Coconut Macaroons

Coconut Macaroons

Quick and easy dessert to make. Mix dessicated coconut, condensed milk and flour. Some don’t add flour but I find it too sweet. To make it light, I added flour this time.

Ingredients:

2 cups dessicated coconut
1 cup condensed milk
½ cup flour
raisins

Mix the ingredients thoroughly and spoon into small paper molds. Add raisins on top of each and bake for 10 minutes at 200 degrees C.

xmas desserts

Christmas cake

I am using the same cake stand I’ve made last year, but it looks very different from that of last Christmas. Last year’s Christmas cake is here.



This time, I put candies all over the round stem of the stand. They are very cheap candies that are nicely wrapped strawberry prints and with green stem. So, I took advantage of sticking them using a scotch tape to accent Christmas colors. Kids had fun taking them out during the party, which its made for the purpose. At the base side, I made some macaroons that anyone can pick and have a taste of this coconut dessert.





Berries with whipped cream

Got a handful of berries of each kind and played with its presentation. This time I got strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. I think they look gorgeous sitting in a base. How to make the base? Good you asked. It is just as simple as learning your ABC. It is made of pound biscuits mixed with softened butter and molded into a desired shape. If you like to add a kick to it, just add a splash of whiskey.





And look.. they look stunning in layers too!

I'm just having fun with berries :-)

Weekend Dog Blogging

It seems like human chair is too small for my dog! :-)

Participating the "Weekend Dog Blogging" hosted by Sweetnicks. This weekend's photo must include food! Which is why I treated my dog with vanilla ice cream. He loves icecream too! It's a nice treat for him, well he always have some bits, anyway.

Vanilla Ice Cream with chocolate syrup

Vanilla icecream with chocolate syrup

Another icecream recipe? yes, I know I have posted different flavors of icecream but this is my first time, but what I love with this is the "real vanilla pods". it's my first time to use real vanilla pods and they are really really great! I think its a lot more better than comercial ice cream!

Basic Ice cream recipe

2 eggs
250 ml full cream milk
100 g sugar
450 g whipping cream
Flavoring at your own choice (i used vanilla pods)

Procedure :

Make the custard:
Warm milk in a small pan whilst whisking the eggs and sugar in a separate bowl. Slowly pour the warm milk into the egg and sugar mixture, stirring constantly. Pour this all back into the pan and heat the mixture. stirring constantly, until it begins to thicken slightly but do not let it boil. Add vanilla and set aside for a few minutes. Pass through a sift and discard the vanilla pods. Allow it to cool down to room temperature and chill for 30 minutes.

Beat the whipping cream until soft peak. Fold-in the custard mixture.

Pour the mixture into an icecream maker. Alternatively, if you dont have an icecream maker, freeze the mixture and stir occationally like every 30 minutes just before it would turn into solid to avoid crystalized icecream.

Smoked Salmon Battleships

Smoked Salmon battleship

When I made this, I didn’t know what I put myself into. I intend to follow the recipe of Susie Donald’s “Quick & Easy sushi and Sashimi” mini cookbook. The recipe says preparation time is 20 minutes and assembling time is 15 minutes. However, for me it took me 2 hours to do this. At first I was enjoying having the things in my working place. I find it very hard to shape the sushi rice into small oval shape. Anyways, while I was doing it I thought of setting up the table in Japanese style with chopsticks. Well it wasn’t realized at all because we ended up eating at the working table coz it took me too long to make these battleships and I was quite exhausted. So forget about the set up! It is far difficult than I thought. Roll up sushi is a lot easier than these battleships. Anyhow, blame it on my taste buds! They love to wander around the world by having a taste of every corner! Okay! Confession: I love Japanese foods and this is just one of my attempts trying Japanese cuisine at home.

I served it with pickled ginger which is optional.

