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First things first:

We’re going to BlogHer Food in SF this September! It will be the first blogging event we’ll go to, so we’re very excited. See you there? :)

Last weekend, the sun shone and it was beginning to get too hot for comfort in the house that there’s really no other thing I’d rather make with Fage yogurt** than strawberry fro-yo. I may be the most boring and redundant frozen yogurt maker, because I’ve posted about the same (yawn) flavor twice last year and coincidentally, around the same time, too! Can you blame me? I really truly believe that with a 2-cup tub of Fage, strawberries, some sort of sweetener and an ice cream maker, it’s HARD to get it wrong.

After I made this, just to spite me, you know what the weather gods gave us? Gray skies, rain (downpour!), aaand sunshine with hail. Snow would have completed the whole package, but that’s enough, thanks. I know you–yes, you Weather Guy up there!–made your point that Vancouverites can’t rejoice over good weather that much, but we still love it!

For the ‘recipe’, I just relied on my own ratio of:

one container of Fage : (maximum of) one Fage container of other liquids

[Speaking of ratios, I'll be talking about Michael Ruhlman's book called Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking this weekend. In a gist: I highly recommend it so go grab a copy!]

First, I made a simple syrup by heating 1/3 cup sugar and 1/3 cup water, then added about 1 1/3 cup of strawberry puree***, 2 tablespoons honey, and a teaspoon of lemon juice and cooked it until it looked like this:

I cooled it in the fridge for 30 minutes before blending all the cold ingredients with a hand mixer in a big bowl:  yogurt, sweetened strawberry puree, and 2 tablespoons of half and half light cream. Put it in your ice cream maker and churn it for 30-35 minutes, or until thick enough. Pour in a freezer-safe container.

One advantage of having a mother who shops for all sorts of things are finds like the thick metal fresh ice cream container that is so darn cute.

Freezing and letting the frozen yogurt ‘rest’ overnight is best for flavor and texture.

I couldn’t wait to eat it the next day. No suave scooping here; it was more like painful excavation of hard rock because I didn’t thaw it enough. I just took a few shots and devoured my sweet reward, despite of the soup it turned into.

Not a problem, I love ice cream soup!

- – - – - – - – -

** After having used the different fat percentages of Fage, the 2% is still the best for fro-yo, in my opinion.

*** I didn’t strain the seeds out this time. I like the ‘character’ it adds to the ice cream. I don’t mind the seeds at all, but you can remove it if you like.

Every now and then, an idea will spark for me from even the smallest triggers in life. This in particular was the result of a discussion about surprises. Mine was to be about dessert. The person that this surprise was for is someone special, so one cannot simply buy something from the store. I wanted to know what would make the best of the best. A kind of channeling of Tyler Florence, if you will.

I gave it a thought and I knew exactly what to do. Since my brother does not like cake, and my nieces and nephews tend to be picky, and my sister will eat generally anything with a sweet tooth, the only thing that made sense for me to prepare were brownies.

A quick google search led me here, The Ultimate Brownie Recipe. And I thought I had all the ingredients listed.

The result is this:

What was I missing? 3 unsweetened cocoa squares. Over 25% of the ingredient I needed was already used from what I thought was a full box of unsweetened cocoa.  What did I do? I dug up some semi-sweet chocolate chips and measured out on the scale 3 oz of the sweetened stuff.  I also reduced the amount of sugar by 1/4th cup to compensate for the sweetness coming from the chocolate chips.

Another thing I did differently was the choice of flour. I didn’t know the immediate impact on brownies but I used bread flour instead of all-purpose flour. I am also not a fan of nuts in my brownies, so I omitted the walnuts.

The result is this adapted recipe:

Better Than Ultimate Brownies

Ingredients:

• 5 1-oz squares of unsweetened chocolate
• 3 oz of semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup butter
• 5 eggs
• 2 3/4 cups sugar
• 1 tbsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups bread flour
• 1 tsp salt

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease 9 x 13 pan.

2. In a small saucepan over low heat, melt chocolate squares and chips, and butter; set aside.

3. Beat eggs, sugar and vanilla at high speed for 10 minutes. [I definitely recommend a stand mixer for this.] Add melted chocolate mixture, salt and bread flour and mix until just blended. Let the batter sit on the counter for 20 minutes before pouring into the greased pan. Let air bubbles escape by tapping the pan.

4.Bake for 30 minutes and test with a toothpick. If it comes out clean, take the brownies out to cool before serving.

