Food Trip Friday---Ham and Cheesy Sticks

Cheesesticks wrapped with molo wrapper, and ham strips. Deep fried until golden brown. Best served (for me) with Jalapeño sauce.

Thankful...

I am very happy for the feedbacks that I have been getting since this food blog was created. It is not as popular as the others. Popular in a way, that it gets less visitors compared to Sweet Nothings. Still, I am grateful for the continuous visits and drops from bloggers and food lovers all over the world.

It made me proud as a Filipino to share our famous dishes and culture. Things that makes us unique. Food that captures your taste and easy recipes that will make you an instant chef.

I also enjoy the sites I visit, returning drops. I discover new things all the time. I have to say, that blog hopping may sooner or later beat travelling per se :D (kidding aside)

May I also mention names and sites that truly inspire this food blog.

Willa's Food Trip Friday, Manong Ken's Carinderia, Liza's Mommy's Little Corner and Yummy As Can Be and all the other trippers from Food Trip Friday and everyone in my blogroll of foodies.

I love your sites, I enjoy reading and learning from your food experiences.
Hugs!

Kutsinta

The recipe I used was from my mom. Borrowed it :D

With the kutsinta holding a simple recipe, my mom was still able to concoct her own.
I used tart molders instead of the typical round. I craved for this over the weekend. And since my mom's too busy to make some, she gave me her recipe. My sister helped me.

Served with grated coconut.

Food Trip Friday---Pork Steak

I was in the mood for Pinoy steak. And one of the easiest to prepare is pork. I used Butterfly Cut pork chops. Marinated it with 1/4 cup calamansi juice, soy sauce, salt and pepper.

Calamondin or Calamansi is a fruit very popular throughout Southeast Asia, especially in the Philippines. It is commonly used for cooking. It is a shrub or small tree growing small citrus fruit used to flavour foods and drinks.

Restaurants On My Mind

My eyes feasted on various restaurants as we were looking for a place to dine-in last Sunday. I simply want to taste everything. From Chef d’ Angelo, Mangan Restaurant, to Joey Pepperoni Pizzeria. I haven't been to these restaurants. And it brought out the curious side of me. Let's see if I can visit all 3 within the next months.

Chef d’ Angelo is an Italian-American fast-service restaurant who became famous for its huge servings of chicken, pizza, pasta, burgers, salads, rice based meals and waffles.

source:official site

Mangan Restaurant offers Filipino dishes with ambience fit for your ideal Filipino dining experience. As I was searching for their site online, I found mixed good and bad reviews of the restaurant.

Joey Pepperoni Pizzeria serves a wide variety of food specializing on pizza and pasta at affordable prices.

-photo source-
Can't wait to taste them all!

Prawns with Mushroom and Rosemary

This was our dinner last saturday.

I simply sauted my prawns in olive oil with minced garlic and mushrooms. Drizzled them with dried rosemary, salt and pepper.

My Mami

This soup is perfect for a rainy day. Here in the Philippines it is also considered as a healthy snack. The ingredients are easy to find, easy to prepare and to assemble. All you need is a hot soup of any broth of your choice and some egg noodles.

*Noodle soup refers to a variety of soups with noodles and other ingredients served in a light broth. Noodle soup is an East and Southeast Asian staple. Less well known, a form of fresh (typically home made) noodle is used. In northern China; usually, it is served for breakfast or brunch. The type of noodles range from rice noodles to egg noodles.

Mami is a noodle soup, with either beef, pork, chicken, or wanton garnish and topped with chives, chopped greens and garlic chips. Egg noodles are used, but there are versions using flat rice noodles. Introduced in the Philippines by Ma Mon Luk.On a personal note, I use pure chicken broth from the breasts I boiled, with salt and pepper. I don't use chicken cubes or some kind.

Best served with pork siomai and chili garlic.

-source-

Join Us!Food Trip Friday

Kangaroo Jack and Jatujak Restaurant

Our Mother's Day Celebration.
One thing I noticed. Both Restaurants that I will be featuring today, has a "jack, jak" name. Odd and extraordinary for Mother's Day!
May 9, 2009
Kangaroo Jack Steaks and Grill

*Fast-causal dining segment. Kangaroo Jack is a steak lover’s haven with its menu boasting of delectable porterhouse, tenderloin, and T-bone steaks, sizzling meals and grills. It also serves burgers, pizza, nachos, quesadilla and a variety of chicken, ribs, seafood, and pasta dishes, all priced much lower than that of the big brands currently available in the market.-source-

Price ranges from Php180-250. Kangaroo Jack SM Megamall.

Special Offers
Hungarian Sausage

Beef and Mushrooms

Pork Tops

May 10, 2009
JatuJak Thai Restaurant

Named after Bangkok's famed weekend market. It is now my favorite Thai Restaurant. They nailed that Thai authentic taste. From the salad to their main. Everything on the Menu, I guess. I have been to Thai food since my on the job training at Dusit Hotel (now Dusit Thani). I worked for quite sometime in the kitchen where they prepare authentic Thai dishes. A chef used me as a taste tester for one of the dishes---their shrimp salad. It was really good. They have a special Thai sauce for that and they won't tell me!

When I ate in Jatujak. I finally got to taste that unique flavor again. And I will be coming back just to have some more. They have it! they're definitely Thai...

Fish Fillet with String Beans

Crispy Pork
Red Curry Beef

We had 2 sets of rice:

Binagoongan Rice---which is a stir fried rice with shrimp paste, served with thin slices of green mangoes, onions, scrambled egg strips, cucumber and pork tidbits with shrimp paste.