Ingredients:

6 strips smoked salmon
2 teaspoons mayonnaise
¼ teaspoon wasabi paste
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 cups cooked Sushi rice
4 sheets nori, toasted and cut into 1 inch strips
1 cucumber

Procedure:

Dice smoked salmon into small pieces. Mix mayonnaise with wasabi paste, add the diced smoke salmon and add freshly ground black pepper; set aside. Slice cucumber thinly and place it on kitchen paper then pat dry to remove excess moisture.

To prepare sushi rice, see my old post of crab sushi here.

Take 1 tablespoon of sushi rice and form into an oval shape. Place the rice oval on a flat surface and wrap a strip of the nori around its sides, leaving the top and bottom uncovered. The nori should be about 1 cm ( ½ inch) taller than the rice. Spoon the prepared salmon filling on top of the rice and assemble cucumber on top of the salmon like battle ships.



I also made chicken battleships at the same time. Grilled chicken breasts. I just added wasabi paste and mayonnaise on top of the sushi rice and arranged the chicken breasts on top like battleships.

Everything was great except that I spent long time preparing small stuffs! In short, good foods can not be rushed!

Sausage cocktail

sausage and cheese

I have a couple of friends coming unexpectedly in about 20 minutes. The kitchen is cold and haven’t prepared anything to serve. Here’s a quick rescue for finger foods to accompany some drinks. Flamengo cheese and sausage.

You Are What You Eat Food Meme: My 10 Favorite Foods

Tagged with top 10 favorite foods!

Aha… is this the newest meme around the food blogging world? Oh yes I am tagged with the latest meme by Paz of The cooking adventure of chef Paz


Okay okay… I have to admit I am having a hard time thinking what’s gonna be my top 10 favorite foods because I have loads of favorite foods and they change as my tastes buds are becoming more and more adventurous. I may have some favorites before which may not be my favorite now, or I may have some foods that I’m craving today that may not be my favorite next month coz I found another. My passion in food keeps on growing and this is the reason why I have this food blog.

Well, to make things easy, I take the freedom to choose from my all time favorites and seasonal favorites. Foods that are close to my heart. It may be old and new favorites. I am not putting them in order so to make things sound easier.

Seafoods – Fish, Lobster, shrimps, Squid, mussels and crabs are my all time favorite. I love them grilled, stir-fried, braised and steamed. Luckily I got no allergy like many others.

Rice – I am a rice eater. I love to infuse different flavors in rice. Got collection of rice recipes HERE .

Humba – My all time favorite, but it has to be cooked by my brother Chee Dee. He got the recipe that is handed down from the family. For now, he is the only one who knows how to make the best humba in the family. For this reason I feel that I need to rescue this recipe and method of cooking. For me, it’s the best pork recipe in the world! If I will succeed to make it once, I will post it, promise. So far, I never succeeded it yet. It is my mission when I’ll go home on January to get it perfectly done his way. Tell you what, you’ll love it until the last bit!

Couscous – I love couscous because its very quick and easy to prepare. Like rice, couscous is very versatile. I am playing with flavors to incorporate with couscous. It absorb flavors easily. Couscous, according to my research, is a popular dish in Morocco and North Africa made from semolina (coarsely ground wheat) Hubby, French national, introduced it to me when we were not married yet. Now, it is becoming a regular alternate of pasta and rice.

Philippine Mango – I have to specify because I have tasted several mangoes from different countries like mangoes from UK, India, Pakistan, and Angola they are not as tasty as Philippine mangoes. Unless if I can taste mangoes that are more tastier than Philippine mango then I might change my mind. I love them green and ripe.

Cheese balls - my new favorite. I made it once and I hardly can stop munching more. So, I am making them more often. The recipe is HERE

Chicken – I like them grilled or fried like KFC’s. Reminds me of one restaurant in my place called citiburger. They serve a great roasted chicken thighs. Chicken recipes HERE.

Vegetables – Hmmm… load of vegetables. Do I need to mention them all? I think its gonna be long. Generally, I love all kinds of vegetables. See? I’m not that very hard to please. I eat almost everything. Vegetable recipes HERE .

