START THE NEW YEAR WITH A SMILE

Okay..........

It's my birthday!!! It's my birthday and it is a fresh and new year for me!  

My day started with a smile... a BIG smile from a big yellow cake my cousin gave me.

Ginataang Kalabasa at Sitaw: Squash and String Beans in Coconut Milk

Ginataang Kalabasa at Sitaw with Garlic Rice

Okay, I don't really know how to call this dish in English but that's the closest thing my mind can "translate" it into. Anyway, I did not cook this dish.  I have only made that huge mound of garlic rice on the plate.  My father cooked the ginataang kalabasa and I'll try to cook it one day soon.

I once have heard that "the best chefs in the world are men" and though I believe we women are catching up, I would still agree that some men do cook well.  My father is no chef but I do believe he cooks better than most of us here at home.  I asked him how he cooked this and he told me how he did it but he's betting that I wouldn't be able to make it because I don't know how to prepare the coconut milk.  Hahahaha! I asked him to cut that out from the whole process so here goes, I'm sharing his cooking directions!

Ginataang Kalabasa at Sitaw

• Sauté garlic, onions and ginger.  Add coconut milk (2nd extraction, gata) and simmer until it smells good! (awwww)

• Add sliced squash and string beans.  When vegetables are half done, add the coconut cream (1st extraction, kakang gata) and let it simmer until the vegetables are tender.  At this point you could also add dried salted fish to add flavor to the dish.  If you would prefer a vegetarian version, skip the dried fish and season with salt instead. Add a dash of pepper to add more zing to the dish!   

• When the dish is done, eat it while it's still warm with rice. :-D

Ginisang Ampalaya: Sauteed Bitter Melon

it's a bitter(sweet) symphony

Ampalaya or bitter melon is a fruit that has a lot of benefits.  Ampalaya can be consumed as food yet nowadays it has become more popular for its medicinal effects especially as an anti-diabetic.  Here in the Philippines, there are some vegetable dishes that include the bitter zing of the ampalaya to make the dishes an amalgam of flavors.

I love ampalaya.  Even though it is bitter, if it is cooked the right way, it wouldn't be as bitter as first perceived.  I love ampalaya cooked with eggs but for this recipe I decided to leave out the eggs and make this dish sort of vegetarian.

In order to make ginisang ampalaya, the following ingredients are needed:

ampalaya/bitter melon, sliced thinly
garlic, minced
onions, chopped
tomatoes, chopped
salt
pepper
oil

What I did was heat about a tablespoon of oil in a pan and sautéed the garlic, onions, and tomatoes.  I then added the sliced ampalaya and immediately added salt and pepper and cooked it until the ampalaya became a bit wilted from the heat.  That's all!  It's best served with freshly steamed rice!

Ginisang ampalaya is a healthy dish and it is so easy to prepare you have to try it out!

Binignit, Init!

a burst of colors and flavors!

During cold nights, it is so easy to crave for something warm and homey and it just turns out that I am craving for binignit!  I don't know how folks would call this native Filipino dish in English but what I am only aware of is that it is made of rootcrops, bananas, and sago pearls cooked in diluted coconut milk and sugar.

I haven't tried preparing binignit on my own yet.  This one on the pic was made by somebody else and I couldn't wait to have a taste while it was cooking in the kitchen....and it's really, really good!!!!

Picadillo Dreaming

ground meat and veggies

Picadillo is a traditional Latin American meat dish which also has a Philippine version made out of ground meat and vegetables.  In the Philippines, this dish is better known as giniling (ground/minced) not only for the ground meat used but also for the finely chopped vegetables.

The picadillo you see on this post is a product of my own recipe.  I bought ground beef and a pack of frozen vegetables (carrots, peas, corn) from the grocery and cooked them up and came up with this!  What I did was sauteed onions and garlic and added the meat and stock and cooked it until it became tender.  I added the frozen vegetables and potatoes that I have diced, and seasoned the dish with salt and pepper.  When the picadillo was done,  I scooped some on top of steaming rice!  The rest is history... How I wish I could have some right now... 

Until then, I'll just be picadillo dreaming...

EXOTIC FOOD CHRONICLES: DINUGUAN AT PUTO

Bloody yummy!

