What's going on in Popcorn's Kitchen ?

Stuffed Shells

2012-01-12T23:38:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-07T23:24:00.000-08:00

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 :)

Spinach Pork Soup

2011-10-24T23:16:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-25T17:36:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-25T10:52:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-24T11:35:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-05T22:29:00.000-07:00

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

2011-03-05T21:05:00.000-08:00

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

2011-03-05T20:07:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-25T16:06:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-23T00:01:00.000-08:00

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.

Stir-fried eggplant with ground pork

2010-10-17T20:32:00.000-07:00

Yakitori

2010-10-05T01:27:00.000-07:00

I made chicken yakitori for dinner today, I picked it up from the homecookingrocks.com. I wasn't really skeptical but since the recipe didn't call for marinating the meat, I wasn't 100% sure about the results either.

And I got the ultimate compliment(s) from hubby:

- I cooked the usual amount of meat which, on a normal day, would give us enough for 4 servings so we'll both have our baon for tomorrow. Pag ginanahan, this gives us 3 servings. Tonight, ubos! We polished off the chicken and bitin pa.

- While eating, I heard him mutter under his breath (I don't think I was supposed to hear this) in a very sarcastic tone, "what a day to start dieting". Yun pala, he decided to start dieting na. heehee.

Sago pudding

2010-08-23T01:00:00.000-07:00

I was cleaning out a cabinet and found half a package of tiny, small sago - remnants from long ago. I remember buying a pack ages ago but I don't even remember what I used it for.

I suddenly found myself craving for that mango sago dessert that is so popular in Chinese restaurants. We had some almond jelly in the pantry so I prepared that and refrigerated it, I also dropped by our neighborhood Asian store one day and bought a bottle of pureed mangoes.

I cooked the sago this afternoon and they came out overcooked. I wasn't able to pay as much attention as I was supposed to while cooking it because I was on nanny-duty (hubby had gone out for a haircut).

I mixed it up with a little pureed mangoes but my puree turned out a bit on the sour side - this bottle was probably produced with out-of-season mangies, *boo*. So I rummaged on the cabinet some more and came up with a can of coconut cream, "we're in business," I thought.

Steps:

1. Cooked sago - cook according to package instructions. I didn't have the instructions but this was what I did: boil water in a pot, pour raw sago and let boil till they're partially cooked but still have white centers. Turn off the fire and cover the pot and let it cook some more till the centers are clear, this means that they are already fully cooked. Make sure to stir constantly to prevent the sago from clumping together.

2. Pour sago into jelly molds or little ramekins and let chill in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.

3. To serve, pop sago shapes out of the molds onto a plate and drizzle with mango puree and coconut cream. I have a bit of a sweet tooth so I was very very generous with the coconut cream.

Ang sarap!

I can imagine this combination - sweetened mango and coconut - on some malagkit or suman already. Methinks I'm going to look for a suman recipe next.

I also poured the overcooked sago into little ramekins and popped them in the refrigerator. A couple of hours later, they had set into the molds.

To serve, slide out the sago (it will retain its shape) onto plates and drizzle with mango puree and coconut cream.

Chicken Katsu Don

2010-08-20T20:22:00.000-07:00

This chicken has been sitting in the refrigerator, already defrosted, since yesterday and I didn't want to keep this till tomorrow. Not having had the chance to do anything beforehand - marinade, etc - I knew that I had to go for a dish that requires little in terms of ingredients and preparation.

I dug through our pantry and found a new bag of panko bread crumbs, so I decided on chicken katsudon.

Ingredients for Chicken Katsu:

boneless skinless chicken thighs

garlic salt

pepper

flour

egg (beaten)

panko bread crumbs

hot oil for deep frying

1. Prepare chicken by pounding or slicing into thin fillets. Season chicken with garlic salt and pepper.

2. Dredge chicken in flour, dip into the egg and then coat with panko bread crumbs

3. Fry chicken in hot oil, note that panko bread crumbs burn easily so do not use too high heat.

4. Slice the chicken pieces.

Sauce for 1 serving (1 bowl of rice) of Katsudon sauce taken from Angelica's food blog.:

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp cooking wine (I used rice wine)

1 tbsp mirin

2 tsp sugar

1/3 cup chicken/vegetable stock or water (I used water and added some chicken powder)

1 egg, slightly beaten

spring onions

1. Mix soy sauce, cooking wine, mirin, sugar, water and chicken powder together.

2. In a small pan, pour the sauce and let it boil. When boiling, put sliced chicken in the sauce, pour the slightly beaten egg on top of the chicken, sprinkle with spring onions and let it boil till the egg is cooked. It may help to cover the pan.

3. Pour on top of a bowl of rice - chicken, broth and all - and serve.

This turned out great. My chicken was crunchy on the outside and moist and juicy inside. And the sauce ? PERFECT!

Chicken fillets with hoisin sauce

2010-08-18T19:09:00.000-07:00

I bought several packages of boneless skinless chicken thighs from Costco today and decided to make a chicken dish for dinner. As I usually do when I'm in the mood to try something new, I drop by my favorite food blog, HomeCookingRocks (formerly pinoycook.net), and chose a dish for which I have the ingredients on hand.

Tonight's choice was a slight variation from chicken fillets with hoisin sauce and Szechuan pepper.

I also had to make slight variations on the seasoning as I had more chicken than the recipe called for, this was what I prepared:

5 boneless chicken thighs

5 tbsp lite soy sauce

cornstarch

cooking oil (for deep frying)

hoisin sauce

toasted sesame seeds

1. Slice chicken thighs into small strips, season with lite soy sauce and let stand in the refrigerator.

2. Coat the chicken fillets with the cornstarch and deep fry. When cooked, let the oil drain on paper towels.

3. In the pan, heat a dollop of hoisin sauce, add toasted sesame seeds and toss the chicken fillets to coat them with the hoisin sauce-sesame seed mixture.

Note that I prepared a small batch for tasting first and purposely did not coat the chicken evenly and completely with the hoisin sauce. Both hubby and I prefer it that way to preserve the crunchiness of the chicken and we preferred not to have that strong of a hoisin sauce taste.

Braised Short Ribs, Korean Style

2010-07-23T06:12:00.000-07:00

I had some short ribs which had been sitting in the freezer for a long time now and I wanted to cook it to make baby food. When I took it out, it was then that I realized that beef short ribs wasn't really appropriate for making soup meant for baby food as it was too oily.

I really should name this dish "Short Ribs Surprise" as the ingredients and seasoning was really more of a "taste & see" [translated: tantiyahan] so I won't be able to post measurements here for now.

Ingredients:

Beef short ribs

water

spring onions

sugar

soy sauce

salt

ginger

garlic

Stuffed Fuzzy Squash

2010-07-04T08:07:00.000-07:00

This is one of the dishes I learned from my mother-in-law when they came to visit us last month. The steps and ingredients are pretty simple but it becomes complicated because no recipe exists. Everything is a mixture of little bit of this and that - as my mother-in-law puts it, "konti toyo, konti asukal, konti asin, masarap na!"

I did exactly as that and seasoned the pork mixture as per my taste & imagination. I figured, we could always adjust the measurements later. This turned out great!

Ingredients:
ground pork
carrots
corn starch
sugar
salt
soy sauce

fuzzy squash

1. Peel the fuzzy squash and cut into disks.

2. Mix ground pork with carrots and corn starch and season with soy sauce, sugar, and salt

3. Pan-fry and sear / brown the fuzzy squash. When a little bit browned, brush with a little bit of cornstarch on the surface and put a dollop of the ground pork mixture on top. Pour some water in the pan, just at the level of the fuzzy squash, cover and let it steam.

Pork with Peppers

2010-04-14T23:35:00.000-07:00

This is a dish that my former officemate, S, used to prepare at the company apartment during our NJ stints years ago. I seem to be on a bell pepper binge lately (I've been preparing a lot of dishes with bell peppers) and this seemed like the dish to have tonight.

I tried to recreate the dish as best I could and it turned out well.

