What I Have Been Up To

I haven’t had a post for the last few weeks. I have been busy with real life, not that I didn’t cook at all. The scientist was still busy in the kitchen over the holidays. More important, some life-changing choices have to be  made. First, there is the change in crop to study. From rice, I’ll be working on maize breeding. It is challenging, given the fact I have very little (mostly theoretical) knowledge about maize. Rice and maize maybe the world’s more important cereals but growing them is altogether different. At least I am working on one aspect I am confident of – breeding for disease resistance. So hopefully, here’s to the next disease-resistant maize hybrids! Next, I am moving to another place so expect a shift in cooking to mostly seafoods! I will cook as soon I get my new kitchen going.

So what have been cooking during my long absence from the web? Here are some samplers while I work on the next posts for the recipes.

palitaw
My traditional Palitaw

bacon
Homemade bacon

italian-sausage

Italian sausages

tuna-salpicao
Tuna Salpicao

pizza Pizza from scratch

mahi-mahi

Steamed mahi-mahi fillet

bihod

Tinolang bihod (tuna roe)

Here’s to another great year of cooking and food blogging!

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Pinoy klasiks: kaldereta

We just love Foodie Magazine at home. Easy-on-the-eye layout, eyecatching cover, interesting recipes and well-written instructions! It is probably one of the better local food magazines around. Worth every penny so we really watch out for each easy. Reading it is like a book. Very little, if any, page advertisements!

In one of the issues, they featured Pinoy classic recipes such as the caldereta. They even used an old plate design which we have. This got us cooking caldereta (or rather, my dad did)! We have to rummage through our plate collection for exactly the same plate! And since it was really an unplanned meal, we used pork ribs instead! The verdict – it’s what caldereta should be!

Another dish we love is the Pinoy pork barbecue. But that’s another story.

Check out my version of turkey caldereta.

Inihaw na liempo and dill

There is variety of mango called paho which has a pungent aroma. The fruit is usually around 1-2 inches long, sold green in the market and is great with salsa. We typically eat paho by combining it with sliced tomatoes, a pinch of salt and chopped paho. There is short window for the season of paho so I really watch out for this fruit in March.

We’ve found an alternative to paho minus the aroma. A few weeks ago, one of those Sunday picnics in the garden that we love to do, I cooked inihaw na liempo (grilled pork belly). Chopped them up into bite size pieces then served with tomatoes, onions, soy sauce, chopped Thai chilis and calamansi juice. As an afterthought, I added fresly chopped dill to the mixture. The dill was just begging to be picked up near our grill area. My sister and I were wondering why the dill tastes familiar till it dawned on us that it tastes like paho! So now another alternative herbs for uncommonly available ones we love to use (try pak-chee instead of cilantro). We usually serve inihaw na liempo with a dipping sauce (soy sauce, chilis, calamansi juice). But here we make a sauce of soy sauce, choppped tomatoes, chopped onions, dill and chilis. Of course with calamansi juice. Just combine everything and serve with lots of rice.

This post is submitted to Grow your Own hosted this round by Rachel of The Crispy Cook. Here’s the round-up of the Grow Your Own I hosted several weeks ago.

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Celebrating Father’s Day

In the Philippines, Father’s Day is celebrated every third Sunday of June. But, I just read that different countries have different officially recognized Father’s Day celebrations. Some have specific a date such as March 19 in Bolivia, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Honduras and Liechtenstein. Then similar to ours, a particular day of each month. Nepal has a more interesting day, every New Moon of September!

How do you celebrate Father’s Day at home? Well, as usual, I do the cooking usually whatever dish my Dad is craving for. My first paella was on Father’s Day, although that one was what I really wanted to cook rather than his request. And we had a very late lunch then! This year, we’re probably going to have a barbecue picnic in the garden. I still have to pair it with some salads or vegetable stir fry.

Didn’t you notice, Moms tend to get cards and flowers on Mother’s Day. What about Fathers’ Day gifts? Wine? His favorite food? A necktie? Wallet? Probably enroll him to a club like a monthly beer club where they feature a beer of the month club? Hhmm… the possibilities are endless.

In the end though, what really makes the day special is spending it with the family, have long talks over lunch and just relax.

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