Recipe Share: Roast Pork Pastries

I have to confess, I’m a sucker for recipe out of a box. Literally, that is, recipes printed on a box (or can) of whatever we bought at the store – flour, cornstarch, milk, etc.

Why not?

Over the years since I started cooking and baking, these recipes were proven easy to follow and really delicious. I found my best Thai lumpia recipe from a free booklet I got when I bought an oyster sauce. My embutido and lumpiang shanghai was from a can of tomato sauce.

A few weeks ago, I chanced upon a recipe from a box of cornstarch (Golden Harvest) I bought to make homemade dough for the kids. It’s a pastry dough recipe with only 3 to 4 ingredients tops – flour, water, shortening and egg. You can fill it up with whatever you like. I divided the dough in batches for hotdog, pork belly and cheese fillings. 

Roast Pork Pastry: 

Water Shortening Dough

300g. (2/3 lbs.) Flour

150g. (1/3 lbs) water

75g. (3 2/3 oz.) lard or shortening

Flaky Dough

225g. (1/2 lb) flour

112g. (1/4 lb) Lard or shortening

the flaky dough, a little more yellow than the water shortening dough

1. Mix and knead the 2 doughs separately. Divide each into 25 equally sized portions. Wrap one portion of flaky dough inside each piece of water shortening dough.

2. Roll out each piece of dough until thin and fold into thirds. Repeat this process 2 more times. Roll thin.

Filling:

I didn’t follow the recipe on the box of Golden Harvest cornstarch. I instead used my own pork belly recipe.

Pulled Pork Belly:

500 g. pork belly

1 medium potato, peeled and cubed

¼ cup cooked green peas (optional)

2 tbsp. soy sauce

2 tbsp. oyster sauce

1 ½ tbsp. brown sugar

1 tsp. fish sauce

2 bay leaves, crushed

whole peppercorns

pinch of salt

½ cup water

zest of lemon or calamansi (optional)

chopped basil or coriander

1. Mix all the ingredients together in a pot except for potatoes, peas and chopped basil/coriander. Place the pork belly in the middle of the pot and slow cook until tender and meat starts to fall apart. You may need to add more water in the middle of cooking if the liquid starts to dry.
2. Add the vegetables – add potatoes once pork is halfway done and green peas a minute before you turn off the fire.
3. Once cooked, transfer on a plate, add chopped basil and let cool. Shred the pork into strips with fork once it’s cool enough.
4. Wrap some filling in each piece of dough and lightly flatten. Brush some lightly beaten egg yolk on the top of each pastry.
5. Bake at 200 degrees C (390 degrees F) or until golden brown.

In the oven they go. I placed them in a muffin pan because I'm not sure if they'll hold together since it was my first time to try this recipe. Thankfully, they did :)

The finish product. I honestly didn't expect what would come out of a pastry recipe without egg and all the other ingredients I normally use. Now I know - pastry with a little crunch; texture somewhere in between a hopia and an empanada. 

I'm definitely doing this recipe again, probably put more filling as I now know that the elasticity of the dough can hold the filling in place. Plus the kids had fun doing their own pastry dough. 

Recipe Share: Longganisa and Dinuguan ala Monterey

I used to have a helper that can cook to-die-for Filipino dishes so anytime we crave a pancit bihon or ginataang langka, we just request it from her and wish granted.
When she was still with us, our relatives and in laws would troop to our house every weekend for that taste of ginataang langka (jackfruit with cocunut milk). Some even attempted to pirate her but she remained loyal to us, until she got pregnant and had to leave.
When this helper left, I really felt deprived and realized that I cannot recreate those dishes I used to enjoy on a regular basis. We still communicate,though, so I can ask her for recipes and she said she misses my pastas and cakes naman daw :)

Moving on in life, when I reviewed my Nora Daza and other Pinoy cookbooks, I realized my knowledge of Filipino dish is very limited pala. I can cook tinola, sinigang (which my daughter dubbed as the best sinigang ever :)), a variety of tomato based recipes like pochero, embutido, barbeque/liempo, paksiw (that my in-law loves) and variety of adobo. That's about the Pinoy recipe I can confidently cook. The rest is either Italian, American or Chinese. So, my goal is to learn to cook more Filipino dishes.

