Bibingka - Filipino Favorites

Bibingka - Blueberry Muffin

You may wonder why I called this muffin bibingka - blueberry. First and for most bibingka is a Filipino word, it's a type of rice cake and traditionally eaten during Christmas season. This is one of my favorite delicacies in the Philippines. In traditional cooking method we use coal and banana leaves, a lot of preparation in cooking original bibingka. I'm very thankful that Filipino abroad can buy this bibingka rice mix in any International store and can be also done using oven or oven toaster with or without banana leaves. My sister-in-law went to Farmers Market in Atlanta, actually it's an International store where they found small shops inside the big market like, Philippines, Korea, Thailand, China, Vietnam, Eastern Europe and more. She was searching for Asian store for over five months online to find the bibingka rice mix. How do they like it? One of my friend from Indiana sent me a box of bibingka and other Filipino goods when I was pregnant. When I cooked bibingka it was a good timing that they were visiting us home and they tried some and they like it! For them, when they like something they love to have it again. They purchased more boxes this time to enjoy more the taste of Filipino favorites. This is the box of bibingka rice mix looks like.

A week before that I harvested blueberry in our backyard and planning to bake blueberry pie but my husband said he really don't like blueberry pie and why don't try blueberry muffin. He was the one who gave me an idea about bibingka - blueberry muffin. Yes, it works! They're good, served with homemade sweet tea with lime. What a refreshing snacks! For those who are interested going to Farmers market check this link http://www.aofwc.com and for those near the area here's the right address:  Buford Highway Farmers Market, 5600 Buford Highway NE, Doraville, GA 30340.

Easy and Quick Recipe

A Simple Dinner yet Satisfying

There are times that it so difficult for us to decide what to cook and what we really want to eat. For me, I can cook whatever we have in the fridge, it doesn't matter with my husband as long the food is tasty. I'm not bragging at all but according to my sister-in-law everything I cook is good for her. Of course, I'm happy to hear that and makes me more confident in "my way of cooking". Yes, everyone has different way or style in cooking but what matter most is the taste, right? So, everybody can be a cook or chef in their own way. One day my husband is craving for Pinto beans and mashed potato. I cooked Pinto beans with bacon, buttery mashed potato, fried yellow squash and fried tempura chicken. For my pinto beans I used HamBeens brand, 20 ozs., Hormel bacon and ground black pepper, salt for taste. For the mashed potato I used russets potato, butter and  fresh milk. For the fried yellow squash, eggs, self rising flour and cornmeal. The last is tempura chicken, I used chicken breast and tempura flour mix. Everything is easy to prepare and cook. If you're interested about the recipes just tell me and I'll post for your convenience.

Fruits and Vegetables

Fruits and Vegetable Garden

Strawberries

Tomatoes

Basil

Flowers

More flowers in our yard

Verbena



Pincussion Flower

Can you name this flower?

 Dianthus



Rose

Easy and Quick Recipe

Homemade Chili Dog

My husband likes chili and I tried to cooked one time in Southern way. I've learned how to cook some American food through him. I can't tell you right now what kind of American food I can cook but I will try to post sometimes.  What I have here is homemade chili dog. I prepared this for our supper, it's easy and not time consuming at all. Actually I didn't cook the chili, cooking chili at home will take longer. So, we usually buy Van Camps chili with beans, this is better brand than other chili. This is just a simple way of preparing chili dog but it's more tasty and inviting with pico de gallo on top. Check at the bottom of this post where I posted the ingredients and how to prepare pico de gallo.

Steps in preparing chili dog:

First. Grill the hotdog.

Second. Open the can of chili and transfer to microwavable bowl and heat for 2 minutes.

Third. Get the hotdog bun, put mayonaise, then grilled hotdog, add ketchup on top of hotdog and pour chili on top.

Chili Dog

Pico De Gallo

1 whole medium red tomato not over ripe - slice in small cubes

a half of medium onion - slice in small cubes

2 pieces of small jalapeno pepper - slice in small cubes

1 stem of green onion - slice finely

5 stems of cilantro - slice finely

* Mix all the ingredients and ready to serve.

