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Monday, May 14. 2007
 Everybody loves chocolates. It's the happy hormone that makes us feel good. I remember when I'm sad or depressed, I usually eat a lot of sweet pastries. Every Sunday, my nieces and nephews visit me at my house. Usually, I prepare a lot of cookies and cakes since they love it. Last Sunday, when they visited me, I cooked Coconut Butter Cookies for them. I learned this recipe from Gale Grand, a famous American chef. I love this recipe because it's easy and delicious. In fact, it's even yummier than Polipetti in Salsa di Pomodoro.
Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon dark rum
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup unsweetened coconut, toasted
Scant 2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
The first thing you have to do is whip the butter in a mixer until it's fluffy and light. Then put the sugar next and whip it continuously. Place the rum and vanilla next and mix it. Next, place the coconut, flour, and salt. Don't forget to add butter mixture and mix them until it's fully blended. The next step is to get a small sheet pan and butter it, preferably 9 x 12 inch. Insert the plastic on all it's sides. The next step is to spread evenly the dough in the pan, cover it and let it freeze. After that cut the frozen dough into two-inch strips and roll it in flour. Then wrap and freeze it again. Afterwards, cut it into 1/8-inch bars and put on a parchment. Then you're ready to bake it for thirty minutes at 250 degrees Fahrenheit. If it's crispy already, it's ready to serve.
Sunday, May 13. 2007
Last Sunday, my parents surprised me by visiting without telling me. I was working in my new laptop computer when I heard a knock. I thought it was the homeowners association who collects money for donation. When I opened the door, I saw two familiar faces, my papa and mama. I miss them very much. Working in the big city really keeps me busy that's why I don't have any time to visit them at all. Since this is a special moment, I decided to cook up a Barbecued Chinese Chicken Lettuce Wraps that I saw in Rachel Ray's Thirty Minute Meals. It's easy, delicious, and perfect for lunch.
Saturday, May 12. 2007
2 cups, 4 handfuls, fresh shiitake mushrooms
1 1/3 to 1 1/2 pounds thin cut chicken breast or chicken tenders
2 tablespoons light colored oil, such as vegetable oil or peanut oil
Coarse salt and coarse black pepper
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 inch ginger root, finely chopped or grated, optional
1 orange, zested
1/2 red bell pepper, diced small
1 small tin, 6 to 8 ounces, sliced water chestnuts, drained and chopped
3 scallions, chopped
3 tablespoons hoisin, Chinese barbecue sauce, available on Asian foods aisle of market
1/2 large head iceberg lettuce, core removed, head quartered
Wedges of navel orange -- platter garnish
Friday, May 11. 2007
 In preparing Barbecued Chinese Chicken Lettuce Wraps, you have to get rid of the hard stems of mushrooms and brush it with a wet towel. Then you have to slice the mushrooms and chicken into small pieces. While chopping, you can preheat your skillet. After that, add oil in the pan followed by the chicken. Fry the chicken for one to two minutes. Put the salt, pepper, water chestnuts, and scallions. Stir fry this for one minute. Then add the hoisin Chinese barbecue sauce and toss it to spread the sauce. In a big platter, arrange the crisp lettuce along with oranges for decoration then put the chicken in the middle of the platter. You can eat this by filling the lettuce and orange with the chicken.
Thursday, May 10. 2007
I love adventures in food and cooking. I always want to taste new food and new flavors traveling down my throat. Whenever I run out of ideas, I always check on the dsl broadband internet at home for recipes. This week, I decided to prepare a Scrunchy Sweet and Sour Chicken, which takes only twenty minutes to cook. This meal is very delicious since you can feel the texture of the skin mixed with sweet and sour flavors.
Ingredients:
2 egg yolks
2 tbsp cornstarch
salt and ground black pepper
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, cubed
vegetable oil
Wednesday, May 9. 2007
1 onion, sliced
1 small red pepper, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 small orange pepper, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 lb can pineapple cubes in natural juice
1 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp tomato ketchup
2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
handful of fresh cilantro leaves, to garnish
Tuesday, May 8. 2007
 First, you have to make a cornstarch mixture by combining egg yolks with one tablespoon of water, salt, and cornstarch. In a deep frying pan, heat two inches of oil then put the chicken marinated in the cornstarch mixture. Fry it until crisp. Then in a pan, fry the peppers and onion for three minutes. Then add the cubed pineapples in the pan and fry it for two minutes. Now, to form paste, mix the cornstarch and little pineapple juice. The paste will be stirred in some pineapple juice. Ketchup, vinegar, half cup of water, and soy sauce should be added to the paste mixture. Place the said mixture in a pan then wait until it boils. Keep stirring it to thicken the mixture. Add and stir the chicken into the mixture and let it simmer for five minutes.
