Sausage and hash brown casseole

Ingredients 

Any sausage 

Bacon oil to cook it in 

Leftover mashed potato or fresh grated potato, browned. 

Egg

Milk

Cheese 

Cool that sausage in bacon oil to give more flavor. And set aside. Brown the potatoes and mix in the sausage. 

In a separate bowl mix the egg, milk and a half cup of grated cheese. 

Mix the potato mix into the cheese mix and turbo that for 40min at 175C

Homemade PepperLunch

This is my home version of Pepper Lunch. No need to wait until the hot plate cools. 

4 tablespoons oil for frying 

300g flank steak, thinly sliced

1 can of whole kernel corn

Pepper lunch sauce

3.5 tablespoons soy sauce 

1/2 tbsp water

2 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 cloves garlic, crushed

Heat sauté pan on high. Add oil. When hot quickly sauté beef. Set aside. Add corn to the same pan. Cool for 3 min. Make a well in the center. Pour in the mixed sauce ingredients. Add the beef back in to the pan. 

You can serve the beef and corn separately but to save us the trouble of everyday dinners we just mix it all together. 

Serve hot on top of steamed rice.  

Beef steak Tagalog

Homemade coffeehouse scones

Here's a great addition to our mornings these days. Coffeehouse scone recipe from the joy of baking. I can make them in  my turbo broiler. 

Restaurant review: Fish & Co Mall of Asia

Date visited: April 18, 2015

Just before 630pm on a Saturday we decided to grab dinner at Fish & Co. Perfect timing because there were lots of seats. Once the dinner crowd started coming in the restaurant was packed. 

We ordered popcorn shrimp, a lunch portion of Philadelphia fish and chips, classic fish and chips (lunch portion) and sambal shrimp. With 2 iced teas and a bill of P1700 the meal was a bit pricey for 4 but not bad for the quality. 

Overall food quality was very good with the exception of the popcorn shrimp which looked nothing like the picture on the menu. Plus the shrimp was dry and you can totally tell by the dark brown breadcrumbs that the shrimp was overcooked. 

The bathroom and restaurant were nice and clean. A standard you would see with the bistro chain of restaurants like Italianni's and TGI Fridays. 

The lunch portion of the fish and chips is a perfect size for kids they can even share 1 if they don't eat that much. Sambal shirmp was very good if you like spicy food. 

Overall rating: 4 out of 5

Food: 4 out of 5

Ambiance: 5 out of 5

Service: 5 out of 5

Cleanliness: 5 out of 5

Restaurant Review: Ikkoryu Fukuoka Ramen SM Aura Taguig

For: Zomato

Restaurant Review

Restaurant: Ikkoryu Fukuoka Ramen

Location: Powerplant Mall Rockwell Makati City. Level P1

Date: January 25, 2014

Even though there was a big hype about ramen in 2013, my husband and I never got into that.  Just to see what all the fuss was about we decided to look for a ramen place. 

We chanced upon Ikkoryu Fukuoka Ramen in Powerplant Mall in Makati. It was 4pm and the place was empty.  The ramen noodles cost about P380 for a bowl.

We ordered YUZU-TAMA Tonkotsu P 380, Gyoza P230, and Yaki Tonkotsu P280. The YUZU ramen turned out to be spicy and eating a bowl of it will surely clear your nose if you currently have a cold.  The soup tastes well rounded with many other flavors aside from its’ spiciness. It was indicated in the menu that this ramen has one of the spices from the Kyushu region of Japan.  The ramen also comes with pork, nori, egg, and spring onions.  The gyoza was just ok.  For me, gyoza tastes the same in all the Japanese restaurants.  No big difference there. The Yaki Tonkotsu was a big plate of stir-fried ramen noodles mixed with pork and vegetables such as cabbage, carrot and monggo sprouts. When you order the waiter asks how you like your noodles cooked.  You can choose from hard, normal or soft.

They give a really big portion of noodles, so value for money is good.  Also, we were still full by 8pm even though we ate around 4-5pm.

Overall, the cost for 2 customers is just under P900. Service was quick, but not sure how fast you would get your order during rush hour.

Banana bread

What do you do on a Sunday afternoon when you have frozen bananas in the freezer?  Banana bread of course!  

Preheat your oven to 175C and grease a silicone bundt pan with oil. 

Whisk together 1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour, 1 tsp baking soda and a pinch of salt in a bowl and set that aside. 

Next, get a room temperature egg, and whisk that in a separate bowl. Add 3-4 mashed ripe or over-ripe bananas. Mix in 1/3 cup melted margarine or butter making sure to temper the eggs first to avoid scrambled eggs. Add 1 cup or a bit less of granulated sugar making sure the sugar dissolves in the butter. Add 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract to the wet ingredient mixture. 

Add in the flour mixture to the wet ingredients until incorporated. Do not over mix or the bread will be tough!

