06.30.08
Posted in Uncategorized, cooking at 7:58 am by Administrator
For my sister’s birthday, she asked my youngest son, Aaron, if he would cook something for her as a birthday present. She knows that Aaron likes to cook, so this was one way of encouraging him to share his cooking abilities. (I noticed his eyes perk up when he was asked to do this, hee, hee). What to cook was left entirely up to him. The dish he chose was pancit, a Filipino dish made up of glass noodles, veggies, and meat. He had never cooked it before, so I suggested that he make a practice run of it and taste it first. I helped him in that first run since making pancit has several steps involved, and I tend to be an eyeball cook more than a measuring one. The results were very good. So, I figured he was ready enough to fly solo and prepare it for someone else. I had taken a picture of his first run, but never got around to posting it up here. However, last Friday was the day he actually cooked pancit for my sister, so I took another picture of his second go at it. I am rather tickled at how well he manages in the kitchen, so I’m sharing a pic of his creation here. This time he prepared everything himself, although he did consult me along the way. But hands on was all him. He was too shy to be in the pic cuz he had an inkling that I was going to put it on my blog. So here’s his pancit.
Not bad for a 14-year-old. All the ingredients are organic except the glass noodles. It’s a bit difficult to find organic glass noodles, and the only place that I know of that carries it charges an arm and a leg for a tiny package of it (about $7 for a small fraction of what is shown in the dish above). So we compromised and bought the regular glass noodles from a Thai market. The price was much more reasonable. The above dish used up 1/2 the package which cost about $3. The ingredients to the pancit are glass noodles, 1/2 chicken breast, about 5 jumbo shrimp, about 1/4 pound pork, a stick of carrot, a stick of celery, about 1/4 of a cabbage head, a few cloves of garlic (part for frying the meats and part for frying the veggies), green onion, 2 hard boiled eggs, a couple lemons from our tree, pepper, paprika, salt, and the chicken broth from the 1/2 chicken breast. I like to cook onions in my broth. And I use the pork fat to stir fry the veggies before the noodles are added in. For anyone interested in cooking this, know that the glass noodles should be soaked in water first before frying. They tend to come very long, so it helps to cut it up for easier eating.
Great job, Aaron! Keep it up.
Marlakins
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06.03.08
Posted in Uncategorized, cooking at 9:44 am by Administrator
I’m generally pretty good with my diet. That is, I pretty much stick to *my* tailored diets, although some people may not think my diet is very healthful, ha! But because of certain health conditions I’ve had, my diet has been a bit odd at times. An example is the things I tend to eat for breakfast. If you’ve followed along with my blog, you may notice that my breakfasts consists of foods that are similar to lunch and dinner. The reason for that is I’ve been avoiding grains for quite some time, which unfortunately means no rice, no pancakes, no waffles, no cereals, no breads. . . As my health has appeared to improve, I have managed to re-introduce some foods that I had been avoiding such as pastry flour and pinto beans. So far so good. However, while on vacation I broke the “bread” fast. . . I couldn’t help it, bread is my weakness. I tried to at least stick to whole grains, and decided to go with rye flour. Interestingly, I seemed to do well with it! And since I know that I seem to do well with pastry flour, too, my youngest son and I came up with our own bread recipe. Aaron, my youngest son, likes to cook, thank God! I suggested the ingredients, and he recommended the amounts of each. Of course, I recommended to cut down on the amount of sucanat, but overall I was happy with the way our recipe turned out. We’ve decided to name the recipe “AM Buns.” A for Aaron and M for Marla/Mom. Here’s what our first batch looked like when they came out of the oven yesterday. I think the brownish color comes from the sucanat? Not sure. . . Oh what am I thinking??!! The rye likely is giving it the darker color. . .
Well, I know they’re not as pretty as Kath’s breads or as fluffly. . . , but I thought they tasted decent for my standards, ha! The other boys in my family liked them, so that was also a good sign. This morning I cooked up another batch to see if they were repeatable or just a fluke. I’m happy to say that they came out, again! One plus is that these don’t need rising time. Just mix and chuck in to the oven. So here’s the recipe:
AM Buns
preheat oven to 400F and butter 2 cookie sheets
2 heaping cups organic whole wheat pastry flour
2 heaping cups organic whole rye flour
2 tbsps baking powder (used Rumford which advertises no aluminum)
a big pinch of sea salt
1/3 cup sucanat
1/3 cup organic sesame seeds
Mix all dry ingredients. Add spring water to mix the ingredients. Sorry that I haven’t measured the exact amt of water, but mix it to the consistency of cookie dough (not too dry). Shape into even balls almost the size of your palms and flatten out a tad. Score the tops and dust with pastry flour, then bake at 400F for 20 minutes. Serve with butter and/or whatever else you like to spread on bread! 