Desserts - what is my favorite dessert? Ohhh dear, I can’t count. I love to have a dessert after a meal especially if I’m having seafoods. There is this urge to cleanse the palate or at least get rid of the flavors from the sea after eating. This is the reason why I got a collection of desserts HERE.

Dark chocolate and coffee - If I am to make a choice what I’m going to have every time I wake up in the morning, it would be a hot mug of coffee and cold dark chocolate cake. Hand me the remote please, CNN! Then, I’m in heaven. It’s something to die for! Coffee addict. I might be very choosy with the chocolate cake. It must be dark and moist chocolate with the taste of bitterness of real cocoa.

That’s it? Only 10? How about Pringles?? My favorite chips! Once you pop, you can’t stop! This is exactly my reaction the moment I knew I had written ten favorite foods already.

Okay! It's my turn to tag the following foodie blogs!

Manilamayhem

Pinoy Cook

Stefoodie

Bucaio

Wanderlust Sha

Crispy Calamari (Squid Rings)

Calamari (Squid rings)

Crispy calamari is one of my favorite side dish or finger food. This is so crunchy!

Ingredients:

3 squid
batter
Oil for frying
Corn starch
Bread crumbs

For batter:
½ cup flour
2 teaspoons corn starch
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ cup water
Salt and pepper

Procedure:
Clean the squid inside and out leaving the squid white in flesh. Cut into rings and set aside.

In a mixing bowl, beat eggs, add water, flour, corn starch, salt and pepper. Beat vigorously with a wire whisk until smooth and runny. Add the sliced squid into the mixture and mix.

In a plate, place cornstarch and bread crumbs in equal proportion and mix.

Take calamari one by one from the flour mixture and coat with bread crumb mixture. Deep fry until golden brown.

Fish Fillet

Fish Fillet

Inspired by Ainsley Harriot, I came up with this way to prepare fish. He made it in his food show “meals in minutes”. I usually fry fish with just plain flour, after seeing the show, Ainsley gave a good idea. A different twist on the conventional way of frying fish. He served it with chips, therefore he called it fish and chips. But I had mine with plain rice.

So what’s the twist? I really enjoyed doing this as I watched the chemical reaction of baking soda and lemon!

I am not quite sure of his proportion coz I’m not taking down notes, so I made a wild guess and it worked.

Here’s how:

2 fish fillet
Batter
Oil for frying

Batter:
½ cup plain flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ cup lemon juice
1/3 cup water
Salt and pepper

Procedure:

In a mixing bowl, place flour and baking soda; add water and mix vigorously with a wire whisk. Add lemon juice, salt and pepper. Dip fish fillet into the batter to coat and fry until golden brown.

Chicken Fingers

Chicken fingers

Does chicken have fingers? Glad you asked! Well, not really.. but I'm just imitating its look for a change!

Ingredients:
4 chicken breasts (boneless and skinless)
2 teaspoons light soy sauce
2 teaspoons dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon corn starch
1 teaspoon sesame oil
Vegetable oil for frying

Procedure:

Place the chicken in a mixing bowl; add light and dark soy sauce, corn starch and sesame oil. Mix the ingredients with bare hands to ensure the chicken is well coated flavors. Marinate for at least 1 hour in the fridge. Slice the each chicken breast into 3 leaving about 1 inch at the top unsliced to hold them together. Fry for about 3 minutes each side until golden. Serve with potato chips.

Lumpia shanghai

Lumpia Shanghai (spring rolls)

A Filipino dish influenced by Chinese. Lumpia is a very common finger food dish for parties as it can be easily prepared ahead of time.