Pour all that into your prepared pan and bake for 20-30 min or until you can smell your cake and the top browns. You'll get a lovely crispy crust on the bread. Do a cake test to determine done ness. 

I couldn't help but cut a piece to taste it!

Restaurant review: Mu Noodle bar Glorietta Makati City

Small place with simple design. Small menu but good food!

I visited Mu Noodle bar in Glorietta last June 2013.  I forgot to take pictures, but here is one from wanderwithmee.  The place looks calm with clean lines and mostly black furniture. Their menu only has 2 pages, but the dishes were well presented.

We ordered their Seafood Chao Mein, extra soy sauce based soup and extra egg.  The Chao Mein was delivered promptly and most pleasing of all was that their shrimp and squid were cooked to perfection!  The extra soup was a perfect complement to the noodles. Extra egg is only actually half an egg, but it went well in the soup.

The meal was not more that P300, and good for 2 not-so-hungry girls.  I would definitely come back again to try their other dishes.

One thing about the Glorietta restaurant, they have seats lined up on the wall, and many of the customers take seats there.  There are high seats and tables in the center of the restaurant, but nobody likes sitting there.  You will often find the seats on the wall full, but the higher stools empty.  Customers tend to choose another restaurant if only the high seats are available.

Chocolate chip cookie science

 Some nights you just want to have a light dinner and then retreat to your comfy bed and relax for the rest of the evening, but then you start watching Man VS. Food and hunger strikes. Don't you wish you had a jar of cookies to reach for?

For the next two weeks, I will be experimenting with chocolate chip cookies recipes to see which mix of ingredients will bring me THE chocolate chip cookie.

I want a big, fat, crisp on the outside chewy on the inside, chocolatey bite.  Thanks to Bakerbettie, I will be mixing bread flour and regular flour, brown sugar and white sugar, and putting quality chocolate and maybe even a bit of cornstarch or graham crackers.

I want my cookies to look like this

and not like this

After lots of experimentation here are what mycookies look like

 

Successful beef pie with 2 crusts

Golden brown from top to bottom :)

Breakfast today

Breakfast today was hot tea, leftover spinach lasagne, a banana and peanut butter

Beef pie trial

Saw a butter crust pastry from foodwishes and decided to try it for beef pies

 

My favorite version is this.  The hand pie. 

Small beef and mushroom pot pie.

Growing basil

My basil plant is dying! I think the weather is too hot this summer. Two stalks dried up already. The leaves are falling out easily and they are very crisp like lays potato chips. :(

I tried again and basil was doing really good and now that it is summer again the basil is drying up. Why are you so hot Philippine summer?

Instead of buying plants I just buy a pack of basil from the grocery store, tear off the leaves to make pesto then line up the stalks, make a fresh cut and stick em in the soil of a pot. They always grow large leaves. 

Homemade mcdo/jollibee chicken

Newly baked: mini cheesecakes

These are good. Best of all the cream cheese is buy 1 take 1

Big Save: Dishwashing Liquid

I normally buy Joy dishwashing liquid in the refill packs of 200ml each for about P37.  One sachet lasts me a week.  Recently, I found Bubble Man Dishwashing Liquid in Landmark.  It is locally manufactured in Quezon City, thus a lower price.  I got 2 liters of dishwashing liquid for only P109!  When I buy Joy I get 400ml for P74.  For the same amount of Bubble Man brand 400ml will only cost P21.80.  Big savings, plus I can support a local brand.

For my spluge of the month, I bought Human Nature's Tough Love Dishwashing Li

Update: Malaysian Chili and Lemon Pine

 Hooray for the red chilis!

 I wonder why the chili leaves always seem to have dust on them.  I have to keep cleaning them.

 This is 10 days after the first picture.

I'm not sure if the lemon pine has grown.

Update: Basil Growth

 After 10 days, here is what happened to my basil plant.  Hooray!  Watering regularly is working.  See how many leaves have grown!  I sprinkle it with water, about 3 times a day to keep the leaves free of insects, and the soil moist.

 The stem I cut from the top of one stalk is growing too!

 Very green!

Excited to harvest

Trying to Grow Basil Again

I bought three plants while up in Baguio.  Basil, lemon pine and malaysian chili.   You know you are getting old when you start caring about plants.  As a second (actually third) attempt to grow my own basil, I will document what my plant first looked like, until I have successfully made a big bush out of the wee little thing.

 angle 1: leaves are nice and ever to green.  This pic was taken 7 days from purchase.  Hooray! Basil is still alive!  I am having trouble with something making holes in my leaves at the moment.  I had to pluck off some leaves.  I stuffed those leaves in the soil. Is that any good for fertilizing the plant?

 Angle 2

 My lemon pine.  

Please grow to 6 feet.

My Malaysian Chili plant.  Please be red soon!

Chocolate Cake Friday at Home

Baking in the oven

Kids love cake!

Frosting, check!

All warm and oozy