Ingredients:

Pork, cubed or sliced

Cornstarch

Seasoned salt

oyster sauce

Bell Peppers, sliced

Minced garlic

soy sauce (optional)

1. Prepare pork by slicing into strips or cubes.

2. In a small container, mix the cornstarch and a little salt (do not overseason, we can always add more salt / soy sauce later). Coat the pork pieces with this cornstarch mixture.

3. Heat oil in a saucepan, deep fry the pork. Put the pork on paper towels to drain the oil. Taste the cooked pork.

4. Take out the excess oil in the saucepan, leave just enough to saute the garlic and peppers.

5. Add the cooked pork.

6. Mix a little water with around 2 tbsp of oyster sauce, add to the pork & pepper and mix. If the cooked pork still needs salt, add some soy sauce at this point.

Stir Fried Chicken with Pineapple and Peppers

2010-04-12T23:06:00.000-07:00

This is a quick and easy to prepare recipe that I found on AllRecipes.com. The only deviation that I made from the recipe is that I used regular vinegar instead of white wine vinegar and I did not put any almonds in.

This turned out so good and so easy to prepare that I have made this dish twice in the past two weeks already.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup reduced-salt soy sauce

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons mirin (sweetened Asian wine)

1 teaspoon grated ginger root

2 crushed garlic cloves

1 tablespoon cornstarch

2 tablespoons oil, preferably sesame oil

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut in 1-inch pieces

6 large green onions, cut in 1-inch pieces

2 cups fresh or frozen pepper strips

1 (20 ounce) can chunk pineapple in juice

1/4 cup sliced almonds (optional)

Combine first six ingredients; stir well.

Heat oil in a large skillet and stir-fry chicken until brown and done, about 5 minutes. Remove. Add green onions, peppers and pineapple to the skillet; heat through. Pour in sauce and stir until thickened. Return chicken to skillet; heat through. Serve with brown rice; top with optional almonds.

Chicken in Peanut Sauce

2010-03-21T17:42:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I tried out new recipes and I claim the "new mommy" excuse for that. We recently had a new addition to the family, a baby boy, and our time has been taken up by our baby and we've decided to stick to the more familiar dishes in the meantime as they are easier and faster to make (because we have them often).

Today's meal was supposed to be chicken but I wanted something different as I was already getting tired of lemon chicken and fried chicken cutlets. I set out for a recipe and dropped by my favorite food blog - www.pinoycook.net - and found this recipe for chicken in spicy peanut butter sauce.

Now, I do believe that I may have strayed far away from the original recipe as I had to substitute white vinegar for rice wine vinegar and I eliminated the chili as hubby isn't really fond of spicy foods. I also don't have access to Lily's peanut butter described in the recipe and I had to substitute Skippy's Chunky Peanut butter (we still have 2 huge jars that we got from Costco). Lastly, I also have to confess that where it says "season to taste", I didn't really have an idea of what it was supposed to taste like so I just seasoned till it tasted okay to me.

With that, here is my version (I halved the amounts, except for the peanut butter):
5 skinless boneless chicken thighs
1 onion, roughly chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped
1 tbsp of grated ginger (couldn't slice my ginger as it was still frozen)
2 tbsps. of light soy sauce (I used Kikkoman)
2 tbsps. of white vinegar
about 1/4 c. of sweetened peanut butter (I went overboard with the peanut butter because I wanted to finish the jar)
patis (fish sauce), to taste
cracked black pepper
finely sliced onion leaves, to garnish

- Brown the chicken pieces in a pan.
- Add the garlic, onion, ginger, soy sauce, fish sauce and vinegar
- Boil and let simmer till chicken is cooked
- seasoned with fish sauce to taste, added pepper
- add the peanut butter and mix till sauce is thick
- garnish with green onions and serve

Verdict: Hubby says that this turned out not-bad - "pwede na" was his term - but it didn't have the wow factor. He also wasn't sure about wanting to bring this for his lunch tomorrow to the office.

As for me, I agree with the "not-bad" or "pwede na" verdict at first and was a bit iffy because I am used to having peanut butter with bread but not with rice. Later, I realized that it tastes better and better with every bite and I even had a second serving. Ayaw ni hubby, akin na lang to bukas.

Beef Salpicao

2009-12-15T21:33:00.000-08:00

I had defrosted this ribeye steak in the refrigerator earlier but I didn't really feel like having steak for dinner tonight and while thinking about alternative beef dishes, salpicao came to mind.

So I googled and looked for Salpicao recipes and decided to make up my own combination based on the different recipes I've seen and the reviews of those recipes I've read.

Amazingly, this turned out very very very good.

Ingredients:

1 lb beef, sliced into cubes

6 cloves garlic, minced

Olive oil (a few tbsps, just enough to coat the beef)

2 tsp knorr seasoning

2 tsp Lea & Perrins worcestershire sauce

freshly ground pepper, to taste

3 tbsp oyster sauce (dilute in 1/4 cup water)

1 tbsp butter

sliced mushrooms

Mix garlic, olive oil, seasoning, worcestershire sauce and pepper. Marinate beef in this mixture for at least a few hours.
Cook beef quickly in very hot oil. Mix till cooked - around 5 minutes, do not overcook as the meat will get tough.
When beef is cooked, pour the oyster sauce mixture.
Add the butter and mix it around.
Take out the beef, saute the mushrooms in the remaining sauce and add beef back in again when done.

Serve.

Chicken Parmesan

2009-11-29T20:16:00.001-08:00

We were supposed to have lemon chicken for dinner tonight but when I realized that it was deep-fried and that I needed to avoid fatty & heaty foods, I decided to look for something else that I could make with the boneless, skinless chicken thighs that we were having for dinner. After checking out what we had in the refrigerator, I decided on baked chicken parmesan.

Checked the internet for recipes and looks like there are a lot of variations out there. I threw caution to the wind and picked & chose what I wanted to do. Hubby helped with this dish as well :D

Ingredients:

Boneless chicken thighs, sliced thinly (or use cutlets)

1 egg

1/4 cup breadcrumbs

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

2 tbsp chopped parsley

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Prepare the parmesan coating for the chicken by mixing equal parts of parmesan cheese & breadcrumbs (more parmesan cheese = better). Mix in the parsley.
Season chicken thighs with freshly ground sea salt.
Dip seasoned chicken thighs in egg.
Coat chicken with the parmesan - breadcrumb mixture.
Arrange chicken on a baking rack and bake until done - around 20 minutes.

We just used bottled marinara for the sauce and made some whole wheat pasta to go with the chicken.

Crab Cakes

2009-11-28T21:24:00.001-08:00

I wanted to finish up a leftover bag of mushroom & wild rice that Ahya left behind from his visit last year. I couldn't think of any dish that would go well with this - though I'm sure there's tons! - so I decided to just prepare some crab cakes, I still had some leftover green bell peppers that I needed to use up, after all.

For this, I used a recipe that I picked up from a Chicken of the Sea advertisement long ago but had to tweak a little because - typical me - I ran out of ingredients.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup finely chopped red bell pepper (used green bell pepper instead)

1/4 cup finely chopped green onions

1/4 cup mayonnaise (only had around 2/3 of this amount so I lessened the bread crumbs)

1/4 tsp seasoned salt

1/2 tsp garlic powder

dash cayenne pepper (did not add, hubby does not like spicy food)

2 6-oz cans crab meat

1 medium egg, beaten

1/3 cup breadcrumbs (for crab cake mixture)

2/3 cup breadcrumbs (for coating, I skipped this)

3 tbsp melted butter (for frying crab cakes)

In a bowl, combine pepper, green onions, mayonnaise, lemon juice, seasoned salt, garlic powder and cayenne pepper.
Stir in crab, egg and 1/3 cup breadcrumbs
Divide and form mixture into balls.
Roll crab balls in remaining breadcrumbs; flatten into cakes about 1/2 inch thick. (skipped the breadcrumb coating).
In skillet, pan fry crab cakes in butter 3 to 4 minutes per side until golden brown.

This turned out very very good. :D

Broiled Scallops

2009-11-28T21:10:00.000-08:00

The first time we made broiled scallops was Thanksgiving 2007 and if you would care to check the pictures I posted for that meal, you'll notice a big difference between then and now.

