178/365: Wok With Balut: Vegie Omelette

27th of June

I woke up too early today and thought I could whip something in the wok for breakfast.  Maybe I’m feeling tired of eating quick breakfast of bread, butter, spreads cold cuts etc. And I don’t know but I’m starting to frown for consecutive mornings that I’m seeing my youngest pouring her favorite cereal on her bowl.  I don’t know but I’m not a cereal fan and I don’t sort of believe that kids get enough energy they need in the morning from a bowl of cereal.  I’m still biased with that rice and something in the morning.  I’m Filipino hey!

So with my eyes still half-close:

1. I grab some potato, carrots and chayote, butter and eggs from the fridge
2. Chopped the potato, carrots and chayote in small cubes
3. Sautee them altogether in just enough amount of butter
4. Beat eggs in a bowl then added some salt and seasoning
5. Pour some amount of the beaten eggs in the same pan where I sauteed the cube vegies.
6. Then added just enough amount of the buttered vegies on the half cooked egg.
7. Roll the eggs and voila!



Kids and adults surely do enjoy this in the morning!  And mind you it’s healthy!

93/365: Wok With Balut: White Radish Salad Took Away My Sad Mood

3rd of April

This is  quick post replacing a random sad post that I wrote late last night.

Anyway, I was cooking dinner earlier and it was kinda late than usual to my regular cooking time so I thought of pulling that regular stock of chicken from the freezer, thaw it, spread with chicken breading and fried it.  Voila dinner is ready!

Oh… for the kids yes but for the man of the house  na-ah!  Fried chicken should go along with something else that is not dry – soup, vegetable dish or anything,  Problem is… I can’t think of anything that I can whip up quickly.

I took another sweep at the fridge and failed to get an idea. As I closed the fridge door the tray of mixed vegies and all an the table caught my attention.  I saw this bunch of white radish (labanos) that I bought unscheduled this morning plus the tray of huge local red and green tomatoes.  Hmn…

And here’s what happened next: I grabbed these things in just quick minutes then started…

• Vinegar and sugar with a dash of fine salt, put them altogether on a semi-bowl plate,
• Wash all the radish, peel them, and grated them all using a cheese grater. Squeezed out all the radish juice and put the grated/squeezed in the bowl with vinegar-sugar-salt solution.
• Grab a huge white onion and sliced it into rings.
• Same thing with the huge half-red/half-green tomato and bell pepper.  Put them all top of the radish.
• Top it with red hot chili pepper that hubby loves.

Voila!  We have something that goes along with the fried chicken!  Try it

But before my hungry wards can get a hold of this salad, I grabbed my phone and took a quick shot.   I’m sorry about the poor quality cause I haven’t soaped my hand yet and I don’t want the smell of the spices to linger on my phone.  The digicam is not within the kitchen’s reach so I hope this quick shot from my mobile phone will do.

49/365: Wok With Balut: Pizza Talong (Pizza Eggplant)

18th of February

This post is for my friend and colleague Jae-Arh.  She’s the friend I was talking about on the Prelude of my "Wok With Balut" series who had been requesting for a copy of this recipe.

Every time I invite close friends to dine at home Jae-Arh would automatically ask “may pizza talong ba?”  And this is the reason why I am posting this recipe a little detailed compared to the other recipes that I posted.

So here’s my personal recipe of PIZZA TALONG.   It is actually similar to “Tortang Talong”.  I just named it “Pizza Talong” because it looks like pizza when cooked.  It also sounded more yummy. 

There are two versions of this recipe.  One is for VEGIE LOVERS and the other one is for MEAT LOVERS (just like pizza).

My Pizza Talong for Meat Lovers.  Fresh from the Pan!

My Pizza Talong for Vegie Lovers.
The Pizza Talong in this photo is already sliced because I made it as a side dish for the “Steamed Tilapia”

INGREDIENTS:
Large Eggplant - grilled, peeled and mashed
Eggs – beaten
Tomatoes sliced horizontally
Green Pepper sliced horizontally
Bell Pepper sliced horizontally
Red Onion chopped
White onion sliced as onion ring (optional)
Butter

Optional:
Giniling
Hot dog or Sausage

Procedure:
1. Sauté all garlic, onion, tomatoes, green and bell pepper in butter.  Don’t over cooked the spices.
    (If with meat, sauté first the meat ingredients before the spices)
2.  Then add the mashed egg plant.
3. Add salt and seasoning.
4.  Pour the beaten egg and wait until it formed a circle.  The thicker the better.
5. Served topped with onion rings and fresh green bell pepper.

If you noticed I don’t give an exact measurement on the ingredients for my recipe.  Because that’s how I cook.  I match the measurement of my ingredients according to the number of people to whom the dish will be served. And I just estimate the quantity of each ingredient to the quantity of the major ingredient which for this one is the egg plant.

Why don’t you try cooking your first pizza talong?

48/365: Wok With Balut: A Sequel To The Tilapia for Lunch

17th of February

I’m supposed to be writing about love songs for this love month but this food series is more important.  I need to serve the sequel while it’s fresh and hot (LOL).