Enjoy!
Marlakins
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03.17.08
Posted in Uncategorized, cooking at 9:36 pm by Administrator
Looks like I’ve got a few moments to make my part two of some Filipino food. It appears that I don’t have as many more food pics as I thought, but here’s a few meat dishes.
The dish front and center is pork feet cooked adobo style. Chicken is commonly used for adobo, too. Basically, you take chicken or pork and cook it in vinegar, soy sauce, bay leaf, and pepper corns. The dish back and center look like just meatballs with carrot slices. The other dishes off on the sides were beef dishes. Some cooked with potatoes, some with bell peppers, some with tomatoes.
This egg is technically *not* a Filipino food, but I took a picture of it because I’ve only had it when visiting the Philippines. I had it this trip and also the previous trip years ago. It’s a wedge of a century egg. Century eggs are duck eggs that are preserved in charcoal and lime. Actually pretty yummy. This link has more information on century eggs, if interested, http://www.chinesefood-recipes.com/chinese_egg_recipes/chinese_egg_recipes.php Here’s a short exerpt from the link:
“Lime-preserved eggs are the so-called 100-year-old eggs, which are best when about 100 days old. The lime has a petrifying effect, making the egg look like it has been buried for at least a century. The black outer shell is removed to expose an amber-colored white and dark golden yolk. The egg has a pungent cheese-like flavor. Chicken eggs are 
most often used, though duck and goose eggs can be substituted. I personally prefer the tastier duck egg version. Hundred-year eggs can be found in Chinese markets and will keep at room temperature (under 70ºF) for up to two weeks or can be refrigerated up to a month; usually eaten uncooked, for breakfast or as an appetizer. Soy sauce or minced ginger makes a good accompaniment. Also called century egg, thousand-year egg and Ming Dynasty egg.”
Fortunately, there’s lots of food in the Philippines. Actually, the variety of foods to eat there rival the variety of foods we have available here. Not surprisingly, since eating and siesta is very much a part of the Filipino culture. 
However, I did notice that the more specialty foods like French, American, and Italian were more costly such as this dish I had at Mezzaluna. This was their duck confit with portabello mushrooms in a flaky crust. Quite yummy. . . And while I didn’t splurge on desserts, I did splurge on my weakness. . . bread, oye, oye. . . There was tasty bread everywhere. Why didn’t I take any pictures of the bread? I don’t know, I was probably too busy eating it! But I did take some pictures of some of the desserts my family was eating. These are actually Filipino desserts and drinks. This is halo halo. Translated into English it literally means “mix, mix.”
This halo halo has fruit, beans, jello, shaved ice and ice cream. When it is served, it comes with a small amount of half and half milk which is poured over the dessert as it is eaten.
Another similar type of Filipino dessert is maise con jelo, which translated into English is “corn with ice.” It is also a bit sweet and it too comes with a small serving of syrup which is poured over the dessert as it is eaten.
There are quite a lot of Filipino desserts, which unfortunately, I didn’t take pictures of. Sigh. When I was a kid I loved bibinka and puto. Leche flan is also a favorite. I think it may have come from the Spanish, tho, when they occupied the Philippines. That’s my guess because flan is also popular in Mexican restaurants, too. Umm, and that reminds me of creme brulee, which is French, so I’m not really sure how leche flan came to be. But creme brulee is also a very similar type of dessert.
Aside from desserts, there are also drinks. These below are pandan. It’s basically a cold tea made from pandan leaves. The red portion on the bottom is jello.
And that’s about all the food pictures I took. Shame because there are so many other yummy Filipino dishes that have been left out. Sadly, I don’t feel that I’ve done justice to the Filipino fare, sigh. But oh well, maybe next time. And I do hope there is a next time because I would really like to go back again.
Marlakins
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03.10.08
Posted in Uncategorized, cooking at 11:31 pm by Administrator
Anyone who follows my blog probably realizes that I like to take pictures. When I take a trip, the habit increases exponentially. So not surprisingly, I took pictures of some of the food we ate. Strangely, I didn’t take more of them because there were a lot of different dishes that would have lent themselves to a bit of commentary. I’m guessing I was to anxious to dig in that I forgot to take pictures. But I did manage to take some pictures, although they aren’t the best quality. Actually, they’re even pretty blurry, yikes! But perhaps they’re clear enough to get the gist of what there was to eat. Strangely, a lot of these were noodle dishes, but that’s not what we ate most of the time, ha! I guess I just haven’t had much noodles in a while that that day I went crazy ordering noodle dishes.