2 years has made a huge difference, obviously. Aside from experimenting on the seasoning & flavoring, now, I know enough to: (1) use an entire strip of bacon to wrap around the scallop to allow for shrinkage of the bacon and (2) to lift the scallops so that they don't get submerged in the juices that come out during the broiling.

Preparation:

1. Season scallops with lemon juice

2. Wrap scallops with bacon strips, secure the ends of the bacon with a toothpick.

3. Season the tops & bottoms of the scallops with a tiny bit of paprika and seasoned salt.

4. Heat the broiler and pop the scallops in when hot.

5. After 2 to 3 minutes, the bacon will have browned a bit, sprinkle a bit of brown sugar on the scallops and let brown a little.

6. Turn the scallops over on the other side and repeat step 5.

Pork & Kuchay Dumplings

2009-10-16T13:54:00.000-07:00

Whenever I think about preparing a quick snack or think about instant ulam, dumplings are usually one of my top choices because:

(1) they're easy to prepare - boiled, pan fried, and;

(2) they're versatile - can be eaten with rice, noodles, soup, or even just eaten alone.

My favorite dumplings will always be the vegetable dumplings that Mom used to buy from a small restaurant called Mien San along Gilmore Ave. It's been a while since I had them so I cannot really recall what's inside and it wasn't until recently that I found out that Kuchay (Chinese Chives or Korean Chives) is one of the main ingredients.

With that, I decided to experiment. This came out good - not the same as Mien San's, but tasty nevertheless - and the best part is that since it's home made (except for the wrappers), it's not riddled with preservatives.

1 lb ground pork

4 pcs dried mushrooms, rehydrated and chopped

12 pcs chives (full stalks), chopped - could add more

1 egg

1 tbsp sesame oil

pepper to taste

2 tsp salt

dimsum wrapper (used Cantonese style)

To seal the dumplings - mixture of 1 tsp cornstarch, 2 tbsp water

Mix the ingredients together and form into dumplings. Dumplings could be steamed or pan fried. You could also store leftover dumplings in the freezer. Arrange them in a plate or container such that they do not touch each other, put the in the freezer - do not put them in a freezer bag or let them touch each other until they are frozen so that they do not stick together.

*This recipe made 46 dumplings.

Chinese Steamed Spareribs

2009-09-21T18:18:00.000-07:00

Tonight's dinner was supposed to be pork chops but I was craving some spare ribs so I went off to the store at the last minute to pick up some ribs. It's been more than a year since the first time that I prepared this dish, I used a different recipe then but I don't remember how it tasted.

This time, I found a recipe from SteamyKitchen that had fewer ingredients, was easier to prepare and hopefully, will be more memorable as hubby has already forgotten about the first steamed spareribs that I made but this, we love! I even scooped out the meat juices from the bowl and drenched my rice with it.

1-1/2 lbs pork sparerib (rib tips)
2 tablespoons black bean sauce (I used canned salted black beans)
1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon grated ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon cooking oil
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon sugar

Preparation:

Cut the spareribs crosswise into 1″ – 2″ sections.
Combine the rest of the ingredients.
Transfer spareribs and sauce into a shallow, heatproof pan that will fit inside your wok (a pie plate or 9” cake pan works great.)
Let marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Steaming:

Set steaming rack inside of wok and fill with water almost up to height of rack.
Turn heat to high and when water is boiling, turn heat to medium-high.
Set pan with spareribs on top of a steaming rack in wok.
Steam on med-high heat for 18-20 minutes until ribs are no longer pink.
Make sure that when you are steaming that you don’t run out of water in the wok. Replenish with additional water, if needed.

Eggplant Parmigiana with Alfredo Sauce

2009-09-11T19:49:00.000-07:00

Today's lunch is brought to you by the letter "L". L for leftovers.

So we still had some leftover eggplant parmigiana from the last time and I did mention that I ran out of tomato sauce, didn't I ? I rummaged around the refrigerator and found some leftover Alfredo sauce.

Guess what I did next ?

Yep, I made some rotini pasta (not leftovers, haha!) and poured the rest of the Alfredo sauce on it. Poured a little sauce on the eggplant parmigiana too and I liked how it turned out. Somehow, the tartness of the tomato sauce got balanced out by the cream sauce.

Hubby, on the other hand, is still not convinced. He prefers this the classic way - with tomato sauce - rather than my way.

Eggplant Parmigiana

2009-09-08T20:02:00.000-07:00

Tonight's dinner was eggplant parmigiana. I've been looking forward to this for a few reasons:

a) because as much as I dislike veggies, eggplant just happens to be one of the ones that I love!

b) because my friend Kay, a very good chef/cook, had recently prepared this for her family and her pictures made me crave this. She kindly shared the recipe in her FB site.

And as a disclaimer, I would like to point out that I did deviate from the original recipe a little because the eggplant has been sitting in our refrigerator for a week now and I was still missing some ingredients. I also wasn't in the mood to fry because we didn't have enough cooking oil. And I had some frozen chopped spinach leaves in the freezer that I wanted to use up.

Ingredients:

- Eggplant

- 2 eggs

- bread crumbs (orig recipe called for flour)

- Traditional pasta sauce (bottled)

- chopped spinach

- parmesan cheese

- mozzarella cheese

Steps:

1. Peel and slice the eggplants, 1/2 cm thick. Sprinkle side with salt and layer it in between paper towels. Leave in the refrigerator overnight. Kay says that this will draw out the excess moisture and will draw out the bitterness of the eggplant.

2. Dip the eggplant slices in beaten egg and dip in breadcrumbs.

3. Oil a baking sheet and arrange the eggplant slices in a single layer. Bake in a 350 degree F oven till tender.

4. In a baking dish, pour a thin layer of tomato sauce on the bottom of the dish. Arrange a layer of eggplant slices, pour another thin layer of sauce, top with the chopped spinach leaves, parmesan and mozzarella.

Repeat step 4 (sauce, eggplant, sauce, spinach, cheeses) until all the eggplant slices are used up.

5. Pop into the oven and bake until the cheeses melt and begin to brown.

Oh, I would've paired this with pasta but I ran out of pasta sauce as well so we paired this with some freshly baked garlic bread instead. Yummy!

This post just reminded me to stock up our pantry again.

Pork Afritada

2009-07-30T19:11:00.000-07:00

I found some leftover pork shoulder in the freezer and decided to cook this for dinner with some tomato sauce. Did some searching on the net and found a lot of recipes for Pork Menudo and Pork Afritada, the ingredients differed. Eventually, I just picked the one recipe that had the least amount of ingredients from AllFavoriteRecipe.

I started off from that recipe and tweaked a few measurements, this was what I did:

1 lb pork, cubed
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, sliced
1 tbsp fish sauce (patis)
2 potatoes (Russet), peeled and quartered
1/2 cup water
1 cup tomato sauce
1 green bell pepper, sliced

Season the diced pork with salt and pepper and set aside in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.
In a saucepan, heat oil and saute pork until no longer pink. If juices come out, spoon them out and throw away.
Add the garlic and onion, saute till onions are clear.
Season the pork with the fish sauce.
Add the potatoes (NOTE: if using Russet potatoes, do not add them at this time as they cook easily and will fall apart before your pork becomes tender).
Add the tomato sauce and water
Bring to a boil and simmer on low heat for 25 to 30 minutes until pork is soft.
Add the bell pepper and let simmer.

This turned out quite good, the only issue we have is that we used Russet potatoes and they cooked too quickly. Will have to add them into the pot a bit later (maybe 10 to 15 minutes later) so they don't get too soft.

Taste wise, this turned out good.

Fried Tofu

2009-07-29T18:12:00.000-07:00

Tofu has always been a favorite in our kitchen but we don't get to try a lot of different dishes, mostly because we do not know how to prepare them and we usually stick with what we know.

Recently, Mom brought a vegetarian cookbook and left it with me because she says that we might make more use of it than she did. True to her words, I went through the book immediately and found a recipe for this simple fried tofu dish.

