A Barbecue Surprise!

I’ve been cooking several dishes on repeat for the past years, and it is quite entertaining to add little surprises to tried and tested recipes to see what it would result to. I decided to use my Teriyaki recipe base to make barbecued chicken that was both familiar and interesting.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup sugar

2/3 cups soy sauce

garlic powder

red chili pepper flakes

a little swig of Maggi seasoning

1/3 cup balsamic vinegar (The surprise ingredient!)

How-to

1. Prepare the marinade in a ziploc bag and fill it with the chicken thighs or breasts that you would like to use. I mix everything in and lock it and marinate it flat in the fridge. Meats marinate better when kept in the refrigerator for thirty minutes to one hour.

2. Prepare your grill of choice. Due to space limitations, all my grilling is spent indoors (sad, i know!) However, it’s no excuse to have bad tasting barbecue! ;) Barbecue those chicken thighs and have some fun!

3. Enjoy them on top of a garlic fried rice.

* B said it was “yummy” and D said, “This is the best barbecued chicken I’ve ever had in my lifetime.” —-> He says that about everything he eats, so I guess if you are the cook you retaliate by cooking more food goodies for them. Hello, encouragement! :)

Spicy Wine Sauce and Squid Ink Pasta

Ingredients:

Squid Ink Fresh Pasta (care of a friend’s local pasta business, click here.)

1/2 cup white wine

Garlic, minced,

Onions, chopped,

pre-made Puttanesca sauce (with olives and capers)

1/2 cup of parmesan cheese

Shrimp

Red pepper flakes

Cooking Instructions:

1. To cook the pasta, I cooked it for 4-6 minutes because it was fresh.

2. In a different pot, heat up some olive oil and throw in the minced garlic and onions. Cook them a bit until they start smelling realling good.

3. Add the white wine and cook the alcohol off. I do this through smell.

4. I add the already made puttanesca sauce which has capers and olives with it (love pasta with both of those ingredients).

5. Add some red pepper flakes for a little bite and the parmesan cheese and mix it around.

6. Add the shrimp (already precooked) so i put it in last.

The ladies enjoyed it and they liked the spicy wine sauce. Hopefully you guys will too! Haven’t posted much recipes lately, have pretty much repeated already posted recipes and played around with it. I’ll try to think of new recipes to try out soon. :)

Quick Cheesy Omelette Recipe

Whoo! Haven’t posted awhile. Been really busy at church, school, work and family. I feel like a circus juggler and by God’s grace, everything still ends up done and looking good. Been busy selling stuff online and making custom orders as well for some customers. So it’s all good so far. :)

Last friday night, I had some fellowshipping with some of my ladies with some swimming and an italian dinner (which I will post soon). The morning after that, I went for a jog to a marina with my parents and my “little sister”. It was a great run and I beat my dad in a sprint (that felt good!)

Afterwards, it was time for a quick breakfast so the menu was as follows: Toasted honey-wheat bread (I don’t like white bread that much, too sweet for me), homemade chicken salad and a quick cheesy omelette.

Ingredients:

Cheese Spread (I use Cheese Whiz, it’s a Filipino brand that you can find at Asian stores)

7-8 Eggs, scrambled

How to:

1. Scramble the eggs and mix the cheese spread in with the batter.

2. Pour it over heated oil in a pan and keep stirring until it cooks. Serve on top of toast or garlic rice.

It’s really simple and it takes no more than 5 minutes to prepare. You can substitute Sharp Cheddar Cheese that’s grated or the same cheese spread with pimiento (which tastes doubly good!) you can also add in some parsley and pepper if you want more flavor in this omelette.

Have fun! My little sister was a doll and make hot chocolate and coffee for everyone. Just one of those simple family breakfasts. :)

Home style fries and Dip

When you have a bag of potatoes and you are craving for some french fries from your favorite local fast food, one of the healthier options is to make your own. That way, you can control the ingredients that you use and the other best part? Making your own dip to go with it as well.

