Two Weeks of Nothing But the Best and Yes, I am talking about FOOD!

I haven't been around lately because I got preoccupied with my daughter's 5th birthday which I will be blogging later. Halloween, birthday and all these changes in the weather (Hello Winter!) made me pretty busy for the past few weeks. I have so much food posts maybe two weeks worth of food which I can't wait to share and maybe include a few recipes.

WARNING: This is going to be one LOOOONG post!

It's Sunday and I always feel like making special dishes on this day so I made our all time favorite sizzling steak. Nothing special about it really since it is so easy to make. Serving it on a sizzling plate made it more special hehe! It's just regular beef rubbed with montreal steak spice, grilled, transferred onto the sizzling plate, gravy on top and served with buttered veggies (I used the roasted gourmet ones) and white rice.

Monday is a busy day for me so I'd like to keep it simple. I made omelette using leftover sugared ham. Slices of ham splashed with some sugar while frying, chopped and mixed with beaten eggs.

Tuesday, when hubby is on evening shift, I like easy to prepare meals. He likes to eat the moment we come home after bringing the kids to school so most of the time, we end up having brunch in front of the TV while watching a movie. That means I only have less than 30 minutes to come up with something delicious. This stir fry beef sauteed in ginger and vinegar is one of my favorites. Saute garlic, onions and ginger, add beef and cook until they're not pink anymore, season with salt and ground pepper, chili flakes, add vinegar and boil for 3-5 minutes, adjust taste. This dish is done in less than 10 minutes!

Midnight snack is this sweet macaroni salad. It's ordinary chicken macaroni salad with mayo except we add condensed milk to sweeten it up. We are addicted to this and as I write this piece, I have a batch which I just made last night. Boil macaroni and drain, add mayo, condensed milk, boiled chicken, sweet relish, pineapple tidbits, cheese chunks and salt. 

Wednesday. Hubby requested for soft boiled eggs. Good thing I have this egg thermometer, I have no idea how to make soft boiled eggs hehehe. All I remember is how my mom used to feed my brother and I soft boiled eggs in the morning which I despise so much. I can only eat scrambled or the white part, not much an egg fan but hubby is, so there you go, soft boiled eggs. YUCK :P

This is eggplant omelette. Another one of our favorites since I rarely make it. It's just too much work especially if I grill indoors but it's delicious so depending on my mood I might make it again soon. Poke eggplant using a fork prior to grilling, take off skin, flatten and submerge into beaten egg mixture. Egg mixture is seasoned with salt and pepper. Fry in a non stick pan. Serve with rice, soy sauce and lemon or ketchup.

My kids freaked when I surprised them with nachos and cheese. They were all over it. These are actually hard tacos which I broke into pieces. The cheese sauce I made out of grated cheese, Cheezwhiz and milk.

Lance had to have the largest serving!

my taco monster! she made her own filled with sour cream

Thursday. I had some more leftover ham so I slow cooked it with hickory barbeque sauce the night before.

Enough of meat talk for a bit and since we don't have any neighbors downstairs, it was my chance to cook dried fish woohooo! It smells but it's yummy paired with scrambled eggs cooked in so much tomatoes. Yummiest dinner ever! Febreze was my bestfriend for a couple of days :P

Friday (woot!) I love beef because they are easy to cook and so flavorful. I prepared beef steak topped with fried onions. Marinate slices of beef in soy sauce and lemon juice, pan fry until their juices come out. I usually slice them into bite sized bits, throw them back into the pan along with the rest of the marinade and boil for 5-7 minutes more, fried onions on top and serve with rice.

Yayy for Saturday! We were going to a birthday party that night meaning, no need to cook for the whole day just whatever leftovers we could scrape and save the appetite for later haha. I did some baking though. I made Butter Mochi to bring to the party. I love making this, the smell is sooo good and it tastes just as good.

There goes a week of nothing but delicious food for my family. Wait, there's more!

kids' fave Perogies

sweet spaghetti

garlic bread

To kick off Leila's birthday week, I made spaghetti and garlic bread. I used the ends of loaves which I save specifically for homemade garlic bread or pizza bread. Melt butter in microwave, add garlic chips or chopped garlic, parsley and salt to taste. Spread over toasted bread or bake for 7-9 mins 400 F. Kids gotta have perogies at least once a week and I bought a ton when it was on sale.