What I mean is that there’s still the Part 2 for the Tilapia Dish that posted.  It is because hubby is the one who bought the live tilapia fishes.  The problem when he’s buying the tilapia is that he always buys too much – more than two kilos!  Imagine we are just four in the family! Well I can’t blame him because he’s really a fish person and Tilapia is really among his top favorites.

And because I don’t want to lose the freshness of the tilapia I asked them if they want it again for dinner which they joyfully agreed in chorus.  So here’s another version of a Tilapia dish.

SARCIADONG TILAPIA

Ingredients/Simple “how to”
Garlic, onion, green pepper, bell pepper and tomatoes sautè together then add fish sauce and seasoning.  Make sure that the tomatoe’s juice is already showing before simmering the fried tilapia on it.

If you noticed it has the same spices/ingredients from the first tilapia dish except that this time the spices were cooked.  A bell pepper is also added so it will smell good.

When we want to have taste variation, we usually top it with different spices.  Try it and you’ll gonna love it!

46/365: Wok With Balut: Post Valentine Lunch Menu

15th of February

Yesterday was such a sweet day not only because of the romantic scenes visible everywhere but also of the sweet treats coming from sweet people as well.  It was such a battle not to give in to these temptation so I just taste them all starting at 3AM having my coffee with donuts given by a sweet family friend.

As if the that donut is not yet enough I also brought home some sweets and we ate all of them too then followed by my three-part Valentine celebration that includes a night out that also involved gobbling.  Come Saturday morning our taste buds does not have the appetite for fancy food specifically with sweets and meat (“naumay ba”).

Rummaging the fridge I successfully found some set of ingredients that I’m sure will be appealing to our taste bud for lunch.

Pinakbet and Pritong Tilapia with Fresh and Crunchy spices for lunch!(I heard a “woot !” from hubby)

Vegetable and fish are the best next-day menu when you just came from previous day’s fancy-eating.
However, the common problem in any home in serving vegie and fish dishes is that most kids dislike them.  I myself has a history of disliking these dishes when I was a kid.  Believed me I think I mastered a lot of tricks on how kids will eat vegie and fish dishes.  Let me share to you some of them.

my own recipe of pinakbet and fried tilapia that even kids will love

PINAKBET
A mixture of fresh (local) vegetables that is supposed to be cooked with shrimp paste (bagoong).  However. we are not yet letting our little girl to eat shrimp paste (maybe when she gets a little older) plus my son is still under medication from an allergy so I don’t normally cook pinakbet with shrimp paste except when it is for me and hubby only.

What I do is to sauté the vegies with ground meat (pork or beef).  I will put the ground meat in the pan with some water, heat it till it produced its own oil where I can sauté the garlic, onion and the vegies.  The vegies are the “bahay-kubo mix” which are: kalabasa (squash), sitaw (string beans), okra (lady finger), ampalaya (bitter gourd) and talong (eggplant).

I’ll simmer it in half cup of water until it's crunchy enough to serve then add some seasoning.  The trick is not to over cook the vegies.   

FRIED FISH (TILAPIA)
Any fried fish will taste good with pinakbet but I still consider Tilapia as the best choice.  And since eating fish is not appetizing for kids, what I do is to spread the fish with (chicken) breading before frying them.  This takes away the fishy smell plus it makes the fish meat crunchy.  These breaded fish is for the kids only because hubby and I prefer the fish just as it is.

FRESH AND CRUNCY SPICES
And to make the fried fish more appetizing I usually served it with a combination of fresh and crunchy spices.  On our plate (photo) are onion rings, red and green tomatoes, green pepper, Kalamansi and cucumber.  Sometime I also add slices of bell pepper.

There you go!  A not so fancy but definitely yummy and healthy lunch menu that kids and adult will love!

41/365: Wok with Balut: The Prelude

10th February

Just to let everybody know – I can COOK too!

And just a clarification also I don’t cook using my laptop as well as I don’t cook while running.  I cook in the kitchen like every normal human being.  I wear an apron using wok and ladle and not a magic wand.

Though sometimes I cook while still wearing my office outfit complete with heels  while editing something on my lappy while waiting for the water to boil while listening to the news (from the television) while helping the kids to their assignment while answering hubby’s question on what’s for dinner! (Whew!)

What I don’t usually cook?

I don’t usually cook food or dishes that needs long preparation because I don’t have the time to handle them.  I don’t normally cook the likes of “kare-kare”, “paella”, rice cakes and the likes.  For me these kind of food are best ordered from specialty restaurants.  Although from time to time I also do try cooking them.
What I usually cook?

I love to cook food that are easy to prepare.  Something that you can whip up in a bit but healthy and will turn out yummy.  I prepare foods during occasion according to the kind of occasion.  For birthdays I cook whatever is the request or favorite food of the celebrant.  I also don’t usually follow recipe or a menu list.

For daily cooking I cook whatever there is in the fridge from the week’s buy from the market and grocery store.  This is where I discovered some of my personal recipes.   And these personal recipe  is the reason why I am having this prelude post today. 

A friend has been bugging me to give her one of my personal recipes.  While I was typing the draft email an idea suddenly struck me (again? LOL).  I just thought that since I am sharing my personal recipe to my friend why not share it to everybody instead?

I don’t have the slightest interest of becoming a food blogger but you can expect some post here about food from time to time. 

Do you also cook?  What’s your specialty?