Monday, May 7. 2007
Cooking a smoky fish recipe is one thing, but grilling it without ruining the skin is another. In fact, the trouble with fish-grilling arises when I've just set up the Hibachi with the right amount of coal, with the vents keeping the constant flow of air inside, but the heat becomes uneven in a span of thirty minutes or so. I'd grit my teeth in frustration when the skin gets stuck on the parallel wires. Also, there's the potential of burning the lower area of the salmon and leaving the upper side raw.
Sunday, May 6. 2007
I thought I learned from mistake, or maybe it was just some well-groomed French chef back at cooking school who taught me tricks to maintain the heat level so as not to burn the salmon when being grilled. Actually, what he did was check the coals time and again. In some tropical areas I've been to, they wrap the fish in aluminum tin foil or banana leaves. Since these aren't always available, the French chef, in his faltering English, demonstrated to me how he positioned the fish away on the opposite side where the coal lumps are placed.
Saturday, May 5. 2007
Somehow, I never thought my Hibachi would be too small for this salmon grill trick to work out. He showed me eventually how to put an improvised insulator such as an aluminum pan right over the grill, while putting another mesh or fish grill above it. If this still sounds inconvenient, he asked me to baste the salmon with lemon juice while rotating the Hibachi time and again. At the rate I'm going, I told him, I'd probably be finished in five hours!
Friday, May 4. 2007
 There is no greater relief than roasting pans or any cookware that's easy to wash after a greasy meal. Also, the dishwasher must be able to handle this pan as soon as cooking is over. Some cookware just don't make it to the convenient list. If the food tends to taste different in time, it's probably the chemicals that got corroded in the cookware material. There's also cooking time factor, as some foods take more time to cook when, for example, you're cooking with a glass pot.
Thursday, May 3. 2007
I haven't made the slightest effort to check out the effect of aluminum and copper pans in my kitchen until my sauces tasted a little tangy and sour. Soon, I switched to anodyzed aluminum and I got rid of those made of copper. Also, I've decided to use stainless steel pans even if they took longer time to cook. If I want my dinners microwaved, there's no better deal than porcelain enamel and glass to nuke.
Wednesday, May 2. 2007
 My visit to an old relative who lives in some South American jungle (this is true) has given me a better perspective towards the choice of cookware. I wonder if we've just been a little too paranoid here in America, since we think all foods can get contaminated if we don't watch out. In Peru, I had a lunch of creamy fish stew cooked in glazed clay pots. Some of them haven't been washed thoroughly. Did I puke? Of course not. Elsewhere in the world, there's always another way to treat grubs being cooked in pans. And it's not dirty in their eyes.
Tuesday, May 1. 2007
My cousin's four-year-old daughter came home from nursery school one time and did something nice. "Nice" meant volunteering to help me wash the dishes after a hearty Shrimp Scampi and broiled tuna meal - something I could do with eyes closed. Indeed, she asked me to close my eyes while she deposited the dirty plates and cutlery one by one on the dishwasher. What I did was actually nod off on the kitchen table for fifteen minutes. When I woke up, the dishwasher was bleeding.
Monday, April 30. 2007
Was it such a terrible thing to put the knives in the dishwasher? Especially, dammit, if they were Chroma knives! These cutlery knives were imported from Japan, and they were awesome looking. I couldn't imagine anyone putting the sharp-bladed kitchen masterpieces in the spinning washer. The Chroma knives are the sharpest and strongest steel knives my sister has owned. They weren't supposed to be put in the dishwasher, as despite being sharpened only every once in a while, they maintain their strictly-for-gourmet-chefs edge.
Sunday, April 29. 2007
 The rascal didn't know any better. The good thing - she didn't cut herself. The ugly thing - the Chrome knives could have dulled their edges. But I trust that since they're made of high-grade quality steel, them undergoing the dishwasher ordeal won't be noticed by my sister when she chops her next pork loin. I taught the little girl to stop messing around in the kitchen. The Chroma cutlery knives, I told her, should be washed with warm water and stored on rack nicely.
