Kimchi

Hubz went home with this pasalubong this evening.... 

Freshly made Kimchi,

He bought it from a korean store at Paseo at Sta. Rosa Laguna. I love kimchi. I could eat it alone like a salad. Yum yum

Few months ago,  I posted here the recipe for kimchi fried rice. The husband loves it and I think, I will be making this again this weekend. :)

If you want the recipe for Kimchi Fried Rice, you can have it here.

Happy weekend everyone and Happy Food Friday everyone!

Marciano's Resto

Vegetable Salad

If my memory is right this dish is called Brad Shaw Pork Saltimocca with mashed potato

Last Tuesday, we had lunch at Marciano's at Greenbelt 3. The price was okay, food was okay too but nothing to rave about. According to reviews, their pizza is a must try, maybe I will try them soon. Oh well....

Happy Foodie Friday everyone.

Maki Dream



After making my own gyoza, I wish I can make my own maki too. Kaya ko kaya? Keeping my fingers crossed,

Happy Food Friday!

Boiled Eggs anyone?

I love hard boiled eggs. The only thing is I do sometime experience difficulties in cooking it. Here's are some tips and tricks in cooking hard boiled eggs, that my friend thought me.

Place raw egg in saucepan.

Run cold water into the saucepan until the water is 1 inch above the egg.

Place pot on stove and cook over medium heat until it boils

Boil for 2-3 minutes for soft boiled eggs, 10-15 minutes for hard boiled.

When cook, drain the hot water and replace with cold water. Add some ice cubes to the water.

When peeling the boiled eggs..
You may want run the eggs under cool while doing that. This often helps separate it from the shell easier.

So there you go...perfect boiled eggs :)

Happy Food Friday

Pork Menudo

Menudo, is another comfort food that brings childhood memories. When we were kids, my mom owned this small food business. She offered dishes to her customers such as picadillo, dinuguan, kaldereta, sauted corned beef and menudo. So during lunch and dinner, my siblings and I can pick any viand that we wanted from our small carinderia. My siblings would picked picadillo while I preferred menudo. :)

I remembered we would helped mom chopped the onions and crushed the garlic she used in her cooking. That was the time I started to love cooking too. :)

Anyway, here is my simple Menudo recipe I learned from my mom.

You will need;

1/2k pork kasim, diced
1 cup diced pork liver
(marinte both pork and liver this also in soy sauce and pepper)
2-3 hotdogs sliced
2 cups pork broth
2 tablespoons vegetable or corn oil
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup cubed red ripe tomatoes
1/4 c. tomato sauce
1 green bell, diced
2 cups diced potatoes
1 carrots cut in cubes
2  tsp fish sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Then what you will do;

1. First fry the potato and carrot cubes, in batches, until the edges are lightly browned. Drain on paper towels and set aside.

2. Sauté onion, garlic and tomatoes then add pork then simmer uncovered, reduce the liquid to half.


3. Add the pork liver then mix, mix, mix.

4. Add tomato sauce, carrots, potatoes. Simmer stirring occasionally.


5. Then pour 1/2 cup pork broth. Season with salt.

6. Simmer for 10 more minutes.

7. Serve hot.

This is my entry for Food Friday. Happy FF day everyone!

Food Friday: Packed Lunch

My packed lunch for today at work would be penne with tuna and tomatoes .  I don't bring rice and viand for baon. So If not pasta, it would be sandwich or I will eat out na lang. Its only during weekends that I make home cooked meals. You know, busy with work,. I really dont have that enough time to  prepare or cook during workdays.

Do you bring baon  at work or in school din ba?

Happy Food Friday!

Very Chocolaty fudge brownies

 I still got pieces of chocolates (like toblerone milk chocolate, lindt, and hersheys) from my last travel. Since I got bored eating them, I decided to make them into something yummier.

Tada!!!!!

Brownies.....my favorite. :)

You want to make your own, here is how I did it.

You will need;
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine (melted)
1 1/2 cups sugar (brown sugar)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 eggs
3/4 cup Cocoa
1 cup of semi sweet chocolate chips ( I used 200g toblerone Milk chocolate, chopped)
1 cup of bitter sweet chocolate ( I used  lindt madagascar, melted in a 2 tsp of butter)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Then for the direction;

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease 13x9x2-inch baking pan.

