Stuffed Shells

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

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

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

and so... this dish was born.

Filling:

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

Shells: Prepare pasta shells according to package instructions

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

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

Eggplant Chips

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

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

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

Batter:

- egg

- cornstarch

- little water

- season w/ pepper and fish sauce (patis)

Slice eggplant into thin chips.

Dip into batter.

Deep-fry till cooked.

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

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

Spinach Pork Soup

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

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

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

Ingredients

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

1 package extra firm tofu

5 cups water

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

1 tbsp olive oil

1 to 1.5 tbsp sugar

salt and pepper to taste

Knorr seasoning (not part of the original recipe)

some fish sauce (not part of the original recipe)

some chicken powder (not part of the original recipe)

Sauteed Spinach with Feta Cheese

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

- Saute some garlic in olive oil

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

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

Szechuan Eggplant and Pork

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

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

Ingredients:

- 1/2 lb ground pork

- 1 eggplant

- 1 green bell pepper

- 1 carrot

- Ajinomoto Szechuan Minced Pork with Eggplant mix

Pan fried wontons

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

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

Happy.

Halo halo

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

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

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

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

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

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

Obvious bang amazed na amazed kami ? at medyo mababaw?

*smile*