Flowers

Flower Garden



                  Yellow Bell Flowers

      Pink Dianthus Flowers

                Speedwell Flowers

  Light Purple Dianthus Flowers

    
                         Chives Flowers

Swan Violet White Flowers 

Recipe of the Today

Chicken Afritada

I have had started cooking when I worked in Thailand not because Thai food are spicy and hot, but missing Filipino dishes. Yes, I love Thai cuisine. The funny thing was everytime we order food we have to tell them not to put chilli or pepper and they would tell us "mai ped mai aroy" meaning "not hot not delicious". Yes, that's true so, one whole chilli is already too hot for me. Even at school they serve spicy and hot food for the students because of that I decided to bring lunch at school. Almost half of Filipino teachers in our department were bringging lunch everyday and we shared what we have. That's the time we asked each other about their recipes and tried cooking. During holidays, birthdays and other occasions we love to get together, we cooked Filipino dishes and afritada is one of the dishes I've learned of course there's a little twist but for me it's still called afritada. Afritada can be chicken or pork, this is one of my favorite dish which I usually eat during fiestas and other occasions in our province. I'll assure you it ain't hard to prepare this dish. I hope you will like it.

Chicken Afritada

Ingredients:

• 3 chicken breast cut into chunk 
• a can of Hunts tomato sauce - 15 oz
• a can of Del Monte sweet peas - No salt added - 81/2 oz
• 3 cloves of garlic - crushed
• 1 medium onion - cut into small cubes
• 2 medium potatoes - peeled and cut into chunk smaller than chicken meat
• 1 small carrot - peeled and cut into chunk like pototoes 
• 1 tbs of cooking oil
• 1/2 tsp of ground black pepper
• 1 cube Knorr chicken cubes
• 1/2 tsp of soy sauce
• 1/4 cup of water
• 1 red/ green bell pepper - optional

Preparations:

1. Heat the cooking oil in a pan. Sautee garlic and onion, add chicken cube then the chciken meat. Mix and cover the pan, let the chicken cook for 10 - 15 minutes.

2. Be sure to cook the chicken well before adding sauce sauce, ground black pepper, tomato sauce and 1/4 cup of water. Mix and bring to boil.

3. Add potatoes and let it cook. (I prefer to cook potato first because I don't want the carrot to overcooked it doesn't taste good for me, I always want the crunchness of carrots.)

4. As long as the potato and carrot cooked, add the sweet peas and simmer for 2 minutes.

5. Serve with white steamed rice.

Filipino Beef Steak

Bistek

Bistek or Filipino beef steak is one of my favorite viands as we called in the Philippines. Viands, articles or dishes of food serve with rice. In the Philippines they cut the meat bigger than what I did. I use beef chuck tender roast and slice it thinly in bite size. I prefer to prepare the meat in small cut because it's easy to cook tender unlike the bigger cut sometimes is tough and need to cook longer. Anyway, the preparation of my bistek has a little twist but the flavor and taste of Filipino bistek is still the same. You try, you may like it!

Ingredients

• 2 lb Beef Chuck Tender Roast

• 1 large sliced onion

• 5 cloves of crashed garlic

• 1/2 tsp of ground black pepper

• 1/2 tsp of garlic powder

• 1/2 tsp of onion powder

• 1/3 cup of Dale Steak seasoning

• 4 tbsp of cooking oil

• 1 medium green lime

• 1/4 cup granulated sugar

• 1/4 cup of water

• 1 tsp of corn starch

Preparation

1. Slice the meat into bite size. Put the sliced meat in a bowl add garlic powder, onion powder, ground black pepper, granulated sugar, lime juice and dale steak seasoning, mix them well and marinate at least an hour before cooking. Overnight marinating is better.

2. Heat the skillet and add cooking oil, fry the marinated meat. Don't over fry.

3. Put a side the fried meat. Drain the oil, be sure the oil left in the skillet is enough to sautee the sliced onion and crushed garlic.

4. Sautee the sliced onion and crashed garlic, be sure to cook the onion well before adding the fried meat. Simmer for 5 minutes.

5. Dissolve the 2 tsp of corn starch into 1/4 cup of water then add into meat. Mix well and finally simmer for another 2 minutes.



Bistek with white steamed rice and blanced brocolli and carrots

Blueberry Tree

Blueberry

Vaccinium Corymbusom

These photos were taken with Canon Rebel XT.

