Pipian

Chicken breasts are mostly what Mark's diet consists of. Whenever he's at the military camp, he usually eats boiled (or sometimes steamed) chicken breasts without even a pinch of salt or pepper. I can just imagine how sad his meal times are. So whenever he comes home on weekends, I make sure that he gets to enjoy what he eats without having to compromise his healthy growing body. :p

I've cooked grilled chicken for him several times already and I prepared Chicken Broccoli for him just recently, so those were definitely out of my list. I remember him requesting me to cook something with tomatoes and  so Chicken Cacciatore was what topped my head.

Cacciatore means "hunter" in Italian. In cuisine, it refers to a meal prepared "hunter-style" with tomatoes, onions, and herbs, and is popularly made with braised chicken. Chicken Cacciatore is a dish in itself, but it may also be paired with pasta or even with rice. Fancy and complicated as it may seem, Chicken Cacciatore is very easy to make. Let me share with you guys my version. :)

Chicken Cacciatore over Whole Wheat Fusilli

Ingredients:

2 450g-packs boneless skinless chicken breast halves

8 pcs medium-sized ripe tomatoes, cut into cubes

2 tbsp ground black pepper (for sauce) and another 1 tsp (for chicken) 1 tbsp olive oil for frying

2 tbsp fresh parsley, finely-chopped 1 250g-can whole button mushrooms, thinly-sliced 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 medium-sized onion, chopped 2 tbsp dried oregano 2 tbsp honey whole wheat fusilli or brown rice

I've been living away from home for almost a month now.  It's actually my first time in 28 years to be away from my family. And because of that, I have no choice but to do everything, house chores specifically, all on my own. If there's one chore that I love doing the most, it's definitely cooking! And even though I'm not accustomed to being alone and doing everything by myself, I still find joy in it because I get to cook every single day, especially on weekends when I get to cook for Mark. :D

While cooking is really a no-brainer task for me, cooking for a bodybuilder is another thing. I always have to improvise and know healthier alternatives to usual ingredients that 'normal' people eat. :p Here's one of the 'healthy' dishes that I've cooked for Mark. :p

Chicken Broccoli

Printable Recipe: Chicken Broccoli

Ingredients:

450g chicken breast fillet, cut into strips

2 cloves garlice, minced 1 medium-sized white onion, cubed (red onion may also be used) 1 can button mushrooms, drained and sliced 1 medium-sized broccoli, cut into florets

2 tbsp honey 3 tbsp oyster sauce 1 tsp soy sauce 1 tbsp olive oil 1 tbsp ground black pepper

It's been a while since I got to update my blog again. My last post was actually 3 weeks ago. -_- I'm just busy with some things lately that I can't even squeeze in a little time to write, but I'm still very glad and thankful that the traffic in my blog did not decrease. I'm even getting offers from advertisers on my blog. Thanks to my recipe posts! And so, here, I'm posting a recipe once again. :D


Pork Estofado is a stewed pork dish which is somewhat comparable to pork adobo and patatim--with vinegar, soy sauce, and garlic as the main ingredients--but the use of fried plantains makes this dish distinct. Aside from fried plantains, some recipes also use carrots and pineapple, but I grew up having my dad's version with fried pandesal.

Posting this recipe (another long overdue post) for my girl friend, Cat. :) Oh I'm such an inefficient blogger, I know, I know. *sigh* But I hope I can somehow make it up to her and of course to all of you, my dear readers, with this mouth-watering and easy-to-prepare dish. :)

It's actually a recipe of my sister, Gia. We made this for snacks a few weekends back. I instantly fell in love with Pizza Hut's Crab Salad Roll when Gia brought home some. Those lettuce, cucumber, and crab meat wrapped in rice wrapper, oh and that yummy dip, all made me crave for it days after, so Gia and I decided to make our own version one weekend afternoon.

