Pan-grilled tuna steak with baby pechay puree and steamed diced potatoes

The puree

Puree is made by sauteeing garlic and onions with the baby pechay, add 1/2 cup of water and let it simmer for a few minutes.  Turn off the heat and set aside to cool down.  Once cooled pour it into the blender or food processor, add a handful of fresh baby spinach to make it more green. Blitz for a minute.  It is ready to serve on the side of any  main dish.

I love doing this puree because not only it is full of flavor, it also transforms it into paste form (almost liquid) and one good spoon means a lot of goodness in there for my daughter who doesnt like vegies, but she's always tricked with this.  I bet she cant even finish 5 leaves of pechay but with the puree, she finished what was on the plate.   Even myself i personally can eat more of it than chewing the leaves itself.

Tuna

Prepare the tuna by drying it with a kitchen paper, add a lot of freshly ground pepper and some salt.  Massage some oil on the fish and grill it on a preheated pan. 1 minute each side on high heat.

Steamed potatoes

Steamed the diced potatoes for 8-10 minutes, season with salt and pepper.  

Eggplant Rollatini

Eggplant rollatini

Eggplant Rollatini - grilled eggplant stuffed with fetta cheese, topped with diced tomatoes dressed with olive oil and fresh basil.

This is my favorite appetizer in T.G.I. FRIDAYS restaurant and this is a home-made version the way my taste buds interpreted it. It looks small but its really more than enough for a dinner portion, served with bread. Gotta post it here so i won't forget how it is done. I'm gonna do this every now and then. In this dish, basil is really important. The aroma and taste goes well with the mild tastes of eggplant and cheese.  Hubby added a dash of balsamic vinegar to add sharpness.  This is way better than the Friday's rollatini.

Ingredients:

2 long eggplants (1 foot long)
100 g fetta cheese
1 large tomato
fresh basil leaves
Olive oil for tomato dressing
Salt and pepper


Slice the eggplant into thin strips along with its length. Brush with olive oil and season with pepper. (didn't put salt on the eggplant as the fetta will take care of the saltiness). Grill until eggplant turns slightly brown. Allow to cool enough to handle. Spread fetta cheese on the grilled eggplant and roll up. secure with a tooth pick.

While the eggplant is grilling, prepare the tomato salad. In a bowl, put the olive oil and finely diced fresh basil, season with salt and pepper. Add the diced tomatoes and set aside.

After rolling up the eggplant with the fetta cheese, arrange the rollatinis in a serving dish and top it with the prepared tomato salad.

This served 8 rollatinis.

Steamed Salmon with Broccoli Puree and Baby Potatoes

Steamed Salmon with broccoli puree and baby potatoes

This is one healthy meal. I don’t like broccoli very much when its whole but the puree was a trick! I incredibly love it! It was all mild flavors that needs some contrast to cut the mildness but a few freshly ground black pepper would do for me, but for hubby he added Tabasco sauce which was also great. The baby potatoes were quite a great substitute for rice for a change.

Ingredients:

2 slices of salmon

2 bouquet of Broccoli

½ kg baby potatoes

Salt and pepper

Procedure:

Season broccoli and salmon with salt and pepper. Steam broccoli together with the salmon for 10 minutes.

While steaming the fish, boil baby potatoes in salted water for 10 minutes.

Strain the baby potatoes and cut in half. In a very hot non-stick pan, pan roast the potatoes until the sides turn dark brown. Add finely chopped parsley at the last minute.

Place the broccoli in a blender or food processor, add a little bit of water used to steam the fish and broccoli (the drippings from the fish adds flavor), blitz until fine.

Assemble the dish by placing the fish on top of the bed of green puree, alongside the baby potatoes.

Stif-fried Flat Noodles

Here’s a hit for the night! Stir-fried flat noodles. I used to make pancit or the normal egg noodles and used to put soy sauce, but this time, I like it differently as I’m avoiding the smell of soy sauce, strange as it may sound but blame it on baby on my belly.

I used flat noodles which I happen to grab from the super market even if I don’t have any plan of doing something with it… I guess I was curious with different types of noodles I saw from the Chinese noodles in the shelves of various shapes, and it stayed in my pantry untouched for quite some time. (picture below)



Anyways, I had a handful of the following ingredients that went along with it:

Sweet peas
Red pepper/capsicum (sliced thinly)
Green pepper/capsicum(sliced thinly)
Button mushrooms (sliced thinly)
Garlic (sliced thinly)
Onion (sliced thinly)
1 chicken breast (sliced thinly in strips)
Cabbage (sliced thinly)
Pechay (sliced thinly)
Oil for stir-fry
1 cube chicken stock (dissolved in ¼ cup hot water)


The trick with stir-frying is to keep everything ready at your side coz everything happens so quickly. It’s a different way of doing it the way I used to before, like everything will go in the woke and estimate the amount of liquid to be absorbed by the noodles which I usually end up either with the noodles sticking at the bottom (lack of liquid) or the noodles are over cooked and soggy coz I put too much liquid. Well, now, I learned how to do it perfectly.

