Gumbo Dinner

I thought of having yet another seafood jambalaya. And if it's that, it's either Burgoo or Gumbo. The mall where these two are located is very accessible from where I live. I shared one of our Gumbo eat outs here. Gumbo is on the ground floor so we decided to just have our dinner there. Lazy bones. That's the advantage of standing in a prime space.

For no reason I changed my mind when we got in. I thought of trying other dishes. I am not fond of spicy foods so when I had my choice from the menu the first thing I asked is to cut down on the spicy seasoning. I can sense even a teeny weeny tinge of it in my food which sometimes turns me off. Their stuffed crab did not disappoint. The filling is generous. A little spicy but I was amenable to it.


Bayou Stuffed Crab P350+

We munched on buffalo chicken wings too. I only had a few bites just to have a taste. The meat is really tender. A spicy food lover would love this. Surprisingly my daughter likes it.


Buffalo Chicken Wings P280+

Baked lasagna is steaming hot swimming with cheese which my daughter loves. See, she spooned a part already. She couldn't wait.


Baked Lasagna P380+

Sharing also at The Mommy Zone what my daughter busied herself with while I was still eating. Happy WS-hopping!

Kenny Rogers Roasters

For today's Food Friday, I'm sharing with you good food from KR.

I will keep coming back to KR for all these except for the chicken. The taste can still improve. I find it a little bland. We should have ordered the roast chicken which Kenny is known for. We also ordered smoothies but the two shots did not come up well. Their smoothies is the best! I love mango and my husband love strawberry.

The frosted Xmas muffin is cute. The last picture, tuna melt, I will have anytime as my rice substitute for lunch or dinner. :)

Taco Bell

My daughter loves potatoes, I mean anything potatoes she will devour to her heart's content. My husband loves tex-mex dishes. Sometimes I think he can live with only these. I acquired the taste because of him but I can't say I am a true-blue fan. I like taco salad from Mexicali alright. Several weeks back my daughter and I had lunch at Taco Bell which offers Mexican quick orders as the world knows.

We had two orders of Meal C from their combination meals. It consists of fiesta rice topped with flavored ground beef, diced tomatoes and onions, potato bites with cheese dip, and fiesta salsa salad. It was very filling.


I had nacho supreme for my dessert. They come with beans, cheese sauce, ground beef, tomatoes and onion. The corn chips are so crunchy. I love it!


Like what I have mentioned, my daughter loves potatoes so she had this, potato balls with sour cream, cheese sauce and onions. This is a lot better than french fries.


You may visit here for more snapshots. I shared the Filipino Mom Blog's weekend holiday party at The Mommy Zone. And take a peek on an empty gym at Everything and then Some.....

Milkfish Sour Soup With Miso

We have fish for our lunch and dinner for several days now. There was news about the Ebola-Reston virus in pork so the best way to be safe is stay away from pork in the mean time.

Unlike my husband, my knowledge of fish meals is quite limited - either fish in sour soup, steamed, fried, sweet and sour, and my all time favorite, sarciado. I don't like it grilled. I thought of cooking milkfish sour soup in miso (sinigang na bangus sa miso). I like the tangy taste of miso. It's a great flavor enhancer. Can you see the bangus belly from the picture? That's what I love best!

As a child I remember my mother set aside fried bangus for me because I don't like anything cooked in sour soup. I have acquired the taste for sinigang as I grow up. I'm what you call "pihikan" (choosy), but that was before. Nobody will believe me now if I tell them that. Anyway, you get to be with a lot of people, you go to a lot of places and sometimes you have no choice but to partake the food that is served to you. You also get curious why they seem to be so engrossed eating a particular dish. Best of all is having a husband who knows how to cook and is adventurous in trying different dishes. That helped a lot in my food evolution.

This is my first post for Life Snippets' Food Friday. Let me take a tour and check all other entries.

Chicken Pineapple

I had the courage to prepare chicken pineapple last night after dinner for our lunch on Monday. Everyone's out of the house on weekdays so I might as well finish this the night before.

I love how my father cooks this. It's very tasty, the sauce is more than enough to partner with my rice. I get full easily if this is our meal. My husband took one step different with the way he prepares this. He adds all purpose cream, well, to make it creamier. I adapted his style.

I marinated the chicken in pineapple juice taken from the pineapple chunks. I let it stay inside the ref for about an hour.


I sauteed onion and garlic and added the chicken pieces one by one. Sprinkled salt and pepper to taste. Once the chicken is half cooked I poured in the marinade and let it boil. I added the milk and pineapple chunks when the chicken's almost cooked and the all purpose cream last. It smells really good.


This is my daughter's packed lunch for today. :)



My other weekend snapshot is at The Mommy Zone, it's all pink. :)

Chocolat

This is funny. I always have cakes in every occasion, even if there is no occasion. I buy a cake (or ask my husband) whenever I feel like eating one. Digging through my pictures folder for food, I cannot find any picture of a cake we have during the holidays. Birthdays and anniversaries and other non-occasions I have but the holidays? Nada. I don't know. Maybe I am so busy with other things that I miss taking pictures of the cake by its lonesome. I don't know how that is possible knowing how I love cakes. This will clearly remind me to take pictures of our cake this coming holiday.

