I say a little prayer....

My eyes were heavy... There was a feeling of being weighed down .. An invisible force holding my head low and shoulders hunched..

I stretched on my bed, looked out the window at the breaking dawn, not registering the inane beauty that was unfolding before my unseeing eyes...

The night had been long.. I was still in the throes of its after effects...

And then.. there it was, the voice... tickling in my ears, drawing out a smile from my lips... Slowly but surely waking, nay, jolting me out of my masochistic reveries... Lifting my heart with passionate faith...

So, I woke up one day... Finally.. Blissfully... Smiling... Laughing... Realizing..

The feeling is sweeter than nectar.. Softer than any divine melody... Intoxicating as it is liberating...

Its about Understanding... Self... Being understood...

Knowing that you are not alone... Knowing that there will always be someone to hold you when you fall and lift you even higher...

Knowing that there is always a reason to smile because there are people who care and who I care about...

It is all a grand circle of love... And, I am in it!

To that I give Thanks....

And...

I say a little prayer for you... ;-)))))

And, I will be back with travel posts shortly....

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Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

I am remiss in not having shared this with you sooner. This is one of my best soups and perhaps the easiest one too! There are no distractions from the star that is the squash. This recipe makes enough as appetizer for two or main for one. I

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1 small butternut squash, de-seeded, peeled and diced

1/4 cup finely diced onion

1 cup water

1 tsp fresh thyme leaves

2T butter

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

2 T heavy cream

Olive oil, salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 400F. Toss the diced squash in some oil and season lightly with salt and pepper. Arrange the pieces in one layer on a baking sheet and roast for 35 minutes. Remove and cool.

Heat about a tablespoon of oil and a tablespoon of butter and saute the onions until translucent. Add the pepper, thyme and roasted squash and cook until the squash gets mushed up. Add water and bring to a boil. Let the soup boil for a couple of minutes.

Remove pan from heat to puree the soup. Return pan to the stove. Add the cream and bring the soup to boil. Add water to adjust consistency. Turn off heat, add the remaining butter and let it melt into the soup.

Serve immediately garnished with nuts or cheese or arugula. Squash soup thickens with time, so, when reheating add a bit of water to thin it out.

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Filipino Street Food - Pork Barbecue by Trissa Lopez

This week, we taste the native cuisine of one of my favorite bloggers, Trissa Lopez!! My enjoyment of Filipino cuisine has been enhanced over the last couple of years through my participation in Kulinarya Cooking Club. The fusion of Spanish and Chinese cuisine is ever intriguing and some of my favorite creations have been inspired by this cuisinelike these Chipotle Empanadas, Pancit Bihonand Blood Orange Leche Flan.

Trissa, how do I introduce?! She is a sweetheart and a fabulous cook. Her blog, Trissalicious, is a mouthwatering ode to not only Filipino food, including cherished resipes from her home, but also Australian cooking. Her recreations of famous restaurant dishes, like thisand thisand oh!!! this, are not just stunning but really make them approachable for the home cook!

I started reading her blog way back and was instantly captivated not just by her awesome recipes but also her writing. Her posts are witty and really offer a break from the daily routine. Never have I not smiled when I opened her blog and then it was quickly followed by an inhalation in awe at her dish of the post!

So, let's get to the food already, shall we?!:-) 

Filipino Pork Barbeque!!

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To Filipinos, street food is nothing new. It's in our DNA and I credit my ability to eat anything from years of exposure to 'delicacies' such as Batchoy (noodle soup with pork liver and intestines), 'balut' (duck embryo) and 'sisig' (sizzling pork head). Of course not all Filipino street food requires a stomach of steel.

Some of my favourite Filipino street food also includes empanadas, squid balls and a variety of sweet rice cakes. The appeal of street food is easy to understand. When people ask me what type of food I miss the most - I don't think of fancy restaurants, I think of the food I can get from the street vendors that stretch along the humid and busy streets of Manila. That makes me think of home.

To me, it's interesting to see how street food has suddenly become popular once again. In the last year or so I've seen a number of books and numerous articles devoted to them. I think the answer lies in the changing eating habits we're seeing of people today. People are busier (they can eat street food on the run) and, post financial crisis, looking for cheaper alternatives to eating out. The appeal is certainly easy to understand.

