LtDan'sKitchen.com: Thoughts and Ramblings

Showing posts with label Thoughts and Ramblings. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Inday-Inday

This is my second post of this native treat but this post is mostly just to gush about how delicious this small dessert treat is and nothing more. I have yet to find the perfect recipe for the base of the dessert which is made from nothing more than rice flour and water mixed to a consistency of a paste. There is no exact measurement to this and is usually done by feel. This is the tricky part because depending on the rice used, the proportions will vary a bit so experience is more important in this case rather than technique.

In our region, it is referred to as Inday-Inday (literally Girl-Girl) but in the northern provinces, it is called palitaw. "Litaw" means to float or appear out of thin air which is a bit more appropriate since the glutinous cake is cooked by blanching in hot water and it floats up to the surface when cooked, just like a gnocchi. It is then scooped out of the water, drained and placed on a banana leaf. The natural oils of the leaf acts as a natural greasing agent and prevents the patties from sticking. Once cooled, a generous scoop of freshly grated young coconut is placed on top of the patty. Before serving, a scoop of raw brown sugar is added to taste.

When I was younger, this was sold all around our subdivision in the early afternoon hours to be eaten as an afternoon snack. They actually used to coat the whole patty in the grated coconut before wrapping them up with the banana leaf but I think in terms of aesthetic, having a scoop of coconut of top of the patty makes it a bit more presentable. I found mine in the city from a vendor who just setting up to sell his wares. I bought 10 because I knew that if I bought less, I will be craving for more. It was definitely the best I've tasted so far since I came back two years ago. This had me inspired to go back to the drawing board to try and do this at home but I may have to hunt down that vendor to buy some more later this week.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Yogurt with Fresh Fruits

This has been my default dessert whenever I have friends come over for dinner in the rental place that I share with two other friends. We have yet to buy a small oven that will allow me to bake cookies or brownies if need be. For now, I rely on the steady supply of ripe papayas in the town market which is really great. I now go to this vendor who gives me a small discount every time I go buy fruits from her stall as I have been buying her produce since last year. As a reward of my loyalty, she gives me her best fruits depending on what is available for the season. It is always a nice feeling when you eat fresh fruits that are perfectly ripe knowing that they are just good for your body and soul.

While living in the US, my perfect simple dessert will be ricotta cheese with macerated strawberries and topped with a drizzling of honey. Since ricotta cheese is very expensive here in my town, I have been using regular yogurt instead and it seems to do quite well despite the fact that they sell a soupy version of yogurt. Still, with fresh fruits as the main star, a little drizzling of honey is all you need to forget about your worries even for just a moment and savor a dessert that you can consider sinless. Now, there really is no need for a recipe for this dessert. Yogurt, sliced mangoes, kiwi and a drizzling of honey is all you need. Throw in a little bit of slivered almonds as well if you have them. Oh, and second helpings are definitely allowed!

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Tiramisu Meltdown

Today is Mother's Day and it passed me by without my even noticing it. I've been feeling kind of overwhelmed about the things that I needed to do with regards to getting the house cleaned from top to bottom and trying to get the paperwork done for me to start on a job very soon. I thought about baking a cake but half of my round pans are still at my friend's house without any idea as to when I'll get them back. I've been meaning to try my hand at baking my signature chocolate cake to see if the humidity fails me again just like when I tried making ladyfingers from scratch. I do have to get it right since I have to bake a cake next weekend for my friend's birthday.

Anyway, a shortcut would have been the best route to take and that is what I did. I wanted to stop by my favorite cake store in town but it seemed to have moved somewhere else or maybe I was looking at the wrong place. I ended up purchasing a cake from the chain bakeshop Red Ribbon instead. My nephew was suggesting a Black Forest cake but the disappointment of tasting this same cake when I was in Manila still lingered in my taste buds so I went for a new cake. I wanted to try something new hoping that I will not be too disappointed somehow.

Making a choice between the Ube (Purple Yam) cake and Tiramisu Meltdown, Tiramisu Meltdown won just by sheer spunk (for lack of a better term) for its name. Not really getting my hopes up, I was expecting at least a reasonable chocolate cake with some kind of mousse layer in the middle and topped off by a ganache with pieces of chocolate ribbons. After the first bite, I have to admit, it was quite good. I don't know about the tiramisu part because it definitely lacked the flavor of a traditional tiramisu. Still, the cake is moist and the flavors do balance each other out. In a word, adequate. I won't mind having a taste of it again. The next time I visit their shop though, I might go for the Ube Cake with my fingers crossed that this cake have at least kept its integrity. That however still remains to be seen.