So following will be pictures of the kinds of foods that are commonly eaten in the Philippines. This by no means covers anything close to what they serve, and honestly, I do miss their food. This is sotanghog gisado.
As I mentioned, this isn’t the clearest of pictures, so I’ll describe it a bit. It’s basically stir fried veggies and shrimp over glass noodles. These particular noodles are called “sotanghong.” I believe they are made out of mung beans. Another way it’s cooked that I really like is in a chicken based soup. First you boil up some chicken with the bones, then in a separate skillet minced garlic is fired in oil. When the garlic starts to brown, the chicken pieces are added in, then the chicken broth and noodles. Add salt and pepper to taste, and enough paprika to give it a nice yellow color. Top with sliced scallions. But back to the picture, those two round green balls off to the top right corner of the picture are calamanci. I thin that’s how it’s spelled. I don’t know what it’s called here in the U.S., but it’s like a cross between an orange and lemon. When you’re ready to eat the noodle dish, you squeeze that juice out of those little green balls, kinda like how you squeeze lemon over broiled fish. The above dish has a veggie mix of sliced carrots, cabbage, mushroom, and snow peas.
Oh, and one other thing. One the very bottom of the picture the place mat can be seen. If it’s not too blurry perhaps the word “Maynila” can be read. That is actually what the Filipinos called Manila. But since we aren’t the ones who make the maps, ha!, Maynila ended up on the maps as “Manila.”
Now I did say that I went crazy with the noodle dishes, so here’s another one. This one is called Pancit Palabok.
This is also made with glass noodles, but not always. Different kinds of noodles can be used, thick or thin, but they are generally the clear types. I think the shrimps and egg slices are pretty clear to see. Another one of those calamanci balls is off on the edge of the plate. The sauce over the noodles is like a gravy. That’s the palabok. I found a recipe online as an example of the ingredients:
Ingredients:
* 1/2 kilo of white and round miki (NOODLES)
Garnishing:
* squid adobo (pusit)
* flaked fish meat (tinapa)
* pork sitsaron, coarsely pounded
* powdered pork sitsaron
* fried minced garlic
* cooked shrimps, shelled
* hard boiled eggs, sliced
* chopped springs onions
Palabok:
* 1/2 kilo fresh small crabs (possibly w/soft shell)
* 1 large onion, chopped finely
* 4 cloves garlic, minced
* 3 tbsp. cornstarch
* 1 1/2 cups water
* 3 tbsp. atchuete seeds or 2 tbsp. atchuete oil
* 2 tbsp. patis
* 1 tsp. vetsin
The rest of the instructions can be found here: http://www.recipesdatabase.com/recipedetail.aspx?id=801 Yum, I love these noodles. . .
Here’s another noodle dish called Pancit Canton. These are generally egg noodles. The noodles themselves appear yellow rather than white or clear.
Pancit Canton is cooked similarly to the sotanghong gisado. Only this dish has strips of chicken and a couple meat balls on top. There are a lot of other Filipino dishes such as meats and soups. One of my favorite soups is kare kare. I know the ingredients may sound bit strange, but I think it’s just lovely! Heheh. This soup is made with peanut butter. The main meat is usually oxtail with tripe. The common veggies that is cooked in this soup is eggplant, green beans, and bok choy or napa cabbage. 
Here is a small bowl of it.
Those yellow strips look like mango strips. I don’t usually see that in there, but then again there was quite a bit of food that was kinda new to me. I’ve had quite a bit of Filipino food in my life, but going back to the Philippines, I found there was a lot more that I had never had. For instance, we went to a Filipino restaurant called, Abe. That means friends. This restaurant served food which is primarily from the Pampanga region. That’s actually the province my mom is from. One Filipino dish that I really like is dela (I think that’s how it’s spelled!) What that is is tongue. The Mexican’s have their tongue dish called lengua, which I also really like. Anyway, this one restaurant served the dela in a pot pie style. And wow! Was it delicious! That was the first time I’d ever had it like that. 
Okay, so here’s another dish that I think is kinda new and not something I remember having as a child. It’s called sisig. And this is what it looks like. I believe they have chicken sisig and pork. This one pictured is pork and it has pork cracklings on top. This is a spicy dish and has red peppers mixed it there.
Okay, so it’s getting late and I want to wrap this up soon, so I’ll just share one more dish that is the popular dish at the Aristocrat Restaurant, BBQ chicken. Their rice is their own little blend, which includes little bits of veggies and a little ground beef. They also include a side of their local pickled veggies. Here’s what it looks like.