1. Dice tofu and scald with boiling water for 1 minute (to half-cook the tofu).

2. Drain the tofu on paper towels.

3. Dip the tofu in egg and then coat with flour.

4. Deep fry in hot oil.

For the sauce:

3 tbsp lite soy sauce

2 cloves of garlic, chopped finely

1 tsp sugar

2 tsp sesame oil (did not put this much)

Pizza Day

2009-03-16T17:50:00.000-07:00

Saturday night last weekend was pizza day for hubby and me. We made the crust (using the same recipe as before) - he wanted to knead and thought it was fun - together and we divided it up and formed and topped our own pizzas since we wanted different toppings.

Hubby's pizza had a tomato-based sauce ( tomato sauce + tomato paste and seasoned with oregano, onion powder and garlic powder). He topped it with mozzarella cheese, ham, meatball pieces (Ikea swedish meatballs), bacon, pepperoni and more mozzarella.

My pizza sauce was cream-based, I used plain creamy Alfredo sauce from a bottle. I topped mine with spinach, ham, meatball pieces, bacon and mozzarella cheese.

We dropped by the supermarket to get some fresh mushrooms but I forgot to take them out when we were preparing the pizzas.

The crust is still not as nice as I would like them to be. It's okay to eat while it is fresh out of the oven but it gets harder when it cools. Konting experiment pa and we can probably invite friends over for a make-your-own pizza dinner sometime.

Pork Giniling

2009-03-11T07:43:00.001-07:00

I've been a fan of Eating Club Vancouver's dishes ever since I found an Aristocrat-style-chicken-bbq recipe on their site a year ago.

I've been trying out more and more of their dishes and this time, it's their Mom's classic Pork Giniling dish (ground pork). Check out their site which is very helpful because they posted pictures of each step in the cooking process.

Ingredients:
2 lbs ground pork
1 tsp vinegar (optional)
pepper
chopped garlic
1 cup of diced carrots
1 cup of diced potato
1 tbsp shao xing wine (I substituted cooking sherry instead)
1 tbsp oyster sauce
4 tbsp soy sauce
2 cups water (approximate)

This is a short-cut version of the recipe, check out the original post for more detailed descriptions:

1. Brown the ground pork, add the vinegar and drain / scoop out the fluids that will come out from the pork.
2. season with pepper and mix around
3. add the chopped garlic, carrots and potato
4. add the cooking wine and oyster sauce and mix around
5. add the soy sauce and water, let boil & simmer till cooked.

Marinated Chicken Kebabs & Herbed Potato Slices

2009-02-06T14:18:00.000-08:00

A good friend shared a recipe that she saw on TV (a Filipino channel), when she was describing the dish to me, I did a google search and found the exact same recipe posted on Epicurious.com.

Marinated Chicken Kebabs with Lemon-Pepper Yoghurt Sauce

Admittedly, this was my first time cooking with Rosemary and I was a bit too enthusiastic and generous with this herb. The chicken (thankfully) turned out well and hubby gives his seal of approval although he did request that I make it with bigger chicken chunks next time.

Marinade:
2 cups extra virgin olive oil
juice of 3 lemons
2 tbsp chopped garlic
3/4 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary leaves (I used dried rosemary leaves)
3/4 tbsp fresh thyme leaves (did not use these)
6 single boneless, skinless chicken breasts ( I used boneless, skinless thighs instead)
salt and pepper to taste

1. Slice the chicken in to smaller chunks (cubes).
2. Combine the ingredients and toss with the chicken chunks and leave this in the refrigerator overnight.
3. Instead of grilling, I popped this in a 400F oven for 30 minutes (until cooked).

The chicken turned out wonderful. I did try to make the Yoghurt sauce as described but it didn't go too well with us and we ended up throwing most of it away.

While thinking about what would best accompany the chicken as a side dish, I remembered a post from my favorite food blogger - PinoyCook's Grilled herbed liempo and potatoes. Inspired, I decided to slice up some potatoes, season them with rosemary, oregano, salt and pepper and arrange them underneath the chicken slices ala Pinoy cook.

When done, the potatoes absorbed the flavor from the chicken drippings and herbs and tasted wonderful!

Salted Fish Fried Rice

2009-01-27T22:20:00.001-08:00

Did I ever tell you that I'm a friend rice fiend? I love rice, all kinds of rice. This salted-fish fried rice is one of my absolute favorites whenever we go out to a Chinese restaurant.

Ingredients:
- garlic
- rice
- egg
- salted fish (Salted Threadfin)
- sliced chicken
- spring onions

1. cut / shred the Salted Threadfin into little pieces - you could probably use other types of salted fish but this is the real deal. This fish comes in dried form but we just this because you're not supposed to use a lot anyway.

My hands and fingers hurt after making himay this fish because the flesh was so hard! I use 2 slices for the 2 serving fried rice that I usually make.

2. Saute the garlic and sliced chicken in oil (I use a little bit of the oil from the Salted Threadfin). When the chicken is cooked, add the shredded fish and saute a bit more.

3. Add the rice and egg.

4. Garnish with egg slices and spring onions.

Sotanghon with Pork Leg

2009-01-27T22:12:00.000-08:00

I don't even remember how I prepared this but it was mostly a lot of cutting up the ingredients and stir-frying.

ingredients:
- 1 can stewed pork leg
- carrots, julienned
- scallions
- green veggies (cabbage, perhaps ?) - did not add
- sliced mushrooms

Salted Pork and Century Egg Congee

2009-01-27T21:38:00.000-08:00

Hubby and I have been craving for congee since the weather started getting colder last fall. I only used to be able to prepare good-'ol arrozcaldo but hubby had other (and better) ideas.

He preferred to have a different kind of lugaw and wanted me to try making salted pork congee. So I googled a few recipes and we called up MIL for some tips and instructions and this was what we came up with.

Ingredients:
- pork cubes
- salt
- century egg
- salted duck egg
- a couple of thin slices of ginger
- rice
- dried scallops (optional)
- sesame oil (to coat the rice grains)
- chicken boullion powder (for flavoring)

Steps:
1. Cut the pork into cubes, rub with salt and keep them in the refrigerator overnight.
2. To start cooking, rinse the pork and boil in a pot of water.
3. Prepare the rice by coating it with sesame oil.
4. When the pork has been boiling for a few hours (I like my salted pork so soft that they are falling apart when I bite into them), add the dried scallops and then, the rice.
5. Stir and continue cooking until the rice is cooked and you have congee.

6. Taste and flavor with chicken boullion powder.

7. If the congee is bland, use some salted dug eggs (cut up into small pieces or mashed) to flavor the congee. I've prepared this dish a few times and sometimes I had to add the duck egg and sometimes, the congee came out salty from the pork already.

8. Slice up some century egg and mix into the congee. The pic below shows the congee with bits of salted duck egg (the white stuff) and century egg slices.

This is good, we prepared this for Mom/Dad during our visit to California, they loved it and finished the whole pot.

Lunar New Year Celebration

2009-01-24T23:42:00.000-08:00

This was what we had for our hot pot dinner:
1) broth made from pork broth boiled and simmered for hours, this was later flavored with Sate sauce
2) spicy broth was from #1, but with some Chiu Chow spices

and the dippers:
1) sliced rib eye (shabu shabu beef)
2) vegetables - Sweet pea & Baby bokchoy
3) shrimp

4) shrimp balls
5) cuttlefish balls
6) fish cake - balls and sheets
7) kani - crab sticks
8) Enoki mushrooms
9) sweet corn

We also had 2 kinds of noodles - sotanghon and soba.

Kalbi

2009-01-19T18:40:00.000-08:00

Kalbi or Korean BBQ is one of my favorite dishes because:

(a) it's beef - all meat!
(b) it has bones (we all know that the meat near the bones is the tastiest) but the cut makes it easy to separate the meat from the bones if you don't want to gnaw on the latter
(c) the marinade, once you get it right, is easy to prepare
(d) you can marinade the short ribs before hand and have it ready for cooking any time
(e) you can pan fry it, bbq or grill it - perfect for any season

I first got the recipe for the marinade from my Aunt last June and we have prepared several batches since then and have refined / modified the recipe to our taste (hubby's tastes, mostly). Hubby has a keener sense of taste than me because I didn't have any complaints for all those times that we were experimenting with the measurements of the ingredients.

