Baby back ribs and Mushrooms ala Teriyaki (by PinoyCook)

Pinoy Cook's picture of this dish on her Baby back ribs and mushrooms ala Teriyaki post looked so yummy that it made me want to try this recipe out

Given that I have poor planning practices when it comes to food preparation (cooking), I didn't realize that I didn't have all of the ingredients until it was too late.

Instead of gin (in Pinoycook's recipe), I had planned to use mirin which I thought I had. Turned out that I didn't have enough so I added the 1/4 cup remaining mirin that I had and added 3/4 cup of cooking sherry (which was sweet too).

The dish turned out great! I probably should have held off on this (I did this last 12/21) and prepared this for Noche Buena instead. Now, am looking forward to getting invited to the next pot luck party, hubby and I are bringing this :)

Honey Walnut Shrimp

I was cleaning out my desk when I came across a typewritten recipe for this dish. I remember getting this from my friend, Wena. I don't know where she got this from so if this looks familiar, please drop me a line so I can give credit to whoever put this recipe together :)

Ingredients:
1 lb of large or medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup egg whites
1/2 cup oil

Sauce:
2 tbs honey
2 tbs mayonnaise
1 tbs fresh lemon juice
1/2 tbs condensed milk
1/2 cup walnuts (you can buy glazed walnuts from the grocery store)

• Mix cornstarch and egg whites together to form a thick, sticky texture and mix well with the shrimp.


• Mix honey, mayonnaise, lemon juice and condensed milk in a bowl until smooth.


• Heat oil until boiling then deep try the shrimp until golden brown.


• Drain shrimp then fold in honey mayonnaise mixture. Mix well and sprinkle with walnuts, arrange on a platter and serve.

Hubby's Special Day

It's hubby's birthday today and as we did on my birthday last month, we decided to eat in. Dinner was creamy shrimp alfredo flavored with turkey bacon (feeling healthy, heehee) and mushrooms. Hubby requested that we also prepare the bacon-wrapped filet mignon. We've been saving that for a special occasion and it can't get any more special than this - his first birthday that we get to spend together.

Our first thanksgiving - Shrimp and Crab Stuffed Flounder, Baked Scallops w/ Bacon

I wanted to make something special for our first thanksgiving. I couldn't decide what to prepare but I knew that:

1) we are not standard thanksgiving fare fans (i.e. turkey, yams, stuffing,...) ; and,
2) given that we'll probably be spending thanksgiving by ourselves, there's no sense in having too much food that we'll be eating as leftovers in the next few days.

Inspiration struck when we were wandered, quite accidentally, into the supermarket's seafood section. There were crabs, shrimp, fish and scallops. It was then that I decided to prepare an all-seafood meal. Given that we're usually red-meat eaters - aside from the occasional chicken - this would be unique. Special, even.

Found a great recipe on the web for Shrimp and Crab stuffed flounder by Linda Reir.

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup chopped onion
2 (4.5 ounce) cans small shrimp, drained
1 (4.5 ounce) can sliced mushrooms, drained
1/2 pound cooked crabmeat
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon paprika
8 (6 ounce) fillets flounder
2 (10.75 ounce) cans condensed cream of mushroom soup
1/3 cup chicken broth
2 tablespoons water
2/3 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking dish and set aside.

In a saucepan over medium heat, melt butter and saute onion, shrimp, and mushrooms until onion is tender. Stir in crabmeat, salt, pepper, and paprika; heat through.

Spoon the shrimp and crab mixture onto each flounder filet. Roll the filet up and fasten with toothpicks. Place rolled filets in prepared baking dish.



(Note: Either the flounder filets I got were too small or I was trying to stuff too much of the crab mixture in so instead of rolling the fish, I just folded it over.)

In a small bowl, whisk together soup, chicken broth, and water until smooth. Pour over the filets. Sprinkle cheese over the top.









Cover the baking dish with aluminum foil and bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes.

Remove from oven and remove foil. Sprinkle the parsley over the top of the filets. Return the dish to the oven and bake uncovered for an additional 5 minutes or until fish flakes easily with a fork.

... and voila! Obviously, this dish is sorely lacking in presentation, but I swear, this is good!









We did make one concession in deference to turkey day, in addition to the stuffed fish, we had baked scallops wrapped in turkey bacon (hubby's idea). These turned out very good too. The scallops were huge - at least an inch and a half in diameter - and very very sweet, I just sprinked them with some seasoned salt and wrapped them in bacon.

Stir fried noodles

Hubby and I decided to try our hand at preparing a Chinese egg-noodle dish. It didn't turn out so bad, considering that this is our first dab and neither of us had a clue.

