Kid Friendly Meal: Mixed Vegetables (A Lazy Cook's Chopsuey)

This is the second post for kid friendly recipe. This is actually a quick version of the famous chopsuey. I omitted the meat and shrimps, because that's the usual left over when we eat chopsuey...weird huh?

Actually, I don't know how to cook chopsuey. After searching the recipe from the internet, i found out the recipe that you'll find in this post is easier to make than the traditional recipe. I am not saying that this is another way to cook chopsuey, but the result looks like chopsuey..and it's the sauce that made this different from the traditional one.

Instead of using cornstarch to thicken the sauce, I used mushroom soup. Yes...the mushroom soup added twist to the dish.

Ingredients
1 medium sized carrot, sliced
1 medium sized chayote, sliced
half a head of cauliflower, cut into small florets
1 bell pepper, julienned
about 10 strings of Baguio beans
1/4 cabbage, cut into big strips
1/2 can of mushroom soup
1/2 cup water
salt and pepper
2 cloves garlic
1 medium sized onion



Procedure
1. Saute onion and garlic in oil until onion turned transluscent.
2. Add chayote, carrots and bell pepper. Saute for 1-2 minutes.
3. Add the water and the mushroom soup, mix until the two liquids are well incorporated. Simmer until the vegetables are half cooked.
3. Add the cauliflower and Baguio beans. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer until you achieved the desired doneness of the vegetables.
4. If the sauce became too thick, add a little water.

Serve hot!

Kid Friendly Meal: Cheesy Vegetables

My last two posts will be about vegetables. These are my boys' favorite and again, super easy to make and I'm sure your family will also like these, specially your picky eaters.

The first one is the Cheesy Vegetables. Everyone I know loves cheese and that includes my family! I got this recipe from my mom-in-law, and I introduced this to my son, as soon as he learned how to eat solid food. 

This recipe is basically just a buttered vegetable. The addition of the cheese made this dish kid friendly. 

Best served with fried dishes and rice.

Ingredients

1 large carrot, cut in cubes

1 large potato, cut in cubes

half of a medium sized head of cauliflower, cut into small florets.

about 10 pieces, Baguio beans, cut into thirds

2-3 tbsps butter

about half a cup of grated cheddar cheese

salt, adjust according to taste

Procedure

1. Steam carrot and potato. When half cooked, add the cauliflowers and baguio beans. Transfer the vegetables into a bowl once you achieved the desired doneness of the vegetables. I like our's to be half cooked.

2. While the vegetables are steaming hot, add the butter and season with little salt. You have to go easy on the salt, since cheese will still be added. We do not want to have salty veggies, right?

3. Add the grated cheese, mix until well incorporated...you can add more if you like!

4. Taste and adjust the salt.

That's my son's plate in the picture. The vegetable was served with the humble galunggong.

Homemade Ghirardelli Ice Cream

I made ice cream when I was 9. It was a vanilla ice cream made with coconut milk, powdered and condensed milk and vanilla extract. It turned out OK but a bit...errr...salty. hahaha! But my dad said it was delicious or maybe because he didn't want to hurt his little bunso's feeling hehehhe!


After 22 years, I tried making the ice cream again. I searched for the best recipe (i think!) and i decided to try chocolate ice cream. I used Ghirardelli baking chocolate (a padala from my sister) and it really did wonder to the ice cream promise! Sorry, but i think I browsed from too many sites and i forgot where i got this recipe...


Hey! making a homemade ice cream is not a joke, especially if you do not have an ice cream maker (argh!). You will need at least 3 hours before you'll have a taste of it. You need to freeze-beat, freeze-beat every 40 minutes. But who cares, I enjoyed the whole process! heheheh!


Try this and give your kids a treat!


This recipe can fill a 700ml ice cream tub.


Ingredients



1 cup of milk
2 tbsp cocoa powder
3/4 cup of sugar
1/4 tsp salt
3 egg yolks
3 oz bittersweet Ghirardelli baking chocolates, chopped (semi-sweet chocolates will do great too!)
2 cups cream, I used all purpose cream.
1 tsp vanilla


Procedure


Before doing this, you will need to chill a stainless wide and shallow pan or bowl.


1. Combine milk, cocoa powder, sugar and salt in a saucepan over medium heat and bring to simmer.


2. Place the yolks into a bowl and gradually mix half of the hot chocolate liquid. At this point, you need to continuously beat the egg yolks to prevent it from curdling. (I think this is what they call tempering of eggs -- so it wont curdle and you won't end up with scrambled egg.)


3. Return the egg yolks mix to the milk mix and continue heating until thick. It should cover the back of the spoon. Do not boil the mixture.


4. Remove from heat and stir in the chopped chocolate. Pour the mixture into the chilled bowl and refrigerate (do not freeze) for 2hrs until cold.


