baby rambutan

that about says it all yes?

everyone seems to be running around being Santa’s helpers. sometimes dinner becomes an oopsy afterthought: “oops! what shall we have for dinner then?!”
this is a quick pasta dish which came about from rummaging through the refrigerator and pantry shelves. my kids all were happily sniffing about in the kitchen while i was cooking.
it could be a side dish or the main dish–we served it alongside tilapia tempura and arugula salad.
recipe? (more…)

“A world without lasagna is a world without love.”–anonymous (but i suspect Garfield)
from “For the love of Lasagna,” www.greatcheese.com.
i’ve been going to the charity shop QUITE often, lately. i got so many books, oh yeah i go there for the books. and i picked up a little pamphlet of lasagna recipes.
my kids and i love lasagna but i wanted a change from the usual meat and cheese, or the vegetable and tomato sauce types, that i pounced on the first recipe that made me go hmmmm: spinach and artichoke lasagna made with no-boil dried pasta, and a really lovely ricotta cheese layer. it is served in a little puddle of marinara sauce (it’s okay to use bottled sauce, but homemade would be even more sumptuous).
it truly is the ultimate comfort food–especially for the chilly days being served up to us right now–and maybe eight, no, maybe nine! months more.

sorry for the photo! it was sliced while still quite hot.

here’s the recipe.

it might have something to do with my latest obsession, watching old episodes of The Vicar of Dibley. i just always snubbed this show, being that it dealt with a Vicar. how funny can it be, i thought, dealing with the Church and the bible.
but i saw the Christmas special finale, the one where Geraldine finally found her someone, and it was so irreverently hilariously outrageously funny that i thought i’d track down all the old episodes (it was put down after 10 years on air, circa 1994.)

it might also have something to do with my Anglophilia, according to husband.
whatevah!
he brought home a rib roast for our dinner tonight. i had almost two hours to roast it so i had a moment of Domestic Goddessness and dug out her “Feast” cookbook to make these lovely little gems.
Yorkshire puddings, the traditional accompaniment to the Christmas roast beast, always look so enticing with their puffed up gloriousness that i’ve always been wanting to try.

now, i’ve had quite a bit of a struggle with her recipes, and this one is no exception: i thought it lacking in instruction but since i’d seen an episode with another self-proclaimed Diva (Tita Martha) with A Real Diva, Anne Willan, i was able to make some passable enough for my family to enjoy.
i think it’s got a lot to do with the pan used (i used a jumbo-muffin pan, but it’s said that a twelve-cup one will work, just as well as an 8-inch round cake pan), and will be on the lookout for a popover pan, the kind where the cups are deeper and divided by thin wires. or maybe the oven temperature wasn’t quite hot enough… my kids said it tasted like rich thick crepes. which they like.

substitute melted butter if you haven’t had the time to get drippings from the rib roast.

4 eggs
1 & 1/3 cups 2% milk (i used half 1 % milk and half heavy cream, because that’s all i had)
1/2 tsp. salt
1 & 2/3 cups flour

preheat oven to 425ºF.
whisk together eggs, milk and salt until combined then let stand at least 15 minutes. whisk in flour then let stand until ready to bake.

pour about a tablespoon or so of roast beef drippings or melted butter into each muffin/popover pan cup. heat in the oven before pouring in the batter.

bake for 15 – 20 minutes until puffed up and browned.


it was certainly a welcome and delicious change from just mashed potatoes and gravy. the puddings when smothered in peas and gravy went very well with the juicy rib roast.

and no, there was no special occasion, unless you count making it to Friday, a special occasion.

grey gloomy glum weather again, and still cold, but. at least…. it’s FRIDAY!
i’m not too fond of the name of the dish (it just reminds me too much of the sisid *as in dive underwater* rice stories my Ma told us, about the harrowing times during WW2 ).
Southern style rice sounds a bit better, but then how to distinguish it from the what, several hundred? kinds of dishes with rice from the South.
so dirty rice it is.
chicken livers, chicken gizzards. you like?

