Frozen Meatballs

So many new blessings have come into our lives lately - Praise God! - and the most life-changing of all, is the fact that I now have an opportunity to go back to work full time.

With that, I've started prepping meals to be frozen so we could easily thaw & cook them later. I've gotten so many ideas from my n@wie friends and I can't wait to try them all :)

First batch - meatballs. I had thought to freeze food in Ziploc freezer bags at first but realized that they might spill and they might not be so easy to stack. Then, I found these takeout containers and tadaa! I knew I was saving them for a good reason.

I also learned a new term yesterday - "Freezer Cooking". There is such a thing pala where people cook large batches of food & freeze them for eating later.

Chicken Teriyaki

This is yet another version of Chicken Teriyaki we've attempted in our kitchen and this is the best by far - this is also the easiest to make!

A few days ago, we came across the food cart at the Japanese supermarket, they were cooking and letting people get free tastes of chicken cooked using one of Kikkoman's Takumi Collection Teriyaki Sauces.

I was able to try the Spicy Miso flavor at the supermarket and while it was good, hubby isn't really a fan of spicy food so I decided to just go with the original - can't go wrong with the plain-jane-variety.

This was super-easy to make.

- slice boneless chicken into smaller chunks or strips
- pour Kikkoman Takumi Collection Teriyaki Sauce (any variety) onto the chicken & coat
- pan fry :)

and you are done! Masarap, parang restaurant.

Grilled Liempo (Pork Belly)

We made a quickie run to pick up some boxes at the local market yesterday and we were able to score some sliced pork belly. It's been a while since we had grilled pork belly so it was a great find. 

Unfortunately, it is currently drizzling outside so we don't actually have ourdoor barbeque weather so we're grilling this indoors. We're not complaining because the rain is helping keep the pollen count in the air down, thus alleviating our allergies. Smelling like grilled liempo the rest of the day seems like a small price to pay anyway.

One of the small consolations that we have when we grill is seeing the amount of fat drippings collected from the meat. Today, we grilled 3 lbs worth of pork belly, enough for a few meals, and we got around 11oz worth of drippings.

Scary, no ?

Creamy Pesto Pasta

Seems like these days, "recycled leftovers" has been a recurring dinner theme at home. Hence, we've been consuming a lot of eggs lately since we almost always resort to making omelettes with various food scraps.

Dinner tonight wasn't so bad. I decided to mix some light cream with the left over pesto sauce (purchased fresh pesto sauce from Costco during the lenten season, but we found it too strong as is). We mixed in the chicken meat from Swe-cha's chicken stock and topped the whole thing with bacon. All these on top of whole-wheat pasta.

Verdict: not bad.

Stuffed Shells

Sometime last year (or was it the year before ?), my friend Ayie brought us some frozen home-made lasagna rollups. She thought it would make us a good instant meal for when I get too busy or preoccupied w/ taking care of Swe-cha & was not able to prepare dinner.

Needless to say, the lasagna rollups were an instant hit. So much so that hubby requested that I try and make some myself. I did try to make some myself but it wasn't as easy as it looks. Things got messy as rolled & stuffed the lasagna sheets so I wasn't really gung-ho about doing it again.

Last week, I saw these jumbo shells in the grocery's pasta aisle and an idea hit my head. Since people were stuffing these shells anyway - usually, with cheese - why not stuff it w/ the filling similar to the lasagna rollups ?

and so... this dish was born.

Filling:

start with your standard bechamel sauce, flavor with cheddar cheese & mozzarella cheese (just keep adding cheese until it tastes right). Add chopped spinach (optional).

Shells: Prepare pasta shells according to package instructions

Meat sauce: Just prep your usual meat sauce. I made mine w/ ground beef & instant (traditional) spaghetti sauce from the jar.

To assemble, stuff the jumbo shells w/ the filling, arrange on a plate, top with sauce & cheese. Cover with foil & bake until the cheese topping is melted.

Eggplant Chips

I didn't start eating vegetables until I was in my 20s and that was when my love affair with eggplant started. I have not met an eggplant dish that I do not like yet.

These crispy eggplant chips are one of the easiest to prepare. At home (in the Philippines), our cook usually cuts the eggplant up in nice little rectangles - I have never been able to do that so I just slice diagonally and it works just as well.

I don't have an official batter recipe, it's mostly just tantya-tantya but so far, it's always tasted good.

Batter:

- egg

- cornstarch

- little water

- season w/ pepper and fish sauce (patis)

Slice eggplant into thin chips.

Dip into batter.

Deep-fry till cooked.

I didn't realize how much I missed this until we went to CA for Christmas and Mom made these for dinner one day. Ang sarap!

It's oil-overload though, major umay afterwards due to the oil :)