Marinade Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1 cup soy sauce (we used lite soy sauce)
1/2 bulb garlic (original recipe calls for 1 big bulb)
1 red onion
pepper to taste
water

Toss ingredients in blender, add just enough water to get the blender going (not thick).
When done, marinate the sliced short ribs in the mixture.

Spinach Alfredo Pizza

2008-11-21T20:49:00.001-08:00

This is the latter half of a 2 part series of blogs that chronicle our first attempt at making our own pizza at home. The first part gives detailed instructions on pizza dough preparation and can be found by clicking on this link to my Pizza Dough post.

Starting off from where my previous post left off, our pizza dough has now been rolled out and placed on a roasting pan (again, no pizza pan or baking stone yet). Note that some pizza making instructions advise that you use a pizza peel and assemble your pie on that instead.

Us ? We didn't want to go gung-ho and buy a lot of equipment that we probably won't be able to use for other dishes anyway.

Now remember this when making your own pizza, this site advises us to make sure that the toppings go on a specific order.

1. Pizza Dough
2. Sauce - for flavor and to keep the dough moist.
3. cheese - to keep the dough moist
4. toppings
5. cheese again
6. garnish, if any

Ingredients:
Classico Four Cheese Alfredo Sauce
chopped bacon
shredded ham
shredded swedish meatballs
mozzarella cheese
1 10 oz package of frozen chopped spinach

Step 1: Pour some sauce over your rolled dough and spread it around. Sprinkle a layer of mozzarella cheese over the sauce.

Step 2: Arrange your toppings across your pie. For our pizza, we drained & squeezed the water out of the package of chopped spinach before paying it out here. The topped it with meat.

I half-cooked the bacon in a pan before arranging them on my pie. I wanted to get rid of some of the fat and I also wasn't so sure about putting in raw ingredients since I didn't know how long I was going to bake the pizza before the crust gets cooked.

The Swedish meatballs were the packaged ones from Ikea, I wrapped them up in foil, thawed them in the toaster oven and pulled the balls apart so I could spread them across the pizza.

I also threw in some leftover ham for good measure.

Step 3: Before popping it into the oven, sprinkle another layer of mozzarella cheese over your pizza toppings.

Now, this is where the instructions vary. Some recipes ask that you bake your pizza in the oven at 400 to 450 F for 20 to 25 minutes. Some say to bake them at 475 F for 10 to 13 minutes.

I decided to set the oven at 425 F and it took 25 minutes for my pizza to get done. Make sure that you watch the sides of your dough, once it starts to brown, that's a sign that your pie is ready.

Verdict: yummy! Ang galing.

Pizza Dough

2008-11-21T20:42:00.000-08:00

Hubby loves pizza. Unfortunately, since most pizza have sauces that are tomato-based, I don't care much for it at all. The only one that I've ever really loved is Papa John's Spinach Alfredo pizza. The thing is, we both love our toppings so our pizza gets pretty expensive.

Recently, one of my very best friends from high school told me about how she prepared pizza for her husband one night. Masarap raw and I got inspired to do the same. Sayang lang, I had already gotten the ingredients to make my pizza dough and she didn't tell me until later that Betty Crocker had an instant pizza dough mix.

Anyway, it was fun making my own pizza and with the step by step and visuals provided in this Easy Pizza Dough Recipe, it was very easy. I would definitely do this again.

Ingredients:
1 cup of warm water (105 F)
3.5 cups of all-purpose flour
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp honey
1 tsp salt
1 tsp yeast

Step 1: Add 1 tsp salt and 2 tsp honey to the warm water. Add the yeast, mix, and let it stand in room temperature for 10 minutes. I watched this mixture the entire time and was happy to see bubbles forming, this is an indication that the yeast is still alive.

Do not use scalding or hot water as this would kill the yeast.

Step 2: After 10 minutes, gradually add the 3.5 cups of flour and 2 tbsp olive oil and mix with a wooden spoon. I couldn't find a wooden spoon and had to settle for the matching wooden fork instead. Surprisingly, I hadn't turned the wooden spoon (fork) more than 3 or 4 times around the bowl and my dough already looked like this.

Step 3: At this point, I sprinkled flour over my work surface and started kneading the dough. I had to log on to the internet again and google "kneading" because I didn't know what I needed to do.

Anyway, at this point knead the dough until it is elastic and smooth, as pictured on the left.

Step 4: Form the dough into a ball, coat it with olive oil. Place it into a bown and cover with plastic wrap. Let this stand for an hour in room temperature to let it rise, making sure that there are no drafts. After an hour, the dough will have risen to about double its size. Punch or press the dough down, this will release some air, and cover it again with the plastic wrap and let stand for another hour.

Step 5: You can now start rolling out your dough to the desired shape. I don't have a rolling pin in my kitchen so I improvised using a dowel rod that I got from a disassembled paper towel holder.

Using a rolling pin will ensure that your crust has a uniform thickness.

We had to cook our pizza in a roasting pan since we have not bought ourselves a pizza pan or a baking stone yet.

Skinless Longganisa

2008-11-05T20:31:00.001-08:00

My sister in California buys the yummiest longganisa at her local asian market. Whenever I visit her, Mom would surely prepare some for breakfast one day and serve it with sunny side up eggs and garlic fried rice. I love my longganisa paired with vinegar infused with garlic & chili too.

The Asian food store that we go to sells longganisa by the bulk and since hubby isn't exactly a fan, I hesitate about buying a package.

A few days ago, I was browsing the web for recipes for ground pork and found a recipe for skinless pork longganisa.

Ingredients:

1 kilo ground pork, 10% fat

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tbsp rock salt (or 1.5 tsp fine salt)

1 tbsp worcestershire sauce

3 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp chopped garlic

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Blend all ingredients together.

Roll a small amount of the mixture in a 4.5 in x 3 in piece of waxed paper

Store in the freezer for 3 hours or until ready to cook.

I have to admit that I did have some doubts as to whether the mixture would stick together while being cooked because there's no egg or cornstarch to serve as a binder for the sausage. But this works.

When ready to cook, heat oil in a wok or frying pan.

Unwrap the sausages and fry in batches until fully cooked.

Drain on paper towels.

These look good, no ? The sausages look so rich and yummy and they were.

Hot & Spicy Pork Chops

2008-11-04T17:43:00.000-08:00

We may have converted Mommy and Achi, my older sister, to the wonders of Knorr's Hot & Spicy Bake Mix.

Aliw rin to think of the story of how we found this product. Hubby and I were in our neighborhood Asian grocery store when we remembered this one pork dish that we've been aching to try at home - Spicy Salt and Pepper Pork Chop. It's been a while since we were able to order this dish in Chinatown so we (okay, it was me) were craving for the taste.

Fortunately, hubby (thank goodness that he still remembers his Chinese), knows what spice it is that is used in my fave dish. We asked the cashier, she asked a store clerk, the store clerk asked the manager, and eventually, the manager asked the owner. And yes, we found it.

I sent a box over to Mom and Achi in California (each box has 4 packets and cost around $2.50) and sent some pictures of how we prepared our pork chops.

Basically, I get a huge piece of pork - usually, pork loin because it's tender and cut it up into smaller slices. Smaller slices mean that more of the spice gets into the meat and thus, tastier. Mix in 1 packet of the spice for every 2 lbs of meat, massage the spice into the meat and let it stand in the refrigerator for an hour.

Just before frying, I coat the pork pieces with camote powder (because I like the texture, but you can use cornstarch so that it becomes crispy) and deep fry the pork pieces.

The outcome is delish, I tell ya.

And yes, the pic on the left shows that I have no patience for cutting / chopping whatsoever and don't care about uniformity at all. But, however my pork chops look like, they do taste good and contrary to what the label on the spice package says, these aren't spicy at all.

Pork Menudo

2008-11-03T23:59:00.000-08:00

For two weeks now, hubby and I have been having our Friday date night at a Filipino carinderia style restaurant in Jersey City. We actually love the food at another Filipino restaurant more - Mama Fina's - but they have been closed for a few months now and we have no idea where and when they will be in operation again.

So anyway, we've been to the Pinoy restaurant in Jersey City twice now and while we find the lechon kawali quite good, hubby (not a pinoy food fan to start with) has been disappointed with their Menudo and Bistek Tagalog. He claims that they didn't taste authentic - I'm not sure where he got his authentic pinoy food taste ideas from because they surely don't prepare that at home.