To all Moms, Happy Mother's Day!

Monday, April 30, 2012

Philippine Mangoes

One thing that I missed being away from home was the abundance of mangoes during the summer months. One might say, it is just a fruit but we take pride in our mangoes and we consider them as one of a kind. For one, the texture of Philippine mangoes rival those of canned peaches in terms of smoothness. You basically bite into a smooth and succulent fruit which when fully ripe, is sinfully sweet. Thus, they are ideally suited for use in cakes and mousses. However, they are wonderful eaten just as they are be it sliced or peeled whole like you are eating a mango popsicle. I actually have to control myself since I could easily overindulge. Second, they are just delicious. Nothing more to say really. In the heat of the summer months, all you need is one slice of a cold mango fruit and it makes everything seem better. It is that delicious.

Being from Bacolod, we are partial to mangoes from the island of Guimaras which rival the mangoes from Cebu. I have yet to try one from Cebu but due to the proximity of Guimaras to where I live, the favored variety is from Guimaras. These same mangoes make their way into the White House and Buckingham Palace due to their sweetness. I have yet to establish a kitchen that will allow me to bake, much less cook so I'm hoping that I might be able to feature a mango mousse cake any time soon. For now, I leave you with a picture of what a slice of heaven might look like, in fruit form.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Hong Kong Blues

I was stuck in Chicago and Hong Kong while traveling for home. While I felt like it was a never ending ordeal, especially when you had to lug large suitcases and a computer bag that weighed a ton due to the Hunger Games trilogy that I refused to let go of, having finally made it to the last leg of my international trip was a relief.

While stuck in the various airports in Chicago O'Hare and the International ariport in Hong Kong, we bonded as a group of desperate passengers trying to get home while trying to finds ways of eating a decent meal to keep up with waiting in line to get our boarding passes. A few of us decided to actually just hang around the airport in Hong Kong instead of leaving for the one hour trip to the hotel and back which left us with just about 4 hours to sleep in the hotel which to me did not make sense anymore. What was good was that we were able to get through the security gates and have breakfast inside the airport and take our time while waiting for the flight to Manila.

One thing I noticed though was that the information people (and mostly everyone) at the Hong Kong airport are the rudest people you will ever meet. It is like you are taking too much of their time when they are supposed to be there to help you. I could say more about this but I hate having to turn the pages of my blog blue. Anyway, despite the rudeness, I was able to relish a wonderful breakfast treat of a wrapped sticky rice with a pork stuffing (although I ended up with the chicken version) and it was really good. I thought the leaf used to wrap this wonderful dish are the taro leaves but after some research, it is actually made with lotus leaf. Well, duh to me! I knew this and I just forgot!

Still, having said my piece about Hong Kong being in my list of the last place I want to revisit, the food was excellent. It was good I overcame my annoyance over the people who served them to me. Sadly, being rude is apparently the norm of the people in Hong Kong.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Heading Home

The time has finally come to pass, again. I am going back on hiatus indefinitely. It will be much longer than the one I took last year since this time, I'm heading home for good. And by home, I mean the Philippines. I had a great run living in the US for about 15 years but it is finally time to go home. My decision was made not just for my Dad but also to do what I promised myself a long time ago, to give back and share what I learned in the US to the next generation of scientists back home. It is also time for me to go after my other passion which is cooking. I'm not sure in what capacity but it will be something I will have to figure out with the other cooks in the family, my cousin Estela and my Nanay Mercy.

It has been some time since I have been home but I know that the kitchen has to be remodeled to accommodate my more extensive culinary experience. This might be the major setback to my posting of new recipes but I'll try to post as much recipes as I can once I'm home. There will also definitely be a change in direction in terms of the recipes I post but I will try to strike a balance using recipes that will be easy to cook given the rarity of Asian ingredients in the US or Europe. I may have to find inventive alternatives for some of the ingredients but I promise that it will be delicious.

To all of you who have been following my blog, thank you for keeping me busy in the kitchen. You were all my inspiration. Just keep checking for updates and once settled, I'll try to get back into the swing of things. But for now, happy cooking and until next time!