Costco roast chicken

We now buy our meat in Costco and we couldn't resist buying their roast chicken. It's the most delicious chicken compared to other supermarkets around, and cheap too. I refused to finish it in one sitting haha, put the leftovers in the fridge and reserved it for hubby to eat on the days I volunteered in school.

Beef Mechado

Again, my love affair with beef. This is one of my favorites (as you know by now, I have a lot of favorites haha!) Slices of beef, two canned tomatoes, bay leaves, lemon juice, soy sauce boil until tender, season depending on your taste. Add a tablespoon of butter five minutes before you turn off the heat. You can add potatoes, carrots and bell pepper as well.

These are two different batches of Boiled Beef Soup. I have learned from my mother in law to include pork and chicken as well and to use a secret ingredient which I'm about to spill. In a large pot, boil chunks of beef (with fats or bones preferably), pork, chicken and ham bone (I saved this from last Easter's ham) or smoked pork hocks (available in groceries or meat shops). The ham bone or smoked pork hocks are optional but they do add so much flavor. Add whole black peppercorn, salt and boil for one hour, add beef stock/water and salt as needed. After an hour, transfer to a slow cooker, set on low for 2-3 more hours. Green beans, potatoes, carrots, cabbage and chick peas can be added. This is an all time favorite and so far we're having this week after week. Perfect for winter!

egg plant with meat sauce

I learned this dish from my mom. We would have leftover taco or spaghetti meat sauce and she would pour it over fried eggplants. I love recycling leftovers, creating something unexpected and yet delicious in the end. Fry eggplants until brownish in color. Saute garlic, onions and ground beef, add tomato sauce or any tomato based sauce or use any leftover sauce you might have. Pour sauce over the eggplants.

chicken macaroni soup

We are obviously into soups these days. Temperature went down to -27 and it ain't funny. I have a feeling I'll be cooking soups all winter long. Saute garlic and onions in butter, add pre-boiled chicken, hotdogs (optional) and the macaroni. Add chicken stock, boil until pasta is cooked, season with salt and ground pepper. Add carrots, cabbage and evaporated milk few minutes before you turn off the heat.

stir fry beef

I was exchanging recipes with a former dormmate over at Facebook the other day and she taught me this beef stir fry dish. Beef, oyster sauce, vinegar, salt and pepper were the only ingredients according to her. And since I am a sucker for easy recipes, I tried it right away. Stir fry beef in hot oil, season with salt and pepper, add oyster sauce and a little amount of vinegar. I didn't quite get the taste but maybe I put too much vinegar and not much oyster sauce. This dish however has a potential if only I'd get the right proportion of the ingredients.

canned spicy sardines

I was at my laziest over the weekend. It was snowing nonstop and all I wanted to do was curl up in bed. I napped every chance I got and we only went out that day to go to church. Lazy me just opened a can of spicy sardines and sauteed it in a lot of onions. This is the kind of dish we enjoy back home during rainy days. Served with rice, fish sauce and lemon, what more can you ask for? It tastes as good as any other dish out there, at least in my opinion and especially if you don't get to eat it everyday.

I cooked sauteed green mung beans the other day and I saved two cups of boiled mung beans for myself. I remember eating this as a kid. Boiled mung beans served with evaporated milk and sugar. It's yummy for me, I felt like a kid and didn't share it with anyone :P

Don't say I didn't warn you, it is indeed a very long post. I hope you had fun reading and feel free to drool :D

Chicken and Egg Curry

I made this dish during the cooler months. I wouldn't attempt cooking anything with coconut milk in this hot weather unless it's gonna stay inside the refrigerator. I finally made this chicken curry with egg, satisfying my desire to make egg curry. Love it mainly because chicken curry is my favorite, anything with coconut milk is also a favorite, the boiled egg along with the curry made it more exciting to eat and drizzling it with fish sauce made it yummier. All in all it's a great dish, adding the egg gave the plain chicken curry a twist!