This menudo dish I prepared is an attempt to try and see what he expected Menudo to be, the original recipe is from Pinoy Menudo in Visual Recipes.

Ingredients:
1 kilo pork loin (orig recipe calls for pork liempo, I didn't want fatty meat)
1/2 kilo pork liver (we did not add liver)
3 medium sized potatoes, diced
3 medium sized carrots, diced
1 medium sized onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic
1.5 cups of tomato sauce
1 cup water
2 dried bay leaves
2 tbsp sugar (orig recipe calls for 1 tsp only but we adjusted to suit our taste)

Saute garlic and onion in a pan.
Add the meat and saute until meat is no longer pink.
Add the bay leaves, tomato sauce and water. Mix it around and let simmer.
When pork is cooked (in took me 30 to 45 minutes to get to this stage), add the carrots and potatoes and let it cook.
Season with salt and pepper (to taste).

Verdict: Masarap :) Though hubby says that this is not the menudo taste that he knows - syempre, walang liver. And in retrospect, we just realized that the menudo from home also has green peas and garbanzos (?).

Lemon Chicken

2008-10-04T23:59:00.000-07:00

Hubby loves lemon chicken. This is actually our 2nd try of this dish, the first one didn't turn out too good.

I've mentioned a few posts ago that we've been making an effort to curb our meat-eating habits and are trying to switch to healthier meats instead (i.e. chicken). Hubby has been talking about his mom's lemon chicken for months and how this would be their default baon for field trips.

We were in Chinatown last week and decided to drop by the neighborhood asian store where we like to do our shopping. We found a packet of Lee Kum Kee Lemon Chicken Sauce and decided to give this a try.

Ingredients:
Boneless chicken thighs
cornstarch (we will season the cornstarch w/ a little salt / pepper in our next try)
egg

1 packet of Lemon Chicken Sauce
3 Lemon slices

Steps:
1. Season chicken thighs with seasoned salt, let this sit in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.
2. Beat the egg in a bowl.
3. Dip the chicken in the egg and then coat it with cornstarch
4. Deep fry the chicken until cooked and drain on paper towels.

Sauce: The instructions on the packet only calls for heating the sauce and adding the chicken in. Hubby added some lemon slices and water to adjust the taste.

1. Pour the sauce into a small saucepan to heat it.
2. Add 3 lemon slices and 2 tbsp water.
3. Stir.

To serve, slice the chicken pieces, garnish with a lemon slice and pour some sauce.

Note that we served the chicken and sauce separately because we wanted the chicken to retain its crispyness.

<-- Lemon chicken sauce, costs $1 in Chinatown (NY) Ansarap! We couldn't stop eating and making papak the leftovers.

Btw, we found this packet to be just enough for 4 pcs of chicken.

Chicken Barbeque - Aristocrat style

2008-09-08T23:17:00.000-07:00

I find myself craving for Aristocrat's chicken-barbeque every now and then. I've been looking for and trying out different recipes for a few years now and this is the ultimate!

This is the 2nd time we've tried this recipe. The first time was a big of a flop because
(1) I was too impatient and didn't want to wait to 2 days before grilling the chicken. It turned out too bland.
(2) We didn't have peanut butter at home and wasn't able to make the Java sauce.

Today's try was perfect! special thanks to _TS who posted her Yaya's Philippine-style Chicken BBQ recipe on [Eating Club] Vancouver.

_TS's Yaya's Barbequed Pork

Marinade:
1 big head garlic, crushed
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. black pepper
4 tbsp. soy sauce
4 tbsp. sugar
1 7-up or Sprite
10 pcs. calamansi (substituted lime juice)
3 to 4 pcs chicken leg quarters. or 1 kg. pork, sliced thin into 1-1/2" pcs. (shoulder butt)

Procedure:
Mix all ingredients together including the pork/chicken. Marinate pork overnight in the refrigerator, if using chicken, marinate for 2 days.

Basting Sauce:
To make the basting sauce, use some of the marinade, add catsup, worcestershire sauce, a touch of oil and adjust the sugar and soy sauce levels. Heat the sauce in a pan and cook until it is thickened. Baste the bbq on the grill.

Peanut sauce
Use some of the marinade and add the same things above (not so much ketchup, though) plus some peanut butter*. Heat this to cook the marinade and make the mixture smooth. Serve peanut sauce with your chicken barbeque.

* this was why I made my own peanut butter

Homemade Peanut Butter

2008-09-06T12:39:00.000-07:00

I remember having peanut butter & pandesal for merienda when I was a kid and as an adult, after outgrowing my peanut butter & pandesal phase, I still enjoyed the occasional spoonful of peanut butter that I'd have for fun :P

But really, it's so easy and cheap to get peanut butter so who would've thought that I'd be making my own peanut butter at home ? I found myself needing peanut butter urgently because I had just found a new recipe for Aristocrat-style chicken barbeque and I desperately wanted to make java sauce. Absent-minded me forgot to include that in yesterday's shopping list so what was an aspiring cook like me to do ?

Yes, make my own. Madali lang pala, as I always say, "almost everything can be googled nowadays."

What you need are the following key ingredients: Roasted peanuts (unsalted) and oil (I used olive oil).
In a food processor, put around 1 cup of peanuts and 1 tsp oil in a food processor and process it for a few minutes until you reach your desired consistency. I like my peanut butter a little chunky so I ran this for 2 to 3 minutes.
Taste and season with sugar and salt as needed and pulse a few more times to make sure that the salt / sugar is mixed in well.
Keep your peanut butter in a glass jar and refrigerate. I used up 2/3 of the resulting peanut butter for my java sauce and this is what is left.

I don't know how long this is going to last but we plan on consuming this in the next few days anyway.

Now that I've done this and it turned out well, I don't think that we'll be getting any more of the store-bought stuff. This is way better and probably much healthier than the commercial ones.

Fried Rice with Chinese Sausage

2008-09-06T12:30:00.000-07:00

I love all kinds of rice dishes - wild rice, jasmine rice, basmati, pilaf, risotto, congee, fried rice and even rice pudding.

Working from home, I don't always have the time to prepare my lunch. Leftovers from the previous night's dinner usually becomes hubby's baon and if there isn't enough left over for two meals, I let him bring all the leftovers and I am left to fend for my own lunch the next day :)

On days when I can't figure out or don't feel like cooking much, fried rice is always a convenient option for me. After all, there is last night's leftover rice anyway.

For this dish, the ingredients are:
- chopped garlic
- 1 stalk green scallions, chopped
- 1 pc chinese sausage (lap chiong in Cantonese)
- 1 egg
- chicken boullion powder
- garlic salt

Stir-Fried Chicken

2008-08-28T12:01:00.000-07:00

We keep hearing that it's easy to prepare stir-fry dishes. You just keeping stirring the ingredients until they're cooked,... supposedly.

The thing is, what do we use to flavor the dishes ?

My mom sent me a Chinese cookbook - it's more of a pamphlet, really - and this gave us a starting point in terms of the sauce.

For this chicken-stir fry dish, we used the following:

Skinless & boneless chicken thighs, cut into strips
1 head of broccoli florets (did not know that the stem is edible so I threw it away, argh!)
1 carrot, sliced
quail eggs
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp grated ginger

sauce:
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp lite soy sauce
1 tsp cornstarch, dissolved in 2 tbsp water
1 tsp sugar

Blanch the vegetables - broccoli and carrots.
In a wok, saute the garlic and the ginger in hot oil.
Add the chicken and stir around until chicken in cooked.
Pour in the sauce and then add the vegetables and the quail eggs.
Let the sauce boil and thicken.
Serve

Sweet and Sour Chicken

2008-08-15T23:30:00.000-07:00

Hubby and I, avid meat-eaters, have been making an effort to try to eat healthier. We are now trying to incorporate more chicken into our meals to replace beef and pork. We're still a long way off from being totally healthy and I won't even dare suggest that we become vegetarians, but this is a start.

So we've been buying chicken during our weekly grocery trips and we are fast running out of options for preparing chicken. So I turned to the net and my favorite cooking site, Pinoycook.net, and
I found a recipe for Sweet and Sour Chicken Fillets.