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Dan's Full Breakfast

I came up with this idea to try and make my own version of a full English breakfast, albeit by accident. Given that I now have gout, the possibility of eating several kinds of sausages with bacon and eggs gives me a sense of dread. I'm just not up for another round of pain on my foot for days. However, I have the urgency to try out various ways of using the HP brown sauce I bought when we had the steak dinner about a month ago. The most consistent answer to what goes well with it are sausages, fries and fried eggs. Thus, I decided to prepare this elaborate breakfast meal today with the help of my friend. He made the potato pancakes instead of fries without using eggs as a binder. The sausages I picked were breakfast links. Two fried eggs were also included into the already full plate. A few slices of fresh tomatoes were the perfect finishing touch to this feast.

Halfway through my plate, I was already full. I plowed along until I did finish my plate although to be honest, I felt that a mound of steamed rice was missing. I guess you can take me out of the country but but not the Filipino in me. Overall, a very wonderful way to start the weekend. Definitely not a breakfast to eat everyday but rather probably every month or two. It was just way too much food. Still, it was good pairing everything with the HP brown sauce. A bit sweet but it was delicious. I'm still a ketchup man though.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Experimenting with Gnocchi

I have featured gnocchi in this blog before but I have this idea to try and make a gluten and an egg free version. I've found some recipes where rice flour is used and I've also seen versions where they omit the use of eggs and still achieve a light and fluffy gnocchi. However, I have not come across where both the flour and the egg were substituted and omitted respectively. I'm sure it is out there. Having made enough gnocchis to last me a lifetime, I was confident that I can pull this off. The other plan was to dress the gnocchi with a bechamel sauce-based ragu although I ended up using a regular ragu.

The problem with an eggless gnocchi is that it does get more fussy when it comes to shaping them. The gnocchi dough itself looks like a regular gnocchi dough but once you try to work with it, it does get a bit crumbly. Not helping is the use of rice flour, which although fine in texture, does not hold the dough as tightly as wheat flour. I ended up adding just enough water to hold the dough together to allow me to form them in shapes. When it came to cooking them, they come out of the simmering water a bit more fragile so dunking them in cold water right away is essential.

After all this fuss, I decided against posting the recipe. It was far from successful but the idea is definitely a good one. I still ended up with a tasty gnocchi which is not bad but the recipe itself needs more experimenting before it can be considered a success.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Spice Gallery

I think it is important for me to feature a few of the crucial ingredients needed to cook Indian food with great success. A key to their cuisine is really about the correct amount and kind of spices and seasonings needed to bring out the flavor of a certain dish that will distinguish it from a fairly similar one. It has definitely been a challenge to go around town looking for select spices but it was all worth it in the end. Most of the powdered spices are easy to find so I'll highlight the more exotic and hard to find ones.

Cumin - These little brown grain-like seeds are often mistaken for a very similar seed, the caraway. However, cumin is much hotter to the taste, lighter in color and much larger. Often used whole, fried or roasted, in its ground form, it forms an essential base to many dishes from curries to rice. It's distinctive flavor and strong, warm aroma are due to its essential oil content, the main ingredient being cuminaldehyde.

Nigella - Also known as black onion seeds, these teardrop-shaped seeds are very aromatic when cooked and are used often to flavor breads and pickles. The seed has been called fennel flower, blackseed or black caraway. Obtained from the flower Nigella sativa which is native to south and southwest Asia, the seeds have a bitter pungent taste and aroma. It is also used not only as a spice but also in confectionery and liquor. The oil obtained from the seed also have various uses in medicine.

Cardamom Pods - The pods are usually light green in color with little black seeds which are very aromatic in flavor. Cardamom comes in three varieties: green, white and black. The first two variants are used for both sweet and savory dishes especially with rice. The latter is used for only savory dishes. The pods can be used whole while the seeds can be crushed and used to flavor sweets and other dishes. It is one of the main components of garam masala. Cardamom has a strong unique taste with an intensely aromatic resinous fragrance. Black cardamom has a smokey though not bitter aroma with a coolness similar to that of mint.

Fenugreek Seeds - The seeds resemble pebble-like mustard yellow seeds with an earthy flavor and are mainly used in pickles and vegetarian cooking especially as an ingredient in curry powder and curry paste. The leaves are spinach-like and are used to flavor breads and other dishes. The leaves can also be harvested as a microgreen and used as a vegetable.

