Chocolate Cake Friday at Home

Baking in the oven

Kids love cake!

Frosting, check!

All warm and oozy

How to Make Boring pork Cubes Delish!

Tastes like a mix of barbeque sauce and Mexican/Mediterranean soft taco filling.

Ingredients: 

Boring pork cubes with some fat on them

Pick me up ingredients:

2 cloves garlic

2 pinches dried basil, be generous

dash toyo

1/2 C vegetable oil

dash cumin

2 Tbsp brown sugar

4 Tbsp Del monte Italian spaghetti sauce

salt

pepper

How to:

• Put pick me up ingredients in your Jamie Oliver flavor shaker. Shake.
• Cut up the pork cubes into small pieces, so that they cook quickly and evenly. 
• Pour the mix over the pork. Marinate while you cook some steamed rice.
• Fry the pork in oil until well cooked but still soft.  Remove from pan.  Pour the marinade in the pan and boil.  Mix in the pork again briefly to coat with sauce.
• Serve with homemade tortillas and rice.
• Maybe some cilantro...if you have it.

my version of cibo's beef with garlic and rosemary

Beef breakfast steak 400g or sukiyaki
Oil
2 cloves garlic
Toyo
Rock salt
Pepper
Rosemary

Cost approximately P200 vs Cibo's meal portion of p415, but this has 3x as much beef.

Cheap!

Make this sunday

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Hit of the month: Binagoongan

I know that this might not seem like a new recipe to Filipinos, but I personally haven't cooked binagoongan in my life, and it turned out to be a hit.  My version is spicy and has cripy pork instead of the usual soft pork.

Ingredients:
Pork liempo - cut in 1-inch cubes
onion
garlic
1 tomato, chopped
bagoong - 1 heaping tablespoon
sitaw
sinigang na sili - 2 pcs, seeds removed

Boil the pork in garlic, onion, salt and peper until softened, about 10 min.  Drain, then fry til crispy on the outside. Set aside.

Saute onion in 1 tbsp oil.  When the onion is translucent, add the garlic, tomato and bagoong (you can add as much as you want really).

Add in the sitaw and cover until cooked.

Add the cripy pork and chili last, and mix. You can add 1/2 cup water if you want there to be some sauce. Then cover for 5 min to let the flavors mix together.

Serve :)

Review: Nestle Butterfinger Ice cream

I recently wanted to try Nestle's Butterfinger ice cream.  I was craving the crunchy peanut taste of the Butterfinger bar, and since it was a hot afternoon I decided that this was the best way.  I bought the 800ml tub from Rustan's Supermarket at Forbes Village.

After taking it home, I immediately tried it, but then I was let down.  It was disappointing!  It tasted just like ordinary chocolate ice cream and nothing like Butterfinger. Satisfaction rating for this product is 2 out of 10.

Of course, I had to let Nestle know about this.  I send them some feedback, and I was pleasantly surprised when they responded almost right away.  They offered to replace it and also give me some gift certificates.  Now, who could say no to this?  It took less than a week for a Nestle employee to contact me, and for another to come to my house and replace the ice cream.  We also discovered that the ice cream was expired.  The marking on the bottom was July 2012, and I bought it in mid July from the supermarket.  I'll have to take it up with the supermarket for selling me an expired product, but that will be another story.

As a replacement, I got Nestle's Kitkat bites ice cream, and this time I am glad to say that I was very satisfied by the quality.  I also got P300 worth in gift certificates!

Thank you Nestle for your quick and excellent service.

Thank you Liz, and Jinky.

Makansutra night at Manila Ocean Park

We had dinner at makansutra after the kids went to see the penguins at Ocean Park.  We tried their hainanese chicken, char kway teo, wonton mee, and pad thai noodles. It remided me of when we lived in Singapore when we survived on char kway teo and wonton mee. Good memories.

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Rice week: Chicken stock rice

In honor of rice week, I tried to make a simple flavored rice with 5 ingredients.

Ingredients:
oil
minced garlic
chopped onion
chicken stock
washed rice

First, heat up your pan with oil.
Saute onions and garlic in the oil.
Add the rice until they have a sheen of oil on them.
Add your chicken stock, and cook like you normally cook rice, or you could transfer it to a rice cooker.

The result: a light flavored rice, but not as flavorful as I hoped.

