baby rambutan

==or one fine lucky riot of a dish!

my kids look forward to this now, our New Year’s dinner of jai. this year, as husband noticed, i “pulled out all the stops!” each ingredient has a special meaning to usher in a lucky welcome for the New Year. i was aiming for 18–
and i did it!…not counting the shredded ginger, or the mashed fermented bean curd cubes in Szechuan oil, and how about the hoisin sauce and the soy sauce for the stir fry.
the vegetables and rehydrated dried ingredients are added in the order of how quickly they soften.

dried oysters
dried shiitake mushrooms
dried bean curd skin
dried bamboo pith
straw mushrooms
water chestnuts
carrots
pea pods
baby corn
dried tree ears
dried lily buds
dried mung bean sticks (sotanghon)
sea moss
boiled peanuts
fried firm tofu cubes
tofu puffs
fresh bamboo shoots
napa cabbage

previous recipe here.
bamboo pith, FINALLY located these tucked away high up in the grocery shelves, wonder why?
my MIL used to serve us these with black mushrooms and dried scallops and sometimes chicken gizzards…yummy

“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 seems like food trucks are the latest trend nowadays, and we sure did get intrigued enough to look for a whole parking-lot’s-worth of them at the SOWA Sundays food fest this past weekend.

when we got there the only truck that whet our appetite was the M&M food truck–it’s our fault, we were there kind of later than we intended–but we were primed to try out M&M’s from word-of-mouth and publicity and hype and hoopla. it’s a veritable institution hereabouts!

M&M’s had bbq pork ribs that we had heard about, and stewed collard greens, and cornbread. they serve food hot off the grill/smoker.
aah, but that cornbread! we just had one tiny little tidbit of a mini-cupcake serving that everyone shared. while the ribs were marinated and smoked and slow-roasted in the most luscious way, it was the cornbread that left us hankering for more.
this one’s moist, and rich, yet has a delicate crumb that’s just so suited to a roast beast, be it fowl or mammal. i made a simple chicken gravy to dip with this mellow corn bread–made with roast chicken drippings, broth, and flour for thickening.

i thought that i had my favorite recipe already committed to memory/featured in this little scrapbook/blog–i’ve talked about it in a thanksgiving post years ago– but then i found it wasn’t!!! i hadn’t even provided a link properly!
EGAD! sacre bleu! hell’s bells!
so here it is now in all its moist. corny. yellow. bready. glory.

sweet cornbread (recipe from food.com) (more…)

i’ve been eating them straight out of the box, washed of course, but i think they’d be just wonderful with cakes and whipped cream…not that i have the go-ahead from the doctors or nurses or nutritionists but i would really really gobble them up like that. amen.
and here’s the current earbug to go with it!

yeah you got that right…old mothers need to eat (or drink) lots of tofu, soy, soy-based products.
here’s one from the book*: pock-marked mother’s tofu “ma po dou fu”….quite easy to make, kids love, and you feel like you’re healing yourself. or something like that.

ground pork, firm tofu cubes, and black beans sauteed with ginger and scallions and sweet rice wine and sprinkled with ground Szechuan pepper…
not much to look at, but really scrumptious over hot steamed rice; for a healthier version use ground turkey or chicken.
*Savoring China, edited by Jacqui Passmore, Williams-Sonoma.

i thought all along i had a post on laing! it’s a dish of dried gabi leaves stewed in coconut milk and shrimp paste from the Bicol Region

(famous for the use of coconuts and chilies in their cuisine) which i never had at home, but which i first tried at the now-long-gone Filipino Restaurant in Quincy called “The Shuttle Stop.” Aida, the chef served it topped with crab meat, which gave me the idea of topping my version with lobster meat.
i’ve made laing many times, sometimes using shrimp, sometimes just pork, and with the root crop (gabi or taro) itself, but this version made me sit up and take notice. posted by Mga Luto ni Dennis, which he in turn got from the one and only Maria Venus Raj, Ms. Philippines 2010 and fourth runner up in the last Miss Universe contest, it is an easier version to make–down to earth and lovely like Ms. Raj.
there was a hot debate raging after she lost the title, when she seemed to be a clear favorite right from the start.
i only added a few, like four!, bird chilies (siling labuyo) for that extra ooomph, and since i had some leftover grilled baby octopus and fried fish i threw them into the pot as well, and topped with steamed soft-shell lobsters. stewing the cubes of pork belly in the coconut milk seems to be the extra secret step….
thanks to Mr. Dennis Glorioso for sharing the recipe. there are lots more dishes to try over at his kitchen.

one hot day in July, when i was feeling sluggishly sloth-y, and not feeling like doing any cooking, let alone moving at all…the urge to eat this moved me greatly.

i should have this memorized by now! from Delia Smith’s Summer Collection, i added extra of everything (garlic, chili, anchovies, basil, capers, tomatoes, olives), used thin spaghetti and added a can of solid white tuna in olive oil.
all strong, punchy flavors, over pasta: somehow it just worked on a hot summer day.

and then on to more summer eats! i have three kids at home, very hungry and constantly checking out the fridge and checking in on mom at the kitchen–so i tend to be preparing quick and easy dishes, such as this bbq chicken a la Bacolod Inasal, a style of grilling marinated chicken.
i had heard about it a lot, and finally got to try it at a chain restaurant in the Mall of Asia, by the seaside Roxas Boulevard, Manila.
i used a recipe mostly based on Chef Pauline Gorriceta-Banusing’s via the Inquirer.Net. i added lemongrass stalks (as suggested by several recipes i found in other sites) and marinated the minimum 30 minutes (more than that and the chicken meat will get “de-natured”).