You will need 2 pans at the same time, 1 deep pan to boil water and a woke for stir-frying. First, bring to boil about a liter of water in the deep pan, while heating the woke.

Sauté onion until soft, add the garlic and mushrooms. Stir-fry until the sides of the mushrooms had turned brown, add chicken and continue stir-frying. Keep it is important to keep the ingredients moving. On the other hand, while the water is boiling, you are ready to blanch the vegetables. Use a slotted ladle to do this. Blanch the sweet peas into the boiling water in a few seconds and add to the woke, blanch cabbage and add to the woke, blanch the white part of the pechay, add to the woke, blanch the green part of pechay add to the woke, add the pepper/capsicum to the woke, whilst stirring constantly after each addition, add chicken stock and continue stir-frying. Add the noodles to the boiling water and boil for a minute; do not over cook the noodles. Drain and add to the stir-fried vegetables. Continue cooking for 2 minutes more and you’re done.

Handy tip:
In stir-frying, add ingredients with the harder in texture first and the leafy ones last so that everything will be cooked at the same time. Hard vegetables like sweet peas needs a little more time to cook than cabbage.

Lettuce Salad with strips of ham

Here’s a simple salad for a light and healthy dinner.

Ingredients:

Iceberg lettuce
Green coral lettuce
Onion
Cucumber
Tomatoes
Strips of ham (cooked)
Shavings of parmesan cheese

Dressing:
1 tsp. capers
1 tsp. mustard
1 clove garlic
4 Tbsp. lemon juice
12 Tbsp. olive oil
2 tsp. Balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper


Procedure:

Slice thinly the cucumber, tomatoes, cucumber and onion. Cut the lettuce leaves into manageable bite size; slice the ham into strips and set aside.

In a salad bowl, put lemon juice, olive oil, mustard, balsamic vinegar and season with salt and pepper. Grate a clove of garlic and add to the mixture. Mix the mixture vigorously with a whisk or fork to emulsify and incorporate all the flavors together until thick. Add capers and mix further. Toss in the sliced vegetables and mix well. Lastly add some shavings of parmesan cheese. Serve with bread.

Roasted Duck with Vegetables

Ingredients:

2 Pcs. Duck Thighs
6 Pcs. Medium potatoes
6 Pcs. Baby Carrots
4 cloves garlic
1 Pc. Onion
Thyme
Salt & pepper to taste
1/2 tsp. olive oil

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees C.

Season the duck with salt, pepper and fresh thyme and set aside.

Meanwhile boil the potatoes with water for 3 minutes and cut into wedges. Slice Onion in wedges. In a baking dish, put potatoes, onion, garlic, baby carots and season with salt & pepper and set aside.

In a preheated pan, add 1/2 teaspoon olive oil, add in the seasoned duck thighs, skin-side down, pan fry for 3 minutes each side until skin turns golden.

Place a rack above the baking dish with the vegetables in it. After pan frying the duck, place them on the rack and sprinkle over the remaining duck fat in the pan. The drippings from the meat will flavor the vegetables. Continue cooking in the oven for 45 minutes or until done.

Serve with bread.

Fish 'n Eggplant wrap

Fish 'n Eggplant wrap

Ingredients:

4 Tbsp. olive oil

2 Tbsp. butter

1 large Eggplant

6 slices of fish fillet (skinned)

parsley

Salt & pepper to taste Carrots Bell Pepper How to: Slice eggplant lengthwise into thin long slices. Brush with butter unto the surface of the eggplant. In a very hot grill pan or flat pan, pan roast the eggplant until soft and sides turn slightly brown. (with a grilled pan, a horizontal marking can easily be seen as shown in the picture) The eggplant must be soft at this stage. Season with more salt & pepper to taste.Set aside. Season fish with salt & pepper, drizzle with olive oil and place in a very hot pan. Pan-fry the fish until slightly brown and turn over the other side. Remove from pan and set aside. With the roasted eggplant, wrap the fish tightly and tuck the end with toothpick at the end of one side. Bake for 5 – 10 minutes more to enhance flavor. Pan roast slices of carrots and bell peppers to garnish.