Ingredients:
Egg noodles
Straw mushrooms
Quail Eggs
Shrimp
Carrots (julienned)
Veggies (was supposed to put in some broccoli but I forgot)
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp lite soy sauce
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 cup water
minced garlic
2 tbsp oil

Given the above ingredients, this was what we did:

1. We pre-boiled the egg noodles in some chicken stock left over from an earlier dish. Do not boil till noodles are completely cooked otherwise, they'll soften and become overcooked when you stir fry them.
2. Combine the cornstarch, lite and dark soy sauce, oyster sauce and water in a small bowl.
3. In a skillet, heat oil and saute garlic. Add the shrimp, carrots, straw mushrooms and broccoli. Saute until heated.
4. Add the cornstarch & sauce mixture. Stir constantly until sauce thickens. Add a little broth as necessary.
5. Add the noodles and mix.
6. Serve.

We're still skeptical about the noodles. I believe that we shouldn't have pre-boiled it but should've just soaked it in water and cooked it during the stir fry process. Any thoughts on this?

Hubby thought the noodles came out bland and said that it could do with a dash of salt.

Lemon Chicken ala Popcorn

We got some boneless chicken breast halves during our last shopping trip and we decided to try our hand at preparing one of the hubby's favorite chicken dishes - Lemon Chicken.

Did some searching and found a recipe on Cooks.com which listed ingredients that we already have at home. It turned out quite well, even with our revisions, and yeah, the picture that I took could do with some improvement (and better presentation) so this doesn't do the dish any justice.

The original recipe calls for 2 egg yolks for the chicken batter. I didn't want to waste the egg whites so I opted to just prepare the chicken cutlets Japanese style as we did last time - dredged in flour, dipped in egg and then coated with panko bread crumbs.

Lemon sauce:
2 tbsp cornstarch
3 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp minced fresh ginger (instead of minced, I grated)
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice

In medium saucepan, place 2 tablespoons cornstarch, brown sugar and ginger. Stir in 1/2 cup water and broth. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently until thickens and comes to a boil, boil for 1 minute. Remove from heat, stir in lemon juice.

Pour sauce over the chicken cutlets and serve.

* Note, we found the sauce to have a strong ginger taste, will lessen the ginger next time.

Pancit Palabok

For starters, I'd like to let you know that this isn't made from scratch. However easy the instructions on the Palabok Sauce mix may sound, it wasn't as straightforward as we first thought :P

The ingredients listed below were the exact ingredients that we used to get the amount of palabok in the picture. This is a 9 x 12 inch pan.

Ingredients:

• 1 package rice noodle sticks
• chopped garlic
• spring onions
• 2 Mama Sita's Palabok Mix
• 1 pack atsuete powder (optional)
• 1/2 cup tinapa flakes (available at pinoy/asian stores)
• ground chicharon (pork rinds, available at pinoy/asian stores)
• 6 boiled eggs, sliced
• cooked shrimp (boiled)
• 5 cups chicken broth - we recommend that you omit this and just use water.
• lemon juice to taste

Steps:

1. Cook the rice noodle sticks according to package instructions. Note that the instructions on ours said to soak the noodles in boiling water for 2 to 3 minutes and then take them out. It actually took more than 15 minutes of boiling before our noodles were done. I'm still wondering why.
2. Dissolve the Palabok mix in 2.5 cups of water. Set aside. Package instructions state that water or unsalted broth could be used. Hubby and I decided to use unsalted chicken broth to add more flavor but our sauce turned out too salty, we've had to adjust the taste towards the end.
3. Dissolve the atsuete powder according to package instructions. This ingredient is optional and is tasteless but I find that this gives the dish a nicer color.
4. In a wok or saucepan, saute chopped garlic in a tablespoon of oil.
5. Add tinapa flakes.
6. Pour in the palabok mixture.
7. Stir constantly until the sauce thickens.

Pour noodles in a container and top with the sauce. Sprinkle with ground chicharon and top with sliced egg, shrimp and spring onions.

Serve with a lemon slices and the rest of the ground chicharon, if there are any left.

Spinach Lasagna

Last month's attempt at making lasagna wasn't the success that it could've been. You see, I had the not-so-brilliant idea of adding slices of eggplant to our spinach lasagna, thinking that it was all we had to do - just add layers of eggplant. Unfortunately, if we only had taken the time to do the research, we'd find out that the eggplant had to be pre-cooked or grilled before being added to the lasagna layers.

This time, we decided to keep it simple and just stick with lasagna and cheese - you could never go wrong with that, right ?