1. Vijayakar, Sunil: 30 Minute indian, Laurel Glen Publishing, San Diego:2000.

2. www.wikipedia.com

Monday, February 13, 2012

Turning The Big 39

Last week was the week when I turned another year older and none the wiser. I have stopped celebrating my birthdays for some time now but this year, I decided to give it another go. Well actually, I lie. I do celebrate my birthdays but with lesser pomp than usual as the years progress. This year, I decided to invite my friends in smaller groups for dinner for a more intimate dining experience without having to go through all the usual birthday brouhaha. On the actual day however, I asked two of my good friends to go out and have dinner with me at Famous Dave's, a barbecue chain which is one of our favorite places to eat out. To recap my life's adventure that day:

Today is my big day and feeling a bit more optimistic than usual, we started the evening with a panda. Well, Hello Panda to be exact. Now, don't get any weird ideas. Hello Panda is a brand of chocolate-filled treat from Japan. And by treat, I mean a yummy treat. A favorite since college, I have not had the chance to try one until today. I've seen them in most oriental stores and the World Market store almost always carries them. Today however is the the first time I actually bought them as a treat for myself. I was trying to not snack since I knew I was going out for dinner with friends but by 7pm, I just needed to nibble on something.

For dinner, we went to Famous Dave's and had Onion Strings for starters. Yes, strings, not rings. The onions are sliced very thinly that they resemble stings. They are seasoned with a peppery flavor and complemented with a tartar sauce dip of some kind. Very tasty indeed with a bit of a zing. As much as I wanted to order more appetizers for the three of us, I know for a fact that their serving portions are huge so we had to pace ourselves and settled for just the onion strings.

For the entree, I was hoping to get the platter that fed two to three people for the simple reason that they are served on garbage can lids. No, these are of the sanitized variety but wouldn't it look cool on my blog? We ended up ordering the two meat platter combos and thus, I have to get my usual rib tips and to balance this pig-out food, I paired it with fried cod. Their corn muffins are to die for as well. All in all, not too bad.

Dessert was another story however. We decided or I decided I wanted to try their bread pudding and boy was it impressive. It was sliced so big it was way too much dessert even for the three of us. While we were eating it though, I could not help but think that my bread pudding is better. Oh my word! Sometimes, the baker in me tends to be very critical about desserts I eat and this results to a crippling problem because instead of savoring the food, I end up figuring out ways to improve what is in front of me. Despite this realization, it was still a wonderful dinner and we went home very full, a bit too full to be honest.

So there you have it folks! My big 39th birthday dinner with friends. Next year, I'm turning 38!

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Pizza Party

Today was a good day to have dinner with friends and what's unusual is that I'm not even in charge of the food. I was given the task to make the ragu and the pesto sauce for our pizza party. Somebody made the dough and others were told to bring the toppings and the cheese. One other issue is the presence of lactose intolerant guests so we had to make some of the pizza with rice cheese which is fairly good actually. For this dinner, we made three pizzas: regular, non-dairy and pesto-based.

As always, I have to go beyond what is expected of me and even though I was only in charge of making the sauces, I also decided to make a salad and a non-dairy coffee cake. The salad was easy since I still have my Lou Malnati's dressing from last week. I had to make a slight change since bacon will not be a welcome addition and regular parmesan is also not going to cut it. I ended up using cranberries to impart its dark pink color reminiscent of friend bacon and for the cheese, I used Pecorino Romano which is a hard dry cheese with a sharp tang to it.

The dessert I made is the the Blackberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake which I turned non-dairy and I also served my remaining tiramisu which I topped with raspberries. All in all, it was a good time had by all. We are now planning the next theme dinner and Mexican has been considered the next possible route. I could sway it to either Indian or Filipino but we'll just have to wait and see. Oh, incidentally, this dinner inspired me to make my own pizza dough which I will feature in a separate post including the ragu recipe.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

That Same Old Filling

Having recently made two dishes that required stuffing, there is always the certainty that I have an extra stuffing or filling mixture that begs to be consumed. If the filling is fully cooked, then I usually end up just eating it as the main dish with a steamed bowl of rice. If however the filling mixture has some raw components to it, it is best that the mixture is frozen as soon as possible and thawed when a plan to repurpose it has been made.