Ingredients:

1 pack spring roll pastry (lumpia wrapper)
½ kilo Minced chicken
1 cup Cabbage (finely shredded)
2 onions (finely chopped)
2 carrots (grated)
1 large bell pepper (finely chopped)
1 eggwhite
½ cup bread crumbs
Salt and pepper to taste

Procedure:

Mix all ingredients vigorously in a large mixing bowl. Separate individually the wrappers and cover with clean kitchen towel (They easily get dry and hard making it quite difficult to seal). Keep the wrappers covered with clean cloth when not used yet. Place 1 teaspoon of the mixture in 1 wrapper and roll up until the meat is covered, fold the sides in making it tight and roll up again. Wet the edges with water to seal.

Chicken Siomai

Chicken Siomai (Steamed Dumplings)

Ingredients:
½ kilo ground chicken breasts
½ kilo prawns
2 teaspoons light soy sauce
2 teaspoons dark soy sauce
Siomai wrapper
4 tablespoons bread crumbs
Salt & pepper

Sauce:
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
4 tablespoons dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil



Procedure:

Chop finely half of the prawns and set aside the other half. In a mixing bowl, mix ground chicken and finely chopped prawns, add light and dark soy sauce, bread crumbs and season with salt and pepper. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.

Separate siomai wrappers individually. Place ½ teaspoon in the center of each wrapper; pat the area surrounding the meat with water; bring the sides of the wrapper up over the meat mixture and press the sides together leaving using your fingertips leaving the meat exposed. Flatten the bottom part by tapping slowly on a plate for the siomai to stand on its own. Repeat the wrapping procedure until done and ready to cook.

Line a bamboo steamer with strips of banana leaves and grease with very minimal oil. Arrange the siomai into the steamer. Boil 2 cups of water in a pan with a rim that perfectly fits into the steamer. Simmer for 20 minutes. Serve siomai immediately with soy sauce.

Vegetable Frittata

Vegetable Frittata

We just declared a no-fry week at home to ovoid greasy foods and came up with this one, but still I can’t resist to put some cheese! Ohhh, its more or less the same thing, I think, but okay, its forgiven! The method of cooking was from a “vegetarian meals” cookbook. The original recipe has asparagus and zucchini which I don’t have stock at home and never had, hence, I put eggplant instead of asparagus and to have some green color, I put green pepper instead. The original recipe doesn’t have cheery tomatoes, but before I put the dish back to the oven, I thought it would look better to have a vibrant center piece of the dish. Just a few steps to the garden and picked up some cherry tomatoes. They just look wonderful at the center, don’t they?

Ingredients:

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1 onion, (sliced very thinly)
2 potatoes (sliced very thinly)
1 red pepper, cut into long strips
1 green pepper, cut into long strips
3 eggs, beaten
1 eggplant
5 cherry tomatoes
Gouda or flamingo cheese
Salt & pepper

Preparation:

Drizzle olive oil over the base of medium size circular baking pan. Arrange potatoes and onions alternately in the base of the pan. Cover pan with aluminum foil and bake at 180oC or Gas 4 for 30 minutes or until potatoes are tender.

Arrange the red & green peppers and eggplant like the spokes of a wheel onto top of potatoes, then pour beaten eggs and season with salt and black pepper to taste. Scatter cheese on top and place cherry tomatoes at the center.

Bake, covered, for 15 minutes or until frittata is firm. Cool for 10 minutes. Cut into wedges and serve.

Squid Stir-fry

Squid Stir-fry

Ingredients:

3 pcs. Squid
1 pc. Red bell pepper
1 pc. Yellow bell pepper
2 pcs. Carrots
1 pc. Green pepper
8 pcs. Green beans
1 white onion (diced)
2 garlic (finely chopped)
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon sesame oil
4 teaspoons sesame seeds
Salt

Procedure:

Prepare all the ingredients.

In a preheated pan, add the oils, add squid and cook for 2 minutes stirring occasionally, remove the squid and set aside. With the remaining oil in the same pan, add onion and garlic, cook until the onion becomes soft and garlic becomes slightly brown. Add Carrots, cover for 30 seconds or until carrots becomes slightly cooked, add peppers and green beans, season with salt, put back the cooked squid, stir-fry for about 2 minutes until vegetables are done. Sprinkle sesame seeds before serving.