Ingredients:

• 1 pack frozen chopped spinach
• 15 oz pack of Ricotta cheese
• 2 eggs
• 2 packs shredded mozarella cheese
• no-boil lasagna
• tomato sauce
• ground beef
• sliced onion
• chopped garlic

1. Prepare the sauce as you would normally prepare spaghetti sauce. Brown the garlic in hot oil, add the onions and caramelize. Add the ground beef, when the beef is brown, add the tomato sauce.
2. Wrapped the chopped spinach in paper towels and squeeze the water out. Do this repeatedly.
3. Mix the ricotta cheese, spinach and eggs in a container.
4. In a baking dish, coat the bottom with a little sauce to prevent the pasta from sticking to the pan. Add a layer of pasta.
5. From this point forward, we should be alternating the layers - pasta, sauce, ricotta cheese & spinach, mozzarella.
6. Cover with foil and bake in a 375 degree oven for 35 - 40 minutes. Cook uncovered in the last 10 minutes.

Lechon Kawali

I've seen a lot of different recipes, the most common way of preparation calls for pre-boiling the pork belly in broth - some recipes even recommend using beer - and then freezing the meat before frying or broiling.

My aunt does hers differently, she skips the boiling altogether and just seasons her meat with salt, pepper and a little sugar and broils it - skin side down first.

Personally, I've found that pre-boiling the meat in broth ensures that the meat is cooked all the way through so when I'm broiling the meat I only have to worry about the browning of the meat and crisping of the skin and not about whether or not it's still raw.

1. Boil the pork liempo in broth - any broth that you have on hand will do but I find that canned chicken broth is very convenient to use for this. I also reuse my broth a couple of times so after boiling, I let the remaining broth cool down and transfer it to the freezer in an airtight container.
2. It usually takes a few hours, depending on the thickness of the meat, before the pork liempo is cooked through.
3. When done, take out the meat and let it drip dry. You can place it on a colander, strainer, or a wire rack with a dish underneath to catch the drippings. Use a fork to poke holes through the skin, this will create the "bubbles" in the skin when you broil it.
4. Freeze the pork belly.
5. When you're ready to broil the pork belly, just take it straight from the freezer to the turbo broiler. Broil for around 50 minutes at 350 degrees, cooking time depends on the size of your pork. Start cooking your meat skin side down and then turn it to the other side halfway through the process.

You can serve your lechon kawali with Mang Tomas All Purpose Sauce but my personal favorite is the all time pinoy mix of chopped onions, soy sauce and vinegar.

Chicken cutlets and Mashed Potatoes

We wanted to get some chicken breast fillets the other day and bought some breast tenderloins by mistake. Not knowing what to do with them, we just decided to make chicken breast cutlets and serve them with Ikea gravy.

Chicken cutlets:

1. Cover the chicken meat with plastic wrap and with a flat mallet (tenderizer), pound the chicken to tenderize and flatten it out.
2. Coat the chicken fillets with flour.
3. Dip in beaten egg and coat with panko flakes (Japanese bread crumbs).
4. Fry in hot oil, approximately 2 minutes on each side or until cooked.

Mashed Potatoes:

1. Boil potatoes in hot water for 15-20 minutes or until soft.
2. In a bowl, peel off the skin (this should come off easily) - some people actually prefer to have bits of skin in the mashed potatoes.
3. Mash the potatoes using a potato masher or a fork
4. Add a dollop of butter.
5. Add a little milk but not too much that the consistency becomes runny.
6. Season with salt & pepper.
7. If desired, top with bacon bits and melted cheese (top mashed potatoes with grated cheese and melt in the microwave).

Note that the unseasoned and unmarinated chicken cutlets are bland when eaten as is. Make sure to serve with gravy or some tonkatsu sauce to give it flavor.

Pork with Bell Peppers

(recipe from Shelby)

This dish was prepared and shown to me by an officemate during a project stint in NJ. Thanks Shelby!



Ingredients:

• Pork shoulder, cubed
• Bell pepper, diced
  
• Oyster sauce
• cornstarch
• salt
• soy sauce
• chopped garlic
  

Steps:

1. In a plastic container, mix cornstarch and a dash of salt. Place a few pieces of cubed pork, cover and shake to coat the pork pieces evenly. Do this until all the meat is evenly coated with the cornstarch mixture. Set aside
   
2. In a wok / saucepan, heat some oil (put enough oil to deep fry the pork pieces).
3. Deep fry the pork cubes and set aside to drain. If possible, drain the oil from the meat by using a metal mesh strainer rather than paper towels. This will help keep the meat crunchy. Set aside.
   
4. In a small bowl, mix oyster sauce with a dash of soy sauce (to taste) . Mix just enough to coat the pieces of meat. Add a little water if the mixture is too thick.
   
5. Saute garlic in a wok/saucepan, add the bell pepper. When bell pepper is cooked, add the deep fried pork and mix.
   
6. Pour in the oyster sauce mixture and mix.
7. Serve

Bacon-wrapped Asparagus

We prepared this dish last Sunday lunch, the recipe is from my friend Irene.

