A Sunday brunch suggestion
A mixture of East and West Shrimp omelet Sliced honey cured ham Hash browns and Croissants
Korean/Pan Asian Feast
In lieu of tomorrow’s celebration that Ron was planning for my big day, I opted to go out tonight for a simple dinner instead as we had theater tickets for Souvenir being played in a theater in Skokie, a neighboring suburb of Chicago. Near the theater in a strip mall is a pan Asian restaurant [...]
Very hearty french toast
This is great for brunch … All you need are 2 eggs, 1 teaspoon of vanilla and a couple of ounces of cream or half and half and of course bread (I prefer white bread). Mix and beat eggs, vanilla and cream. Soak white bread slices in the egg mixture. Fry bread in butter.
Summer Salads
Here’s a couple of salad to add zest to your summer picnic! Aunt Reba’s Curried Chicken Salad and Wild Rice and Nut Salad Here are two fabulous salad recipes perfect for spring or summer picnic. Aunt Reba’s Curried Chicken Salad (left) Ingredients (quantities infinitely adjustable) Cooked chicken or turkey, cut in bite-size chunks Fresh or [...]
Cuban sandwich
This is a simple, filling and delicious sandwich. I got the recipe (with modifications) from 3 Guys from Miami. Needs: Cuban bread (they said French bread could substitute but NOT baguette) softened butter sliced ham (they said, ‘good ham’ – I used Black Forest) lechon asado (roast pork) Swiss cheese sliced dill pickles yellow mustard [...]
Baked Kalabasa with Honey
This is a wonderful side dish for any meal. And so easy to make. Slice the pumpkin however you want and remove seeds and other inside stuff. Put honey and butter on the pumpkin (and if you want a little bit of cinnamon). Bake on a baking pan (or cookie sheet) until soft and brown [...]
Chicago style hotdogs
We do hotdogs differently here in Chicago and you really haven’t eaten a hotdog until you’ve sampled a Chicago-style dog. A Chicago dog is steamed or boiled all beef-hotdog (preferrably Vienna) on a steam warmed poppy seed bun. The topping consists usually of mustard (yellow mustard, not French, not Dijon, but yellow mustard) … and [...]
No more salt
I was just recently diagnosed with hypertension … so I have to drastically alter my diet, basically making them low sodium dishes. Aaargh. Here’s a start. For this one, tomatoes, French beans, canned corn, cilantro, ginger, onions, celery, yellow bell pepper and a few shrimps were sauteed in olive oil. No salt. It was ok, [...]
Homemade lemon and orange concentrates
Good for juices, cakes, leche flan etc. Grate zest from the lemon or orange rinds by scraping the surface of the rind with a hand grater. You can also use a zester but it will take a long time as you need to basically zest the whole surface. Squeeze juice from the lemon or orange. [...]
Three Tacos
Sometimes, when I have a party with a lot of guests and don’t want to serve the usual Filipino dishes … I resort to making a do-it-yourself buffet, with my guests making building their own authentic, real, Mexican tacos. I usually make three taco fillings and let the guests decide what they would want to [...]
A Very Merry Christmas Lunch
Well, I didn’t make the noche buena that I had a countdown for in this blog because noche buena is just not celebrated here. (Noche buena or the good night is the midnight repast that Filipino families have on Christmas eve … I don’t know the origin of it, my guess is, people just come [...]
Classic burger with a twist
After all the rich food of Thanksgiving (and the left overs), for today’s dinner, we decided to just have a simple hamburger. For this, we pan fried everything, no need to use a grill. onions hamburger patties cheese (American or Swiss) tomatoes, sliced oil cognac (brandy) If you want to start from scratch i.e. making [...]
Seafood Saute
I’m running out of Filipino-food-related things to post, so I am posting this seafood saute that we had for dinner the other night. You can now buy these bags of frozen mixed seafood ready to be cooked. So for this one, we just chowed the mix in butter and garlic (lots of garlic if you [...]
Fruity Pork Chops
I don’t know what to call this. This is our concoction. We found these beautiful pork chops in Costco the other day … and you know, Pinoys and fried pork chops … we go together well. But we put a twist in this. And it’s really very good. pork chops butter canned sliced pineapple orange [...]
Linguini tutto mare II
This is my partner’s default dish. If he can’t think of anything to cook, linguini it is. If someone drops by without notice, linguini it is. It’s easy to make, it’s very good and it really fills anyone’s stomach with a hearty feeling. Onion garlic salt pepper oregano white wine or Vermouth cream butter parsley [...]
Strawberries and Cream
Turns out, this is very easy to do. You just ladle your whipped cream on top of the strawberries. Whipped Cream cream powdered sugar vanilla Mix the above ingredients in a bowl and whip the hell out of them like this: Whatever you do, don’t try to whip cream and take pictures at the same [...]
An Attempt at Baking: Lemon Bread
I don’t bake. Most probably because in baking, one has to be precise. I don’t do precise. My tantra in the kitchen is — tantya tantya lang (closest translation would be approximate approximate only). But last night, I made an attempt to make this lemon bread, the recipe of which has been in our household [...]
Mediterranean Themed Brunch
Tuna salad We were having a lazy morning yesterday … it was Sunday, I think I was entitled to that. But … we had to drive to my cousin in East Dundee in the northwestern suburbs of Chicago anytime in the afternoon to do a photoshoot for my niece’s new baby. During the shower a [...]
Easy Beef Broccoli
Here’s a quick and easy ‘Asian’ dish that you can readily concoct in your kitchen … and be the darling of the people you serve this to. Once you master this, they’d think that you’re the best cook ever. I promise. It’s the classic Chinese Beef Broccoli that is popular in most Chinese take-aways, to [...]
A Refreshing Tomato Salad – Recipe of the Month – September 2008
This is so simple that I am wondering why not a lot of people do this. Fresh from the garden tomatoes work well for this. Just slice the tomatoes, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with fresh chopped basil leaves. That’s it! Great for a light dinner on a summer or fall day.
Tortang Alimasag (Maryland Crab Cakes)
I found some blue crabs (just like our alimasag) in the Vietnamese store the other day. They were cheap too. So I thought I would make something out of them for dinner. Not just boiled crabs, but something fancier. I already have made stuffed crab before, so I didn’t want to repeat it. But I [...]
Mexican Jelly
This is delicious. Last Friday, our office had a pot luck lunch organized by the high school students who are working in my lab. The students are from different ethnicities so the lunch was pretty much international. The rule was, each student (there are 14) should bring a dish that they themselves cooked. This one [...]
Lemon Chicken
This is quite standard in my household. In fact, it is my partner’s tried and tested recipe. You need: chicken pieces – thighs, breast, etc. olive oil salt and pepper onions, chopped mushroom, sliced butter white wine corn starch lemon juice Rub chicken pieces with olive oil, salt & pepper; brown on all sides in [...]
Something Completely Different
I was trying hard to make something different for mother’s day brunch. I didn’t want it to be over the top. I just wanted something simple, easy to make and, frankly, I am tired of rich Filipino dishes, so I wanted something fresh and yup, different. So, how about bagel and lox? If you have [...]
