This is more than a lasagna post. Read on

The Quickest Lasagna You’ll Ever Make.

My first time using gram masala.

Delicious!

Garam Masala Chicken With Tomato Cauliflower Curry.

Supercook Saves the Day.

How To Have The Perfect Weekend.

This isn’t the first time I’ve made sinamak or spiced vinegar. I’ve made it before for the purpose of having it with Filipino dishes and just as a staple condiment. This time, I’m making it for a dish that has already become a weekend habit. Our favorite, kinilaw.

For this bottle, I added all the usual spices – garlic, shallots, ginger, pepper, and chillies. The only thing I did different was that I added the zest of one lemon. I am hoping that echoing all the ingredients in the dish will intensify the flavors even more. I’m going to let the flavors marinate for about two weeks before I use it and am hoping that there will be a noticeable difference with our usual weekend meal.

Since we have been using vinegar so much in our diet, I did some research and tried to see what it’s health benefits are. The results were quite interesting.

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I am now savoring the last few hours of my weekend. I am extremely exhausted as the weekend was spent moving, cleaning, sorting and organizing all my things into my new address. Considering how small my previous apartment was, I was surprised to see how much I had accumulated in a year. I realized that I might be time to down size.

It’s going to be a long and busy week ahead and inasmuch as I would like to babble on, I should really be getting some shut eye soon. Tata, for now folks!

The only thing I was really up to this Sunday was some easy cooking. So with my new roasting pan and large bag of watercress acquired from the weekend market, I set out to make our usual dinner -roasted chicken. I love making this dish because it gives maximum satisfaction for very minimal effort. We like. We also like to change things up a bit so I decided to experiment with my new pan and poured a bottle of San Miguel Pale Pilsen onto it, hoping that it would give my chicken a malty flavor. This idea was inspired by the beer can chicken which would not be possible with my new roasting pan, so I improvised.

I poured the beer onto the pan, hoping that the malty vapors would give my chicken a nice flavor.

The finished product! It's so hard to make a chicken look pretty.

This roasted chicken was amazing, but tasted nothing like beer. I’m going to have to do the beer can chicken the proper way. But what was pleasantly surprising was how much faster my chicken cooked with this pan. Having the chicken’s cavity propped on a metal cone allowed the heat to be equally distributed in a shorter amount of time. This worked out very well especially since we were hungry. So rather than cooking my medium sized chicken for 1 hour and 35 minutes on a 350 degree oven, it was done in 1 hour and 15 minutes.

What also made tonight’s dinner a hit was the watercress salad. I purchased a large bundle from teh weekend market for P100 and was excited to recreate a salad that we had at the Last Chukker. All I needed was a berry flavored vinaigrette. I was planning to make my own out of some blueberry jam in the fridge when I remembered that Mike had brought this baby home from Canada.

Blackberry with Cabernet Sauvignon. It was perfect with the slightly bitter watercress.

So although my chicken did not taste like beer, tonight’s Sunday dinner was absolutely divine. I kind of wish we didn’t devour it as quickly as we did.

Sunday dinner success!

I hope it’s been a good and restful weekend for everyone! Please wish me luck as I take on another school year.

Tofu Adobo

Garlic spears from Michelle's garden. Where can I find some in Manila?

Enjoying our healthy Filipino dinner at Jim and Michelle's lovely home.

Since tofu is very bland, I knew that your usual adobo marinade wouldn’t do. So, to add more flavor to the dish, I baked it with lots of garlic, some rosemary and garlic spears, freshly picked from our friend’s garden. This dish turned out to be a huge hit, even with my tofu-hating boyfriend. The tofu was so flavorful and actually had a meatiness to it. None of the carnivores at the table seemed to miss the presence of meat.

The tofu adobo went very well with this veggie dish - beans and squash cooked in coconut milk and some curry powder.

I’ve also found that the success of this dish is highly dependent on the quality of tofu that you get. Firm tofu works best with this recipe since it bakes nicely and easily gets that crunchy texture. Last night, some friends and I tried re-creating this dish with some tofu that I found at the weekend market. The tofu that I bought wasn’t as firm and was more like silken tofu. It didn’t bake as well but was still delicious. We figured that with the softer kind of tofu, sauteing would work better. With that in mind, I tried something new.

Stir Fried Tofu with Broccoli

I had another pack of the softer tofu that I got from the market so I experimented with a new and easy recipe. On a very hot non-stick pan, I drizzled about 2 tablespoons of oil and sauteed the tofu until it was golden brown on all sides. I, then, sprinkled it with some green Thai curry powder for flavor. I added some broccoli, salt and pepper.

This dish was so good, eating it felt like an indulgence. I am now thinking of other ways to cook tofu.

Any ideas?

At the beginning of our camping trip, Mike and I agreed to make a conscious effort to eat healthy.  We were actually quite good about not buying any junk food on the road and were constantly eating fruit and were successfully avoiding fast food chains. But later on, the healthy eating was slowly overcome by the festivities of summer and we just ate like everyday was a holiday.  It also didn’t help that camping food usually equates to grilling lots of red meat and eating s’mores.

So after 28 meat-filled days, I am going on a vegetarian break. No meat, dairy, salt, sugar, oil, and alcohol for at least 3 days. My diet will consist only of fresh fruits, vegetables and beans. As of 12:46PM today, all I’ve had is one carrot, one small cucumber, a banana, a few slices of pineapple and a cup of cooked mongo beans. I do miss the meat but I know my body will thank me after the three days are over.

Today's breakfast : Pineapple, cucumber and banana

In the meantime, let me take you on a visual tour of some of things that I ate during my North American holiday.

Costco steaks are the shiznit!

At our favorite Japanese restaurant, Akasaka where the rolls are humongous.

Portobello Mushroom sandwich and sweet potato curry soup from McMenamins. Unforgettable meal right there!

Oyster stew with foie gras butter. Extremely delicious and sinful!

Steak dinner at our hotel room in Whistler.

Fried pickles from Hooters! These came with wings, of course

My sister's turkey dumplings and siomai. Sooooo good and actually healthy

Uploading all these photos made me hungry. Now, where’s that carrot….

*all photos taken with Instagram

From my sister's kitchen.

Whenever my sister asks me what I want to do during my US visit, I say, “Nothing.”  Forget all the touristy places, all I really want to do is catch up with family.

My sister's toddlers.

My brother's youngest.

My brother's eldest, long boarding and growing up too fast.

In my family, catching up means lingering in the kitchen and exchanging stories over home-made food. Cooking comes second nature to all of us so it is natural that we convene in a place where we are all comfortable in. I find so much joy in watching my siblings prepare their own specialties. I am currently entertained by my brother’s cupcake making skills.

My brother, in his kitchen, making red velvet cupcakes. His are a lot better than mine.

My sister in law, Corina's coffee cupcakes!

Being in the kitchen is also bittersweet as it makes me wish that my Mom and Dad were here. I can imagine my Mom hovering over everyone’s pot, giving unsolicited culinary advice, while my Dad would pick from all the plates, telling his tall tales. Mom is the original head chef in the family and Dad was always the willing sous chef. I know it made them extremely happy to see everyone gather around food that they’ve made.

Daddy and Mommy, the original cooks in the family

Sinigang, everyone's favorite Filipino food!

So when I’m here, I don’t bother to make plans to go to tourist attractions. Where else can we have the best Filipino food, have the kids run around freely and be as loud as we want to be? The kitchen is all we need to make us feel at home.