Pizza Hut's version didn't have mangoes in it and used rice wrapper, unfortunately my homemade rice wrapper didn't turn out as expected so we just did away with it and used tortilla instead. We also included ripe mangoes for an added twist. :)

Crab Salad Tortilla Roll

Beef Caldereta is one of my Daddy's specialties which the whole family loves. I've tried different versions of this dish, but nothing still compares to my Daddy's caldereta. :D


I'm fond of just watching my Daddy cook especially the dishes which I haven't tried cooking yet. Though I'm not really sure if he also used liver spread and butter, it turned out to be a hit when I tried cooking Beef Caldereta for the first time. Got to cook this dish once again just a few months back, posted the photo of it online, and I've been getting requests for the recipe since then.

The Christmas season is over and indeed 2014 has just started, but hey, we've only got a couple of months left before summer here in the Philippines. Oh how time flies! But I guess the weather's having a hard time catching up. :p Yup, it's been so cold since last December and it's getting colder by the day. I also heard we will still be experiencing a lot colder weather in the coming months. Brrrrr!

Windbreakers and blankets do come in handy, but is there a better way to keep yourself warm than enjoying a hot bowl of soup on a cold weather? Aside from Arroz Caldo, here's another family favorite that's perfect for the cold weather. Sharing with you this recipe, which I learned of course from my dad. :)

Lomi

Printable Recipe: Lomi

While daddy can cook almost every dish including those with the most complicated recipes and procedures, Gia on the other hand does it well in cooking easy-peasy yet very mouth-watering dishes!

Just like last weekend when Gia decided to make Beef Tacos for our snacks. Complicated as the dish seems, Gia did it in a breeze and got that authentic Mexican taste with the help of her secret ingredient.

Wanna know what that ingredient is? Read on! :D

Beef Tacos

Weekends are almost everybody's favorite days of the week. I for one love weekends, especially weekends at home, because I get to be with my whole family. And when the family's all complete, it just means one thing...weekend feast! Courtesy of course of my daddy dear :)

Aside from lunch feasts, we also get to enjoy the products of daddy's cooking prowess during snack time. Just like last Saturday when daddy cooked homemade hamburgers for our snacks. He was actually craving for Jollibee Champ and we were supposed to have a drive-thru. But since daddy doesn't get easily satisfied with fast food, he decided to make his own. Well I guess that's just really how it goes when you know how to cook scrumptious dishes! :p


Here's an easy-to-prepare recipe of my daddy's juicy-licious burger patties that will surely satisfy both your palates and your tummies! :-p~

Nope, I wasn't on a blogging hiatus. I was just busy (the happy kind of busy) with something for the past weeks. I will share the details on my next posts so watch out for it. :D

I have quite a number of posts about our family feasts here in this blog and more often than not, Ginataang Alimango is always included in the menu. I've been receiving messages and emails requesting me to post the recipe, but since it's my dad who always cooks, I don't really get to take pictures for the recipe.


Luckily, a couple of weekends back, I was able to finally cook Ginataang Alimango for the first time, of course using the recipe that I learned from no less than my dad. :)

I'm just so happy I have to post this haha! I cooked Beef Caldereta for lunch yesterday and it was a hit! Yay!

It was actually my first time to cook this dish and I'm glad my family loved it. Even my baby brother, Jaoey, who's a picky eater, enjoyed it! :D I posted this photo on my Instagram and Facebook accounts and it got a lot of 'likes'.


Quoting my sister Gia's comment: "Hit! Anghang! Sarap!" ("Hit! Spicy! Delicious!"), I can now say that my first time was successful. All their satisfied smiles, compliments, and burps were priceless! :)

I intentionally didn't take photos of the ingredients and cooking procedures, since it's just my first time to cook this, but I will definitely cook this again and will post the recipe soon! :D

Update:
January 27, 2014 - Please click HERE for the Beef Caldereta recipe. :D

kriskamarie   sweetnothings.kriskamarie
kriskamarie   kriskamarie

When we were planning for the Mother's Day and Jaoey's 11th Birthday celebration, daddy asked if we could make a Graham refrigerated cake. And Gia and I, being very much excited for it, gladly obliged. :)

We've already made refrigerated cakes before with fruit cocktails and peaches, so we decided to use mangoes this time. And since we're also adding in some cheddar cheese, we coined its name as Queso Mango Float. Here's another recipe to satisfy your sweet tooth!

Queso Mango Float