Caprese!

     It's the last day of the month, and leap year none the less so what I was thinking was that we could end it with a great side dish and one of my family's favourite, Caprese! Its very simple, yet very elegant. Caprese is a great side dish especially if your having a pasta or a nice steak dinner with friends.

As always, make sure to prepare the food with your heart!

Ingredients:

1 pint cherry tomatoes

1 8 oz fresh mozzarella balls (cherry size)

1 medium size zucchini (quartered and cut into bite size)

Juice of 1 whole lemon
¼  cup extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp kosher salt

¼ tsp pepper

¼ cup fresh basil leaves (roughly chopped)

Procedure:

Gently mix all the ingredients in a bowl and let the mixture sit in the refrigerator for 2 hours before serving; this allow the veggies and cheese to absorb all the amazing flavours! Enjoy!

-Love-

Smothered Pork Chops!

     One of my favorite things about Christmas day, other than Grandma's yummy-goodness ham during our brunch, is how everyone knows that I love new cooking stuff such us china dishes, cookwares and and many other awesome tools/gifts. This was especially true at last year's Christmas where  I received a cast-iron skillet and a pressure cooker. This is always a real treat, since I love to know that my cooking tools and dishes were gifts from family and friends, it makes me feel like there is a little extra heart and soul in my food. So the other day I was just itching to use my cast-iron skillet, and I decided to make pork chops with it and I must say, it really worked well. If you don't have one, a regular frying pan will also do.

     Enjoy cooking and always cooked with your heart!

Ingredients:

3 bone-in pork chops
1 cup of flour
1 tsp garlic salt
1 large yellow onion (julienne)
1 large egg (beaten)
6 cloves of garlic (slivered)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup buttermilk
Dash of cayenne
Pinch of kosher salt and freshly ground peppercorn

 Procedure:

1. Clean pork chop and pat dry with paper towel. 
2. In a bowl mix in flour, garlic salt, kosher salt, pepper and cayenne. 
3. Dip pork chops in a beaten egg and dredge in the flour mixture, shaking off excess. Let it stand for 10 minutes. 
4. Heat cast iron skillet over medium high heat and pour olive oil. 
5. Once oil is hot enough, fry pork chops for 5 minutes each side, place in a dish with paper towel to absorb excess oil and set aside. 
6. Using the same skillet, sauté onions until caramelized about 8-10 minutes. 
7. Mix in garlic for another 2 minutes.
8. Pour in chicken broth and buttermilk. 
9. Gradually add 1 tbsp of the flour mixture by whisking in to the broth and buttermilk. 
10. When the broth starts to bubble, return pork chops to the skillet, lower heat and simmer for 15 minutes or until it reach your desired doneness, make sure to keep the lid on.
11. Checked the pork chops by flipping once in a while to keep the chops from sticking and burning in the pan. 
12. Served over steamed rice! Enjoy!

-Love-

Garlic Fried Rice with Spam!

     When I am at work, every time I make a dinner that needs to have rice, I intentionally make extra. I make extra rice so that the next day I can make some yummy garlic fried rice with spam; which I have pleasantly discovered is a new favourite among the kids in the house. It is a really easy recipe and it is also really filling. This dish is also special, in that its the only time that I see Jaybird eating spam!

     Have a great day everyone and as one rule in the kitchen, always enjoy cooking and cook with your heart!

Ingredients:

• 4 cups cooked rice (preferably a day old rice)
• 6 cloves garlic (chopped)
• 1 can 7oz Spam (cubed)
• 1 cup frozen diced carrots and peas
• 3 eggs ( beaten)
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp soy sauce

Procedure:

1. In a non stick pan, browned spam over medium high heat and set aside.
2. Roughly wipe pan with paper towel to absorb some juice of the spam.
3. Scrambled eggs using the same pan and set aside.
4. Melt in butter in the same pan and add garlic.
5. Browned garlic about 3 minutes and add cooked rice, carrots and peas,mixing in together for 5 minutes.
6. Add soy sauce, eggs and spam.
7. Serve and enjoy!

-Love-

Quinoa (keen-wah)!

     Last December we spent a weekend in Leavenworth. I love it there! It seems that your in a different country when your in Leavenworth, its so lively and gorgeous! The thing Jay-Bird and I love to do as a couple every time we're on a vacation or just a few days away from home, is EAT! We're definitely Foodies! I am not really a fan of shopping, other than when its for groceries or something; I don't limit myself too when it comes to food. I love to taste my money (don't take it literally please). So at the end of our trip to Leavenworth last year, we made a reservation at the restaurant in the hotel we were staying at. I had a big piece of New York steak, roasted veggies, a glass of red wine and something I hadn't had before. This new food was weird, it simply looked like a bunch of grains on my plate. These strange grains, happened to be Quinoa (keen-wah), and after tasting it, I was hooked. What was really amazing to me was how high in protein it was, it was around 14% protein.

     So when we got back, we went to the grocery to find some Quinoa, but I couldn't find it anywhere, and eventually I ended up purchasing it online. I hope you all enjoy Quinoa as much as I do, and as always remember to cook with your heart!

Ingredients: 
     Place Quinoa in a fine strainer and wash it under running cold water for 1 minute to avoid the bitter taste.

• 1/2 cup Quinoa
• 1 cup beef broth
• 1 stalk celery (thinly sliced)
• 1 small size carrots (thinly sliced)
• 1 tsp olive oil
• Pinch of kosher salt and pepper
• Scallions for garnish

Procedure:

1. Heat pan in a medium high and add olive oil.
2. Saute carrots and celery for 1 minute.
3. Mix in Quinoa and beef broth, allowing it to boil.
4. Lower heat and simmer for 17 minutes.
5. Pinch of kosher salt and pepper, turn off heat.
6. Enjoy!