My good friend Asha has decided to celebrate her third year anniversary in blogging by offering you a smorgasbord of street food from different bloggers in different parts of the world. I am honored to be among those chosen by Asha, especially since this gives me the opportunity to show you one of my favourite street foods from the Philippines.

Filipino Style Pork Barbecue are skewers of either pork or chicken marinated in garlic, soy, sprite (which acts as a meat tenderizer) and banana catsup (which gives it that distinctive reddish hue). These are then grilled until cooked and slightly charred. The food is humble, can be eaten on the run and delicious!

Again, Asha - thank you for giving me the chance to showcase a sample Filipino street food. I hope that your series will encourage your many readers to continue exploring the wonderful and varied world of street food.

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Filipino Pork Barbeque

400 g pork fillet, sliced finely into around 1 inch in width and 5 inches in length

500 g pork belly, sliced finely into around 1 inch in width and 5 inches in length

Marinade

4 cloves garlic, sliced

2 tablespoons (30 grams) brown sugar

1/4 cup (60 ml) soy sauce

1 cup (250 ml) sprite or 7-up

1/4 cup (60 ml) banana catsup (or regular catsup)

salt and pepper to taste

Soak 20 barbecue sticks in water for an hour to ensure that the sticks do not burn while barbecuing.

Mix all the marinade ingredients along with the strips of pork for at least 4 hours and up to overnight.

To skewer the meat, pierce one end of the meat into the pre-soaked barbecue sticks then twist the meat and pierce again.

Continue with the twist and piercing motion on the skewers until all the meat is used up.

Fire up the barbecue and cook the meat, basting occasionally until the meat is thoroughly cooked with some nicely charred bits, around 15 minutes.

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Filipino Chorizo Croquetas for Kulinarya Cooking Club

Finger food = Happiness. Really, nothing like dipping a nice deep fried tidbit into sauce, biting into the succulent sauce drenched part, savoring the warmth and flavor and repeating the process without a care for double dipping etiquette ;-). But, the best part is licking your fingers when the plate is cleaned out and reliving the flavors in those tiny remnants... :)

This weekend, I threw caution and all morbid thoughts of the weighing scale to the winds and unwound at home with plates of nice fried food. Some spicy Indian and some intensely Spanish influenced but with the Asian twist. And, in just perfect timing for this month's Kulinarya theme which was to make Filipino-Spanish dishes. Thanks to Ziggy from My Filipino Kitchen and AC from Acdee for this wonderful theme.

I have to say, when I first saw the theme I was bit stumped. I had decided that I didn't want to make sweet dishes for this challenge and that left me with a lot of research to do and much looking around and learning about the cuisine, which, I suspect was the intention of the theme-givers! :)

I shortlisted quite a few dishes. I mean the list of Spanish influenced dishes in Filipino cuisine is long indeed. That is just the ones that perhaps are more common and don't have very Filipinised names. I wonder at how many savor on behind the cloak of ethnic names!

Anyway, after musing much over Adobo, Estofado, Bicol Express and so many more mouthwatering dishes, I finally settled on making the Filipino version of Spanish Croquettes. My reasons were two fold - one I was already itching towards making something fried after almost a year of abstinence on that regard and two - we had tasted bacalau croquettes in Brazil and loved them despite my abhorrence of dried fish.

So, in a quest to relive memories, satiate desire and fulfill a challenge, I made my version of

Filipino Chorizo Croquetas! The Filipino version is distinctive in using a mix of potatoes and meat for the filling rather than the Béchamel sauce used in Spanish versions. My interpretation uses both taters and sauce in the filling. It's a simple to make and a delight to keep on eating :))

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Filipino Chorizo Croquetas

2-3 medium yukon potatoes, boiled

2 chorizo links, casing removed

1/2 large spanish onion, diced fine

2 cloves of garlic, mined

3 T Béchamel sauce

(I used the sausage renderings for the fat to add flavor)

1 cup bread crumbs

salt, pepper and oil as needed

Oil for frying

In a little oil, saute the onions and garlic until softened. Add the ground chorizo and cook until done. Season appropriately. Let cool until you can work with it.

Meanwhile, mash the boiled potatoes into small chunks. Add the cooled meat mixture to it and incorporate well. It will be a flaky mixture. Add the Béchamel sauce and about 3 tablespoons cup of breadcrumbs and combine well. The mixture will still be slightly wet.

