be pleased if I prepared this for him. When he was still working in one of the cement plants in Luzon, his officemates and he would go out for drinking sprees occasionally and this was one of his favorite pulutans.

My mother used to cook this when I was little but did not dare let us, the younger ones even to taste it for fear that because it was cooked rare, we might be catching some bugs that will make us sick.

Well, i had second thoughts myself for fear of Ecoli but my rationale was that if I can cook my steak medium rare, why can't I cook my imbaliktad this way. Well, it worked and I cooked some more the next day.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp of olive oil
1 lb of beef tenderloin, thinly chopped
1/4 cup of coarsely chopped shallots
1/8 cup of vinegar
1 tbsp of coarsely chopped chilies (the spicy ones are preferred)
2 tbsps of finely chopped ginger
salt to taste

In a pan, heat oil. Add ginger and saute for about 1 minute. Add shallots and beef and cook for about 2 minutes, enough to brown the beef. Season with vinegar and salt. Turn off oven and add chilies.