Tip: To prepare the squid, remove the outside blackish lining; leaving the squid clean and white. Cut the squid into quarts. Using a sharp knife, cut parallel lines in down the length of the squid, taking care not to cut right the way through the flesh. Make more cuts in the opposite direction to form a diamond pattern.

Marinated Calamari

Marinated calamari

Ingredients:

1 kg. Calamari (squid) cut into rings
6 Tablespoons lemon juice
3 cloves garlic, crushed
½ cup olive oil.

Dressing:
4 Tablespoons lemon juice
5 Tablespoons olive oil
1 Teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 ½ Tablespoons chopped parsley
Salt and pepper

In a mixing bowl, place lemon juice, garlic and olive oil. Add calamari, cover and refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight.

For the dressing, place all ingredients in mixing bowl and whisk well until thickened.

Heat large pan or wok over a high heat and cook calamari 2-3 minutes until just cooked. Drizzle the dressing over calamari and serve.

Source of recipe:
Essential Cooking Series by Hinkler Books Ltd.,
First published in 2005 , Dingley, Victoria 3172 Australia

I love this calamari. I added lemon zest with the dressing. so easy and simple. I served this with parsley rice that would compliment the flavors.

Crab sushi

This is one of the successful sushi I had! Funny I failed a couple of times doing sushi but I never gave up! First it was so messy! Second, the rice layer was so thick, third, they were too big for a bite. And at last, I succeeded without complain from hubby! I really love sushi specially with fresh salmon.. California rolls… etc. Now, its becoming more easy for me to do after a couple of failures. The labor is worth every bite!

Ingredients:

1 cups short grain rice
2 cups water
5 sticks crab meat
3 sheets nori
4 Tablespoons rice vinegar
3 Tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons wasabi paste
2 teaspoons mayonnaise
1 small green cucumber, peeled, seeded, cut into thin strips
1 ripe mango, peeled, cut into thin strips

Sauce:
2 Tablespoons light soy sauce
2 Tablespoons dark soy sauce
½ Teaspoon lemon juice
1 Teaspoon sesame oil

Procedure:

Combine rice and water in a pan, bring to boil, reduce heat, simmer uncovered until water is absorbed. Cover pan, simmer 5 minutes. Combine vinegar, sugar and salt in a small bowl and set aside.

Cool down the rice until room temperature by fanning over. When slightly cooled, stir in combined vinegar, sugar and salt. Carefully fold in the mixture until well mixed and set aside.

Place the bamboo mat on a work surface, facing you with the strips horizontal. Place 1 nori sheet on the mat, shiny side down, with the edge of the nori 2 cm away from the edge of the mat closer to you. (a)

To make the rolls, spread about 1/3 cup of sushi rice onto the nori with your fingers, leaving a 2 cm space at the top of the nori sheet. (b)

Dab a thin line of wasabi paste down the middle of the rice and place 2 or 3 pieces of cucumber and mango. Place crab stick on top of them.

To roll, hold the edge of the mat nearest to you with one hand over the crab meat to hold it in place and roll the mat over the rice, away from you. Lift up the top of the mat and turn the roll over a little so that the empty nori strip seals the sushi roll. (c)

Unroll the bamboo mat and remove the sushi roll. Using a very sharp knife, cut the roll into 6 to 8 uniform pieces. (d)

To prepare the sauce mix all the ingredients.

Serve sushi with the sauce.

Cabbage Rolls

Ingredients:
1 whole cabbage
¼ Kilo ground meat
1 bulb union
1 crushed garlic
1 pc. Bread
¼ Cup Milk
Salt & pepper to taste
1 lit. water

Procedure:

To prepare the filling:

Soak bread with milk and set aside. Mix all other ingredients until all the flavors are well blended and set aside.To prepare the cabbage:In a large casserole, boil water and add a pinch of salt. Dip the whole cabbage for 2 or 3 minutes or until wilted. Remove the cabbage from the casserole; take off the leaf one by one carefully not breaking each. Take of the spine of the cabbage and divide each leaf into two while taking the spine off.