Rice week: Java rice

I decided this week is rice week. As a start to the week, I will try Java rice. The filipino version. Since there are so many recipes out there, I decided to compile a few and see where that takes me.

First off, java rice by casa veneracion

Here is her recipe:

Ingredients

• 4 tbsps. of coconut (or some other palm) oil
• 2 tbsps. of finely minced garlic
• 2 tbsps. of finely minced ginger
• 2 shallots, finely chopped
• 2 tbsps. of finely minced lemongrass
• 1 finely chopped bird’s eye chili
• 1 tsp. of turmeric powder
• 6 c. of cold cooked rice
• salt, to taste
• crisp onion slices and chopped scallion (onion leaves), to garnish

It looks simple enough, and I love that she did a step by step with photos. I'm not sure about ginger, and lemongrass being in the rice though. Wouldn't biting into those ingredients be a not so pleasant experience?

Bacon muffins - try!

Bacon Cheese Muffins (from The Muffin Cookbook, 1989)

1/2 pound bacon
vegetable oil
1 egg, beaten
3/4 c. milk
1 3/4 c. flour
1/4 c. sugar
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 c. (4 oz.) shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 c. crunchy nugget-like cereal

Preheat oven to 400 F.

In large skillet, cook bacon over medium-high heat until crisp. Drain, reserving drippings. If necessary, add oil to drippings to measure 1/3 c. In small bowl, combine dripping mixture, egg and milk; set aside. Crumble bacon; set aside.

In large bowl, combine flour, sugar and baking powder. Make well in center. Add dripping-egg mixutre all at once to flour mixture, stirring just until moistened. Batter should be lumpy.

Fold in bacon, cheese and cereal. Spoon into greased or paper-lined muffin cups, filling about 3/4 full. Bake 15 – 20 minutes or until golden. Remove from pan. Cool on wire rack.

Makes 12 muffins.

Jan 2012: Trip to Papa Johns with the kids

January 2012

Hamburger night first try. Basic burger

Hamburger Night at Home

Ingredients:

1/2 kilo ground round Monterey or ground sirloin

1/8 kilo lean ground pork

Salt n pepper

Hamburger buns

Big fat tomato

Crunchy lettuce

Mayo, ketchup

French fries

Make sure the meat is not frozen, but not to warm. It must be in the chiller or freshly bought. Mix the two kinds of meat, but do not over mix. Shape them into compact patties. Press down in the center for even cooking.

Heat up cast iron skillet. You want it to be pretty hot, so about 5 minutes on the stove without any oil is the ideal time. Season patties with salt, pepper, and oil just before cooking. Cook on skillet 2-3 minutes per side. Do NOT press down while cooking, because you want the juices to stay inside the burger. Let the meat rest after cooking, before serving.

While patties are cooking, fry French fries, heat burger buns, prep lettuce and slice tomatoes and cheese.

And a pickle if you like.

Hamburger bits of knowledge:

• Keep meat cold
• Do not over work meat
• Cook meat ASAP once formed.
• Season meat just before cooking.
• Shape properly for uniform cooking

Recreating Payless pancit shanghai

Continuation of the Chinese day

Merienda was shanghai noodles. My version of instant shanghai noodles that's kinda a cross between that and pancit canton.  Inspired by Payless Pancit Shanghai.

Shanghai noodles

Cooked spaghetti

2T oyster sauce

2T soy sauce

Few drops sesame oil optional

Diced carrots

Diced Baguio beans

Chopped cabbage

Garlic

Oil

Heat pan. Sauté garlic. Add veg. Add sauces. Add spaghetti. Done. Yum.

Chinese night

Tonight I cooked a Chinese meal. Salt and pepper Ribs and Wonton Soup

Salt and pepper spare ribs

2T rock salt

2tsp black pepper

2tsp 5spice powder

Roast in dry pan. Set aside

1/2 kilo spareribs

4T cornstarch

Water

2tsp five spice powder

Mix together and marinate 3 hours in ref

2 finger chilis

2 spring onions

Chop and set aside

Heat wok and cook spareribs. Remove and drain

Heat wok til smoking and cook spareribs again til browned

Change oil if it's too watery or add cornstarch to help browning. Remove and drain. Remove some of the oil. Add chili and spring onions. Quickly stir fry. Add spareribs and salt mix. Mix and serve.