we love! husband discovered how to make this, one of our favorite side dishes for fried chicken when we buy it from our preferred take out joint (hint: named for a sailor man who loves his spinach, canned. his goyl’s name is Olive Oyl.)
i used duck gizzards but otherwise followed the recipe to the letter…except i was a bit worried that pulsing the livers, as the recipe commands, would render it bitter so i just roughly chopped them up, same way as the gizzards.
i’m thinking of adding some thick cubes of bacon next time, just to make it even more wicked.
fried chicken, yes, but i think it would also be a good foil (foyl?) for grilled fish or shellfish, Cajun style perhaps?
from Allrecipes.com. (more…)

our bodies are almost cold and numb now from the unforgiving winter (we all forgot how cold it normally is in Boston and vicinity). we do get a little reprieve and they’re calling it a non-snow weekend.
comfort food, hot and spicy, it is then.
this is one dish that all three kids like. we usually order this whenever the mood for Thai food strikes us, at the little take-out place round the corner. my usual complaint is the sparsity(sparseness?), scarcity, kakuriputan?, of ingredients. i mean come on! i can understand skimping on shrimp and shellfish but chicken? tasty as it may be, and easy as it is to just call for an order, i thought i’d try and make this at home. anyway a bunch of fresh Thai or holy basil is only about $1.50 a bunch.
and i can drown it in chicken.

strip away the leaves from the stems…the scent is intoxicating.

i didn’t put in a lot of chilies. i chopped up a third of a serrano chili and then the rest i put in a dipping bowl with a squeeze of lemon and fish sauce.

make sure rice is cold and dry and fluffed, to keep grains separate.

i forgot to take pictures until we had finished dinner–this is the portion we saved for our college boy.

i used skinless and boneless chicken thighs. (or use sliced lean pork or beef if you like).
this recipe was the guide, except that i decided to marinate the sliced bite size chicken in light soy, dark soy, fish sauce, and sugar instead of adding them on later.
over medium high heat, in a wok, stir fry 6 finely crushed garlic cloves until golden, then add the chicken. stir fry till the chicken is no longer translucent. add shallots, onions, chilies, green onions.
mix well then add the rice. season to taste then add the basil leaves and toss it about for a bit until the leaves are wilted.
your kitchen should be very fragrant at this point.

this is what i was craving:
pancit palabok,
shrimp and garlic sauce over rice noodles, with a sprinkling of something fishy and smoky, as is traditional.

but i didn’t have much time. i didn’t feel like cooking a pot of squid adobo, or smoking anything in particular during this cold and chilly day, with the windows all sealed tight (last time i smoked something on a wintry day one of my guests almost passed out!!!).
i watched a rerun of my favorite TV chef, Tony Bourdain in Spain….and he was indulging in the most decadent of canned seafood, –i mean, $175 a can! they gotta be soooo goood. off i went to my Asian grocery store to forage for something more affordable. like maybe 10% of the price might be just a smidgen of a hint of how good it could get.
i knew i did not want to buy anything canned from China…for all the obvious reasons. so when i found these Spanish octopus and mussels,

and oysters from Korea,

along with some freshly thawed shrimp from a bag imported from Thailand….it was just about as good as i’ll ever get from here in the rapidly freezing up Northeast portion of the USA…

–with a lot of help from Vietnamese fish sauce, scallions, boiled eggs, lime wedges, and pounded pork cracklings, and a MaMa Sita palabok sauce pouch.

certainly not for the squeamish.
if you have to deal with whole squid that is. to me, finding freshly thawed previously frozen squid is like discovering a vein of gold in the back yard, because i can remember a distant time when i lived in a little village in upstate New York when there was none to be found. not a shrimp, fresh fish, or oyster was to be had.
i never take it for granted no sir!

i guess it is just not typical fare for a majority of Americans–i once met a New Jersey boy raised on peanut butter and jelly and potatoes and he told me squid was fishing bait! tsk tsk tsk.

whenever i came home to my Ma in Manila she always made sure there was adobong pusit on the table for my first meal back. hands down the best way to have pusit–freshly caught.

so, feeling that urge for a squid binge after chatting with my old friend Carole who told me about Saba squid with soy sauce and chili, which i did not find in my Asian grocery, i decided to buy a couple of pounds of fresh squid instead and to cook this squid and spinach and pasta dish that we used to order from an Italian restaurant near us….based on a recipe from Ruth Rogers and Rose Grey (of London River Cafe fame)’s Italian Two Easy(i used spinach instead of their zucchini).

it’s truly a revelation!
now i’ve discovered marjoram, which mixed with lemon zest and juice, elevates squid into fragrant and most unfishily unsquidly heights.