Ingredients:

Potatoes, Cajun spices, garlic powder, salt & pepper, paprika and olive oil

For the dip: Sriracha, Ranch dressing

Instructions:

So for this recipe, you need some potatoes that you will peel and and cut into halves or strips. Drizzle the potatoes with olive oil and add the following: salt, pepper, cajun spices, garlic powder and paprika and toss it in the baking sheet. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 45 minutes.

For the dip, I always liked this sriracha aioli that I order with my calamari. So, to replicate it, I mix some ranch dressing with bacon bits and sriracha hot sauce for a little zing!

It was good! My family liked it and thought it was really flavorful. Of course, you can always play around with different spices to tailor the flavor of your home style fries. Have fun!

Using Summer Produce in Pastas

I was able to drop by this awesome fruit and vegetable market in Salinas and I was able to grab bunches of fresh parsley, a bag of summer squash (which I planned to use for soup and pasta) and a bunch of other things (it was all very affordable). One thing that I had to adjust to when I moved to California was the produce and the seasons. One positive thing about it is that you get to use creativity while satisfying your taste palette.

So during summer… tomatoes, squash, and herbs are really cheap! If you like Italian food, it would be a good time to make pesto (and store it), marinara sauce, or use fresh tomatoes to make pasta. Today, I had two objectives: (1) Use some summer squashes in pasta (2) Use some of the leftover pesto and pasta and remake it into a new dish.

Ingredients for this dish

Home made  Basil-Almond pesto (I used two tablespoons full; Recipe coming up!)

Diced tomatoes (canned this time)

minced Garlic

A bunch of chopped fresh parsley

Leftover noodles with shrimp and pesto

Summer Squash, chopped

fresh parmesan cheese

Red pepper flakes

Roasted bellpeppers

Salt and Pepper

Instructions:

1. In a baking sheet, place all the chopped squash and chopped onions (you can also add zucchini if you prefer) and drizzle olive oil all over. Sprinkle salt, pepper, italian seasoning and parsley flakes. Bake at 475 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

2. Saute some garlic in olive oil. Add the roasted bellpeppers and toss it around.

3. Add the spoonsful of pesto and spread before adding the diced tomatoes.

4. Season with red pepper flakes, salt and pepper according to taste.

5. Add the cooked squash and chopped onions. Mix the leftover pasta in.

6. Serve in a plate with some Parmesan cheese on top. Yum!

Seafood bisque

A bisque is a type of soup that is made French-style. They named it such because of the cooking process, meaning they cooked the seafood once by itself and then also cooked it in wine and the soup. That way, the flavor is maximized from the seafood. Julia Child was a strong supporter of using the same utensils to keep the flavor in the pot, so to speak. My seafood bisque contained crab meat and imitation crab that was just sitting in my fridge as leftover cioppino meat. So after that tour to the Italian side of SF, we now travel to France, near the shoreline for my take on a Seafood Bisque.

Ingredients:

Flour (3 tbsp), Butter (1/4 of the stick), aged bacon for flavor, chopped onion and minced garlic, 1/2 cup of each:wine, milk and cream, a chicken cube, water, grated parmesan and mozarella cheese, corn bits, pepper, crab flakes and imitation crab meat, red pepper flakes and fresh basil, roasted bellpeppers

Instructions:

1. Brown the bacon and cook onion and garlic with it. Scoop them out and set aside.

2. Make a rue by melting the butter and mixing the flour. Once this is done, place the cooked bacon, onion and garlic back in the pot. Add the roasted bellpeppers.

3. Add the wine and let it cook off before adding the milk and cream.

4. Add the chicken cube for the flavors to mix well. Add some water to thin the soup a little bit. 

5. Season it with red pepper flakes, pepper and fresh basil.

6. Add the precooked seafood and corn bits. Stir together and wait to simmer.

7. Lastly, add the two cheeses and turn off the stove.

8. Serve and enjoy!

Little Domestic Things: Making rose oil

Rose oil is one of those essential oils that smell great, relaxing and great for the skin. These essential oils are sold in bottles of 3 or 4 ounces and are affordable, but if you compute it, it seems a little much for a few liquid ounces. They are used in the making of most perfumes and cost a lot. For those who have a rose flower garden, this is a great way to experiment with fallen petals; however, you have to take the time to pick and collect enough.