I believe my substitutions made these brownies above and beyond that of the original Ultimate Brownies! Each square is dense and chocolate-y, and has a nice chewiness to it. It’s better than store-bought or just-put-in-the-oven brownies. If you happen to be lucky enough to have some left over after a few days, you’ll be fighting over the the last few bites of super-moist and ultimately soft and chewy brownies. A little sacrifice of instant gratification truly pays off for these. ;-)

Give them a try in your kitchen and let us know how they turn out!

I like a good challenge and whenever I see those lovely food blogs with results from the Daring Bakers Challenge, I’m in awe and envy. When I finally got around to joining the group, I froze when I saw my first challenge for March 2009: Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna (Lasagne Verdi Al Forno). I was expecting to make dessert or bake cakes — something for my insatiable sweet tooth…something easier. But no, it turns out my “initiation” into the Daring Bakers would be a very laborious one. I was as scared as I was decades ago when the swimming instructor asked us to jump into the pool at the 6″ feet mark on our first class. Are you serious? What did I get myself into?!

THIS, dear readers:

YUMMMMMMM. As with life’s big challenges, this challenge has great rewards. This lasagna melts in your mouth. There’s homemade lasagne, and then there’s memorable homemade gourmet lasagne. I could not believe how delicious it was! I can still remember the taste of the ragu, the nice tenderness of homemade pasta, the rich bechamel sauce.

This lasagne marks a few firsts for me:

1) Very first lasagne. You read that right: I’ve never made lasagne in my entire life. It just looked like it was too much work. Yeah, look what I ended up doing! Haha.

2) Bechamel sauce.

3) Handmade pasta and without the aid of a machine, too. Oh, dear, this is a biggie. The whole thing was a workout.

4) Ragu sauce. I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than two hours to make a pasta sauce. No sir.

Woohoo!

Would I make it again? YES! But not without a pasta machine. ;-) The challenge did not require us to buy one, but god, I wish I had. Oh well, that’s done. I can now say that the very first lasagne I made entailed a back-breaking 2-hour manual pasta rolling ordeal. No wonder I put it off for more than a week! I had to muster enough courage and strength to get the ball rolling. Literally. This started out as a dough ball that you flatten with your rolling pin if you do it by hand. It has a gorgeous green color because of the spinach.  I used frozen chopped spinach and this is an egg pasta.

I dried it as cut sheets for 24 hours before cooking. I dared not to take photos of the transformation of our dining room into a pasta drying area with the sheets hanging on freshly cleaned table cloth-covered chairs.

It’s more delicate than store-bought pasta, understandably. I had some tears here and there. It looked very pretty as I assembled the dish. This is how one layer looks like, beginning with the spinach lasagna sheet overlapping each other:

Rich and creamy bechamel sauce:

The MMMMM-inducing ragu sauce:

More bechamel on top of the ragu sauce.

Topped with grated parmigiano reggiano cheese:

And this is the topmost layer of my lasagne, with a generous amount of bechamel and grated parmigiano reggiano cheese:

Our kitchen smelled amazing while it was cooking:

Here, the fruit of my labor:

I started making this 4pm (for the pasta sheets) and we ate this at 11pm the next day. It’s no walk in the park, but I’m glad I did it! WHEW!!!!!!

I will post a PDF recipe tonight. :)

The March 2009 challenge is hosted by Mary of Beans and Caviar, Melinda of Melbourne Larder and Enza of Io Da Grande. They have chosen Lasagne of Emilia-Romagna from The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper as the challenge.

Who says healthy isn’t flavorful? Well that was me a few years back. I was skeptical of “healthy” until I lived with a roommate (Elle) who lives and eats healthy. I credit her for introducing me to organic and alternative ways to enjoy good food. She knew I was big, big, big on rice. It comes with the territory — being Filipino and being used to eating rice with every meal, it’s hard to go without it. She suggested eating quinoa seeds to replace rice grains in my diet, to which I politely obliged and ended up loving it!

According to Wikipedia, quinoa has a high protein content within the range of 12% to 18%, and unlike wheat and rice, it contains a balanced set of essential amino acids, making it an unusually complete food. It’s a good source of dietary fiber and phosphorus and is high in magnesium and iron. Quinoa is also gluten-free and considered easy to digest. How’s that for a healthy addition to your meals?

I cook quinoa every now and then, ’sneaking’ it into our meals to make them healthier. This time, we just had it with veggies. I just roasted vegetables, taking a few things that seem ordinary on their own. They added up to a really nice flavor with every bite. You get some crunchiness from the broccoli, and a bit of ‘meatiness’ from the mushrooms. This colorful roasted mixture went on top of quinoa tossed in 1/4 tsp garlic powder for a delicious, healthy, filling, and beautiful dinner. It would be great with some meat or whatever you like, but it’s great and satisfying on its own already.

