SHINE!

Hubby asked for a chicken casserole dish and I was craving for something creamy and peppery so I searched for a recipe on the net, but couldn’t find one that would satisfy both of our taste buds. Not in the mood to be defeated, I decided to just whip up something from scratch.

So for today, I give you last weekend’s Food Couch chicken casserole recipe:

Here’s something quick and easy, a 30-minute meal that’s just as filling and sumptuous. I sort of “invented” this dish and surprisingly, the first try was a major hit so I decided to dress it up a little by adding an ingredient that gave it an Italian twist.

Here’s what you need for this:

Pasta of your choice, cooked al dente’ or according to package directions
Butter
Spanish sardines, fish flaked a little and with about 3 tablespoons of its oil along
salt to taste
pesto or minced basil
Parmesan cheese for topping

Heat butter in skillet, throw in pesto or basil and Spanish sardines and oil, sprinkle with salt, toss in pasta and blend everything together. Replace in a serving dish, top with Parmesan cheese. Serve.

See how easy that is? It’s not even a 30 minute meal, it cooks in waaaay less than that! Oh, I really don’t have a name for it yet, maybe just “Pasta sardini”? Hmmm… No, how about “Spanish-Italian Pasta”? Yaiks, not that one either… Okay, how about “Sardines and pesto pasta medley?”… No? Hmmm, whatever. It tastes good anyway so that should be good enough. Lol!

I first encountered the brand Barilla through a fellow food blogger’s blog,who happens to be in Italy, and because, as you all probably have an idea by now, I am such a pasta freak, I salivated with envy thinking that we are so third world and such beauties take a while to reach our soil…

Well, literally, I bonked myself on the head because one trip along Timog Avenue in Quezon City is all it took to find my own private oasis… Santi’s!

Santi’s Delicatessen offers prime Italian produce, they have a wide selection of fresh meat and dairy products – all kinds of cheeses, meatloaf, cold cuts, different sausages and ham among others. Their shelves are filled to brimming with different Italian ingredients – spices, herbs, fruits, condiments, olive oils, balsamic vinegars and vegetables. They also offer a wide array of jams, chocolates, nuts, preserves and yes, pasta!

Like any other girl who went to the big city, I shrieked at the sight of the blue cartons lined on one of the shelves. Barilla. Oh yes, and even when the Hubby insisted that all pasta tastes the same, I still didn’t budge. And thank heavens I didn’t because when I cooked my first pasta dish using this brand, he had to throw in the white towel because if truth be told, Barilla makes the best tasting pasta ever!

Some of you are probably wondering whatever happened to my sun-dried tomatoes. Well, I have lost count of the days but I am assuming that today is about day five or six. They’re still up on the balcony being dried and by the looks of it, it will take about another week before they’d completely dry up. I managed to steal a photo yesterday and here’s how they look so far:

Beautiful, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, I did a little experiment using my microwave oven this morning. Look:

Yaiks… Not so beautiful, isn’t it? No, these are not the same tomatoes, these are bigger ones bought at the wet market yesterday morning. I saw some left-overs (about 4 pieces) in the fridge and thought about following a microwave oven-dried tomato recipe I saw on the internet. It was supposed to mimic the result of sun-dried tomatoes but hmmm, this looks more like disaster doesn’t it? Well, for what it’s worth, the taste was the same and I’m thinking there is a chance to get the same result as sun-dried tomatoes if not for the possible mistakes I made:

1. the tomatoes were not ripe enough
2. the tomatoes were too big
3. I drizzled too much oil on them (?)
4. they were cooked longer than they should have been.

No sweat, life is a learning process anyways. I can always try again…
Oh, yes, I have obviously developed a fixation for sun-dried tomatoes, lol!

I’ve been trying to perfect this dish for months now since it is the only Chinese recipe that brings my husband back to his roots and gives him that “aaahhhh, I’m finally home…” feeling. I have experimented with it several times and for some reason, there was always something that is wrong with the whole entree’ – either the meat’s color was too dark, or tasteless, or not cooked to the bones, or the dipping sauce was altogether wrong. Bummer.

Ingredients:

One whole chicken
leeks (tied in a knot)
ginger
sesame oil
garlic
salt
pepper
5-8 cups chicken stock
2 chicken cubes

Procedure:

Stuff chicken with the knotted leeks, garlic and ginger and wipe salt all over it. Let sit for about ten minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare a deep pot for boiling the chicken stock, pepper, salt and chicken cubes. Once the stock has reached boiling point, immerse chicken, reduce heat and let it simmer uncovered for about fifteen minutes or until chicken is well-cooked. If the stock is not enough to immerse the whole chicken, invert and let the other side simmer again for another fifteen minutes (or, again, until chicken is well-cooked).

Prepare a basin with iced water.

Once the chicken is cooked on all sides, take it out of the simmering pot and immerse it in the basin with the iced water. This will seal in the flavor and keep the chicken’s skin taut and firm. Drain well and cut into desired portions, discarding all stuffing. With a basting brush, brush chicken pieces with sesame oil, prepare in a serving dish with slices of cucumber, lettuce and carrots used as ‘bed’.