2. Place butter in large microwave-safe bowl. Microwave 2-2 1/2 minutes or until melted. Stir in sugar and vanilla. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well with spoon after each addition. Add cocoa; beat until well blended. Then add the melted lindt chocolate. Throw in the  flour, baking powder and salt; beat well. Throw in the chopped toblerone chocolate. Pour batter into prepared pan.

3. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from sides of pan or toothpick inserted at the middle comes out clean. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Prepare chocolate ganache; spread over brownies.  Let it cool for an hour then cut in squares.

For the Chocolate Ganache:

I used hershey's milk chocolate and hersheys kisses. I chopped them into pieces. So about  2 cups of chopped chocolate and 1 cup cream in microwave-safe bowl.

Microwave at  30 seconds; stir. If necessary, microwave an additional 30 seconds or until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth when stirred.

This is my entry for this week's Food Friday. TGIF everyone!

Food Friday: My Favorite Chicken

Quarter chicken, java rice, steamed vegetable and corn muffin,  is my favorite meal combo whenever we eat at Kenny rogers. Actually sa kenny rogers (maliban sa max's) ako madalas kumain ng chicken. I always prefer  roasted/ grilled than fried. Well trying to be health conscious kasi :)

kagutom yung pic noh?

Happy Food Friday everyone!

Brownies anyone?

I was browsing my files when I saw this old photo of the brownies I made last December.  I baked few batches because a friend of mine ordered these for Christmas give-aways.

Anyway....this photo made me drool,  parang I wanted to have some as in now na hahaha. Cannot wait for this weekend, will bake some to satisfy my craving. Hmmm.....

Whats your recent craving pala?

Happy Food Friday.

Seafood Paella

 

Cooking a paella requires high heat for sauteing and then moderate to low heat for simmering. While this sounds easy, it takes a bit of practice to master.

I've learned that...

When making paella the most common mistake is to cook it with too much heat that will end up with undercooked rice. So what to do, add a cup of water or broth and must lower the heat to cook the rice.

Another mistake is too much adding of broth that will end up in a soupy paella. To fix this,  increasing the heat just long enough to boil off the excess water will help though  too much heat will burn the rice. What also works is to remove the excess broth with a large spoon. 

.It was my 3rd time to cook paella and I may say, somehow my paella cooking is much better,  yummier and less messy on the preparation hahaha.

Want to try making paella you can grab the recipe  here .

Happy Foodie Friday!

Morning!

My usual brekky when I was in Sydney. English muffin, scarambled eggs with hotdogs. A hearty breakfast but I often had breakfast alone. Lungkot noh?

Buti na lang dito na ko Pinas!

Joining Food Friday again. Happy Foodie Friday!

Moron

The other week, my aunt from Samar visited us here in Manila. She brought us this suman with chocolate flavor called moron. Whenever someone from the province visits us here, I would always asked for this suman....yum yum!

It's end of the work week na pala, yehey!!!!
Happy Food Friday everyone!

Crispy Lemon Chicken

This was our dinner last weekend. Hubz so love it. I have to thank Glenda for sharing this fantastic recipe. :) Happy Food Friday everyone!

Paella

I cooked this for our New Year's Eve Dinner. It was my second time to make Paella. The first one was a dry run cooking last December 29, just making sure that I wont make palpak on New Year's eve dinner. I guess I didnt since the husband himself requested me to make this for last night celebration. :)

Anyway, to make this version of Paella you need;

4 onions, chopped thinly

1 clove garlic, minced

1 bell pepper, dice

3 tomato, remove seed & diced

2-3 pieces chicken cut into cubes

3 pcs Spanish chorizo cut in cubes

1 cup short grain rice, (I used arborio rice used in making risotto)

2 tbs saffron

1 tsp spanish paprika

5-6 mussels, scrubbed and cleaned

6 shrimps (sugpo)

2 cups chicken broth

3-4 squids cut in ring

¼ cup frozen green peas

2 tsp olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

In a skillet brown chicken and sausage with 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium high heat for about 5 to 6 minutes. Leaving the chicken partly cook. Set aside.

Since I dont have a paella pan (paellera), I used a large skillet. Drizzle olive oil add onions until caramelized then add garlic, tomatoes and green bellpepper. Cook until everything are mushy (about 45 minutes in low heat). This vegtable paste is called sofrito. The base for our paella.