To prove my point, I was left with about 2 cups of thick Bolongnese Ragu used as a filling for my stuffed rice balls or Arancini. This is a simple fix since all that is needed is to dilute the ragu with 1 cup of pasta water and you have an instant sauce to dress a pound of dried pasta. Just make sure that about 5 minutes before reaching the al dente stage, simmer the ragu with the pasta water over medium heat in a large sauce pan and once simmering, finish cooking the pasta in the sauce. To complete the dish, off the heat, add a handful of parmesan cheese and a drizzling of good olive oil with a few tablespoons of chopped parsley and you have an instant Italian pasta dish prepared in less than 15 minutes.

My second filling to repurpose is actually also not too difficult to work with since it is made up of pork sausage, diced ham and grated vegetables. It is also already bound with eggs before being used as a stuffing for my Chicken Galantina so the main concern is how it held up during the freeze/thaw process. If it gets watery upon thawing, you can drain the liquid and if it is still a bit mushy, add some bread crumbs until it holds its shape together. At this point, you can easily mold them into balls for frying. Following the the basic steps for frying meatballs, step one is to dredge them first in seasoned flour. Step two is dunking them in an egg wash which is really beaten eggs with a bit of water to thin them out. Last step is dredging the balls again in bread crumbs before frying them in canola oil until golden brown.

One concern when making meatballs is to be careful of what is inside the mix. Since raw sausage is included in the filling mix, do not make them too big as the insides might be raw by the time the outside has turned golden brown. So an inch or so size of meatballs is ideal or another trick is to cook them over medium low heat to give it enough time to cook on the inside. Once cooked, drain them on paper towels and at this point, you can either eat the meatballs as is or you can also add them to the Bolongese pasta dish. Either way, they are delicious and you managed to not throw away not just one but two perfectly reusable extra food.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Christmas Lunch 2011


Beef Short Ribs in Hoisin Sauce with Canadian Whiskey Copyright 2011 LtDan’sKitchen blogs

I made this dish some time ago using regular beef ribs and Bass beer to braise the beef. For our Christmas lunch, I made this dish once again but with short ribs this time that my cousin had in her freezer and using 12 fluid ounce of Black Velvet Canadian Whiskey and I have to say, the dish came out really great, much better than when I used beer to braise the beef. I do suggest you give this a try since you can barely taste the alcohol after cooking it for over 2 hours plus an additional 30 minutes more once you add the Hoisin sauce. By then, all the alcohol has evaporated and you are left with a very mild smokey flavor which I think is just perfect for this cut of meat.

Another repeat offender is the Triple Chocolate Cheesecake. Working with limited equipment, I had to make do with what is available and it was still as good as it always has been. I have to admit, it will be very hard to tire of this dessert. It simply is just divine. For really special occasions, this dessert will definitely not disappoint. The trick is to use really good ingredients and you end up with something out of this world. I do hope that one of you brave souls do give this dessert a try.

Well, that's it for now. From my kitchen to yours, Happy Holidays!

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Cheese Pimiento

Another recipe down memory lane is Cheese Pimiento. My cousin wanted to buy ready made Cheese Whiz with pimiento for my nieces and nephew but I told her we should just make it from scratch. I then racked my brain as to how I used to make this dish when I was in grade school during my birthday parties. Yep, I make my own sandwiches to serve at my birthday parties. This sandwich spread is definitely an old favorite of mine and we used to make these every time we had a party in the house. I just totally forgot about it until now.

There are only three ingredients to make this spread. Two are not really the healthiest ingredients and the third, well, it is but is not enough to balance out the other two. First up is the cheese. No fancy cheese required here. In fact, what you need is the easy melt cheese of the Velveeta variety, about a pound. Next ingredient is 4 oz of diced pimiento. They sell them in bottled jars right now so that makes your life a bit easier. Do not, however, buy the roasted pepper kind. Last but not least, 1/4 cup of condensed milk. This is to sweeten the spread as well as to moisten it and allow the peppers to blend well into the mushy cheese. After grating the cheese in the large grate of a box grater and mixing well with the rest of the ingredients, the spread is ready to be used on your favorite bread. Ah, to be 12 again!