It's my first time to see the real blueberry tree and I'm happy that we have it in our yard. With the first harvest I'm gonna make blueberry pie which I never had before. I like to eat blueberry jam, jelly, muffin and cake. Blueberry contains Vit C and K, dietary mineral manganese and dietary fiber in additional to that blueberry also contains various phytochemicals which are under preliminary research for their potential role in reducing risks of diseases such as inflammation and cancer.

A Blueberry Tree

Green and ripe blueberries

A close up shot

The first harvest

A close up shot

Gardening

Plants in our yard

When we bought our house last Summer of  2012 we found out a lot of herbs, trees, fruit bearing plants, vegetables and flowers around the house. I thought of the owner's compassion in gardening how much time and effort she spent in cultivating, planting and upgrading the yard. I felt sad because she lost her house but I'm also thankful for her, what can I do is just continue of what she had started and take care all the plants she planted. This year, I can only do a little bit in the garden after I had been through in the hospital and having a baby. Hopefully, I can do more gardening and keep our yard well groom next year. So I wanna share some shots of flowers in our yard, and more plants and flowers to be posted next time.



Pink Asalea Flower

White Lily Flower

Yellow Lily Flower

Chicken Rice Soup

Chicken Rice Soup

Ingredients:

• 4 chicken breast
• 1 head garlic - minced
• 1 medium onion - minced
• 1 cup of Jasmin rice
• 4 cups of tap water
• 1 chicken cube
• 1/2 cup of minced carrots
• a tsp of soy sauce
• a dash of ground black pepper
• a tsp of salt
• 4 tbsp of cooking oil
• green onion

Preparation:

1. Boil the chicken with dash of salt until tender.

2. Drain the water, cool down the chicken until ready to shred.

3. Heat the pan in medium fire, put 1 tbsp of cooking oil, sautee a tsp of minced garlic and minced onion   with chicken cube, be sure the onion cook well before adding the shredded chicken, mix well.

4. Add 4 cups of tap water, soy sause, ground black pepper and bring to boil. Then add a cup of Jasmin rice, mix a little bit, cover the pan until the rice cook.

5. Finally, add the carrots.

6. Garnish with golden brown fried garlic and finely chopped green onion and serve warm.

Garnish:

1. Heat the skillet and put 3 tbsp of cooking oil.

2. Fry the rest of minced garlic into golden brown, then drain the grease and put a side the fried garlic.

3. Chop the green onion finely.

Savory soup

Rose Flower

Lilac Rose Flower

Rosa Rubiginosa

This flowering plant fascinated me with its beautiful color. It's sharp prickly stem sometimes turns me off  but because of its beauty and fragrance I love it. For me, roses are a kind of flower which symbolize love, admiration, affection, gentleness, sincerity, purity, kindness and a lot more. Why? Because most the people think that red means love, white means purity, pink means elegance and femininity. This attractive flower usually known as an ornamental plant grown in the garden or sometimes grown indoors and you will find this plant all over the world.  We have this lilac roses beside of our house together with yellow roses to be posted next time.

Asiatic Lily

Matrix Red Asiatic Lily

Lilium Asiatic

So today, I have had a chance to take picture outside after the rain. As what I said we have another color of this trumpet shape flower in our yard, which is called Matrix Red Asiatic Lily. I'm not very good in photography but I tried my best to take pictures good as I can. I'm still learning, capturing the subject is not easy at all, it needs focus. I'm happy to tell you that we have many plants around the house and I can't wait to post and share with you my shots, from flowering plants we have a little vegetable garden too. I'm doing this during my free time , having a little one keeps me busy whole day long.

More pictures to be posted.

A shot of the whole plant.

The close up shot.

Asiatic Lily

Matrix Orange Asiatic Lily

Lilium Asiatic

This flower amazed me with its orange bright color. This trumpet shape flower bloomed in our front yard in mid-spring. This plant has been said to grow in the following regions: Washington, Wisconsin and Milwaukee. This flower has different colors, they're orange, red, yellow, pink and white.  They usually bloom in mid-summer to late summer. We have also red color but not bloom yet I have to take picture of it and post next time.

The beautiful Asiatic Lily.

The close up shot of the flower.