Spinach Pork Soup

I've been trying to expand our list of soup dishes (or dishes with sauces, for that matter) because I'm getting tired of preparing the same soups over and over for Swe-cha. He hasn't complained, but it's about time that we expand his palate.

Tonight's new dish was spinach-tofu-pork soup and he loved it! Hubby says that this turned out good too.

I wasn't exactly sure how to go about it but I did find a recipe for Vietnamese Spinach soup here. I did tweak it a little bit, particularly with the seasonings, until I came up with a taste that I liked.

Ingredients

1 lb ground pork (orig recipe calls for 1/2 lb finely minced pork belly)

1 package extra firm tofu

5 cups water

1 lb malabar (I used 1 pack of chopped frozen spinach)

1 tbsp olive oil

1 to 1.5 tbsp sugar

salt and pepper to taste

Knorr seasoning (not part of the original recipe)

some fish sauce (not part of the original recipe)

some chicken powder (not part of the original recipe)

Sauteed Spinach with Feta Cheese

Jazz up your regular sauteed spinach with some feta cheese - this was something I learned when we ate at a Greek restaurant ages ago. Sun dried tomatoes also goes well with this dish.

- Saute some garlic in olive oil

- Add the spinach and toss until spinach is cooked / wilted

- Put on serving plate and sprinkle some crumbled feta cheese on top just before serving.

Szechuan Eggplant and Pork

I found a pack of Ajinomoto Szechuan Eggplant mix while cleaning out my food pantry and decided that it was high time we tried this out. The timing was great because I had a pack of ground pork thawing in the refrigerator and we had fresh eggplant and peppers in the refrigerator.

This is another one of those nice & easy meals that can readily be prepared for dinner.

Ingredients:

- 1/2 lb ground pork

- 1 eggplant

- 1 green bell pepper

- 1 carrot

- Ajinomoto Szechuan Minced Pork with Eggplant mix

Pan fried wontons

We recently tried our local chinese takeout place's Pan Fried Wontons.

It wasn't what I was expecting but I was pleasantly surprised when I started eating and realized that the chewy texture and the taste reminded me so much of my favorite fishballs from home - even the sauce vaguely tastes like the sweet fishball sauce of those street carts I used to get my fishball fix from at university.

Happy.

Halo halo

I had just finished expressing milk for Swe-cha's afternoon bottle at the daycare tomorrow and was thinking about going to bed when I heard some scraping sounds.

Puzzled, I looked around and saw hubby with the ice shaver.

He looks at me and asks, "bowl or cup ?".

"Bowl," I replied. And it was only after I said it when I realized what he was doing - halo-halo!

How's that for a midnight snack ? We may not go out much but we do have fun at home, I tell ya.

While feasting on our bowls of halo-halo, our conversation included the following statements:
"Ang galing ng nag-imbento ng halo-halo, no ?"
"Mas magaling yung nag-imbento ng kaong!"
"e etong nata-de-coco ? Magaling rin no ? [brings up wikipedia...] Huwaw! Pilipino pala ang nag-imbento ng nata-de-coco!"

Obvious bang amazed na amazed kami ? at medyo mababaw?

*smile*

Pork and Scallop Congee

Ang saya. This was a spur of the moment dish. No recipe, no plans.

Mommy asked me to prepare congee for hubby (still having wisdom tooth issues). I thought about preparing arroz-caldo but the chicken I meant to use for arroz-caldo had to be defrosted before I could pry the pieces apart (they had frozen together).

I had a piece of pork that seemed the right portion so I threw that in a pot and started boiling. I let it boil, added the rice and remembered the dried scallops in the ref so I let them rehydrate in some water and threw that in the pot as well. Later, I remembered some kasubha (saffron ?) that I still had in my spice cabinet so I threw some in as well.... I put in some chicken powder and a dash of patis for a bit of flavor and this turned out great.

I served it topped with crunchy fried onions.

Ingredients:

pork shoulder

dried scallops

rice

salt

patis

chicken powder

fried onions and fried garlic (toppings)

Almondigas

Hubby has been having wisdom teeth issues since last weekend and it has worsened to the point that now, he can only eat [slurp] soft foods.

We're going to have a lot of soft noodles and congee dishes in the next few days. This also means that Swe-cha can get a taste of more home-cooked meals this week, I hope that he gains his appetite back soon (he is currently not feeling well).

This dish is an experiment, I really have no idea how Almondigas is supposed to taste like or what's supposed to be in it. I just needed to prepare something quick and did not have time to check our recipes over the internet or even prepare the ingredients.

Meatballs:

1 lb ground pork

minced spring onions

salt & pepper

sugar

Soup:

Misua

1 can chicken broth (lite, sodium free)

water

3 cloves minced garlic

1 onion, minced

patis (fish sauce)

1. Prepared the meatballs by mixing pork, spring onions, salt, pepper and sugar. Formed the mixture into balls and lightly browned them in oil (I remember seeing my friend, Kay, do this before .. or maybe not, it was so long ago!).

2. Saute garlic and onion in a saucepan and add the broth and water when cooked. Let this boil and then add the browned meatballs. When the meatballs are fully cooked, add miswa.

It gets tricky when adding the miswa as I had no idea how much to put in. Tantya lang.

Deep fried stuffed tofu

This is yet another dish in our "quest for the ultimate tofu dish" series.

The filling came out dry. Need to adjust that some more. If the filling were moist, that would've contrasted nicely with the crispness of the tofu.

Steamed Stuffed Tofu

Hubby and I love tofu in all its shapes and forms so it seemed weird to me when I realized that the only tofu dishes I've been cooking at home are Mapo-Tofu and Deep-fried tofu. With that, I went on a tofu-dish quest with the ultimate goal of finding the ultimate stuffed tofu recipe.

This is dish #1

Ingredients:

Ground pork (around 1/2 lb)

Shiitake mushrooms, rehydrated & chopped

Tofu

~1 tbsp soy sauce

~1 tsbp cooking sherry

~1/2 tbsp sesame oil

Sauce:

1 tbsp oyster sauce

2 tbsp chicken stock

1 tbsp rice wine

Steps:

1. Mix the ground pork, shiitake mushrooms, soy sauce, sherry and sesame oil.

2. Slice tofu into squares.

3. Scoop out a hole in the middle of the tofu squares, keep the scooped out tofu, chop it up and add it to the ground pork mixture.

4. Fill the tofu squares with the ground pork mixture.

5. Steam for around 5 minutes.

6. Drain / throw away the liquid that comes out.

7. Mix the ingredients for the sauce and drizzle it over the stuffed tofu and continue steaming until the pork is cooked.

Verdict: very good, pero parang di bagay as ulam w/ rice. This is better eaten by itself (dimsum style). Also, it might be better to mix in a little cornstarch w/ the sauce to thicken it a bit.