Fried Potatoe cubes

Fried Potato cubes

Ingredients:
4 Tbsp. oil
4 large potatoes
2 tsp. ginger powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
a dash of cinnamon powder
2 tsp. cornstarch

How to:

Slice potatoes into small cubes set aside. Heat oil in a pan, add potatoes and fry until done. When the sides begin to turn slightly brown, add ginger powder, garlic powder, cinnamon powder, salt and pepper. Toss all together and sprinkle cornstarch. Continue cooking 1 minute more until golden brown. Serve while still hot.

Mash potatoes or grilled potatoes could be boring if used as side dish frequently. I tried other ways of cooking potatoes.

Vegetable Fried Rice

Vegetable Fried Rice

Ingredients:
2 cups c ooked rice
8 pcs. Green beans
1 Yellow
1 Red Bell Pepper
EggplantOnion
Garlic
Tomatoes
¼ cup water
1 cube chicken stock
Salt and pepper

Procedure:

Slice vegetables and set aside. Sauté onion and garlic until translucent but not burned, add sliced vegetables, except tomatoes, stirring occasionally. Add the vegetables until all the liquid has evaporated, add water and stock, and continue cooking until vegetables are nearly done. Add rice and season with salt and pepper.

Green Peas Rizotto with Beef

Green Peas Rizotto with beef

I love risotto once in awhile to break monotonous boiled rice. To incorporate some veggie, I added green peas for the sake of taking some fibers! Could be served with risotto alone, but here I added slices of grilled beef.

2 cups Arborio rice
3 cups chicken stock
1 glass white wine
1 onion (finely chopped)
1 clove garlic (finely chopped)
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 cup grated cheese
1 cup green peas
2 Tablespoons butter
Freshly ground pepper

Boil stock in a pan. Meantime, sauté garlic and onion in olive oil until completely wilted and translucent. Add rice and mix thoroughly until rice is slightly fried. Add ½ cup white wine while stirring constantly until almost all the liquid has been absorbed by the rice. Add the remaining wine and continue stirring. When all the liquid has been absorbed, add 1 cup of boiling stock while stirring constantly. Continue adding water 1 cup at a time until almost all the liquid has been absorbed or until rice is done. Add green peas during the last addition of stock; whilst stirring constantly. Stir in cheese and butter lastly. Season with freshly ground pepper.

Chicken Sandwich with eggplant dip

Chicken Sandwich with eggplant dip

Flat bread

Eggplant dip

Grilled chicken breast (thinly sliced)

White onion (thinly sliced)

Red bell pepper (cubed)

Tomatoes (thinly sliced)

To make flat bread:

1 cup flour (sifted)

1 tsp. salt

¼ cup water

Mix salt and flour in a mixing bowl. Add 1 Tablespoon water at a time while mixing until it forms rough dough. Add water if its too dry, this depends of the strength of the flour you are using. Knead the dough in a floured flat surface for about 3 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Form dough into sausage shape and cut 1 inch thick. Form each into a small ball and flatten with a rolling pin.

To make eggplant dip:

1 large eggplant

1 cube chicken stock

1 cup water

Red pepper (diced)

Tomatoes (diced)

Onion (diced)

Garlic (finely chopped)

juice of ½ lemon

chili powder

pepper

Determine a base for the eggplant and slice the skin off thinly; so that the eggplant will lay flat. Slice the skin off of the opposite side and carefully take the meat of the eggplant using a spoon. Dice the meat into cubes. Rub the exposed eggplant meat with lemon juice, wrap with plastic and refrigerate while making the dip. Sauté garlic and onion until translucent add eggplant meat, add red pepper, water and stock. Bring to boil and simmer for about 5 minutes until almost all of the liquid has evaporated. Season with pepper and chili powder. Place the cooked mixture into the prepared eggplant case. In a hot pan, add onion and red pepper; cook until caramelized.Assemble sandwich. Arrange in each flat bread with chicken onion, pepper as desired. Serve with the dip.

Grilled Chicken Breast with Pepper Marmalade

Grilled chicken breast with pepper marmalade

Quite lazy for lunch and didn’t know what to do. Switched the TV channel to BBC Food and caught Sophie Grigson doing pepper marmalade for her dish with Trout fish, my tastebuds wondered if the marmalade would go with chicken, since I always have chicken breast in the fridge. Hmmm… yes the flavors are blending indeed! I’m quite lucky, I have all the ingredients which Sophie used except for red wine vinegar, which I don’t have, and I added yellow pepper to add color. I’m quite trained to settle with what I have huh, I used balsamic vinegar instead. I think everyone knows how to grill chicken, so I am just going to jot down for the marmalade, for the sake of the record. Well, thanks to Sophie Grigson!