1 lb. squid
1 bag spinach, 12 ozs. (or 1 lb. zucchini, sliced, salted, rinsed, drained)
2 garlic cloves
1 dried hot chile
1 lemon
extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsps. fresh marjoram leaves or 2 tsps. dried
11 ozs. spaghetti

prepare the squid by pulling away the head and tentacles from the body. cut off the tentacles and squeeze out the beak. open the body out into a flat piece and scrape away the soft interior pulp. finely slice the body. separate the tentacles. wash and pat dry.

peel and finely slice the garlic. crumble the chile. grate the zest of the lemon finely, then squeeze out the juice.
heat a large, thick bottomed skillet, add 3 tbsps. olive oil, and when smoking hot, add the squid and dried marjoram, if using, like i did… (otherwise add fresh marjoram with the spinach). stir briefly, then add salt, pepper and chile, followed by the garlic. stiry fry just to brown the squid. add the spinach, lemon juice and zest, (and the fresh marjoram). stir. remove from heat.

cook spaghetti per instructions then drain and add to the squid mixture. toss, and serve with drizzled olive oil.
(i also sprinkled a tiny bit of romano cheese on mine)….

this is food that i could eat all day.

i was watching Daisy Cooks! over the weekend and i was growing faint from the combination of hunger and desire. years ago my Boricuan buddies Judith and Albert served me beans with potatoes. and there was Daisy Martinez, who gave the proper recipe. see, Albert’s version had Spam and salt pork, both of them really some of my most favorite flavors but sadly not very healthy at all.
Daisy’s version has ham cubes–a big improvement! i decided to go “whole hog” and cook the entire meal:

(i had it for lunch, over white rice)
pink beans with ham and potatoes,habichuelas rosadas con jamon y patatas

yellow rice with corn, arroz con maiz,

and the sweetly named
chuletas de abuela, Grandma’s pork chops.

this was our supper. forgot to garnish with cilantro. we. were. famished.

flavors that go so fantastically well together. i’m lucky that my grocery has a Spanish section and stocks alcaparrado and Spanish style tomato sauce and bitter orange marinade, but in a pinch it wouldn’t be hard to substitute hard-to-find ingredients.

some advance planning is required, as far as the pork chops are concerned: they need long marinating for maximum flavor. for the yellow rice, fresh corn on the cob is ideal but you can use frozen. that’s what i love about Daisy’s recipes–building up the complex layers of flavors can be easy if you have to take shortcuts, that is, using bottled sofrito and recaito and dry rub or marinade. recipes here…

with a carb-y and a fruity salad!

a pound of farfalle, a pound of asparagus, a pint of grape tomatoes, a cup and a half of crumbled feta, a bunch of mint(they’re taking over the garden!)…dressed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
bowtie pasta salad,recipe from the Boston Globe Food section, July 2, 2008.

buko (young coconut) fruit salad…i would love to dive in and drown in it! a packet of frozen shredded young coconut, 2 cans of fruit cocktail, nata de coco (coconut gel) and kaong (palm fruit), a-swim in a softened-cream cheese/condensed milk/heavy cream concoction.
in a fit of self-righteouslness i did not devour it… i dove into the YMCA swimming pool instead.

just perfect for this heatwave we’re in .

i thought a bread machine would be fun to have in the kitchen.
i wanted a Japanese one..but have you seen how much those cost? i couldn’t justify spending too much on a brand new Zojirushi that i might not use much in the end. or that i’d feel pressured to use, to make it worthwhile…so i turned to eBay. i got really lucky and got a barely-used Dak (out of business, but parts are still available). i made our first bread machine loaf the day it arrived…

it was a bit alarming in the beginning, with all the noise it made. but 3 and a half hours later i got the best surprise…

it worked! and it was beautiful, moist-inside-crusty-outside kind of loaf. oddly shaped, but the magical way that it kneaded the dough, “fermented”, baked and cooled it…all you do is measure everything in, in proper order.

freshly baked, i slathered on some carabao butter…*sigh*
thank heavens for all the people who share recipes (the machine didn’t have its original cookbooklet)–i hope to try out as many as i can, who knows how long this machine will last?!