Take 1 teaspoon of the meat mixture and put each piece of leaf like making spring rolls. Cook in steam for 6 – 8 minutes. Serve with mashed potatoes and sauce.

To prepare the sauce:

mix soy sauce, lemon juice and add sesame oil.

Money Packs

This entails a detailed job but it’s worth every bite! I think it would have been easier if I have a short pastry but unfortunately, I can’t find it in the grocery store here, so for pastry needs, I’m doing it at home. I wouldn’t mind though.

Here’s how:

Meat Filling:
½ Kilo ground meat
1 white onion (Finely chopped)
2 cloves garlic (finely chopped)
Salt and pepper
Red pepper (finely chopped)

Mix all the ingredients in a mixing bowl making sure all the ingredients are well incorporated. Do this ahead while making the pastry.

Pastry dough:
3 cups flour
Pinch of salt
100 g butter, chopped

2-3 tablespoons iced water

Procedure:

In bowl of flour add knobs of butter and a pinch of salt. Work on the butter by pressing them with your finger tips; coating the butter with the flour, until the butter is well mixed with the flour. This will give a crumbly mixture. Add water 1 tablespoon at a time, mixing each addition until it forms a soft dough. Turn mixture into floured board. Knead until the dough becomes fine. Add more flour if necessary. Shape the dough into a log. Cut into 3 portions. While working with 1 portion, refrigerate the other two portions. Flatten each portion as flat as possible using a rolling pin. Cut into 3 inch square. Put 1 teaspoon meat mixture into each square and gather the ends at the top of the meat. Do this by lifting the diagonal opposite sides of the dough; seal partially by pressing just before the edges and do the same with the other two sides. Carefully press the edges all together to seal, forming a sack of money with a little handle.

Optionally, cut ½ cm of the edge of the dough, forming like a string and use this to seal each pack of meat by pressing the meeting ends. Leave an extra string to it would look more realistic like a pack of money tied with a string.
Place the packed meat in a flat plate lined with plastic to avoid the dough from sticking to the plate. Refrigerate for 20 minutes before frying. This allows the dough to be firm.

Deep fry few at a time until golden brown with a moderately fire, but not very slow. The dough absorbs a lot of oil if the oil is not so hot. Heat up the oil first and turn the fire moderately slow after adding the money packs.

Egg n Hotdog Roll Ups

Egg n Hotdog Roll Ups

Ingredients:

2 hotdogs
2 eggs
Grated parmesan cheese
1 T. olive oil

Procedure:

Heat a non-stick pan, spread oil and wipe off excess oil by wiping with a kitchen paper. Slightly beat eggs. Add half of the slightly beaten eggs; quickly swirl the pan to spread the mixture. Sprinkle evenly grated parmesan cheese. Place hotdogs in 1 edge and start rolling the egg. Cook the remaining egg the same way, and place the rolled up egg with hotdog in one edge and start rolling up. This will create a thicker layer of egg.

Slice the sausage-shaped egg and slice ½ inch thick. Serve with toasted bread. This makes a good breakfast.

Tip:
In beating the eggs, it has to be beaten slightly. Don’t wait for bubbles to form and it has to be beaten right before cooking. No need of adding salt coz the parmesan cheese is quite salty.

Fish Paté Sandwich Mini Towers

Sandwich Mini Towers

Ingredients:
Sandwich
100 g. Light cream cheese
1 can Fish Pâté
1 T. Chili sauce

Preparation:

Remove crusts of the sandwich. Mix chili sauce with cream cheese. Spread cream cheese mixture in one side and fish pâté on the other side of the sandwich. Put them together to assemble towers. Cut sandwich into quarts.