Sammie did a great job wrapping up the asparagus stalks with bacon, they were all firmly wrapped and don't fall apart even if you cut it across the middle.

We're still a bit off with the oven settings and as you can see, the asparagus tips are overcooked. Nevertheless, these were yummy!

Link to Irene's Original Recipe:

Ingredients:

• Green Asparagus Slices of Bacon
• Pepper
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Teriyaki Sauce (Kikkoman)

Steps:

1. Hold 1 asparagus on both ends and bend gently until it snaps. Throw away the bottom portion, and use the remaining one as a guide to cut the rest of the asparagus bundle.



2. Take 3-4 asparagus together, wrap 1 slice of bacon around it in a spiral manner until it covers 3/4 of your asparagus. Do it for the remaining asparagus.



3. Line bacon wrapped asparagus on a baking pan. Drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper. Brush with teriyaki sauce (optional).



4. Bake at 375F for 10-15 minutes, or until bacon is brown and crispy.

Liempo

We had broiled pork belly tonight and it was good! It smelled (and tasted) so good that it was all gone before we even thought of taking pictures.

Marinade (portions are estimates):
- 10 tbsp light soy sauce
- 2 tbsp dark soy sauce (mushroom based)
- 1 tsp sugar
- 3 tbsp lemon juice
- dash of Mc Cormick montreal steak seasoning
- 4 tbsp vinegar

1. Marinade pork belly in mixture for at least 1 hr.
2. Set the turbo broiler to 350F and cook until golden brown. You would have to turn the belly slices over halfway through the process to brown both sides. Depending on the thickness of the slices, this should take between 20 - 30 minutes.

Chopsuey

I know that veggies are good for the body and still, I am a carnivore 98% of the time. The only veggies that I eat are salads and the occasional ones that would stray onto my spoon because they're too small to weed out.

Hubby and I were shopping for groceries at our neighborhood Asian store when I saw a pack of Ginisa Mix (from Manila) on a shelf. The picture looked so yummy that I decided to try and cook some for dinner that night.

This is the first time that we've cooked this dish and frankly, I don't even know if this is supposed to look this way. Leave me a message and let me know if there's anything we missed or did wrong.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 lb Shrimp


• 1 small bunch of Broccoli


• Straw mushrooms (half can)


• Quail Eggs (half can)


• Baby Corn (half can)


• Snow peas


• chopped garlic


• sliced onions


• olive oil

Cornstarch mixture:

• 1 tbsp cornstarch mixed w/ 1 cup water


• 1 tbsp soy sauce (to taste)


• 1/2 tsp chicken powder (for flavor)

Steps:

1. Blanch shrimp in salted boiling water for 1 minute, drain.


2. Blanch broccoli in boiling water


3. In a skillet / wok, saute garlic in a little oil.


4. Add the onions


5. When the onions are caramelized, add all the other ingredients.


6. Stir the veggies around a little and add the cornstarch mixture.


7. Cook until the sauce thickens, do not overcook the vegetables.

Baby Back Ribs

I've been looking for a way to prepare baby back ribs for some time now and I finally found a great recipe at Cantonese Cooking's blog.

The recipe calls for a 2 step process, the first of which is to season the ribs with a rub mixture to flavor the meat.

• Magical BBQ Rub:
  3/4 C. McCormick's Montreal Steak Seasoning
  1 and 1/4 C. brown sugar
  1 oz. paprika
  2 tbl. cayenne pepper (optional)

The ribs are then left in the fridge to chill for at least 4 hours or overnight.

To bake the ribs, wrap them in foil and bake for a few hours using low heat (325 degrees) - The original recipe suggests 3 hours for 3 lbs. When the meat is tender, take them out, drain and then pour your favorite bbq sauce and set to broil. Since we don't keep a bottle of bbq sauce in stock at home, we opted to just make our own using the stuff that we already have - and by that, I am referring to those little packets of catsup and honey that you get from fast food places *smile*.

• Our Special BBQ sauce mix: Mix 4 tbsps (or packets) of honey to 5 tbsps (or packets) catsup, add 1 tbsp soy sauce. Add 1 tbsp of vinegar, 1 tbsp of lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste.

Voila! Granted, our presentation needs a little more work, but the ribs came out beautifully tender and juicy!

* note to self, need more salt.

---

Original recipe : Part 1 and Part 2

My Own Food Blog

I'm going to be honest.

Given a slab of meat, some cooking oil and a frying pan, I can probably come up with something edible, and oh, I can follow recipes quite well too but that's just about the extent of my talents.

If you're looking for original recipes from me, this might not be the blog for you. This blog is going to be a collection of recipes and dishes that my husband and I have tried and prepared at home. They could be family recipes or even ones that we've gotten from the various food blogs we've stumbled upon on the web... and don't worry, credit will be given to whom it is due.

Happy Eating!