Pork Rice--- Stir Fried Rice with pork toppings mixed with authentic Thai specialty sauce.

Price Ranges from Php150-400

Beef Broccoli

This is considered to be an easy Beef Recipe. Since the only beef part I have is the one used for Mechado. After tenderizing it, I sliced it into strips.

What you will be needing:

1/2 kilo beef
2 medium heads broccoli (chopped to your desired shape and size)
4 tablespoons soysauce
1 can straw mushrooms (shitake or any mushroom of your choice is perfect)
5 cloves garlic (minced)
1 medium onion (chopped)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Thickening agent:
4 tablespoons all purpose flour
1/2 cup water

How to:
After tenderizing the meat. Slice into thin strips. Set aside the broth
In a separate pan, saute garlic and onion
Add sliced meat and mushrooms. Stir for a few seconds.
Add broth just enough to cover half of the ingredients.
Add soysauce. Simmer for a few seconds.
Add broccoli. Stir and add broth.

note: if you want to have plenty of sauce (like mine), you can add the rest of the broth

Don't over cook broccoli.
Add thickening agent
Salt and Pepper to taste.

Servings: 4-5

HAPPY EATING!

Food Trip Friday---Mom's Carbonara

Since Mother's Day is already around the corner, I am featuring one of my Mom's specialties.

The whole week I was craving for my mom's carbonara. After finishing what's scheduled from Monday- Wedenesday, rain or shine, I went to visit my mom and requested her to cook Carbonara for me. I'm still eating up to now. So consider this as my food trip today (Friday!). Thursday afternoon, we made some fresh pasta to go with her famous, chunking white sauce. As soon as were done with the cutting, we immediately cooked it. One thing I learned, fresh pasta taste better if you cook it right away :D
Added Turmeric (luyang dilaw) for a change.

*Although usually used in its dried, powdered form, Turmeric is also used fresh - much like ginger. It has numerous uses in far east recipes, such as fresh turmeric pickle (which contains large chunks of soft turmeric).

Turmeric is used to protect food products from sunlight. The oleoresin is used for oil-containing products. The curcumin/polysorbate solution or curcumin powder dissolved in alcohol is used for water containing products. Over-coloring, such as in pickles, relishes and mustard, is sometimes used to compensate for fading.

In combination with annatto, turmeric has been used to color cheeses, yogurt, dry mixes, salad dressings, winter butter and margarine. Turmeric is also used to give a yellow color to some prepared mustards, canned chicken broths and other foods (often as a much cheaper replacement for saffron).

Turmeric is widely used as a spice in South Asian and Middle Eastern cooking. Momos (Nepali meat dumplings), a traditional dish in South Asia, are spiced with turmeric. In South Africa turmeric is traditionally used to give boiled white rice a golden color.

More fresh pasta. this time, its healthier! See Turmeric for its Medicinal uses.

Cute Clips For Your Bag of Goodies

I'm sure this "clipping the bag" thing has became part of your kitchen experience. That is, some of us uses clips to hang our clothes. Well, used to. Because I found this set of cute clips that will not only preserve the content of the bag, but it will also make it look extra nice. Clipping bags tightly and putting it inside the fridge will help preserve the remaining ingredients. It will stay as fresh. That is for some, not applicable to all.

Like for this bag of bread crumbs or a bag of potato chips that you couldn't finish.

I found this at the SM department store, office supplies section for 50 bucks a set.

Easy Pork Pastel

One of the things that most of you may have noticed is that I haven't posted any baked recipe yet. If not that, at least anything that has something to do with baking.

I have one simple reason. I wanted to make this food blog to concentrate on easy recipes. As a mom, who does everything at home (not a single helper around), I find baking as an extra task. I do it for special occasions, but not on a regular basis. Like this evening.

*I apologize for not posting extra pictures. I only used my cellphone camera and its quite like Hell's Kitchen here :D With my son watching me cook, from chopping the ingredients, sauteing, and making the sauce.

And believe me, there's a lot I haven't shared yet.

Easy Pork Pastel

What you will be Needing:

1/2 Kilo Pork Tenderloin (sliced)
1 small can Vienna Sausage (sliced)
1 medium carrot (cut into quarters)
3 medium potatoes (cut into quarters)
6 pieces baby corn ( cut into quarter size)
1 large green bell pepper (cut into quarters)
1/2 evaporated milk
1/4 unsalted butter
5 cloves garlic (minced)
3 cups water (for the broth)
Salt and fresh ground pepper

*1/2 cup water (for the thickening sauce)
*3 tsp. flour 0r cornstarch ( for thickening sauce)
* dissolve flour in 1/2 c water

How to:

In a sauce pan, heat up butter and saute garlic.
Add the sliced pork tenderloin, stir for a few minutes
Add 3 cups water and simmer until pork is cooked.
Add potatoes, carrots, baby corn and sausages, simmer for another 3-5 minutes until all are cooked.
Add 1/2 cup evaporated milk. Keep stirring.
Then add the green bell pepper.
Salt and Pepper to taste.
To end, add the thickening agent of mixed flour and water. Keep stirring until you get the right consistency.

note: you have the option of baking it.

When pork and veggies are done, transfer to baking dish. Cover with pie crust. Bake at 350 F for 20 minutes or until crust turns golden brown.

Pastel Crust:
* 4 cups all-purpose-flour (sift 3 times)
* 1 cup shortening or margarine
* 2 tsp. salt
* 1 tbsp. sugar
* 1 cup water

Servings: 3-4
-source for pastel crust-