Ingredients:

1 Red bell pepper (sliced in thin strips)

1 Yellow bell pepper (sliced in thin strips)

2 white onions (sliced thinly)

4 Tablespoons olive oil

2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar

2 Teaspoons sugar

4 Tablespoons water

2 Pieces Star Anis

Preparation:

Cook onion with olive oil, in medium fire, until transparent. Add the peppers and star anis. Continue cooking until peppers are wilted stirring occasionally, add balsamic vinegar, sugar and water, simmer until all the liquid has evaporated.Grill chicken and serve with the marmalade. This time, I served the dish with bread.

Eggplant based pizza

Eggplant Bites

This is very easy and quick to make appetizer.

How to:

Preheat oven to 180 0 C. Choose large eggplants and slice them into ½ inch thick. Pan fry with a bit of oil, don’t put too much oil as eggplant absorbs a lot of oil. You may use oil spray just to oil the pan without excess oil. Pan fry the eggplant until golden brown. Spread a heaping spoon of tomato sauce into each slice of eggplant and add Edam cheese on top and lots of parmesan cheese. Bake for 5 minutes and serve 1 slice each per person.

Crispy Kangkong

Crispy Kangkong

I’ve been wondering what could I have for the kangkong we have in our small garden. The helper usually takes it home coz I don’t know what to do with it. I remember once we went to a restaurant in Dumaguete and one of the appetizers they have is “crispy kangkong” I Used the same batter with my previous post for onion rings. The secret is.. serve immediately while still crispy!

Stir-fried vegies with beef

Stir-fried Veggies with beef

Easy and healthy.

Ingredients:

½ K. Lean beef

Cabbage (sliced in strips)

2 Carrots (sliced)

1 Red sweet pepper

1 Green sweet pepper

1 Onion (sliced thinly)

3 cloves garlic (chopped thinly)

2 T olive oil

salt & pepper to taste

I am a fan of Ken, Chinese cook in BBC Food and I always watch him stir frying vegetables but haven’t done really at home. The secret is to add stock or water little by little like 1 tablespoon at a time this will give a good steam cooked vegetables, which is really makes a difference. Different from what I’ve done before I knew the technique coz I used to stir-fry veggies all in one bang to the pan and add water or stock.. some veggies are not cooked and some are over cooked. So here, I perfected for once!

Slice beef in strips and set aside. In very hot pan, add 2 T. olive oil add beef and stir-fry until sides turn brown. (Do not be tempted to add water, otherwise the meat would be tough). Remove the beef and set aside. With the same pan, add oil and salt, sauté onion and garlic with olive oil, add first the hardest veggie then the leafy lastly. Carrots goes in first, add 1 T. of stock or water, stir fry and cover for 1 minute, add the red and green peppers, add another tablespoon of stock, cover and stir-fry for another minute, add the cabbage lastly, again cover and stir-fry for another minute. Add in the stir-fried beef and toss! Done! Every veggie has its own distinctive taste which gives every bite a worthwhile withd different tastes and textures.

Grilled Fish with Roasted Pepper Salad

For me, this is perfect healthy meal.. Taste wise? The best!

This is my first entry for "Weekend Herb Blogging" hosted by

Place the pepper on top of the stove burner and keep the flames on until the skin of the pepper turns completely black.


When I say black means the skin is totally burned, charred and blistered.

Turn the pepper occasionally using a tongs as necessary to burn other parts of the pepper. When it turns completely black, it means its done. All you need to do is peel off the burned skin. Literally, remove all the blackened skin. This is quite a chore, but I guarantee the taste is exceptional.

While they are still hot, cover or place in a paper bag for 15 minutes and allow the steam to loosen the charred skins. Peel off the skin over a bowl to catch the juices, and use it for the salad. The skin will just fall off easily. Cut the pepper into half and remove the seeds. Slice the peppers into thin strips.

To make the vinaigrette, simply mix all ingredients and stir until thick.

Mix the vinaigrette and pepper; chill for 20-30 minutes. This can be made ahead of time and store in the fridge and serve when needed.

Here, I served with grilled fish and bread.

Facts about bell peppers

Bell Peppers are rich in vitamins A and C which are known to be anti oxidants. Antioxidants are a group of nutrients that neutralize free radicals in the body fluids reducing the risk of diseases.
Free radicals are naturally produced when the body uses oxygen. Unless they are neutralized, they cause cell damage, which may lead to health problems such as arthritis, heart disease and cancer. A single raw red pepper, sweet or hot, can meet the daily requirements for two important antioxidants, vitamin A and C.

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.

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.

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.