Crab Sandwich with sesame seeds

Crab Sandwich with sesame seeds

I am a big fan of Ainsley Harriot and saw him doing this in one of his TV shows. He used shrimp, but I don’t have fresh shrimps. So I settled with crab meat in sticks!

Ingredients:
Sliced sandwich bread
Crabmeat sticks
1 egg white
Dried sesame seeds
1 Tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon butter
Salt and pepper

Preparation:
Slice the crabmeat sticks finely and place in a food processor or blender. Add egg white, salt & pepper and blitz until fine. Spread the mixture into sliced sandwiches. Run with the back of the spoon to flatten the mixture. Sprinkle sesame seeds and press with the back of the spoon.

Heat oil and butter in a pan and place the bread with crab mixture facing down. Cook for 2 minutes and turn to toast the other side. Don’t be tempted to add oil to avoid greasy sandwich.

Mortadella and egg sandwich

Ingredients:
Sliced bread
Slices of Mortadella
2 slightly beaten eggs
Salt & pepper
Mozzarella cheese

Procedure:

Slice off the sides of the bread and toast in a preheated pan 2 minutes each side. Remove from pan and set aside. Add 2 Tablespoons of vegetable oil to the pan and wipe off with a kitchen paper. Spread the egg evenly by swirling the pan and cook quickly in a low fire. Remove from pan and set aside. Assemble the sandwich in layers alternately with mortadella, cheese and egg. Cut diagonally and serve.

Old posts

Been exploring on blogger lately and found out that for some reasons, I need to post my other posts that I havent posted here. I just decided recently to make this my home page, so dont be surprized if u can find posts here that I have posted before in some other categories.. that's quite a lot huh... I hope the image toolbar will cooperate this time. I dont know what happened to Hello from Picassa. There seems to be a problem lately and its giving me a hard time uploading food pictures!

Yellow rice with green peas topped with spinach and grilled pork

Yellow rice with green peas topped with spinach and grilled pork

It’s my first adventure with tumeric. In short its my first time to have this ingredient and I am so pleased with the yellow vibrant color on my plate! I love to incorporate vegetables with my dish for the sake of having fiber intake.

Ingredients:

1 cup long grain rice
1 cup water
1 teaspoon tumeric
1 white onion (finely chopped)
2 cloves garlic (finely chopped)
2 tablespoons oil
Salt & pepper to taste
A handful of spinach
2 pork fillets

Preparation:

In a casserole, put water, rice and tumeric. Bring to boil and simmer covered for 10-15 minutes or until rice is done. When done, fluff the rice with a for to avoid rice sticking together until completely cold at room temperature.

Meanwhile, sauté garlic and onion in oil until translucent. Add rice and mix vigorously until all the flavors are well blended. Add green peas and continue cooking until peas are done. Sprinkle a little water to provide a little moisture. Season with salt and pepper.

On the other hand, grill 2 pork fillets until done.

In another pan, bring to boil 2 cups of salted water, blanch spinach for 1 minute or until wilted.

To plate the dish, place rice in a plate; add blanched spinach in the center and topped with the grilled pork.

Beef and Charred vegetables with couscous

Beef on charred vegetables with couscous

Another quick and healthy way of cooking is grilling. This is quick and oil-free recipe. Aren’t you bored of fried dishes? Well, I am. So here is another way of preparing healthy dish.

Ingredients:

1 cup couscous
1 cup stock
Carrots
green peppers
red peppers
yellow pepper
white onion

Preparation:

To prepare couscous, Place couscous in a mixing bowl; boil stock or salted water and stir in directly to the bowl of couscous. Cover the bowl and leave for 3-5 minutes until couscous had absorbed the liquid completely until done. Fluff the couscous using a fork to avoid the grains from sticking together.

In hot grill pan, grill vegetables until charred or black spots starts to form. Turn over to cook the other sides of the vegetables. Vegetables are more succulent when charred because its natural flavors are released. Grill beef on the other side of the grill pan until done.

To plate, place the char-grilled vegetables on top of a plate of couscous and place sliced beef on top.