Pinoy Food for Tapioca's Birthday

I know it sounds weird to be cooking Pinoy food on Chinese New Year but I did. Chinese cooking is not really my forte (as if I have any forte in cooking, LOLZ!!!). Anyway, this is about Tapioca's favorite Pinoy food and I found an easy to follow recipe courtesy of Mama Sita. I thought I'm gonna cook all three dishes by myself but my brother came up to our house, much to our surprise. Good thing cause he became my assistant the whole time I was cooking.

This post is an account of my cooking experience. I'm making a blog post on this to help me remember. Let me tell you one thing. It was the first time I tried cooking all three dishes. The cookbook was a HUGE help. But before I followed everything on the cookbook, I tried to cross-reference the recipes from other reliable cooking blogs to check if there's something I can tweak on the recipe like add an ingredient or two or try a different approach or techniques.

First dish - Caldereta.

I cooked the Caldereta first. It was super easy. I followed everything in the book from the ingredients to the procedures. The recipe uses the Mama Sita Caldereta mix therefore it did not require you to add any garlic, onions or tomatoes. However, Connie from Casa Veneracion mentioned that a good Caldereta uses a good amount of these stuff and I believe her. Also, Tapioca loves onions. So I saute a whole bunch of garlic and half a kilo of onions together with the browned  beef. As I was simmering the meat and waiting for it to become tender, I worried about the onions. There's just too much. It's like I'm making French Onion Soup. When the meat was tender, I put the sauce mix in, the potatoes, carrots, bell pepper and olives. While mixing everything up, I realized the onions suddenly vanished - like magic! Tapioca tried it and said it was perfect. He loved it! The sauce tasted like authentic Caldereta. We hardly noticed it came from an instant mix.

Second dish - Fresh Lumpia.

For the recipe, it only requires Mama Sita ginisa mix for the veggies. The grocery sold ginisa mix for a whole pack and we never use those in our kitchen. Since I'm out of onions (I used them all for the Caldereta) I went to the nearby sari-sari store and bought the Ajinomoto ginisa mix (they didn't have the Mama Sita brand). Anyway, when I sauteed all the veggies, they turned out all right. I added some fish sauce for more flavor and it came out fine. The sauce was very simple and easy to make. The recipe asked for 6 tablespoons of cornstarch. I thought it was too much and also I'm out of cornstarch. I still needed them for the wrapper. While I was boiling the sauce I thought it was not thick enough and that I should have followed the recipe. When the sauce cooled down, it turned into a really thick paste. Tapioca did not like it. I made a second batch using 2 tablespoon of cornstarch and the consistency was much better.

The wrapper was quite a challenge for me. Making the batter was easy-peasy. Cooking them was not. We only have 2 pans. Big and small. First I used the big one and I couldn't make a round wrapper. Until I had no choice I asked Tapioca to help out. He used the small pan and it worked out right. The problem was it's hard to wrap the veggies in a smaller wrapper. It breaks easily. Tapioca found a solution. He cooked the wrapper a little longer and it helped that he made it a little more thick, too. Sort of like a crepe kind of thickness. The wrapper didn't break but I was still having such a hard time wrapping it. The filling spills out from the lettuce leaf. When we're out of lettuce, it becomes easier to wrap them. Though having a lettuce leaf makes the lumpia more presentable.

Third dish - Pancit Palabok.

This was the last dish I've prepared. The Palabok I would say was easy, too. Except it requires a lot of ingredients that needs to be prepared separately such as:

- Cook the noodles.
- Boil the pork.
- Boil the shrimp.
- Boil some eggs for the toppings.
- Use the pork stock to make the sauce.
- Grind the chicharon (good thing I already bought a ready made tinapa toppings or else it would eat up my time picking up the bones.)

Yes the procedure was really easy. Just boil everything. But prep was such a hassle. Sobrang busisi! And it did not help that we only have 2 pots and pans (big and small). So what to do? No choice but wait until one of them is done cooking so I can use the pots.

Now I understand why on every fiesta or celebrations where there's a big handaan they require so many pots and pans because it's necessary to cook things faster. Did I also mention, time is key? Yes it is. Because people are waiting so they can eat because hello they are hungry and lunch time is lunch time. Because I'm being a Martha Stewart wanna be, nastress out ako ng bongga! Hahaha!

Here I am trying the best that I can to wrap the veggies as neat as possible. Promise ang hirap pala lalo na with the lettuce. My kitchen was a mess. Told ya, I was stressed!

Here's the spread . . .

That's the best I can with those lumpia. Then there's the brown sauce for the lumpia. the palabok sauce and the bowl with cover, that's the Caldereta.

In fairness, konti na lang natira. Or because ang tagal kong nagluto nagutom na mga bisita. Lol!!!

This was the cake I bought from Goldilocks . . .

. . .  and the cake innards

This one was given by Dirk . . .

Super moist chocolate cake with caramel! This cake was super yum! We always pass by Cake 2 Go on our way to work but I can't believe we never tried their products until now.

The birthday boy with his cake and the leaning brown-out candle. Hahaha!