Anyway for today's LaPiS, holiday goodies, I'll be sharing cakes. Let me share slices of cakes from Chocolat which I intend to have as part of our new year ensemble. :)

Cakes are best eaten with hot coffee, at least for me, it is.

I like the letters mounted on the wall of this cozy cake shop. It's colorful and cute. I like their wall too. It feels like you are in a cafe inside a bookstore.

Snowmen

Maybe you've passed by their giant billboards along EDSA (a major thoroughfare in Metro Manila). Maybe you've actually seen them and had a taste of them in your favorite doughnut store. These two remind me of the penguins in Madagascar. But I know they're supposed to be snowmen and they are the featured doughnuts of Krispy Kreme for the holidays. :)

They're cute! Though I am not into fancy donuts, I bought them together with the chocolate and cookies and cream flavor. They're just like ordinary donuts only the buttons are of chocolate flavor and the nose so small you wouldn't notice its taste, if it tastes anything at all. The scarves are like gummy bears. The red's strawberry and the green one has a lemony taste according to my husband. It's a fun doughnut - scrutinize, giggle then gobble up. :)

More fabulous holiday finds in white at the Filipino Mom Blog headquarters. :)

Spot the Difference

How else can your food be different from each other with only a few choices in a breakfast buffet? Can you tell the difference here? The fuller plate is my husband's by the way.



Check out other breakfast photos here. The Mommy Zone features different shots of a pretty girl while having breakfast. See what's frying at Everything and then Some..... Happy photo hunting!

My First Chopsuey

I am the one in charge of cooking on weekends and on holidays or at anytime that I am off from work. I took it upon myself to prepare our meal whenever I can. The past weeks I actually make time to do them no matter how busy the schedule is.

There's a Filipino saying that goes like, "pag ayaw maraming dahilan, pag gusto may paraan". That's true for me. I make time, squeeze time, if I really want to get something done. As long as it's humanly possible, I do that.

I was brave enough to try chopsuey. It's actually easy now that I put my focus on cooking. All ingredients in: garlic, tomatoes, onions for sauteing. Do I love the smell!


There are carrots, snow peas (sitsaro), young corn, chayote, red and green bellpepper, cabbage, chicken liver. I loved it that I need not dice the carrots but just have to cut them into little circles. Now snow peas I have to dip into a bowl of water and then cut the tip and pull out the string that runs along the side. I remember my mother said we have to strip it off so we can eat it without having to choke on it.

The young corn I just have to unwrap, cut into two those which are big for single serving. Chayote needs some effort, I have to peel them and dice them. It's a little slippery so better get a good hold of them while you're on the process of peeling them. The seeds of the bellpepper has to be taken off before cutting them into strips. I also cut the cabbage into small pieces. Chicken liver was the last to go. I was really careful while I let them cook. I was afraid to over or undercook. I guess undercooking is better since I can still adjust whatever I have to adjust afterwards. A dash of salt and pepper and a tablespoonful of oyster sauce for that added flavor to top the chopsuey.

It was a good meal. My husband, being more of an expert in the kitchen than I am, approved of the taste not out of pity but out of sheer happiness that at last I am starting to love cooking.

Beyond Fried Eggs

12.01.08. Beyond Fried Eggs had been sitting on my dashboard for several months now. I finally had the time to tweak on it and have the courage to post my foodie adventures. Nothing much but this is my own way of chronicling my kitchen trials and errors.

I finally decided to take my cooking seriously. I created this blog to chronicle my food adventures, inside the kitchen and out. Like what I have said in my side blog, I have to start somewhere. I hope to be a good cook and baker by year 2009. So help me God.

What's a good cook and baker to me? At least I will be able to follow the recipe directions perfectly, familiarize myself with ingredients which sound alien to me and will be able to bake cupcakes which will actually look like cupcakes...that little mound of cake that is supposed to rise above its holder.

I have transported all my food posts from The Mommy Zone and Everything and then Some..... blogs to this blog for organization purposes.

Silog (Garlic Rice and Egg)

Silog is a contraction of sinangag at itlog (garlic rice and egg) which is a very popular Filipino food. One can have it for breakfast, lunch or dinner. And one can do a lot with it - partner it with different viands and have some side dish and voila, you have one perfect meal. Its rich flavor satisfies the appetite and makes one crave for more.

Normally when our family goes malling we already have a restaurant on mind. We already know where we will go after a movie/shopping/grocery to rest our tired feet and feed our hungry stomach. But at times we get really indecisive. We don't want pasta, we don't want pizza or any elaborate concoctions. When these happens, we go for Filipino dishes - caldereta, sinigang, veggies, and yes, silog. Like what we had a few weeks ago at Razon's at the foodcourt of Trinoma.