Saturday, April 28. 2007
I had imagined cooking courses could take forever. Yeah, well, if it's your lifetime passion, learning cooking recipes is surely something you would indulge in eternally. My eternal desire to learn begins at about the time I descend from the airport ledge to the time I step up again, to go back to the US and "eat". Note that I didn't mention the time it took for me to learn. I was dying to show off to my family what I learned in Tuscany for three days.
Friday, April 27. 2007
Agriturismo Macea looked like any ordinary kitchen and picnic area where lots of Italian folks huddle to teach and learn about exotic Italian dishes. Basically, I won't call it a real cooking course, since all we did was prepare and cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner and then eat them afterwards. But the rapport with both the food and the hungry Italians are really beyond the lessons I've learned. The course speaks of the fancy Italian region, reflects the history and gustatory tendencies of the natives, and reminds me I need to broaden my taste buds' horizons.
Thursday, April 26. 2007
 That's what a cooking course is supposed to teach me. It's not just about the food, or the exact ingredients which I list down on a Mario Battali Lifestyle Network show. It's how the food affects people and changes attitudes towards the art of preparing food. I learned all of these at the 3-Day Tuscany Cookery course. Some of these hands-on Italian courses come on discounts, but I don't mind if I don't get one at Tuscany cookery. I brought the love-for-food lessons with me back home.
Wednesday, April 25. 2007
I don't normally buy expensive cheese. Not at Thanksgiving, and neither on Christmas Eve. It sounds rather funky that I come across some kind of soppy Portuguese (not the crappy soap opera) cheese - a recommendation I truly found timely, thanks to Time Out New York critics. What I do is get a butt-ugly knife or spoon and scoop the spongy concoction of Quinta da Boa Vista as I let it up my slobbering mouth (schwzzzz!!) and I change from devil to angel and back to being a devil again all set for the next spoonful.
Tuesday, April 24. 2007
Unlike other kinds of cheese, the Quinta da Boa Vista is not especially greasy or smelly. Those of you who love booze can get along well with this Portuguese cheese, since it's wine-friendly and still tastes creamy even when preserved. Luckily for you too, Time Out New York's latest is all about Grape Crusaders - a section dedicated primarily to booze-lovers drinking out in New York. So now you got the Portuguese, you got the wine, and all that's left for you to do is to pick up the pretty women.
Monday, April 23. 2007
 Cheese packaging works just as grand as your next door neighbor's drag queen getup. The Quinta da Boa Vista is wrapped in cheese cloth, and is just as small as your fist. You can buy it at $13 at any Brookly cheese shop. Experts say it is an unpasteurized Portuguese sheep’s cheese made with thistle rennet. For all you know, cheese makers derive "rennin" from the innards of slaughtered young calves. If that isn't enough to make you goddamn puke, you could try vegetarian cheeses, which derive "rennin" from fungi and other bacteria-producing plants. Yum.
Sunday, April 22. 2007
One Friday evening, I my mom called me on the phone and said that my longtime friend Jeffrey was coming to our house. He and his family were having a vacation here before they go back to Spain. I haven't seen him for two years and I know we have a lot of things to talk about. Back in college, this guy used to be our soccer team's Ronaldo. He was very popular and girls went crazy over him. When we finally met, he introduced his wife and children. While we we're talking, my mom and his wife were busy at the kitchen preparing Jeffrey's favorite dessert, the Oreo Cookie Cake.
Saturday, April 21. 2007
1 (20 ounce) package chocolate sandwich cookies
1/2 cup butter
1 (16 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese
1 cup confectioners' sugar
2 cups milk
1 (3.5 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix
Friday, April 20. 2007
 To start, crush cookies into bite size pieces; reserve 1 cup for top. Melt butter and mix with rest of cookies; press into 9x13 pan and put in freezer for about 5 minutes. Then, blend 1/2 of the whipped topping, all of the cream cheese and confectioners' sugar. Spread all over crust and place cake again in the freezer. Prepare pudding instantly with the milk based on the package directions and spread over top of cake. Spread the remaining whipped topping on top of the pudding and sprinkle with the remaining cookies. Always keep cake refrigerated.
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Cooking Recipes Comments
Sun, 22.10.2006 12:34
I don't know how to cook and I'm allergic to cookies.
Sun, 22.10.2006 12:34
I love sweet pastries especially cookies.
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