Here’s a sneak peak of the cooking process:

QUINOA WITH OVEN ROASTED VEGETABLES

Yields 2 to 3 servings

Ingredients:

• 1/2 yellow bell pepper, seeds removed, sliced into 1/4″ strips
• 1/2 green bell pepper, seeds removed, sliced sliced into 1/4″ strips
• 6 button mushrooms, sliced into quarters
• 6 baby carrots, sliced into quarters
• 1 package (a handful) of broccolini
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• kosher salt
• fresh ground pepper
• 1 cup uncooked quinoa, cooked in 2 cups of water and 1/2 tbsp of butter
• extra virgin olive oil

Preparation:

1. Set your oven to “Broil”.
2. Put the bell pepper strips in an oven-safe pan. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with a pinch of salt and fresh ground pepper. Toss them together so the strips are coated with oil. Place in the oven and broil for 5 minutes.
3. Take the pan out of the oven. Add the mushrooms and carrots. Add more olive oil and toss. Broil for 2 minutes. Remove from the oven and add the rest of the other vegetables. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss. Broil for 2 minutes. Remove from the oven and toss again.
4. In a big bowl, toss the cooked quinoa with garlic powder.
5. Place quinoa on a serving plate and top with the roasted vegetables. Enjoy your healthy dinner!

Tips for Cooking Quinoa:

1. Rinse it thoroughly in warm to hot water, at least 3 times to get rid of the bitter flavor/stuff/coating.
2. Add half a tablespoon of ‘butter’ (we use Earth Balance Buttery Spread) for every cup of quinoa.
3. Cook using one part quinoa to two parts water. You can use a rice cooker to cook it, but remove it from the heat once the indicator shows it is cooked, then toss with a fork to keep it from burning. Leave it uncovered for 5 minutes to let the remaining liquid evaporate.

Behold! The official Bittersweet Chocolate Pudding Pie with Creme Fraiche Topping creation! I decided that on the second go-around, I would make the recipe word for word…well, kinda…we don’t have the rum to toss in, so I used extra vanilla extract. Then I also forgot about the extra cocoa at the bottom of the dish. I was offered to use the Valrhona Hazelnut chocolate for it. It was a 3.7 oz bar, so I used our new digital scale to weigh out the exact 2 oz it needs so we don’t use too much of the $5 chocolate bar. If you have not been here before, we made some significant differences in the recipe.

While we have the appearance differences, I will describe the taste differences as well. The crust is the most significant change as it was slightly sweet instead of mellow texture of the premade pie crust. Even when I was crushing the cookies, I didn’t believe that 1/2 the package of cookies would measure out to the right shape. The recipe states it equals out to 1 cup when complete. Just make it as you need, when you press it into the pie shell, it will line your pie shell evenly.

I will probably only take this one thing from Rachel Ray: Your nose will tell you when they’re done. She was referencing to the scent of roasting nuts, but in this case, you will be smelling the pie shell becoming ready to pull from the oven once it’s ready. The recipe says to heat it about 12 minutes, check it after 9. I let it go past 13 before I decided that the appearance was starting to change but I didn’t want it to go much longer. I spread the newly chopped chocolate after letting the crust cool a little bit so it melts a little.

Our other major difference was we used 60% instead of the 85%. This made the pie all the more heavenly! Not too sweet, not too tart, it was perfect! Then there’s the topping. I added the cream to the Creme Fraiche and whipped it. It made it all the more divine to the taste!

Another thing to note: while you may have been refrigerating the pie for 6-18 hours, let the pie sit about 20 minutes so it’s east to slice. I made this mistake and struggled to slice the pie effectively.

So whether you decide to make the cookie crust or you want to take the shortcut and use a pre-made crust, the end result will be the same, a rich, flavorful, delicious pudding that will please all of your guests. If you do decide to make either, please let me know how it turns out for you!

BITTERSWEET CHOCOLATE PUDDING PIE

Ingredients

For the Crust:

• 1 cup chocolate wafer cookie crumbs (about half of one 9-ounce package; about 23 cookies, finely ground in processor)
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 2 ounces bittersweet chocolate (60% cacao), finely chopped

For the Filling:

• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 3/4 cups whole milk, divided
• 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
• 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate
• (60% cacao), finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract, divided

For the topping

• 1 cup chilled crème fraîche*
• 1 cup chilled heavy whipping cream
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Bittersweet chocolate shavings or curls (optional)

Preparation

Crust:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F with the rack positioned in the upper middle rack.
2. Pulse cookie crumbs and sugar in a food processor. Add melted butter. Mix until crumbs are evenly moistened. Press crumb mixture against the bottom and sides of a 9-inch glass pie dish. Bake until the moist evaporates, pressing the crust with the back of a fork to flatten puffs, about 12 minutes.
3. Sprinkle chopped chocolate over the bottom of the crust and leave until those soften, 1 to 2 minutes. Spread melted chocolate over the bottom and sides of the crust with a small rubber spatula.  Chill crust in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to let the chocolate set.