Long Weekend Menu

prior to the week long rains we grilled some ribs

Since it has been raining these past few days, we haven't had the chance to use the grill again. Too bad because I marinated pork belly, ribs, pork chop and prepared burger patties ahead of time so that we can grill them anytime. So I had to do some quick changes with regards to our menu. After my first driving lesson (yes, it was raining) I took the still frozen milkfish and decided to cook it in tamarind soup with lots of spinach. Easy, delicious and kids love the soup with rice.

milkfish in tamarind soup

Today is a holiday (Victoria day), kids didn't want me to go driving today and I, on the other hand didn't want noisy kids while I'm trying my best to drive. I got my nerves to deal with, last thing I need are kids in the backseat driving me crazy. So we just had one of those lazy days at home, endless napping, eating and watching TV. While watching Chopped just after the appetizer round, hubby got up and went to the kitchen and prepared sushi using only flavored tuna and cucumber. It was followed with an all meat dinner and more lazying around afterwards.

After my lazy day, with chores piled up, tomorrow is surely going to be a busy day for me. I hope I can still make a delicious meal tomorrow or I wouldn't mind having sushi again :D

Rice Bowl/Rice Toppings: Beef Version

Corn in Coconut Milk

By the time we got home this afternoon, I was not only hungry but famished! Our last meal was the deviled eggs during breakfast. Anyway, I snacked on Corn in Coconut Milk while I sliced the beef thinly and separated them into two containers. One batch was for the beef steak and another one was for my awesome, marvelous and wonderful rice bowls/rice toppings.

Amidst the hunger pangs, I meticulously seasoned the thinly sliced beef with salt and pepper before rolling them in cornstarch (with cayenne, onion and garlic powder). While frying them in hot oil, I sliced the carrots, bell peppers and half of an onion. When the beef was done frying, I sliced them into bite-size pieces before throwing them back into the pan with the veggies and a half cup of General Tao sauce.

I served it over hot rice and hubby made his special concoction of Maggi Savor and Worcestershire sauce which brought the already awesome, marvelous and wonderful rice bowl another level up :D

From Hawaii to Canada

The recipe I used for Butter Mochi came from my childhood friend who lives in Hawaii. She said it was delicious, I took her word for it and I'm glad I did. It was my first time to buy and cook glutinous flour. I didn't know what to expect, the mixture was almost soupy and for a moment I wasn't sure it's going to form into anything. I was watching it the whole cooking time and when the top started to turn brown, that's the only time I breathed a sigh of relief. I tasted it the moment it went out of the oven and couldn't decide right away if it was delicious or not. My bad, I should have cooled it completely. Anyway, it was so delicious I brought one tray to a party and left the other one at home but I had to send someone to get the other tray. Everybody loved it! It tasted like Tikoy (Chinese Rice Cake) and the coconut made all the difference. My special thanks again to my friend Mag!

Laing (Taro leaves in Coconut Milk)

waiting for the coconut cream to turn into oil, a long process but worth the wait

I cooked Laing for the second time and yes, there's a technique and it's pretty simple. It's a dish that doesn't need any mixing at all. Not even occasionally. You just basically have to wait for the coconut cream to turn into oil and that's it, you got delicious Laing already. But wait, I still got some secrets to spill. First, it's tastier to use the cooked/sauteed shrimp fry and add the coconut cream little by little. The longer you cook it, the yummier it's gonna get and won't spoil for a long time.

A Week's Kitchen Activities

The kids have been helping in the kitchen quite a lot these past few days and they wouldn't cook anything other than their favorite puto. They had fun making colorful ones, they love the mixing part and putting cheese. Lance can finish a dozen in one sitting while Lei can finish all the cheese :D

Aside from the puto, the kids also love making pizza. This time we didn't make the dough anymore. I used leftover bread which I usually save for making garlic bread. Lance brushed the pizza sauce while Lei was in charge of the toppings. Another fun activity and snack afterwards for my kids.

Since it was St. Patrick's Day last Wednesday, I asked the kids if they wanted to eat something green, only Lei grabbed the offer with too much excitement opting for green milk. Yesterday, she requested for purple milk and according to her it was delicious.

