Sibuyas Republic

Hubby’s kind of “fast” breakfast especially when he needs to go out very early.  Bread toasts, 1 piece triangular cheese and a poached egg.

To poach an egg:

simmer (no need to boil)  two cups of water

add 1 tsp. vinegar, stir

while the water is running a slow swirl, slowly drop the egg to the center of the pan

stir the outer side of the water so as to keep the egg at the center and not spread out.

 It took me a while before achieving a perfect poach egg. For the love of the hubby, who needs to get rid of oil from his diet, this is a better alternative to his sunny side up.

 My share for Foodie Friday and Food Trip Friday

I am a huge fan of outdoor cooking. If you are like me then you need to outfit your outdoor area for the entertainment of guests and for your own personal enjoyment. Here are my simple and complex ideas for making the backyard someplace you want to spend your whole day.
Grills are the best addition you can get for surprisingly small amounts of money. I would suggest starting with charcoal initially. Avoid self-starting charcoal because it will give the food a nasty flavor. Natural charcoal is the best option without any doubt. I love coconut shell charcoal because it lasts for a rally long time and burns very clean. They will not add any flavor to the food either.
A step up from the grills is the outdoor brick oven. These take a lot more time and money than grills but they are really worth the effort. You will be making real brick oven pizza and true brick oven breads in no time.
A step between grills and brick ovens is the chiminea. This is like a standalone chimney that you can burn wood in and give yourself a nice bit of ambiance as well as a good deal of heat in those winter months.
You can also consider getting a fire pit. You can use fire pits as a makeshift cooking surface if you buy the right kinds of grills for them but you can’t close them to get the convection effect that you need for really grilling. Fire pits are good for kebabs.
The last thing you should get is a good set of patio furniture. It is nice to stand in front of the grills as your food cooks but sometimes you want to sit down and wait. Especially if you use those grills as smokers or if you get an actual smoker.

This try-hard pasta recipe should have been posted EONS ago. Creating a recipe post is as much difficult as is uploading photos on blog (especially when connection is as erratic as ours). Those were my predicament

I should also note that when I cook, I suck at following procedures. I measure using not cups or spoons, but estimates only   And, and,  when ingredients are too pricey and hard to find at local shops, I do alteration and go on with the recipe that I wanted to cook.

I had made rolled lasagna before when the only oven available is the tiny broiler. Talked about ingenuity, especially when you would want to reinvent stuff. And, then, last December, the daughter asked me to include again baked lasagna in the holiday menu. She brought home  2 packs 500 grams each) of this pasta made of semolina from durum wheat. For this dish, I only get to used up 16 lasagne pieces.

Anyway, here’s the other ingredients I have with me:

diced onion, garlic, tomatoes

diced bell pepper

ground beef

canned mushroom (we like mushrooms around here:) )

heavy cream

quickmelt cheese (mozzarella’s too pricey for me)

Parmesa cheese

dried oregano

parsley

salt and ground black pepper  for seasoning

worcestershire sauce

butter, flour, evaporated milk for the bechamel sauce

The laborious cooking process started off with cooking the lasagne as per packaged direction.

While waiting for the lasagne, saute bell pepper, add onion, garlic, tomatoes,  then, the ground beef, mushroom pieces, drop off the herbs, too. And, season accordingly.

In a baking dish, spread out half of the meat filling, then,  lasagne pieces. Add cream + cheese + parmesan cheese.

Repeat the process depending on how many layers the lasagna would be. I am content with just two layers.

To finished off the topping, pour bechamel sauce:

In a pan, melt in half cup butter, add in two tablespoons of flour, stir well to avoid lumps. When the roux reached its thickness, pour in 1 can of evaporated milk. Continue stirring. Season with a little salt and pepper. Add parsley (optional). Simmer for two minutes and it’s done.

Pour the bechamel sauce on top of the lasagna.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cover the dish with foil and baked for 30-40 minutes.  Then, take off the foil and baked for about 5 minutes. Just enough to achieve a golden color for the topping.

Ouchy! That happens when the try-hard chef is multitasking.

Good thing, the dish is still edible

Sharing this post to Foodie Friday and Food Trip Friday.

Over the weekend, because me and the little miss had been busy reviewing for her monthly test at school, I fall short of cooking time expected from me. Still, our sweet cravings were met when I did saw few items in the pantry.

Oreo cookies, graham crackers, cream, and evaporated milk.

• Layer off the grahams. I bought the one with sugar coating.
• Hence, all I needed was a can of evaporated milk to help soften the crackers.
• Then, drizzle with the cream.
• Topped with cookies and cherries…

Easy does it

Ohhlala…

Linking this post to Dhemz’s Blog Photo Challenge.

Break from school on a Monday because our Chinese brothers were celebrating the New Year. High hopes and prosperity for this year of the water dragon.

And, while we confined ourselves to just stay at home, because the hubs were finishing his “kubo” project, there ain’t too many things to do for this little miss. She kept on asking, “What’s for “merienda” today, mom. Daddy’s asking for his coffee and a sandwich.” And, soon after she smelled the buns toasting on the oven, she got into her seat and soon immersed herself on this…

Easy on Nutella, sweetie. I thought it is sweeter than honey. But, she loved it…even without breads. She’ll lick it as it is. Look at how serious she was. That she had forgotten what her dad tasked her to do

My share for Dhemz’s Blog Photo Challenge.