Longsilog (longanisa + sinangag + garlic egg)

Bangusilog (bangus + sinangag + garlic egg)

Tocilog (tocino + sinangag + garlic egg)

While I am at it, let me share two more dishes we ordered. My husband loved the sisig. And I think the other one is chicken adobo. It completely slipped my mind.

Sizzling Sisig

Chicken/Pork Adobo

What we did not have was the famous Razon's halo-halo. With all that we had, there's no more room for anything else in our tummy. Next time, halo-halo will be included in our menu.

With all the pictures I posted, I definitely enjoyed Lasang Pinoy Sundays today. :)

Horseradish Tree (Malunggay)

There is no doubt I love eating, I love food. But I used to shun away from the kitchen. I do not detest cooking but I am not at all happy with all the preparations - slicing, mincing, mixing, etcetera. I would rather do other things which I think are more productive. Oh yes, anything that has got to do with the kitchen I feel the help can very well do them. I'd rather review my take home work than sweat it out in the kitchen.

But it grew on me. Gone were the days that I cannot stay in the kitchen for even a few minutes. Now I love it! I really, really do. I may still be a mess but I take every opportunity to learn and actually do the cooking - from buying the ingredients myself to preparing everything. This is one of the activities I look forward to during weekends. It used to be a hit and miss but now I'm making good progress. The dishes I prepare for the past months actually taste like real food! Proof is the honest-to-goodness commendations of my husband and daughter. The more I get encourage to hone my latent cooking powers. :D

I also love browsing on food blogs especially those with great pictures attached to the post. It makes me marvel how they can do all these cooking so effortlessly, from simple to the elaborate dishes. And now I am participating in food memes. I would like to get to know more of what others share from their kitchen, what good finds they have which I can learn from.

For this week's Lasang Pinoy Sundays, I am sharing my own Green - malunggay (horseradish tree) which I used for ginisang monggo (mung bean stew with pork rind). Labeled as a poor man's dish, it proves to be very nutritious as the beans and malunggay are good sources of protein and vitamins. Go green!

Belated Happy Birthday Post

This is my first time to participate in Photo Story Friday. I would love to share my pictures taken during my husband's birthday a few weeks ago. This is a long over due post.


Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

There is no big celebration except that I prepared his favorite, or our favorite, seafood jambalaya. Normally we just order this from a restaurant. That was the first time I prepared one. So glad it was good. No left over.


I love cakes so it's a staple in any occasion (or even when there's no occasion) in our home. I'm not that adventurous though. I only have what I got used to having - chocolate or mocha. Boring I know. But husband thought of having Smores instead. It has caramel topping and chocolate everywhere. I did not complain. It was good. :)


We had dinner the night before his birthday at Fish and Co. There is not much people at this side of the dining area. I love the warm light and the wooden finish which dominates the restaurant.


I love their Marsala Pizza specifically the crust. It's croissant crust if I'm not mistaken. It does get messy sometimes but every bite is worth it. I'm an onion lover so the generous onion topping is a big plus for me.


My husband is a pasta lover so the best choice for him was fettucine in creamy mushroom sauce. Hmmm, love it too.


As always, my daughter had her chicken tenders with fries with a teeny weeny cupcake as dessert.


A belated birthday greeting post to Daddy! From me and our not-so-little-girl-anymore. :)

A Hearty Dinner :)

One of the activities I look forward to during weekends or whenever I don't have work is experimenting in the kitchen. I have been doing this for a long time now. I have not mastered the pots and pans, the slicing, chopping, mixing, garnishing and all things related to a successful cooking or baking. But I enjoy every minute of it. It's tiring and I am a mess in the kitchen but it's fulfilling.

I have always dreamed of a spic and span clean kitchen while I am cooking in the same way as how we see it on television. Think Rachel Ray, Giada, Barefoot Contessa and Ellie Krieger. No sweat. I don't think I can talk much while I'm preparing ingredients and focusing on the simmering mixture. Oh how I love to be like these great ladies in the near future.

Later this afternoon I tried my hand on a recipe from Yummy Magazine - pork binagoongan sa gata (pork in shrimp paste mixed with coconut milk). I am not that confident as how it will come off. I just cooked the way it was directed.

I love the smell of sauteed garlic, onion and tomato. Adding bagoong (shrimp paste) made it all the more appetizing. I have to say that for some people I know, the strong pungent smell is repulsive. Making the coconut milk is what I found a little hard. This was the first time I squeezed the juice of coconut using a cloth. I wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing. I just squeezed and squeezed until there's no more juice to squeeze.

We still had dinner on time, a little past seven in the evening. It took me an hour to prepare everything. It was my first time to hear an honest to goodness praise in my cooking. Even my daughter liked it. :) And so that capped our Sunday. Everyone's resting now. My daughter is sleeping. My husband's watching a Mark Wahlberg movie over at HBO and I'm blogging about my successful dinner. :)

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Mood: Accomplished.
Music: Tell Me Something I Don't Know, Selena Gomez (from my daughter's music files)