Then add the broth to our sofrito. Season with salt and pepper. Add the saffron and paprika. Then add the cup of rice and make sure that the rice is evenly distributed and wait for this to simmer. Do not stir the mixture from here. Add the chicken and chorizo and nestling them into the rice. Cook covered with of alumninum foil for 15 minutes. Then add the shrimp and mussels and squid. Cover again with aluminum foil until the seafoods are cook. Then throw in the green peas. Then cover it again with aluminum foil.

When the broth is fully absorbed, the paella should be ready. I cooked mine in low heat for about in 25-30 minutes.

Garnish with lemon or calamansi and sliced boiled eggs.
Serve and Enjoy

Fish Fillet and Tofu in Oyster Sauce

As I've said in my previous post, I love eating tofu. I love including it in my salad, in some pork or beef dishes and vegtables. For last night's dinner, we had fish fillet and tofu in oyster sauce.

To prepare this, just marinate 250 grams of fish fillet ( I used cream dory) in calamansi juice (4 pcs)with salt and pepper for an hour

When the fish fillet are ready, prepare the batter. But first heat oil in a frying pan. Then mix 1 tbsp of flour, add 1 beaten egg, Season with salt and pepper. Cover the fish with the batter and fry the fish, making sure both side are brown. After cooking the fish fillet, set it aside then fry the cubed tofu on the same pan, then set it aside.

Now will make the sauce...

Saute onions, garlic then ginger. Thrown in the julienne carrots. Stir fry for a minute then add a cup of water. Simmer for a while then drizzle oyster sauce depending on your taste. Thicken sauce with cornstarch dissolved in water. You may season it with salt and pepper if you want.

To serve,

place steaming rice in a bowl, then top the rice with fried tofu and fish fillet. Spoon the thicken sauce over. Drizzle oyster sauce and sesame oil and then serve hot. Yummy!

Cheesecake

Oreo Cheesecake drizzle with chicolate ganache. Oh so heavenly,

glad I learned how to make this dessert or else mamumulubi ako kasi a bit pricey ang price per slice :)

Happy Food Friday!

Food Friday: Ramen and my Cafe World

Whenever I crave for Kimchi noodles, I would grab an instant pack. It's a staple in our house. The spiciness and the firm noodles are just perfect for me. The husband and I love this ramen compared the ones we locally have here because ours are too salty.
Now, if you'll look closely the background is my Kainan Republic. My online cafe at Cafe World. It's my latest addiction after Farm Town. Im level 20 already and I'm excited to level up to get more stoves, more counter and more dishes to make. hahaha!
Have you tried the two?
Happy Foodie Friday everyone!

Food Friday: Paksiw Na Pata

Food doesn't need to be complicated to taste good. In fact those simple dishes are the ones that are really worth dying for like the paksiw na pata for instance.

It's a very simple dish and the ingridients are readily available in the market. A filipino all time favorite.

Let me share this recipe that another flagship food of my happy childhood.

You will need;

1 pc pork hocks chopped into 3-4 inches wide pieces

enough water to cover the pork hocks in the pot

1 cup dark soysauce

1 cup vinegar

5 pcs bay leaf

1 whole garlic, crushed

1/2 cup banana blossom(soaked)

1/2 cup brown sugar

lots of peppercorn

Then you have to....

Wash the pork hocks then place in a large pot. Add enough water to cover the pork hocks.

Add the remaining ingridients and cook until boiling. Reduce heat to low and simmer until meat is cook, approximately 1.5 to 2 hours.

Serve immediately with steam rice. :)

See how easy!

Food Friday: Banana Crumb Muffin

You have bananas on the verge of rotting then why not make them into a yummy treat.

Banana Crumb Muffin. This is the best banana muffin recipe I have ever tried. If you want to try it out, I got it from here.

Happy Food Friday!

Food Friday: Cold Cut

A chinese restaurat staple - cold cut. It's a combination of chicken slices, pork asado slices, jelly fish, century eggs and peanuts. It's my first time to taste jelly fish by the way and suprisingly, I love it. This platter taste good with hot tea. Hmmmm.

This cold cut platter is P320 per serving at Panciteria Lido. :)

Happy Food Friday everyone!