A little experimentation with very minor chemistry can be quite fun with making your own essential oils at home. You can make your own shampoos, body butter, bath salts or skin products with these oils. You may need to read up on some basic things and remember that essential oils are for external use only and have to be diluted. It also is a good way to reuse those canning jars that are emptied and used already (just make sure to clean them real good).

So for this experiment: I decided to use olive oil (you can use almond or jojoba oil also, use lighter oils), dried rose petals (Hispanic supermarkets have good bins where you can buy dried products especially tea by bulk. Spend money wisely!), some water and a measuring cup that can be heated up. I used enough oil to cover up the crushed rose petals and placed those in the cup. Using a double boiler method (same thing i use with making chocolate), place some water in a pan and boil it. Turn off the stove when it’s boiling and sit the measuring cup on top to heat the oil. Make sure water stays out of the container. Sit it until it mixes well and the cup cools down and transfer it to a bottle with a cover. It sits for at least 5-7 days before I shall uncover it and use it to make a batch of skin stuff. It smells really great! Before using, test it on a small area of skin to assure that you aren’t allergic. 

Checking online, it costs about 6 dollars for 15 ml. I made a cup of the rose oil which means I made about 235 ml for less than 6 dollars for the ingredients. Now, I have to go search for that tree bark that I used to get back home in the Philippines to make homemade shampoo that makes your hair really shiny and dandruff free (i don’t know american trees that much). 

Stop and smell the roses!! (I could not resist ;) )

Next stop: making flavored essences using brandy 

Gnocchi with Spicy Mushroom Cream Sauce

Gnocchi is a pasta that I got to only sample in America. My best friend from the Philippines has an Italian father so I did get great food during high school. Their pasta was always made fresh and the sauce, always delicioso! Her mother’s risotto is also great, but that’s a challenge for another day. However, no matter how much Italian food I was able to try, gnocchi was one of the unknown ones for me. However, people do talk about making it so I tried making it (manually).

(They kind of look like little potato fluffy marshmallows. Making this reminds me of Palitaw, which is a Filipino dessert made with rice flour)

Ingredients for Gnocchi:

4-5 pieces of potatoes, boiled and mashed

2 cups of flour

one egg

1 pinch of salt

Instructions:

1. Boil the potatoes and mash them with a masher. I don’t have one so I just used my fork and then my hands (best  and cheapest tools of a cook!)

2. Add two cups of flour to the mashed potatoes. Make a well with your hands.

3. Add the egg in the middle and the pinch or salt. Mix well and knead into a dough. Feel free to use a mixer, I don’t have one so I used my hands.

4. Roll some of the dough and make a dough line of half an inch thick. Cut with a pizza cutter in half inch sizes. Do until the dough has been used up.

5. Drop in boiling water and the gnocchi floats up when cooked already.

6. Store other gnocchi in a container with olive oil so it doesn’t dry up or get too starchy.

7. Now, on to the pasta sauce. I decided to make a mushroom-wine cream sauce with some spice.

Ingredients

Crimini mushrooms

Aged bacon, diced

3/4 cups of chardonnay or pinot grigio (feel free to use white wine that you know. I don’t know much about wine or cooking with alcohol :D )

1 cup of cream

1/4 cup tomato sauce

garlic, minced

onion, diced

parmesan cheese, grated

chili flakes

pepper, parsley, salt

fresh basil

mozarella and provolone cheese, grated

Instructions:

1. In a sauce pan, cook the bacon until it starts to brown. Add the garlic and onions and cook until onions are transparent. Add the mushrooms.

2. Add the chili flakes. I cook the chili flakes so that the spice gets introduced early and that the kick is there!

3. Add the white wine and cook the alcohol off for 5 minutes.

4. Add the tomato sauce and cream. Toss in the chopped basil leaves.

5. When it simmers, add the seasoning and other herbs but do not over-salt because the cheeses will be salty.

6. Add the cheeses to help make the sauce thicker. If it is a bit runny, add 2-3 teaspoons of flour to help thicken the sauce a little.

7. Add the cooked gnocchi and serve.

8. Enjoy!