We tried the recipe and the dish turned out good on our first try except that it was too sweet for our taste. We have since revised the recipe to suit our tastes and to make use of the ingredients that we have in our kitchen and this is the result.

1.5 lbs Boneless & skinless chicken thighs, cut into strips
seasoned salt
flour (for dredging the chicken)
cooking oil (for deep frying the chicken)
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp minced ginger (we grated this instead)
1 small bell pepper, sliced
1 small onion, sliced
1 small carrot, sliced
1 cup water
1/8 cup vinegar
1/4 cup - 2 tbsp sugar (subtracted 2 tbsp sugar from the original recipe)
salt & pepper to taste
2 tbsp tmato paste
1 tsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp sesame oil
pineapple chunks (new addition)
toasted sesame seeds (new addition)

Season chicken strips with seasoned salt and then dredge in flour.
Deep fry the chicken till golden brown, drain on paper towels and set aside.
Saute garlic & ginger. Add the vegetables and stir fry over high heat for around 45 seconds.
Stir together water, tomato paste, vinegar, salt, pepper, sugar and cornstarch.
Return chicken to the skillet or wok and pour in the sauce. Stir till sauce thickens and clears.
Add the pineapple chunks and stir around to coat the pineapple with sauce. (Note that by adding the pineapple chunks at this stage, it probably didn't lend a lot of flavor to the dish. We like it this way).
Turn off the heat and drizzle with sesame oil just before serving.
Top with toasted sesame seeds.

This is good for 4 to 5 servings.

Carrot Cake

2008-08-14T21:03:00.000-07:00

I got this recipe from my Aunt in California when I visited last June. She was on a carrot cake cooking binge and would cook different batches (she'd be giving most of the cakes away) while she experimented and looked for the best recipe & combination.

Dad isn't too fond of eating sweets but he liked the frosting on this one.

When I got home, I decided to try this out and see if I got the recipe right. This turned out good but yielded a lot of cakes! I will halve the recipe next time I do this so we don't get stuck with carrot cake for several weeks.

I have to give a word of warning to first timers though, shredding carrots is a hard job! My arms were so sore afterwards.

CAKE:
3 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 cups shredded carrots
1 cup crushed pineapple
1 tbsp vanilla extract
4 eggs
1/2 cup cooking oil

ICING:
1/3 cup cream cheese
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp milk
1/2 cup chopped cashews

Sift the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda and baking powder.
Add eggs, cooking oil and beat for 5 minutes.
Grease 13x9 in pan and bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes. Stick a toothpick and pull it out, if nothing sticks to the toothpick, your cake is done.

We Heart Grill

2008-07-15T21:39:00.000-07:00

Hubby and I are loving our grill.

This grill is a George Foreman indoor-outdoor grill that I received as a birthday gift 4 years ago.

I know, I know. I didn't use it immediately because I didn't want to just leave it outside (balcony) permanently and be exposed to the elements. Yet, I felt too tamad to bring it in inside after every use (after airing it out to get rid of most of the food smells, of course).

Anyway, we decided to use this last July 4th and boy, oh, boy, we're great .. correction.. HUGE fans!

So far we've grilled baby back ribs, corn, chicken bbq, pork chops, asparagus, bacon, and now, our latest dish - Korean BBQ (marinated short ribs, recipe to follow).

We had doubts about the electric part at first because, after all, there's this notion that fire-grilled food is always better than those grilled through an electric grill. Well, there's not a whole lot of difference and you still get the dark (seared) lines across the meat anyway.

Chicken Ala Croissant

2008-06-23T20:19:00.000-07:00

We bought a huge batch of croissants from Costco while the in-laws were visiting and when they left, a lot were still left over.

In an effort to try and finish up the leftover croissants, we wanted to prepare a dish that would go well with bread - Chicken ala King topped the list. This recipe is a variation from Diana's Kitchen.

1.5 tbsp butter
1 cup fresh mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
1/8 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup half and half
3/4 cup chicken broth
2 pcs boneless skinless chicken thighs, cooked and diced

1. Melt butter in a saucepan.
2. Add mushrooms and bell pepper, cook for 5 minutes.
3. Blend in flour, salt and pepper. Continue stirring and cooking until smooth and bubbly.
4. Gradually add milk and chicken broth. Stir constantly.
5. Cook for 10 minutes. If you'd like a thicker sauce, blend 2 tablespoons of cornstarch with 1/4 cup of cold water and add to sauce a little at a time, untile desired consistency is reached.
6. Cook for a few more minutes, then add chicken.
7. Heat through.
8. Serve.

Verdict: yummy! although the lack of color did bother me a little, we think that there should be reds or oranges ?

Chicken Pepper Stir Fry

2008-05-23T08:56:00.001-07:00

I've been making an extra effort to prepare more chicken dishes, rather than the usual pork & beef, in an effort to live a little bit healthier.

Hubby and I have taken to buying a few packs of boneless chicken thighs whenever we stop by the grocery store.

I've tried a few dishes and this was the best of the lot so far. Worth blogging :) This is a very very slight variation from this recipe from Recipe Trove.

Ingredients:
6 pcs boneless chicken thighs, sliced thinly. (around 1 lb)
1 medium red bell pepper, sliced thinly
1 medium green bell pepper, sliced thinly
6 stalks green onions, cut into 1 inch pieces

Marinade:
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp catsup
1 tsp grated ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced

1. Mix the soy sauce, catsup, ginger and garlic. Add chicken and let stand for 15 minutes or more.
2. Stir fry the peppers and green onions in 1 tbsp of hot oil, cook until crisp-tender. Set aside.
3. Stir fry the chicken in 2 tsbp of hot oil for 4 to 5 minutes, until no longer pink in the center.
4. Stir in the bell pepper and green onion mixture.
5. Serve.

Verdict: Sarap! I cooked enough for 2 meals (4 servings), at least I thought so. Ginanahan si hubby and we had to cook extra rice because kinain nya yung rice that we set aside for his baon the next day.

So this was really just 3 servings for us.

Chicken wrapped in bacon

2008-04-24T11:33:00.000-07:00

This is one of the staple dishes in my kitchen. I like to prepare these beforehand and keep them frozen and when I need to cook them, I just pop them straight from the freezer to the turbo broiler

Ingredients:
Boneless chicken breasts / thighs, sliced thinly
Bacon slices
Egg
Bread crumbs

Filling: Butter, parmesan cheese, parsley, salt & pepper (or garlic salt, for more flavor).

I usually just mix the ingredients for the filling and make "tantya". Spread the filling over the chicken slices, place a slice of bacon, and roll it up and stick a toothpick to allow the roll to retain its shape.

[edit: These days, I don't roll in breadcrumbs anymore but instead, we wrap the outside of the chicken roll with yet another slice of bacon and sort of tuck the end in to hold the roll in shape. This is way better than breadcrumbs].

Dip the roll in egg and roll in breadcrumbs and then, I just wrap them up in foil and freeze.

To cook, bake in 375 degree oven (turbo broiler) . Cooking time varies.

Roast Pork in Soy Sauce

2008-04-08T19:47:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I last posted a new recipe. I've tried a few recipes but those didn't make it to this blog because frankly.. uh, they didn't turn out too well and I didn't really want to bother posting if it wasn't good enough to share.

We got a huge piece of pork loin on sale from the grocery store last week and figured that this was a good time to try out this recipe from my cookbook that I've been eyeing for a long time.

Ingredients:

1 lb lean pork fillets

Marinade:

6 tablespoons dark soy sauce
2 tablespoons dry sherry
1 teaspoon five-spice powder
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 inch piece fresh ginger, finely chopped

Glaze:

4 tablespoons superfine sugar
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

Mix together the ingredients for the marinade. Spoon over the pork, cover and marinate in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Drain the pork, reserve the marinade.

Place the pork on a roasting rack over a roasting pan. Cook in the oven, occasionally basting with the marinade for 1 hour or until cooked through.

Place the superfine sugar and vinegar in a saucepan and heat gently until the sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil and simmer for 3-4 minutes, until syrupy.