Filling:

1. Whisk together sugar, cocoa, cornstarch, and salt in a heavy medium saucepan. Slowly add 1/3 cup milk, whisking until it forms a smooth paste. Whisk remaining milk and 1/4 cup milk.
2. Heat saucepan over medium heat. Stir mixture with a heatproof spatula, scraping the sides and bottom of the pan as you go. Cook until pudding thickens and bubbles appear at the edges, about 5 minutes. Add chocolate and stir until smooth. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
3. Pour hot pudding mixture into the crust and spread evenly. Cook at room temperature for 1 hour. Cover with plastic wrap and chill overnight.

Topping:

1. Beat crème fraiche, whipping cream, sugar and vanilla  in a medium bowl until stiff peaks form. Mixture needs to be thick enough to spread. Don’t overbeat to prevent curdling.
2. Spread topping nicely over the top for the pie. Swirl and gently tap the surface at random spots to create peaks.
3. Using electric mixer, beat crème fraîche, whipping cream, sugar, and vanilla in medium bowl just until stiff peaks form and mixture is thick enough to spread.

10. Sprinkle chocolate shavings on top of the pie for decoration. Cut into wedges and serve.

Notes

This pie can be made 2 days ahead before consumption consuming, as long as you keep it refrigerated.

I’ve loved Lengua Estofada since I was a child. My grandmother and mother make really good ones. In fact, I called my mom last week to ask her how she makes them. I just smiled and nodded while listening, asking myself — What have I gotten into?

Let me explain. When I bought half a tongue, if I hadn’t known how good Lengua Estofada was, I would’ve backed out. I’ve neither cooked it before nor watched how it’s prepared, and coming face to face with this offal made my stomach turn.

It looks harmless and yummy!

I’ve witnessed pig, chicken, and cows killed for food. I eat fish eyes, fish eggs in the fish, and balut (it was one of the food challenges on Fear Factor). I’ve seen my fair share of ‘gross’, for lack of a better word, that’s why I didn’t foresee a squeamish self at the sight of beef tongue…but there you go. Cleaning and cooking it was another story. I won’t get there for the sake of some of you. I did not take step-by-step photos either, for the same reason.

This isn’t for the faint of heart, dear readers, but if you’re feeling adventurous you’ll be rewarded with something so delicious! I sure hope I didn’t deter you from making this beloved Filipino delicacy:

The ingredients really came together. The tomato-based sauce added a boost of flavor to the meats. I cooked some beef meat with it, as you can see above, so that Dan will have something in case he didn’t like the tongue. He’s never had it before and I wasn’t about to force him to do so. [He did try a couple of slices and I'm so proud of him!] Traditionally, this dish has chunks of tomatoes and carrots, but for my version, I fried potato slices and took the carrots out altogether. Dan said the fried potato was perfect in this dish and was a nice contrast of texture with the tender meats.

Here’s the recipe: Continue Reading

Portobello, portabella…to-MAY-toe, to-MAH-to. However spelled, I love them. And tuna, too. When I was in highschool, and a geek to the core, I obsessed about eating tuna because it was considered “brain food”. Aside from the ‘benefits’ of the fish, I can’t get enough of the flavor.In this quick dish, I combined my favorites: tuna, mushroom, parmesan cheese, celery, Italian parsley, and olive oil.

Tuna Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons solid light tuna in olive oil
• 2-inch celery stalk, chopped
• 1 teaspoon butter
• 1 teaspoon grated parmesan cheese
• 2 baby portobello mushrooms
• a few leaves of chopped Italian parsley
• salt
• fresh ground pepper
• olive oil

Preparation

1. Pre-heat oven (or oven toaster) to 350°F.

2. Combine all the ingredients, except for the mushrooms, in a small bowl. Add salt and pepper to suit your taste. The saltiness of the canned tuna might be enough for you.

3. Divide and spread the mixture on the bottoms of the two mushrooms. Placed mushrooms on an oven safe dish.

4. Bake at 350°F for 10 minutes. Take out and spray on, or drizzle over, some olive oil. Bake for another 5 minutes.

5. Remove from the oven, sprinkle with chopped parsley and tent with aluminum foil for 5 minutes.

6. Remove foil and serve. It’s fantastic to eat with rice, and can also complement a creamy and light pasta dish very well.