I now have cans and cans of coconut milk in my kitchen cupboards and as I was arranging them, I saw a bag of dried taro leaves which we purchased last month. I realized I haven't cooked them yet because I keep forgetting to buy shrimps but since I couldn't wait no more, I decided to cook Laing (Taro leaves with Coconut Milk) and just put pork instead. It was my first time to cook this dish and the recipes on the internet were quite confusing so I just threw all the ingredients in a pan (garlic, onion, ginger, pork, taro leaves, coconut milk and shrimp paste) cooked them in medium fire without stirring. Both my Mom and my mother in law can cook delicious Laing and mine was also good for a first timer. For me it was delicious and the most important thing was it wasn't itchy on the throat. We ate it for three days I think and it was still yummy. I can't wait to buy another bag of dried taro leaves. I'll remember to buy shrimps too, or crabs and lots and lots of chilies!!!

Green Rice Cake

I spent the whole night looking for biko (rice cake) recipes. I found a lot actually, all of them different. Some would cook the sticky rice with the coconut milk while the others cook theirs the same way they cook rice using water. Some would add butter and egg and there were several recipes for the toppings too. I settled for the latik (fried coconut milk solids), they are easy to make, contrasts the sweetness of the rice cake and provides texture too. For the biko itself, I decided to cook it with the coconut milk, added the sugar before it dried up. I also splashed some pandan essence to add flavor and color.

This is what I would normally eat on a Sunday back home but usually bought and not homemade like this. This is better except for the absence of freshly grated coconut, but the brighter side? I got lots of latik, my most favorite part!

Suman (Rice Cake)

Suman is a type of rice cake. Bibingka, kakanin, puto bumbong and puto are all forms of rice cake too. Suman is made out of sticky rice cooked in coconut milk, a pinch of salt, wrapped in banana leaves then steamed. This delicacy is often served during special occasions in the Philippines. It is best eaten with ripe mangoes, grated coconut or just plain sugar.

I cooked mine in the rice cooker, I let it cool before wrapping them in banana leaves. As I steam the suman, the smell reminded me of the province and fiestas back home :D

Mussels in Coconut Milk

Once again from the site homecookingrocks.com, I found the recipe Thai Mussels Soup in Coconut Milk. It's almost the same as our own mussels soup except for the coconut milk and the several type of chilies used. As usual, I modified it a bit. I only had one can of coconut milk so I added rice wash, I didn't have fish sauce so I used salt instead. I used bell peppers and two birdseye chilies. I didn't even have tomatoes and I used lemon juice instead of calamansi or lime juice. Never mind the modifications, it was a big hit at dinner. I had to stop eating the mussels and give my share to Lance. The soup was more than enough and as delicious especially on the jasmine rice. The coconut milk surely added flavor to the mussels as it usually does to seafood. Next time I cook this soup, I'm going to add crabs and shrimps!

Maja Mais (Corn Pudding)

Maja cooling

Maja mais for me, is almost synonimous to my Kuya Randy (a friend, godfather/godmother to Lance and former co-worker and neighbor.) He never fails to bring either this or leche flan, espasol, pichi-pichi and his other specialties. With no Kuya Randy here and my desire to eat maja, it seems the perfect opportunity to finally make my own. It's now stored in different containers and cooling inside the refrigerator. We sampled one this afternoon, barely cooled. Lei liked the corn and Lance only wanted the pudding part. If Kuya Randy was here he'd say his is more delicious but of course, I prefer mine. Too bad we were so full after dinner there was no room left for any dessert. The chicken stir fry and baked mussels were so good we stuffed ourselves so much. Dessert would have to wait until midnight I guess :D

The Unexpected Hit

Coconut Custard

Few days before the party, I attempted to make Coconut Custard for the second time (my first attempt was a complete failure, it didn't get firm enough). I made some adjustments on the recipe particularly on the number of eggs to be used. The result was a creamy custard with solid coconut flavor. I wasn't sure if they are going to like it since I didn't even know if it's delicious or not. It is basically Leche Flan with coconut flavor brought about by the coco milk used. So there, unsure of its fate, I put it on the refrigerator temporarily just until I decide what to do with it. I didn't even let Mark taste it.

On the night of the party, I took it out and served it, warning everyone that it's not the usual Leche Flan. It was devoured in less than 10 minutes or 5 minutes? I'm not so sure. What's important is that they liked it.

I'm still in the process of perfecting my version, especially as to the ratio of egg yolks and whites, the use of white sugar compared to condensed milk, whether to use heavy coco milk or the coco milk lite. Updates to follow.