I think I’ll continue next time with a part 2 because I really like food and might as well share these pics since I’ve got them. But for now, the sandman is calling me.
Nite!
Marlakins zzzzzzzzz. . .
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11.15.07
Posted in Anything goes, Uncategorized, cooking, knitting and crocheting at 8:23 pm by Administrator
Yesterday Brian was in the mood to bake. Oh boy, oh boy! Aside from the mess he makes when he takes over the kitchen, I love it when he’s in the mood to cook because he’s actually pretty good at it. Yesterday he cooked pumpkin pie! Which reminded me that there was a guy we met at the market who asked us what we were going to do with the pumpkins. . . Eh, make pie? He seemed surprised that we were actually using real pumpkins, ha ha! It dawned on me that some people don’t make their own pies, and some that say they make their own pies only buy the ready made pie crusts and pumpkin filling from a can. Basically, they open a can, dump the contents into the ready-made crust, then bake. Instant pie! So, since I got to sit back and fool around while he cooked, I took some pictures of his ingredients:
We prefer to make things from scratch if possible, including the pie crusts. Usually we use whole wheat for the crust, but this time Brian wanted to try buckwheat. The first step is to bake the pumpkins. We cut them open and scrape out the seeds. We bake the seeds in a separate dish so that we can eat them later. This is what the pumpkins looked like after they were baked. The baked seeds are in the dish off to the left.
After the pumpkins are baked, they are blended up with the ingredients to make the filling. This is what Brian’s pies looked like after they came out of the oven:
I know we had more pie dishes, but they seem to disappear. I’m thinking we leave them at other places like my mom’s house when we take stuff over there. Sometimes I end up with some of her dishes, and she ends up with some of our dishes, ha ha! So Brian used one of our rectangular dishes to use make up the rest of the pies. While Brian was working on those, I decided to continue working on the gansey I was making for Matthew. This is how it looked:
I was able to get the second arm on. I thought I was done, but I’m thinking that I want to add a few more inches at the bottom. It turned out a tad shorter than I would like, so after I get that one, I’ll take another picture. But in the meantime, it’s pretty much done! My very first full-sized gansey! AND it is my very own design, too! The pattern on the table was my guide, but I had to change most of the pattern due to the gauge of yarn. Then I found that the pattern actually has two mistakes! I worked it out after much frustration, but now I know better. Anyway, here’s what it looks like now.
I didn’t even finish the gansey before Brian already put in a request for me to knit up for him. This is what it looked like when I got started on it.
Can’t tell what it is? How ’bout now?
Well that’s what it looked like last night. Below is what it looks like now. But Brian hasn’t seen it, yet. Shhhhhh.
It’s a knitted dickey that he requested. I saw a picture of one like on the net, and made my own pattern. I hope he likes it. It’s still sitting on the table, so he should see it when he gets in. I’ve actually never owned one of these before, but it’s what he wanted, ha!–A knitted dickey to keep his neck warm when he goes out at night. It’s made of organic merino wool from Treliske in New Zealand. It’s not dyed, so that’s the natural wool color. I guess here in LA a full sweater is just too hot! Matthew’s gonna burn up in his new gansey. . . But he asked for it! And I sure had fun knitting it up, heheh. So now I’m off to work on my other projects. I’ve got a few going on right now. Will report back on those later.
Okay, time for dinner!
Marlakins 
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06.02.07
Posted in Anything goes, Uncategorized, cooking at 12:52 pm by Administrator
It appears that my 13-year-old enjoys cooking. Lucky me! Well, kinda. Although the things he’s whipping up in the kitchen are tasty, I don’t know how much longer I can keep “tasting” before my butt and thighs start making thunder, ha! I’m hoping he’ll start getting into cooking main dishes more than just pastries.
His second cooking endeavor were cinnamon rolls. . . ummm. And yes, they tasted “uummm.” Even his brothers are now asking him when he’s going to make more cinnamon rolls. We have already demolished them, but I snapped a picture of Aaron’s first batch before we dove in. This time he found a recipe on the internet from Videojug. That link lists all the ingredients and has a step-by-step video as well for the cinnamon rolls. Aaron just used organic ingredients and used rapadura instead of regular sugar. It tasted very good! The next recipe he seems to be eyeballing are Chinese dumplings. Hmmm. I don’t know of any place that sells organic wraps, so he’s testing out making his own from scratch, oye! Anyway, that’s for next time, maybe. . . In the meantime, “Bon appetit!”
Marlakins
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