Heat the oil in the frying pan to 350F. When ready, shape the croqueta filling into cylinders and roll in bread crumbs to coat completely. Fry in oil until golden brown all over.

Serve with spiced Béchamel sauce and ketchup!

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Kulinarya was started by a group of Filipino foodies living in Sydney, who are passionate about the Filipino culture and its colourful cuisine.

Each month we will showcase a new dish. By sharing these recipes, we hope you find the same passion and love for Filipino Food as we do.

If you’re interested in joining the Kulinarya Cooking Club, please leave a comment in this post. Also, check out the  KCC Facebook page for news, updates and to browse through what everyone in the club created this month.

Farm to Table: Filipino Ginataan using Summer Squash

July 22, 2010 Update: This post was featured on FoodBuzz Top 9 today

Welcome to another edition of the Farm to Table series. This week, I am drawing inspiration from Filipino cuisine to showcase my ingredient of choice -Summer Squashes. Althea and I chose Ginataan as the theme, this month, for the Kulinarya Cooking Club.

General background on the dish from Wiki - Ginataan, alternatively spelled guinataan, is a Filipino term which refers to food cooked with gata- the Filipino word for coconut milk. Literally translated, ginataan means "done with coconut milk". Due to the general nature of the term, it can refer to a number of different dishes, each called ginataan, but distinct from one another.

It was as if they were made to be. I could not decide what type of ginataan to make and kept putting off making it. Then, last week, I found squashes in my CSA basket; Gorgeous, summer yellow, lovely flower shaped squashes. I later found out that they were called Scallop Squashes or Patty Pan Squashes. They were just perfectly formed, with not a single blemish on their soothing yellow skin.

They were perfect for making Ginataan Kalabaasa, a coconut curry dish made with squash and shrimps. I waited for another week to collect enough quantity of the squash to make the curry. The squashes stay fresh refrigerated for a week or so. So, when this week I got, if possible, even more gorgeous squash, I was just ready to cook them into this flavorful Filipino dish.

I cook the squash with the skin as the skin has a lot of nutritional value and I grew up eating squashes skin on. I also find that leaving the skin helps to not over-cook the vegetable and hence retain some texture (it is a soft veggie!). However, if you don't find the skin very appealing, well.. that's your choice!

As to serving it, you can puree the curry (without the shrimps) and serve as soup garnished with sauteed shrimps or leave it chunky, as I did, and serve with rice or noodles. Also, the shape of the scallop squash is nicely suited to make a serving bowl in itself. Smaller ones can be use to serve a chicken and squash salad, perhaps as an appetizer.

Verdict:

The ginataan is a wonderful flavorful curry that is really easy to make. From what I read, it is also versatile and can be made with a variety of proteins. In my ginataan, I did use shrimps which did enhance the flavor but I must say the curry itself is so full of flavor that it would make a fantastic vegetarian version (just skip the prawns)!

Also, I would like to leave a reminder for theDoes My Blog Look Good In This (DMBLGIT) July 2010 contest that I am hosting. You have until midnight of the 20th of this month to send me your entries. Meanwhile, check out the awesome clicks of contestants in the online photo album.

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Ginataan Kalabaasa

(adapted moderately from here)

2 lbs (1 kg) squash, cut into cubes

1/2 lb (1/4 kg) shrimp, shelled and deveined

2 ripe tomatoes, diced fine

2 medium onions, diced fine

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 inch chunk of ginger

2-3 dried red chili peppers

1-1/2 T red curry paste

3/4 cup thick cocunut milk

2 cups water

2 T plum sauce

1 small stalk of lemon grass

salt to taste and oil as needed

In a wok, heat the oil and roasted the chilli peppers.

Saute the onions, garlic and ginger until translucent.

Add the red curry paste and fry for a minute.

Add the tomatoes, squash, salt, coconut milk, lemon grass and water.

Bring to a boil and then simmer on a lower flame until the squash is just cooked. Add the plum sauce and stir.

Then add the shrimp and cook for a few more minutes until the shrimp is cooked.

Serve over rice or noodles garnished with scallions.

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Kulinarya was started by a group of Filipino foodies living in Sydney, who are passionate about the Filipino culture and its colourful cuisine.

Each month we will showcase a new dish. By sharing these recipes, we hope you find the same passion and love for Filipino Food as we do.

