Potato and Apple Salad

Ingredients:

3   large potatoes, diced bite size
1   Gala apple, diced bite size
5   stalks leeks
3   celery
1   cup mayonnaise of your choice
salt
calamansi
all purpose cream
evaporated milk

Process:

Blanch the leeks.

Cut the potatoes in quarters, and boil it. Leave the skin on.

Let the leeks and potato cool down and drain excess water. Remove the skin of the potatoes and cut it into bite size to help cool down faster.

Prepare the mayo dressing. Thin it out with evaporated milk, add salt and whisk it. If you desire less mayo taste add all purpose cream, or evaporated milk until you get the desired taste.

Mix all the ingredients together. 

Note: My sister doesn't like the strong mayo taste in her salad so I often thin it out with evaporated milk so she can eat too. This recipe is inspired from a local hotel in the Philippines Vivere Suites. It was served to us on a bed of lettuce without leeks and celery. However, at the  grocery store earlier I couldn't get the lettuce i wanted, so i used leeks and celery to replace the "veggie" taste of the lettuce.

Cheesy Pork Wanton Poppers

I thought of this recipe because of the gloomy weather and the bad news about the flood in the Philippines. I wanted to eat something hot and different.

Ingredients:
1 pack Wanton wrappers
1 pack Cheese sliced into small bites

1/2 kilo ground pork
1/2 cup tomato sauce
5 tbsp tomato paste
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp Allspice
1/2 tsp Chinese Five Spices
1/2 tsp Paprika
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup water
5 cloves of garlic, minced
2 medium onions, finely minced
3 tbsp olive oil

Preparation:
1. Saute garlic and onions to the olive oil.
2. Add all ingredients except the wanton wrappers and cheese. Let it simmer, and make sure there is no liquid left.
3. Let the pork cool.
4. Assemble the pork and cheese in the middle of the wanton wrappers. Use water to seal the sides.
5. Deep fry the poppers until it is golden brown.

You may want to dip the poppers in salsa, garlic mayo, ranch or cheese sauce.

Spicy Paprika And Calamansi Chicken

Few things I love to eat are chicken and spicy food, so this recipe is a real treat for me. And after trying the recipe I saw in the internet care of The Backyard BBQ, I had to change and add some ingredients that are available in our kitchen.

Ingredients:

6 pcs chicken (cut per portion)

3 tbsp smoked paprika

1 tsp allspice

1 tsp Chinese five spices

1 ½ tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

1 tbsp chili flakes (optional)

6 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 small onion, finely minced (you may substitute this with ginger about 3tbsp)

2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

6 tbsp calamansi juice

2 tsp tomato paste

2 tbsp olive oil

Note:

You may use chicken tenders and/or remove the skin but I preferred to leave the skin on for additional flavor and fat when its cooking. You may also leave the chili flakes out of the list of ingredients because paprika will tend to taste spicy once it starts to cook. I added onions to remove the odd taste or “lansa” of the chicken especially during marination because I ran out of ginger

Preparation:

Prepare all ingredients to a big bowl and let the flavors will be infused together. It will become like a paste and you want the consistency of the paste all throughout the marinade time.

Let the chicken cuts be dry because you would not want a watery marinade. And transfer it to the marinade paste. Be sure that all chicken are well covered by the paste.

Let it rest for one to three hours and turn it every hour to ensure that each sides of the chicken are covered with the paste.

You may cook the chicken in the oven, or on top of the grill, but I cooked my chicken stove top in a little olive oil, about 2 tbsp of oil.

Serve it with hot steamed rice.

This is a very savory dish so be sure that you have desserts covered.

Stove Top Pork BBQ

If you want to enjoy a decent BBQ at home but circumstances prevent you from grilling outside, try this simple recipe. It is also a good alternative to cook meats in the freezer you haven’t use. Cooking BBQ with red wine is my weakness, and this is a great recipe if you have leftover wine stored inside your refrigerator. You can use chicken, beef or lamb.