Dinuguan is a dish made out of pork meat and innards, chili, spices, and pig's blood.  For people who get faint upon knowing that blood is part of the recipe, they might faint once again when they taste this concoction.  It's so BLOODY yummy!  Anti-meat and anti-blood eating people might cringe at the thought of eating food made up of a poor slaughtered animal with its blood included an unholy and inhumane act but for those who know that it's all part of survival and foodie-hood it's something that should not be missed!

Dinuguan is best served hot with puto, a kind of rice cake/muffin that is best dipped into the saucy dish.  The dinuguan in this photo was cooked by somebody I know so I am aware that all the ingredients were cleaned well before they were cooked.  For those who instantly want dinuguan and puto here in the Philippines but don't know if they could trust the quality of the ingredients, Goldilocks is one of those places where good food and D&P can be found.  

Halloween could be bloody and yummy at the same time...grab some dinuguan and puto NOW!

Modern Toilet: Go Ahead, Bowl Over!

Toilet seat covers, urinals, bathroom tiles, toilet bowls...the essence of Modern Toilet!

I dunno if this post might affect the other posts since this is unlike the usual stuff I post here.  Anyway, the photos are filtered so I do hope you wouldn't bowl over and get grossed out!

Modern Toilet is a bizarre chain of themed restaurants which can be found in Taiwan and Hong Kong.  The one I have been to is in Mongkok, HK and since I have already read up and searched about the appearance of the resto, I wasn't too surprised when we were welcomed with toilet seat covers and urinals for wall decor and toilet bowls for seats!  There's always some hype when you have heard of something quite popular and would want to go there out of sheer curiosity.  Modern Toilet is really unusual but for those who get squeamish and have no knack for toilet humor, then this kind of resto is not for you!

We have just arrived in the city and just dropped our things at the hotel, then ran the sidewalks and rode the MTR just to get to Modern Toilet on time. They cancel reservations if you are beyond five minutes late!  When we were seated and given copies of the menu, the language barrier kicked in since we didn't understand a thing.  There were names of the the food in English but we had to ask the local friend Mr W who served as the official travel guide about the food.  It was his first time there too so he had no idea which ones tasted good.  So, like poo, we didn't really know what we were going to get!   

It was a fun place but the food was not totally great!

To get the palates rolling, tomato soup was served; it was quite good and the toasted bread went well with it.  Next on the table (which was a glass top that had a ceramic sink as base) was the entrée (if you can call it that) and it was composed of dry stuff served in soap dishes.  I can remember the the deep-fried breaded lemon chicken and that meaty stuff shaped in balls tasted good and the dip was sort of sweet and spicy.  We had a few sips of our drinks in small urinals!  I never expected that servings were huge and I had a hard time eating too because I haven't practiced my chopstick skills prior to the trip!  I have also tried the salad but didn't dwell on it.  I felt I was already starting to get full and we haven't had the main course yet!

K and I order the same thing for our "main dish" and we expected it to taste good.  I can't remember what it was exactly (let me check the menu snapshot). I guess it must be Japanese Barbecued Pork in Milky Broth.  Mr W and F ordered Spare Ribs and then we ate.  Actually there was a slight delay because the waitresses didn't seem to get the orders right even if Mr W spoke to them in their language.

I will never have this again! Hahahaha!

After eating the meat and trying to slurp some of the noodles and chew some of the corn kernels, I realized what I was eating wasn't really good.  It may taste good to some but it didn't suit my tastebuds.  Hahaha!  It has milk broth! What was I thinking??? I am lactose intolerant!!!  Anyway, I ate about half of it and decided to stop or I might gag...

Mousse for the sweet tooth!

Dessert was okay.  Some mousse slices that tasted great.  The yellow one at the bottom of the pic had a lemony taste!  We were already full (and slightly irked) so we didn't get to order the famous poo-shaped ice cream. Hahaha! Mr W paid for dinner and gave the waitresses a piece of his mind.  Then we went off into the night and strolled the streets of Kowloon, thinking that Modern Toilet was a fun albeit shitty experience!

The Modern Toilet logo: Female and Male Toilet Symbols...and the so-called Shit Lamp hanging from the ceiling