If you’re interested in joining the Kulinarya Cooking Club, please leave a comment in this post. Also, check out the KCC Facebook page for news, updates and to browse through what everyone in the club created this month.

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Chipotle Chicken Empanadas - Kulinarya Cooking Club

By the time, this post gets published, I will be in the land of the three awesome food bloggers, who started this club. AUSTRALIA - here I come!!!!! :)). March 21st is also the Parsi New Year (coinciding with Spring Equinox). What a fantastic way to celebrate it, eh!- kicking it off by discovering a new land! Feels very Columbus like.. haha

The fact is, I am rather relieved I was able to complete in time. Between getting my hair done and feet look un-cave-woman-like and various other things like visa etc., it was looking rather dicey indeed! What kept me going was the thought of dirty looks, I would get from the Australian founders, if I hadn't completed the challenge. Never a good idea to

meet

for the first time with dirty looks and guilty feelings flying around, eh?!

Kath chose Empanadas as the theme for the month of March. I have had empanadas at Mexican restaurants before, where they are typically fried. I am not a huge fan of deep fried food, so, although they were tasty, I did not develop a bond with them.

Then at a friend's party, one of the guests had brought baked empanadas which were awesome. I have been meaning to make them at home, since, but never really got around to it. So, this challenge was perfect.

There are quite a few versions of empanada dough on the web. I finally did a hotch-potch of recipes drawing my inspiration from Layla of Laylita's Recipes. The empanada dough is very similar to a tart crust and so comes out nice and flaky. My choice of filling was chicken tossed with chipotle chilies and adobo sauce, queso and coriander.

Verdict:

We loved them. They are like little pockets of happiness! The crust is crisp and flaky and the filling stays just moist. The cheese had melted nicely and blended into the chicken, rounding off the spice from the chipotle peppers. I didn't make any dips with it but I can see it pairing nicely with something avocado.

I think the best part about the empanada is that it's so easily versatile. You can go savory or sweet, meat or vegetarian, appetizer or entree, finger food or sit down meal! Kath, fantastic choice for the month! :)

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Chipotle Chicken Empanadas

(makes about 15 small empanadas - finger food size)

Empanada dough (recipe below)

1 onion, diced fine

2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 cups cooked chicken, shredded

2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, minced + 1 T adobo sauce

1 tsp cumin powder

1 egg separated

1/4 cup grated queso (you can sub parmesan or other sharp, aged cheese)

2-3 T chopped coriander

2 T oil

salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pan. Saute the onions and garlic until translucent. Add the chicken, chopped peppers, adobo sauce and cumin and toss to coat. Cook for a few minutes. If it gets too dry, add water to get the right consistency. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature. Mix the cheese and coriander into the chicken mixture.

Remove the dough from the fridge and roll out to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut out rounds of the size you want (I used 4 inch cutters). Place about a tablespoon (or appropriate for your size) of the filling a bit off center and spread to the edges leaving a 1/4 inch border. Brush the border with egg whites (which act as a natural adhesive, I learnt this from making Cannolis). Fold the dough over the filling and press the edges to seal. You can use a fork to make groove marks on the edges.

Freeze the filled empanadas for 10-15 minutes. This is a trick I picked up making tart dough. It lets the butter firm up again ensuring there is no shrinkage and in this case allows the gluing process to complete, so there is no disaster in the oven.

Preheat oven to 400F and baked the empanadas for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and flaky. Cool for just a few minutes and serve immediately.

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Empanada Dough

(adapted from Laylita's Kitchen)

2 cups all purpose flour

1 stick of unsalted butter, frozen, cubed

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking powder

4-5 T milk

1 egg, lightly whisked

Combine the flour, baking powder and salt. In a food processor pulse the flour with the cold butter until you get a crumbly mixture. Transfer to a bowl.

Add the egg and milk and knead in to form a sort of dough. Dump the dough onto a lightly floured surface and bring together into a ball.

Pat into a circle of 1 inch thickness, wrap and refrigerate for atleast 30 minutes.

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Kulinarya was started by a group of Filipino foodies living in Sydney, who are passionate about the Filipino culture and its colourful cuisine.

Each month we will showcase a new dish along with their family recipes. By sharing these recipes, we hope you find the same passion and love for Filipino Food as we do.

If you’re interested in joining our Kulinarya Cooking Club, please feel free to check out the KCC Facebook page and leave a comment – we would love to hear from you!

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