the special technique is the butter-calamansi-atsuete (annatto seed, used as a vibrant colorant) basting sauce. (i could not bear to use margarine, which is the original recipe).
i was nervous about using all that vinegar, with no soy sauce to soften all that acidic kick.

but it was a hit, yet i’ve decided i will use chicken leg quarters instead of whole chickens–i used baby “young chickens”–because the breast meat dried out. NO MORE BREAST MEAT.

highly recommended with achara as side dish…

achara of green papaya plus:not-so-secret formula here.

recipe for Chef Pauline’s chicken inasal follows… (more…)

(tinadtad na manggang hilaw) finely grated green mango, ready to be embellished with tomatoes, onions, bagoong, patis, chicharon, chilies…but i love it just the way it is.
i wasn’t able to compose a travelogue, or a collage of photos even. sorry, my state of mind is not quite there yet–it makes me inconsolably sad to even have a glimpse of what i miss. so spoiled! i was…thanks to my brothers, the bookend boys (oldest and youngest).
i’ve got some of the food photos on my flickr, and the photo above is the #1 item i labadabdab and miss most of all, food-wise…

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of NAVTEQ. All opinions are 100% mine.

I have a secret longing that i haven’t told my husband about.
I want a GPS Navigation system in the car!
I know how he feels and I do agree with him on principle: we like reading maps, we like the challenge of navigating through unfamiliar territory and the fulfillment of finding our way eventually…
but I’ve also ridden in cars with the GPS on–and I’m totally convinced they help save a lot of heartache and nerves and argument, not to mention time and gasoline. My Manila-based brother was able to find his way in downtown Los Angeles, alone, thanks to our younger brother’s loan of his car equipped with the Garmin!
So the month of May is NAVTEQ’s Map Update Month and it’s time to make sure you have the latest, best information on all the maps.
Roads and bridges crumble, detours can become permanent, new highways and freeways and expressways are sprouting up as we speak. You really have to make sure your system is up to date and current and with it!

According to the NAVTEQ Navigation Benefits study, updating your maps on a regular basis could:
–help you save up to $200 a year just by using a navigation device*
–help you drive with confidence
–help you save time (A traffic enabled GPS device can save you 4 days of driving time*)
–help you use less fuel
–reduce your CO2 emissions by 20% just by driving with a GPS device*
–help maintain the optimum performance from your system
–help you know better roadside options
*NAVTEQ Navigation Benefits Study

This www.mapupdatemonth.com takes away a lot of the sweat and the legwork, it’s all push-button easy…

so who isn’t on a health kick these days? you just can’t escape it even if you don’t have any health issues (lucky you *inggit*envy*)–tv and print ads and emails all beseech you to watch your weight, read food labels, work out, eat less, and on and on.
one of my sincere efforts is to avoid cooking deep fried foods.

but alas, the allure and the lure of lumpiang Shanghai (meat and shrimp rolls) got the better of me. i justified it by using ground chicken to replace some of the ground pork, and tried to have the rolls not spend too much time in the deep fat fryer (crucial to use, so that you know how hot the oil has gotten).
the star of this blogpost though is The Dip. i was in a hurry to cook and couldn’t find my recipe for the sweet and soy-y dip so i dug out my dog-eared 22-year-old edition of Galing Galing by Nora Daza for a sweet and sour ketchup-y sauce to which i added some fried garlic.

1/4 cup vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup water (or chicken stock)
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. cooking oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tbsps. ketchup/catsup
2 tsps. cornstarch dissolved in 1 tbsp. water

in a glass cup, combine vinegar, sugar, salt and water and mix well.
heat a saucepan and add cooking oil (you can use as little as you need to coat the pan). brown the minced garlic until fragrant. add the vinegar solution and bring up to a gentle boil and then add the cornstarch solution, stirring constantly until thickened.

i added a sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper too.

any guilty feelings after imbibing these forbidden deep fried goodies were assuaged by the opposite lumpia variation.

after having some fresh lumpia in California–traditionally made with heart of coconut, (the inner core of the coconut trunk, which is not available here)–here made with jicama (singkamas) and other vegetables: green beans, carrots, snow pea pods, celery, all precisely julienned…i had a hankering for some more.

if only i could findeureka!i think i’ve found that prefect white crepe i’m longing for, with a bit of a spongey texture in its thinness, just like my Ma used to get fresh from the lumpia-makers of Nepomuceno Market near Kamuning and Cubao….

i’ve been having problems with this webhost, and in the time it took just to write this post i’ve managed to trawl the www and try a few recipes for the crepe. this is it, at least for now:
a white and fine textured crepe that doesn’t overwhelm the vegetables with too much egginess.
(based on a recipe from recipezaar.com)

200 grams all purpose flour
50 grams tapioca starch
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 egg
2 tbsps. canola oil
525 ml lukewarm water

blend dry ingredients, then add the egg. whisking constantly, add the water in a steady and slow stream. whisk until well blended; use a stick blender if batter is lumpy. cover tightly with plastic wrap and let stand in the refrigerator, for at least an hour, up to overnight.
heat up crepe pan to medium hot, lightly oil it, then pour just enough to cover the pan with a thin layer (i used about 1/3 cup for my crepe pan).
when top is set, flip carefully–don’t let it brown, or else it will crack and not drape over the lumpia like a velvet shawl….