Ingredients:

½ kilo pork

¼ cup soy sauce

¼ cup red wine

¼ cup oyster sauce

¼ cup combination of tomato paste and ketchup

½ cup water

2 tbsp. prepared mustard

4 garlic cloves, crushed

1 tsp pepper

1 tsp. red chili flakes (optional)

2 tbsp brown sugar

½ tsp all spice

½ tsp Chinese five spices

½ tsp Italian seasoning

Preparation:

   1.      Mix all the ingredients in a sauce pan, and let it simmer for 2 minutes.

   2.      On a different sauce pan, boil the pork for 20 minutes on high heat.

   3.      Add the pork on the boiling marinade and cover it.

   4.      Cook the pork until fork tender, and serve it with steamed rice or roasted vegetables. Cooking time will vary to the meat you will use. For pork and chicken it may take 30 to 45 minutes. For beef and lamb about 50 to 75 minutes.

Potato and Egg Salad

There are people who are not a big fan of this salad because of the mayonnaise included in the ingredients as the main dressing. This is my first time to make one and I was inspired by this link... (well, I can't take credit for something I didn't do)

http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2011/04/18/best-ever-potato-salad-recipe/

But following and altering a bit the recipe, it came out delicious!

Ingredients:
8 small potatoes, boiled
3 hard boiled eggs
10 pieces bacon or 4 pieces ham, cut into 1-inch strips
3/4 cup Miracle Whip
1 tsp prepared mustard
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 tsp sugar
2 stalks spring onions, minced
2 stalks kinchay, minced

PROCEDURE:
1. Peel and boil the potatoes until fork tender. Drain and transfer to a bowl. Pour half of the potatoes to the bowl and throw in all spring onions and kinchay, and cover it with the rest of the potatoes.

2. Cook the ham or bacon, once it is brown, set it aside. Use 2 tbsp of the oil left in the pan if you use bacon to add to the mayo dressing.

3. In a small bowl, add the Miracle Whip, mustard, salt, pepper, sugar and bacon oil, stir constantly. Taste if you like the saltiness and/or sweetness according to your taste.

4. Mix the dressing to the potatoes and ham.

5. Top with the hard boiled eggs.

This recipe turned out great because the taste is not too mayonnaise-y. So I hope you will also try this... THANKS!

Home-made Potato Crisps

Browsing Pinterest, I came across a picture of home-made crisps. And so, this is my version of the "healthy" chips.

I initially tried cooking it in the oven, but it has been in the oven for about an hour already so I decided to deep fry it instead. It still came out perfectly and tasty.

You may want to try doing it in the oven but here's what transpired on this cooking adventure:

Ingredients:

3 small potatoes, thinly sliced

Salt

Pepper

Italian seasoning or any dry herb of your choice

Red chili flakes

Oil

(parmesan cheese is optional for a cheesy flavor or paprika)

Procedure:

1. Wash the potatoes, you may want to peel it or you may choose to leave the skin on. Thinly sliced it using a mandolin slicer or do the slicing manually. Soak it in water for a few minutes until the starch is almost gone. Then pat dry the potatoes.

2. Pre-heat the oven to 250 degrees Celsius.

3. On a baking sheet spread out the potatoes and sprinkle it with salt, pepper, red chili flakes, Italian seasoning; and bake it for 30 minutes.

4. Let it cool down. Then deep fry it.

5. Serve while it is hot.

Deconstructed Potato Au Gratin

Ingredients:
8 small potato (boiled, half-cooked)
2 stalk leeks
3 stalk spring onions
4 sliced ham
1 tbsp butter

Bechamel Sauce:
3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp flour
2 cups milk
1 cup grated cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Procedure:
Start with the bechamel sauce. Melt the butter on medium heat, once completely melt add in the flour and whisk it until the flour is cooked (between 1 to 4 minutes, beyond 4 minutes the flour will burn). Pour in the milk and continue to whisk it until it becomes thick. Add the cheese and continue to stir. Do not stop stirring otherwise the bottom will burn. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Saute the ham, leeks and spring onions in butter, when it is half way done. Add the potatoes. Add in the bechamel sauce and let it simmer for 5 more minutes.