5. When the chocolate has completely cooled, add the cream and vanilla and mix it thoroughly with an electric mixer or with a wire whisk.


6. Freeze the ice cream. When the ice are beginning to form at the side of the pan, take it out from the freezer and beat it. Put it back to the freezer. Beat it again after 40 minutes. Repeat the freeze-beat process 3 times.


7. Once you achieved the creamy texture of the ice crea, transfer it to an ice cream tub and freeze until ready to serve.

Budget Meal: Spaghetti ala Pobre

Spaghetti ala Pobre? I added "ala pobre" because this is a poor man's spaghetti (pinoy style)! Nope, I did not use ketchup...i hate the ketchup based pinoy spaghetti. I still used the store bought spaghetti sauce but for the meat, instead of the usual ground meat, I used the canned corned beef.


I don't know why I love corned beef in my pasta...

This is my favorite "no-budget-pasta-meal" ever. Aside from the beefy goodness of the canned corned beef, It is pocket friendly also.

To all the wives out there who are in a tight budget but still wants a filling snack for the kids, you can give this pasta recipe a try.

Here's my recipe.

Serves 6-8.
Ingredients

1/2 kg spaghetti noodles
1 medium sized onion
3 cloves garlic
2 small cans of corned beef
2 250ml packs of spaghetti sauce, sweet style
Salt and pepper
1/2 tsp of dried basil leaves
1/2 cup water
1/4 of a bar grated cheese

Procedure

1. Boil spaghetti noodles until al dente. Set aside.
2. Heat oil, saute onion and garlic, until onion turned transluscent.
3. Add the corned beef. Cook until the liquid evaporated.
4. Add the spaghetti sauce, season with salt and pepper. Add basil.
5. Add the water. This one is optional, I just added this oz i don't like thick spaghetti sauce.
6. Stir in the grated cheese.

Pour the sauce over pasta and sprinkle cheese on top.

Yum-O!

Popsicle Mold

I finally found this popsicle mold!!! I bought this mold from Saizen last friday. 2 months ago, I was also at the store looking for this mold, and the sales clerk told me that it's already sold out.

But I tried my luck again, I went to Saizen, and glad I did, coz  found them na! heheh!

                 Here's the popsicle mold without the plastic. That's the reusable stick that I am holding.

        For the "buena mano", I made a Chuckie Popsicle. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take pictures of the frozen chuckie. But Joey had fun eating the popsicles!

            To those of you who wants to buy this popsicle mold, you can visit Saizen at Robinsons Galleria.

Beef Bulalo (Beef Shank Soup)

Beef Bulalo is definitely Filipinos' favorite comfort food. Beef shanks were boiled in onion and peppercorns until fork tender. It will usually take 2.5hours to boil the shanks. The long cooking hours will take all the juices from the bones and thus will make the broth very tasty. 

A classic Pinoy dish, but I am not sure if bulalo originated from pinoy kitchen. I'll make a research on that...and i'll post an update..promise!

So wifeys, have you tried cooking bulalo? If you want to hear ooohs and aaahs, here's a foolproof dish that you can try.

Here's my take on the classic bulalo.

Recipe:

1 1/2 kgs of beef shanks

2 medium size onions, quartered

peppercorns

salt, adjust according to taste

Fish Sauce (patis) - adjust according to taste

about 3 liters of water

2 medium sized potatoes, cut into wedges

1/4 cabbage

pechay (bokchoi?)

Procedure:

1. Boil beef shanks with onion and peppercorns. Season with salt and fish sauce. Boil until fork tender.

2. Add potatoes and boil for another 10 minutes. Taste the broth and adjust the taste according to your preference.

3. Add the cabbage and pechay. Turn the fire off. 

4. Serve hot.

If i am going to rate the difficulty of this dish, it's 3 out of 10. Super easy...try it now!

Buttered Shrimp

I used to post the recipes in my flickr account (oh by the way, I am also trying photography), but now I'm importing them one by one so I can have a big compilation of the recipes I've tried! Yay!

This one is my hubby's and my son's favorite, the buttered shrimp. Before, i used to put extra butter to make it saucy, because they like to put the sauce in their rice. But to lessen the cholesterol intake, I add olive oil instead of butter. Aside from the benefit that you get from this oil, it also adds flavor to the dish. The garlicky-buttery taste of the shrimp will make you ask for more rice.

This dish is actually yummy...and very easy to make.

Ingredients:

12 pcs or about 250grams of shrimp, preferably suahe (Greasyback shrimp)

6 cloves of garlic
1/2 stick butter
about 2 tbsp olive oil
1tbsp banana catsup (for color)
Salt and pepper

Procedure:
1. Over medium heat, put butter and olive oil in a pan.
2. Once the butter has melted, add the garlic and sauté until light brown.
3. Add the shrimps, catsup, salt and pepper. Cook until the shrimps turned pink or orange.

Serves 3.