When the pork is cooked, remove from the oven and brush with the sugar syrup. Leave for about 5 minutes, then slice.

Verdict: This recipe turned out quite good - not exactly like how my Ama used to make it, but close enough. Next time, I would use a different kind of dark soy sauce. For this recipe, I used Mushroom flavored dark soy sauce and the roast pork turned out too dark. I would use Silver Swan soy sauce next time.

Japanese rice rolls

2008-04-02T21:09:00.000-07:00

We always make sure that we have a few packs of Rice Seasoning (Furikake) at home.

If we find ourselves without anything for dinner, we could just cook a batch of sticky rice, and mix in a packet or two of Furikake. Optionally, you could drizzle a little sesame oil in the rice mixture too.

If you're concerned about the presentation, you can use a sushi form (or rice form?) to form the rice into sliced rolls like we did.

Note though that Furikake comes in many different flavors and is made from different ingredients. The most difficult part is choosing as we find ourselves unable to translate the ingredient list from the product label most of the time.

Fortunately, we were able to try this one out - a Korean brand - at a Korean supermarket. Surprise, surprise!

We've tried other brands and flavors but so far, this is the only one that we like.

Broiled Flounder Parmesan

2008-02-22T21:30:00.000-08:00

My family has always abstained on Fridays during the Lenten season. Having my own household didn't change anything, I still abstain and make my husband do the same thing :)

I haven't prepared anything yet when hubby got home from work. I figured we could just wing it with some buttered pasta and salmon flakes (like what we sampled at Costco last time). Hubby had something else in mind - the flounder fillets.

The last time we had flounder, I baked it with crab meat, shrimp and mushrooms mixture. I wanted something different this time and found a recipe for Broiled Flounder Parmesan from Diana's Kitchen.

* 2 pounds flounder fillets
* 2 tablespoons lemon juice
* 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
* 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 cup butter, room temperature
* 3 green onions, chopped
* 1 or 2 dashes of hot sauce, to taste
* thinly sliced lemon and parsley for garnish, optional

Place fillets in a single layer on a greased baking dish or broiler pan; brush with lemon juice.

Combine Parmesan cheese, mayonnaise, salt, butter, and green onions, and hot sauce in a small bowl; set aside.

Broil flounder fillets 4 to 6 minutes, or until fish flakes easily with a fork.

Remove from oven; spread with cheese mixture.

Broil about 30 seconds longer, or until cheese is lightly browned and bubbly.

Garnish with sliced lemon and parsley if desired.

Broiled flounder recipe serves 6 to 8.

Our verdict: YUMMY!

Steamed Spareribs

2008-02-18T18:23:00.000-08:00

We currently have a whole freezer fully stocked with meat - thanks to the Shoprite coupons that we were able to use last week. One of the meat packages that we got was pork spare ribs. I was planning to make some "Salt and Pepper pork ribs" but I didn't want to do more frying because of the lingering smell that always permeates the kitchen and living area after deep frying anything.

I decided to prepare our ribs ala dimsum style - steamed - and after some searching, I found this recipe by Weldon Russell posted on Cooking.com that I liked. I found myself missing a few ingredients so I ended up doing some substitutions and eliminating some altogether (I've noted those changes down in the recipe below).

Btw, the ribs were yummy! I really should stage my dishes nicely before taking any photographs. The photo above doesn't do this dish any justice.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp peanut oil (substituted olive oil)

2 tbsp fermented black beans, rinsed under cold water, drained and roughly chopped

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

2 tbsp chicken broth

2 tsp rice wine or dry sherry (used cooking sherry)

1 lb pork spareribs, chopped through in sections between the ribs

2 tbsp cornstarch

2 fresh red chili peppers, chopped (did not use)

2 cloves garlic, chopped

2 tbsp chopped cilantro (did not use)

1. Heat the oil in a hot wok. Add the black beans, salt and sugar, and saute gently for 10 seconds. Add the chicken broth, rice wine and light soy sauce. Simmer together for 30 seconds. Remove the sauce to a mixing bowl. Add the spareribs and set aside to marinate for at least 30 minutes.

2. Add the cornstarch and mix well to coat the spareribs. Place the ribs on a plate ready for steaming. Sprinkle on the red chili peppers, garlic and cilantro. Steam over boiling water for 45 minutes.

Cutting a Pineapple

2008-02-17T12:44:00.001-08:00

Hubby and I got ourselves a pineapple as part of our lucky fruit plate for the recent lunar new year. Pineapple = ong lai (sounds like "prosperity comes" in Fookien)

When it came time to cut open the pineapple and eat it, we found ourselves in a quandary. How?

This post chronicles our first (and probably the only) attempt. We're thinking that this is too much effort to go through so we might just get canned pineapple next year. But in retrospect, given the laughs that we had while this was being photographed, it's all worth it.

Step 1: Prepare your pineapple, knife and chopping board. The chopping board in the picture is the one that we only use for fruits. (We have separate chopping boards for raw meat).

Step 2: Hold the pineapple by its crown and start slicing off the covering on the sides.

Step 3: If first knife is dull, replace with a sharper knife.

btw, this is a shoutout to my readers in the US, where do you have your knives sharpened ?

Step 4: Chop off the top & bottom. Cut the body in half.

Step 5: Slice off the "eyes" of the pineapple.

Step 6: Cut into serving-sized slices.
Rub w/ rock salt and rinse. (hubby did this, don't know why)

Thankfully, the pineapple that we got turned out to be very sweet. Sarap!

Baby back ribs and Mushrooms ala Teriyaki (by PinoyCook)

2007-12-27T11:35:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-07T12:23:00.001-08:00

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

2007-12-05T23:50:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-24T20:31:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-19T18:15:00.000-08:00

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:

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.
Combine the cornstarch, lite and dark soy sauce, oyster sauce and water in a small bowl.
In a skillet, heat oil and saute garlic. Add the shrimp, carrots, straw mushrooms and broccoli. Saute until heated.
Add the cornstarch & sauce mixture. Stir constantly until sauce thickens. Add a little broth as necessary.
Add the noodles and mix.
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

2007-11-19T13:49:00.000-08:00

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

2007-10-28T19:57:00.000-07:00

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:

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.
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.
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.
In a wok or saucepan, saute chopped garlic in a tablespoon of oil.
Add tinapa flakes.
Pour in the palabok mixture.
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

2007-09-16T16:51:00.000-07:00

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

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.
Wrapped the chopped spinach in paper towels and squeeze the water out. Do this repeatedly.
Mix the ricotta cheese, spinach and eggs in a container.
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.
From this point forward, we should be alternating the layers - pasta, sauce, ricotta cheese & spinach, mozzarella.
Cover with foil and bake in a 375 degree oven for 35 - 40 minutes. Cook uncovered in the last 10 minutes.

Lechon Kawali

2007-09-11T21:53:00.000-07:00

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.

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.
It usually takes a few hours, depending on the thickness of the meat, before the pork liempo is cooked through.
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.
Freeze the pork belly.
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

2007-09-10T12:25:00.000-07:00

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:

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

Mashed Potatoes:

Boil potatoes in hot water for 15-20 minutes or until soft.
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.
Mash the potatoes using a potato masher or a fork
Add a dollop of butter.
Add a little milk but not too much that the consistency becomes runny.
Season with salt & pepper.
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

2007-09-05T12:00:00.001-07:00

(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:

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
In a wok / saucepan, heat some oil (put enough oil to deep fry the pork pieces).
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.
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.
Saute garlic in a wok/saucepan, add the bell pepper. When bell pepper is cooked, add the deep fried pork and mix.
Pour in the oyster sauce mixture and mix.
Serve

Bacon-wrapped Asparagus

2007-08-13T11:31:00.000-07:00

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:

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.

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.

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

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

Liempo

2007-08-08T20:14:00.000-07:00

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

Marinade pork belly in mixture for at least 1 hr.
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

2007-07-21T19:05:00.000-07:00

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:

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

Blanch broccoli in boiling water

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

Add the onions

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

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

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

Baby Back Ribs

2007-05-21T13:53:00.000-07:00

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.

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Original recipe : Part 1 and Part 2

My Own Food Blog

2007-04-23T14:07:00.000-07:00

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!