There's Something About Rice

Hubby has been bugging me (non stop) about a certain rice recipe he tasted (maybe once?) many many years ago in Cagayan de Oro. He can't even remember the name of the dish thought it was kiam pung and one look at the recipe and I wasn't interested. It seems like adobo rice  to me anyway, he researched and researched until I remembered a friend's post on facebook. Turned out it's pork steamed rice (Cebu style).
We tried it last night and it was a success, hubby's craving satisfied (Thank God!) We used this recipe as a guideline.

Instead of pork tenderloin, I boiled pork belly and used the broth to cook the rice the rest of the broth saved for the sauce. Along with the pork belly I also threw in chicken breast and shrimps. Sauce was basically the broth flavored with worcestershire sauce, oyster sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil and Chinese wine. Seasoned it as per our taste (as usual).

I made two batches (as requested). The cooked rice turned into fried rice seasoned with oyster sauce (first batch). The second was seasoned with soy sauce. Not much difference when you look at it but I think I prefer the soy sauce flavored one.

first batch

There's really something about rice that makes it impossible for us not to eat it on a regular basis. Next time I cook fried rice I will cook it in broth beforehand instead of plain water. It's more flavorful and has enough oil already (that's because I made my own using pork belly hence the oil).

second batch

Few days ago I made shrimp fried rice. Loaded it with whatever cold cuts I can find in the fridge, scrambled eggs, mixed veggies and shrimp. Love eating in a bowl! So easy to bring it in the living room and just eat and watch TV :D

Dear rice, I wish I can give you up :D

Our Pre-Holiday Food Adventures

Cheers!

Wow, it's been more than a month since my last post. I have been too busy yet again obviously. So before I babble about my not so boring life, here are some of the food we have been eating lately. This is going to be one long post again :D

Let me start with some BEEF dishes. Well, mostly meatball dishes. We bought a huge bag in Costco and I had fun throwing them into several dishes. Believe it or not, the bag still had tons left. I love beef because they are easy to cook and flavorful. They taste great in almost everything, soups, stir fry, etc. Here goes my experiments!

beef with mixed veggies and sour cream

our favorite Pho with meatballs

stir fry beef with oyster sauce, vinegar and bell pepper

meatballs cooked in mushroom soup with mixed veggies

meatballs, canned tomatoes and vermicelli

ground beef sauteed in garlic, onion, cherry tomatoes, bell pepper and egg

We have been cutting down on meat mostly PORK which makes me sad, really really sad. Hubby has been craving for Lechon Paksiw for the longest time. And when he craves, he bugs me no end. I made several attempts using porkloin, pig's head and pork belly.

porkloin

roasted pig's head

oven broiled pork belly

Finally found the squid we like and cooked it in vinegar plus I made bagoong rice as well. Not much Filipino cooking lately except for the Lechon Paksiw.

Adobong Pusit

Bagoong rice

We haven't eaten as much rice and meat in the last few weeks. In other words, I'm dying haha! I told hubby time and time again, we have to eat more healthy food, more fresh veggies, etc. and we really are trying to. The kids are loving the variety of food we are having lately except Leila maybe, who loves to eat rice and pork every single day. Here are some of the food we eat aside from our usual rice and meat.

sushi night

egg potato salad

roasted veggies with feta cheese

hubby's creation: canned tuna with curry

soup, salad, sandwich night

Greek salad

hubby's :)

mine :)

Leila's snack in school--prosciutto salad

kids' snack and lunch in school

cheese wrapped in prosciutto

Leila enjoying s'mores and strawberry banana pudding

monster pancakes

Leila making her own salad

kids enjoying their soup and crackers

grilled soft taco with shredded cheese

cheesy french toast

Since the holidays are coming, eating salad won't work for me unless it's fruit salad. Maybe after the holidays we will go back to eating it again or maybe not. My family loves food period.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

A Sizzling Week

Our sizzling food adventure continues with shrimp, chicken and beef. I felt we needed a break from our usual pork belly and made spring rolls. I finally cooked the dried yam leaves with coconut milk unfortunately, I only had two cans which weren't enough so the half cooked Laing went directly to the fridge and just cooked it again after I bought two more cans of thick coconut milk.

Sizzling Gambas with java rice

slow cooked chicken in bbq sauce then grilled before transferring to the sizzling plate

Sizzling beef w/ Montreal steak spice

Lumpiang Shanghai (spring roll)

Laing

My kiddies were enjoying their own food as well. I made my own version of piggy in a blanket and it turned out to be the most requested food over the past week. I try my best to make their food delicious and fun to eat. It is a simple kiddie treat which I quite perfected a few days ago. The trick is not to let the cheese melt so it won't be runny, ooey and gooey. Anyway, my kids didn't mind that the cheese was super melted, they still loved my piggy in a blanket and the java rice too!

piggy is all messy :P

Leila's plate :)

All in all, it was a week of good food. Burp :D

A Week of Yumminess

We have changed quite a bit of our grocery list for the past weeks. We are looking forward to more healthy meals and getting our grocery budget down. Those reasons and probably because we have grown tired of the usual meals. And also lately, I have been getting more and more food coupons so might as well try them.

We recently purchased a big styro pack of chicken breasts which my hubby loves. He prefers those over the other chicken parts since they're easier to fillet, delicious on stir fries and perfect for homemade chicken tenders that my son prefers over store bought frozen ones. I got to relax and let hubby cook several versions of his stir fries. So yeah, that chicken breast will definitely be on my grocery list again.

Aside from the chicken breasts, we also got some thick sliced pork chops without any fats/skin on. It was perfect for Pork Tonkatsu. The Panko bread crumbs is another must on our grocery list now. However, it's bottled Tonkatsu sauce for now, I'll do my own next time.

I also made Pancit Canton as I couldn't think of anything else to cook. We had a bag of shrimps, Mama Sita's mix and a bag of frozen veggies plus some fresh noodles so I threw them all in a pan and was done in under ten minutes. There were a lot of leftover rice the next day which I made into fried rice and partnered with fried chicken.

A new favorite of ours is the Tom Yum soup. We bought a bag of mixed seafood specifically for that. The last two batches that I have made were without noodles. The hot soup and white rice were just perfect for each other. Don't forget the fish sauce! This soup has so much flavor and easy to make. It's basically broth, tom yum paste, seafood and your choice of vegetables. Boil, season and you've got yourself the most flavorful soup ever.

Ever since I tried using ground pork for this adobo, I have never looked back. My daughter loves it and can eat three small bowls at a time. This time, I added hard boiled eggs just like you would on a normal adobo dish.

And there's this dish that my mom used to call beef stew but it's more of a version of Nilaga (Boiled Beef). The beef are sliced into small chunks, sauteed in garlic, onions and tomatoes, seasoned with fish sauce, boiled until tender before adding carrots, potatoes and cabbage. I added chinese cabbage for a change and some beef fats for more flavor (yikes!)

And before I forget, I finally used the raspberry cream cheese frosting over a tortilla. Healthy or not, new or old dish, a little tweak here and there, we had an awesome week eating all these yummy food :D