Addendum:

I made a new batch the day after I arrived back to Montana but I used a different recipe that added mayonnaise to the spread and sadly, it was not my favorite. The simple version I posted above is actually better in terms of flavor and texture. Adding the 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise required the addition of more condensed milk to balance out the saltiness. It however ended up a bit watery so I had to let it rest in the fridge overnight and by then, it reached the right consistency for spreading on a piece of white bread. It has this salty undertone which to me distracts from the overall flavor of the spread.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Persimmon

If you ever see this fruit in your grocery aisles, I suggest that you stop, cop a feel and when it springs back like a ripe tomato, pick it up and buy it. I was introduced to Persimmon about 4 years ago by my friend Jianrong. I've seen this fruit a number of times in the Farmer's Market in Atlanta but never really knew what to make of it. It looks like a tomato but the skin looks a bit woody and tough and it has no strong odor. I used to just ignore it and not care about this fruit but now, I get excited when I do see one.

I bought two last week and they were gone in one day. That is how bad my craving for this fruit is. And if you ever manage to try one, I think you will feel the same way. I do prefer the Jiro variety compared to the Hachiya kind and it is what I always get just because I know how good they are. You can also eat the skin which is also quite soft when ripe. I should give the latter variety a try the next time I stop by the grocery store though. I was also reading about them earlier this week and it turns out that persimmon pudding used to be really popular in the US but have since fallen out of favor. I might just give it a try one of these days. Oh, and in case you were wondering what it tastes like? It is a cross between mangoes and peaches. Not too bad, eh!

Friday, December 2, 2011

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

I was in the grocery store tonight and I saw these beautiful pears arranged perfectly like little soldiers in a formation I just had to buy a couple of each to take home with me. Looking at their vivid colors, It suddenly dawned on me that Christmas is just mere weeks away. It must be the green and red combination. Growing up in our little city, Fiji apples were the most visible signs of the Christmas season as well as red grapes. The green variety were a bit rarer back then. The markets and sidewalks in the city would be filled with the scent of ripening apples in neatly stacked boxes.

At some point in time when I was in 6th grade, the prices of apples went soaring due the the devaluation of the peso and it was too expensive to buy even one apple so we switched to seedless navel oranges. Grapes were also starting to be more affordable so we were able to buy small amounts without breaking our budget. As you can sense, our family is not well-off but we do enjoy some of life's pleasures every now and then.

When I graduated from college, apples have become competitive again, price-wise, and it has become part of the trinity of must-have Christmas fruits: apples, grapes and oranges. However, another contender came in the form of a local favorite which to me is the clear winner, Filipino Mangoes. Christmas without mangoes is just not complete and I really miss the mangoes from back home at this time of the year. During my almost 15 years of living in the US, I only have had the one chance to try them in Illinois while vacationing at my cousins.

As I grow older, it is interesting to note that my appetite for apples, grapes and oranges have diminished in favor of pears. This crunchy fruit is just wonderful eaten fresh off the tree or poached in red wine and drizzled with chocolate sauce. There is just something about this fruit that evokes the feeling of calm and festivity at the same time. Maybe it has to do with it's shiny skin or its graceful lines or the variety of colors it comes in. Regardless of the reason, pears to me now spells Christmas in all ways.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Queen Grill City

Yesterday, we had lunch at one of the newly established Filipino eateries in Seattle. It was of the style familiar to Filipinos back home which is to point at something you like and they will serve it to you. To point at something is "turo" in the Filipino language and these food stops are referred to as turo-turo or "point-point". The one at Seattle boasts quite a bounty of traditional Filipino dishes, mostly the meat stews and the grilled/deep fried/roasted meats that are very popular back home especially the lechon kawali that was really very tasty and crunchy.

Over the last two days, I have been stuffed with really good Filipino food it felt like I was home even for just a moment. However, reality sinks in and you see these Filipinos who are now mostly American citizens wearing their new citizenship proudly. Well, a bit too proudly it bordered on arrogance although I'm excluding my friend and her family and her in-laws who were all very nice down to earth people. It was weird watching a bunch of Filipinos acting way more American than Americans. There was an instant I wanted to clobber this lady who had her three kids falling in line for her while she chatted on her phone and at the very last minute, decided that she wanted more stuff at the checkout counter while still conversing on her phone. So basically, she is now an obnoxious Filipino who thinks she can do anything she wants because she is now an American citizen. Argh! This is a very normal thing to witness back home but the newly acquired citizenship seems to have given her an air of "I can do what I want" in the worst sense ever. If it were not for the good food being sold at the counter, I would have said something. But then again, what is the point?