Dipping Sauce

about two tablespoons grated ginger
1/4 cup oil
pinch of sugar
pinch of salt

Mix everything together. Serve with Hainanese chicken. Can also be served with chili oil and soy sauce as another dipping sauce option.

*Hainanese chicken is also known as pet sam pwe or white soy chicken… Others call it “bon bon chicken”. Well, whatever the name. As long as it tastes just a tad perfect!

What’s for weekend lunch, foodies?
As you can see from the photo above, I chose to go simple and uncomplicated today, hmmm, I was actually compelled to more than the “I chose to…” because of two reasons. 1) It feels so Saturday and there’s a slight drizzle that makes the bed beckon to me for extra hours of sleep and 2) I have a fellowship scheduled in two hours! (Breathe…) So, that is why weekend lunch is a simple dish of penne pasta in Italian sauce and hefty slices of home-made garlic-basil bread topped with good conversation .

Cook penne pasta according to package directions. Set aside.

Here is the recipe for the sauce:

Herbs and spices – basil (I used fresh for this one), marjoram, pepper, salt and McCormick’s ever-reliable Italian seasoning mix.

For sauteeing – lots of garlic, onions, minced bell pepper and celery

Meat – ground beef

Sauce – tomato puree’ or plain ol’ tomato sauce straight from the grocery shelf

…. I also added melted cheese to the sauce for some creamy taste.

Procedure:

Saute garlic, onions, bell pepper and celery. Mix in ground meat, herbs and spices and let cook until brown. Pour in tomato sauce. Season to taste. Let simmer for a few more minutes until its consistency becomes thicker and heavy.

Once your sauce is ready, pour penne pasta over the simmering sauce, reduce heat to low, and just stir everything together. Serve on plates, top with grated parmesan and place one or two slices of garlic bread on the side.

Bon appetit!

Here’s what we had for lunch yesterday. I don’t exactly have a name for it because it was just something I cooked from scratch and lucky me because it turned out fine… Anyway, maybe I will just call it microwave oven-baked spare ribs? The thing is, I cooked it on the crock pot first to achieve tenderness before baking it in the microwave so shall I call it crock pot cooked spare ribs too? Argh, forget it. Let’s just call it Food Couch’s spare rib recipe.

What’s in it? Just a bunch of herbs, tomato sauce, soy sauce and seasonings. I didn’t have any barbecue flavored sauce in my pantry but I bet it would taste even better if I had that in there, too. I mixed everything together and let it cook in the crock pot for three hours (or until tender). Once done, I transferred the meat to a Pyrex, added a little of the ’soup’ from the crock pot (see picture above) and popped it in the microwave to bake for 15 minutes. While that was baking, I chopped carrots and beans to saute’ in garlic and butter to complete the meal. And, voila! A tasty, tender spare ribs meal from scratch!

Bon appetit!

Yup, you read that right! I’ve got a handful tomatoes right now getting a good sun-drying on my balcony! I was so inspired by my dear friend Lalaine’s own homemade sun-dried tomatoes that I tried my hands on it, too. Hers has this tangy, sweet taste to it that makes my mouth water and though I doubt that I could make the same exact version, I still went ahead and bought myself half a kilo of tomatoes to experiment on. Plus, I wanted to take advantage of the extreme weather condition we are having now here in the Philippines, too.
I am still on Day Two of sun-drying them so I still can’t tell how mine fared. Meanwhile, here are photos I took these last two days. I plan to keep on posting pictures as the drying progresses and I hope the end result will be successful.

Day One

Day Two

Trivia: Did you know that tomatoes stored in the refrigerator loses their flavor? They are still edible but not as delicious as they would be if kept at room temperature. This also explains why in some supermarkets, stickers and labels that read “Never Refrigerate” are on tomatoes. (Source: Wikipedia)

I was craving for something creamy tonight so I took out the frozen dory fish I had in the fridge, thawed it and threw in some herbs and seasonings and sat for a few minutes to think of what ‘magic’ I can create with what’s in my pantry.

Checking the cupboards, I saw a pack of all purpose cream and that was all I needed to rev up my creative juices!

But first, let me tell you what I exactly did with the dory fish while I sat to wear my thinking cap. I seasoned the fillet with salt, put on a dash of pepper, marjoram, basil, rosemary and Spanish paprika. I then steamed the fish, about ten minutes on each side and set it aside.

Once I made up my mind on what to do with the cream, I took a pan and heated about half a cup of the cream, I mixed in the same herbs I topped the fillet with – basil, marjoram, Spanish paprika, rosemary and then some chili powder for a little kick. Stirring constantly, I waited until the cream was about to reach boiling point, then turned the heat off… By the way, I cooked the cream on slow fire, so make sure you do that too. I finished this creamy recipe by pouring the cream over my steamed dory fish.

As side dish, I sauteed some garlic and onions and threw in a vegetable medley composed of string beans, carrots and potatoes, all sliced into 1 inch strips. I had some stored boiled quail eggs in the refrigerator and thought it would be good to throw in a few as well.

Magic! Bon appetit!