-Love-

Rosemary Lamb Chops!

   
     It's the month of Love! So let's welcome it with a Baaaahhh!!!!

     After our trip to Vegas was canceled due to increment weather, I thought my year was just going to suck. Maybe because I had so many wonderful memories of 2011 and I was expecting it to start better. Well, life is hard, and things happen; there's nothing you can do really to prepare yourself for when mother nature strikes. But things have turned around since the trip was canceled. First, last week I received an email from a new found friend, which was a sign to stay positive. Then a letter from USCIS came regarding the renewal of my status which is the next big step we need to take to continue my residency in the United States. And on top of everything my husband has been telling me that the year just started, which gave a little something to think about. Yeah he is right! It's only the second month of the year, what the heck it seems that its almost ending; by the way, he was bummed out by the trip being canceled too.

     Now what?! Well so far today has been really quite good, and I have a major-major craving for lamb today, so here it is! My marinated rosemary lamb chops!

     As I always say, enjoy cooking and always cook with your heart!

Ingredients:

• 6 lamb chops
• 2 tbsp fresh chopped rosemary
• 1 lemon (extract juice, and grate the rinds)
• 6 cloves garlic (minced)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper  

Procedure:

1. Clean lamb chops and pat dry with paper towel.
2. In a bowl mix rosemary, lemon juice, lemon zest, garlic, olive oil, kosher salt and pepper. Place lamb chops and marinade for 2 hours or overnight.
3. Heat grill over medium heat, once its hot enough place lamb chops and grill for 7-9 minutes each side.
4. Set aside with foil covering the chops for at least 10 minutes.
5. Enjoy!

 -Love-

Chicken Lollipop!

     Chicken lollipop is one of my personal favorite. Very easy to make and really taste good. Some people serve this as an appetizer but as for me it should always be paired with rice, lots of rice! The only tricky part of this dish is how to prepare the chicken wings. So I have posted a video that you can follow, because sometimes videos are easier to understand than visualizing what someone is saying. So a little info about the video, just cut the chicken wings through its joints making 3 parts, you can discard the wing tip or use it for chicken stock. Glide your sharp knife around the top of the bone and scrape the meat down to the end, if your strong enough you can just push the meat down, creating a lollipop like wing. The other part has 2 bones, same thing as the other wing make an incision on the top and locate the smaller bone, you can just easily pop it out. Hope this procedure wont confuse you, but as I was saying refer to the video. 

     The thing about cooking is to enjoy what you're doing and always cook with your heart!

Ingredients:

9 pcs chicken wings (makes 18 chicken lollipop)

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp white vinegar

2 cloves garlic (minced)

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup corn starch

1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp pepper

2 pcs eggs (beaten)
Olive oil or canola (for deep frying)

Directions:

     Clean chicken wings, pat dry and cut in the joints, discarding the wing tip. See video for details of how to cut and prepare chicken wings forming into lollipop like wing.

1. In a zip lock bag, marinade cut up chicken wings with soy sauce, vinegar and garlic for two hours in the refrigerator or overnight.
2. In a bowl, mix flour, corn starch, kosher salt, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, paprika, and pepper.
3. Whisk eggs in a different bowl, dip chicken lollipop.
4. Dredge chicken lollipop into the flour mixture, shake excess off. Let it stand for 10 minutes.
5. In a deep frying pan, heat oil over high heat.
6. Once the oil reaches 350 degrees, deep fry chicken lollipop for 8-10 minutes, avoid overcrowding.
7. Place chicken lollipop on a paper towel allowing to absorb excess oil.
8. Serve with ketchup, sweet-chilli sauce or blue cheese dressing.
9. Enjoy!

-Love-

P.S- J says it was great even without sauce!

Squid Adobo with Chayote (sayote)!

 

      Back when I was in college, I had a friend named Rosalyn. Her parents owned a mini store at a bus stop near our University. At the store they sold a variety of goodies, candies, crackers, cigarettes, soft drinks to name a few. Most of all they served home-made food that catered mainly for local jeepney drivers, commuters. laborers and sometimes students with limited budgets (I was one of them!). One of my favorite dishes Nanay ( Rosalyn's mom) served was her best-ever baby squid adobo. Every lunch break we would walk for quarter a mile leading to her parents store from school with my classmate named Tinx! 

 

     I always loved when we all would go to the store. We would laugh our hearts out and call our selves the "Squid Musketeers!". We would get to the store, and because everyone had a limited budget, we would split our three squid into the parts we all loved; I would go straight for the heads, Rosalyn would eat the body, and Tinx would eat her favorite "The Guts". It was so perfect, nothing ever went to waste. After filling ourselves with a few cups of rice and  free soup, we could now survive the last half of our day in school.

 

     Have fun cooking and always cook with your heart!

1 jumbo squid (about 1.5 lbs, cut into rings)

1 meduim size Chayote (diced)

1 meduim size onion (chopped)

1 roma tomato  (diced)

5 cloves garlic (chopped)

6 pcs birds eye (trim the ends)

1/3 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup white vinegar

1 tsp whole peppercorn

3 dried bayleaves 

2 tbsp olive oil

kosher salt and pepper to taste

Procedure:

1. Saute onions on a pan with oil over medium high heat until softened.
2. Mix in garlic and tomatoes until tomatoes extracted its juice.
3. Add squid rings, stir in to incorporate the flavors. Pour soy sauce, vinegar, bay leaves and peppercorn,cover with lid and let it simmer for 10 minutes.
4. Place Chayote for another 5 minutes, salt and pepper to taste.
5. Turn off heat and enjoy with steamed rice!

-Love-

F.Y.I- I made a different dish for J when I cooked this; that was a good thing! He's a picky eater!