Now that I have vented, I'm featuring a stew that will make most people's blood curl (pun intended). Traditionally made with pork offal, this dish can be made healthier by using regular pork meat. The most interesting part though is how this dish is completed by the addition of either pork or ox blood giving the dish its unmistakable brown color. To the unlearned, they might mistake the dish for chocolate sauce until they figure out what it is really made of and they usually end up spitting the dish out. It took me some time to really love this dish but I prefer to cook my own version to be sure that I use really good ingredients giving me a sense of peace that I'm eating something that is really well prepared. Since then, I only eat this stew in restaurants or in homes of people I know. Traditionally, it is also eaten with a steamed rice pudding just like corn bread is the perfect match for meat chilis.

* I had to switch to a picture of the lechon kawali that I made myself a couple of months ago. I would like to feature the one that I ate at Queen Grill City but the picture taken with my Balckberry was not of good quality and I just cannot let go of how badly it translated in the blog.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Seattle, Washington

This weekend, I'm in Seattle getting my passport renewed and staying at my friends house as well. So far, I've eaten my fair share of authentic Filipino food, either home-cooked by my friend's mother or from Filipino restaurants in the city. It was like being at home even for just a few days. It was a surreal moment and yet, very comforting having been away from home for so long. It has been such a gastronomical feast a day after arriving in Seattle after my 15 hours of bus ride through snow, sleet and rain. Today was beautiful and the sun managed to make its presence known even for just a couple of hours after leaving the place where they were holding the passport renewal in town. Those few hours waiting in line to get my papers processed were a bit unusual as the hall where they held the interview was shared with a group of Vietnamese-Americans dancing to their traditional local music that for a while, I got totally confused if I was in the right place to get my passport renewed. First stop after leaving the renewal office though was Pike Market via the space needle. We strolled around the market and drank coffee at the first Starbuck's coffee shop which I thought was very fancy it bordered on being pretentious but the coffee was great so no complaints there. We just drove by the needle and that was good enough for me.

A bonus is what I found in one of the stores in the city. No, I'm not talking about Macy's although I did take a short trip to the mother ship, but rather, the Seafood Center where their grocery aisles looked like I was transported back to the grocery aisles in the grocery stores back home. The pièce de résistance, they sell San Miguel beer in bottles. I know, I'm not supposed to be drinking beer but I had a sip and it was just so wonderful to taste the best beer from back home after almost 15 years. They even have the dark lager variety which I hope to bring back with me for my friends. I'm jealous already.

We ended the night having Japanese food for dinner in a casino and it was a combination of everything Asian from sushi rolls to sashimi to Vietnamese Pho and even Chinese dishes. It had been fun but the best part so far has been seeing my friend Ruby whom I have not seen in over 10 years. It was good to see her and get to meet her family and talk about the good old days. So far, this trip has been a journey back in time and a glimpse of good times ahead. I still have one day to kill and I'm already very excited to see what tomorrow will bring.

Friday, November 11, 2011

LtDan'sKitchen Facebook page

Folks,

I created a facebook page for the blog. It will allow me to post updates on each and every recipe without having to inundate my wall with posts from my blog. I think you can search for it and all you have to do to gain access is to press the like button. From there, you should be able to gain entry into the facebook page and access the blog from there as well.

-Dan

Friday, October 21, 2011

Granny's Donuts

It has been a week since I decided to go back to my diet and strictly count portions again. I have been a bit lenient on how much I eat and I just balance it out with exercise. However, I needed to go past this stasis state and start losing more weight again. It has been a wonderful week of feeling the hunger pangs and eating just the right amount of food to sate it and then comes Friday and the first thing on my mind is coffee and donuts. Perfect for this cloudy and cold day and with half the lab craving donuts as well, I took the plunge.

The favored donuts came from Grandma's Donuts on campus while I prefer the Town and Country version since they have a cinnamon roll/donut concoction that I really love. Since half the lab is chipping in, I had to go with Grandma's donuts. This is the closest thing to a homemade donut in town with fresh fruits as toppings most of the time. Even their chocolate glaze is made with chocolate ganache. Now, who could resist that? My diet will have to wait for tomorrow. Today will be cheat day!

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