Too much sweetness from down under!

Our three “piggies” had trouble dividing the loot “equally”. In the end, little miss piggy got half of the packages…

Linking this post to Thursday Brownies

(last year’s sweetness)

First, Happy New Year foodies! Wishing every one a year of happy and healthy eating. Remember that healthy eating does not mean depriving ourselves of foodies, foodies that were so gastronomically abundant during the last holidays. Weeee! It’s been a lot of yummylicious foodie season that tested how much my digestive system can tolerate. The key to a healthy eating is “EAT IN MODERATION”.

Kicking off the year 2012, I would want to share this cheesecake I painstakingly and virtuously bake for New Year’s eve family dinner. Glad, hubby was there to helped out. He prepared the grahams crust using this Black & Decker mixer he bought for me as part of his Christmas present . We were both laughing out as we were preparing this dessert as the kids will surely rant out loud if it ended up not edible enough. We initially planned of buying a roll cake as we usually do on New Year’s eve, but, then, I wanted to take a risk on the cheesecake Even though, we weren’t able to find blueberries in can at the supermarket and we were lost at finding fresh strawberries after scouring too many a shop in the city I didn’t let that ruin my mood.

What I did was to find whatever’s in the pantry…

for the pie crust:

1 package of grahams crushed

3/4 butter

1 teaspoon cinnamon

for the filling:

1 package cream cheese

1 pint sour cream

3 eggs

vanilla extract

Preparation:

1. For the crust, mix in the cinnamon to the crushed grahams then the butter and mix until resembles coarse meal.

2. Pressed the mixture into a cake pan or pie mold. Refrigerate.

3. For the filling, empty package of cream cheese into the mixer and slowly beat for 1 minute.

4. Add in eggs one at a time.

5. Mix in the sour cream. Mix until fully blended.

6. For added flavor, add in vanilla extract. I forgot to buy vanilla, as an alternate I used orange zest The aroma and the tangy taste is…be my guest to add in the apt adjective.

7. Place the creamy mixture into a cake pan and placed in another pan with water.

8. Bake 375 degrees for 40 minutes or until toothpick comes clean. Cake should jiggle.

9. Transfer the cream filling into the crust.

10. Topped with your favorite fruits.

Here’s my dessert on New Year’s eve. Thanks to hubs for helping out. Though, I wouldn’t want to share this one out to him. I’m kinda “madamot” when it comes to sweet treat

Happy healthy eating every one

Linking this post on Mellow Yellow Monday,  Ruby Tuesday, Orange Tuesdays

Wednesday Whites

(click for more cheesecake how to’s)

After throwing up a small dinner for the “man in the house” last Monday, we had had barbecue leftovers in the fridge. Meat cut was pork chop, but, the kids wouldn’t want the fat part, so, I cut out the bone portion, while the fat stand in the marinade back off to the fridge.

The baby back ribs (is it?) find its way into the oven (because barbecuing isn’t my thing, too lethargic for such a task^_^). While, it is baking, I do prepare the mashed potatoes, and the mushroom gravy made from scratch ,  added pieces of canned mushrooms and peas to the gravy, and viola!

Lunch is ready.

 Linking this post to Thursday Brownies, Food Trip Friday, Foodie Friday

Vacation days are here. The whole gang is always looking for something to munch on. In as much as I get tired cooking in the kitchen outside, I do run out of something else to serve. Would wake up in the morning thinking what to cook. Last week was a very busy one for me. I hadn’t had time to write a post, but then,  allotted more time in the kitchen. I did batch cooking, so that if ever I/we had to go out, the family had food to reheat when we do get back. Batch cooking always saves the day

Yesterday, after an early morning mass (simbang gabi), I “reinvented” the pancakes which they sooo love into something something…We run out of loaf bread so it got me into thinking of using this “rarely” used sandwich maker…

The usual pancake batter.. very easy to make and more economical…

Drop a spoonful of the batter into the sandwich maker or waffle maker if you have one and placed filling of your choice. The kids had these  for the filling…

After 3-5 minutes, here they go…

The little fretful miss who had difficulty waking up for the early mass had her share. She asked, “Is this a waffle, mom? Why is it triangle shaped?”

Do checked on pancake with apple filling, the kids loved them, too

Linking this post to Wednesday Whites.

We have been snubbing this small store for eons. Whenever I would go to this mall, I had to pass by this small alley where food kiosks were located. I would often saw students queuing up at this small ice cream corner. The kids, with their strong scent for something sweet had prodded me to try this one out.

This so-called Granitaholics with eye catching and colorful menu had sundaes, ice creams cones, and milkshakes in affordable prices. I had tried the huge sugar cone ice cream. Which was, at 15 pesos, hmmm, not bad. The little miss had this sundae smothered with the usual choco syrup topped with toblerone. Though, I wasn’t sure or, err, I doubt, if it was toblerone, after all. For 39 pesos this cup…okay, will give a three out of five:)

The niece who had the same order gamely pose for me…

Here they are, enjoying their soft ice cream inside the DINO, who lived up to its name…eating out tokens much to my dismay:)

Linking this post to Color Connection, Pink Fridays