It was a simple fare with a few friends who came to celebrate with us. Though, it was not what I would like it to be, what's important is we were together on his special day and he is recovering well.

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Chicken & Brocolli Pasta

Inspired by B'ley of Blogalag, I tried her recipe to impress Tapioca. The recipe calls for a few ingredients and easy prep. Now this is my kind of cooking. Less prep and cooking time. Perfect for lazy cooks like me.

. . . the ingredients

For the recipe and procedures, check out her blog post here.

the finish product . . .

The pasta was a little overcooked but it was okay. They say taste is subjective and I did get mix reviews about this dish. Tapioca is biased with red sauces so this didn't really work for him. Basta ako, I liked it. It was very light and healthy. I liked that it was a little spicy because of the chili flakes but the basil somehow balances out the flavor. It's good especially if you wanted something new aside from the usual white or red sauce pasta.

Funny how this was supposed to be a surprise for Tapioca but he ended up not liking it. I guess, I have to keep on trying.

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McCormick's Beef & Vegetable Stir-fry

The Domestic Goddess Jellybean is here to whip up some easy to make dishes with the help of McCormick's Stir Fry Ginisa Spice Blend. Oh, I have to mention that this is not a sponsored post. I just happened to see this recipe from Yummy Magazine. The reason I chose this dish is because:

1. Less prep and cooking time.
2. Few Ingredients.
3. Meat + veggies = complete meal.

. . . the recipe I got from Yummy Magazine

Here's what you will need:

Beef sukiyaki, baby corn, snow peas, bell pepper, mushroom, cornstarch, water, oil for frying and of course the McCormick's Stir Fry Ginisa Spice Blend. O di ba, less than 10 ingredients lang yan.

Here's what you need to do:

1. In a pan, heat a small amount of oil then stir fry the meat. Combine water and cornstarch then add the mixture to the meat. Once the meat is cooked, set aside. By the way, sukiyaki beef cut cooks fast. Do not overcook or it will become tough.

2. Using the same pan, stir fry the veggies then add the ginisa mix.

3.  Combine the meat and the veggies. Adjust seasoning. Serve.

How easy is that, huh? And as for the taste, it was yummy! Tapioca said he likes it but he would prefer I use the real thing next time. Well, I agree. But sometimes it wouldn't hurt to use something that would make our lives easier, right? Especially if you're like me who hates chopping onions and garlic.

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The Home Improvement Project

Tapioca used to live in a huge house where he rented a small room for himself. In that house, there's a common bathroom and kitchen. As you know, Tapioca likes to cook. He may love to share his cooking but never his cooking utensils, especially to his housemates. 

He kept all of his stuff inside his room and I tell ya it was not a pretty sight. His stuff was accumulating dust and everything looked so out of place. I finally convinced him to purchase an inexpensive cabinet to store and organize everything or anything that would fit in it.

We went shopping for the cabinet in Shopwise Cubao. We were able to score a deal (huge discount!) for that last piece of furniture. It was a children's closet but we figured it would be good enough. Aside from the closet we also got storage shelves na buy one take one. It was quite a steal.

Here's Tapioca assembling the shelf. I did the other one.

. . .  assembly time

viola! instant storage shelf . . .

 . . . the cabinet assembly diagram

If the shelves were a piece of cake to assemble, this cabinet was the opposite. Too many components to put all together. Tapioca couldn't expect me to do the hammering job so I got stuck with anything that can be used with a screwdriver. When it came to the part where we had to put together the big planks of wood, Tapioca and I started fighting. 

He wanted me to do things he knew I couldn't do and he's getting frustrated. Ako rin frustrated. I was like "Akala ko ba you've had carpentry job before?' and he was like "I worked in construction and I did masonry not carpentry." Yeah, yeah right. 

We're almost done na with the cabinet when we noticed its not aligned and the support was not balanced. Super bad trip. Tapioca had to redo everything. He'd removed all the nails that had been hammered already and put them again like three times. 

We're running out of nails and there's still a lot more to do. Muntik pa masira yung thin board para sa likod ng cabinet. And you know what's more upsetting? He was blaming me kaya daw di nag-align. 

Sino ba naglalagay ng pako at nagmamartilyo? Eh di ba cya naman so dapat sisihin nya sarili nya. And I'm not helping daw! Asa pa cya ako magpupukpok ng pako baka mas lalong masira yung cabinet. I knooooowwww, I'm so unsupportive. Hay, bad me.

Buti na lang our officemate was going to come over the place and offered to bring take outs. When they came ayon mejo um-okay mood namin. Gutom lang pala. By the way, here's the finished product . . .

labor of love (and hate) . . . 

This cabinet served as the pantry (where we kept the condiments, spices, sauces and canned goods) and storage for the dishes, pots and pan, and other kitchen stuff. Note the clutter in the photo. I told you this cabinet was the only thing that looked neat and organized in the room :-)

We've also put one of the shelves inside to make more divisions at the same maximize the space. The other shelf Tapioca used to store his growing collection of burned DVDs.

Next time we will  leave woodworking projects like this to the professionals para walang away.

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