I started off with homemade longganisa because one of my goals too this year is for our family to enjoy these breakfast favorites all natural.

Here's my recipe for longganisa (Filipino sausage):

1/2 k lean ground pork
1 tsp. salt
2 tbsps. sugar
1 1/2 tbsp. white vinegar
pepper, season according to taste
lotsa chopped garlic if you want it that way (I used 4 cloves). Some like it sweeter, just add mroe sugar.

Now, I didn't put this in a casing as I'm not sure where to buy a good (clean) one. I tried to form them into rolls and fried them but after while they just disintegrated so I decided to just saute the batch. My husby calls it buhaghag longganisa, haha! But in terms of taste, it's a winner especially if you let the mixture stay in the fridge for 2-3 days before cooking. The ingredients will become BFFs and yield a tastier longganisa.

Now for the Dinuguan (Pork Blood Stew).

Since I'm kinda scared to go all out on this recipe being my first time to cook this, I decided to try the Pork Blood Trio that Monterey meatshop offers. It's a pack that contains marinated pork and 2 packs pork blood. It sort of ready to cook, all you need from your pantry are garlic, onions, vinegar, jalapeno pepper or siling mahaba, water, salt and pepper.

Why Pork Blood Trio, I asked the very accommodating attendants of Monterey (I love their costumer service, really). Well, with the pack you can make 3 different dishes: Dinuguan tagalog-style, Batchoy and Dinuguan Bicol Style. Each pack comes with the how-to guide for each recipe. So convenient, right?

Just follow the step by step guide. 

My take on this recipe? As I've said it's convenient especially for first timers but the taste is okay. It helps that the meat was already marinated but it could use maybe more pork blood. At the last part I had to add more vinegar and salt than what the recipe said to make up for the taste. Each recipe serves 5-7 pax. 

Finish product. 

Baon Ideas for School Kids

I have mentioned in my previous post that I enjoy preparing the kids’ baon. The previous school years I wasn’t able to do this much because of my work schedule; I was tied to giving instructions to the helpers lang. Now with a fixed schedule I get to prep the kids' school stuff including their baons. 

Planning kids’s school snacks/meal is no easy task. It’s the same way as planning the family weekly menu. I’ve been doing it for 8 years now and boy, sometimes I just run out of ideas. You need a lot of brainstorming and research so meals won’t redundant and so that you’re sure the family gets enough nutrition.

Here are what I prepared for Sophie and Sam’s baon yesterday. Before I took a bath I made these:

Happy face mini-pizzas made of 2 types cheeses (quezo de bola and quickmelt cheese), ham and olive oil. I decorated with a little ketchup to make the eyes, nose and mouth. Easy to do and fun to eat. Who doesn’t love pizza anyway? :

these babies are ready for the oven 

use this to make catsup eyes and mouth

I also packed ‘em snacks with bread sticks, wafers and nuts. This goes alongside slices of crunchy, juicy apples :) For the drinks, we send them juice boxes every now and then but not too often. Water is always the best way to go.

party mix for baon with wafers, crackers and mixed nuts

Other baon options to share with you in case you run out of ideas (just as I sometimes do):

1. Pancakes. Create a smiley face or draw a flower (or their fave character like train for my little boy) on the pancakes using melted chocolates or pack with a fat free maple syrup in a small container.
2. Quick pasta cooked with olive oil, finely chopped fresh basil, onions, seasoned with salt and pepper. My little ones like it with scrambled egg. I use fresh basil instead of dried because the kids prefer it that way. You can also make kids spaghetti with meat sauce, carbonara or mac and cheese.
3. Chicken or fish fingers or nuggets (depending on how you cut the chicken/fish fillet). Make homemade nuggets which are way healthier than the store bought packed nuggets. Just combine evap milk, flour, eggs, salt and pepper to make a batter and coat the chicken/fish slices with batter. Before cooking, I dust the nuggets with a little cornstarch for more crunch. You can either fry or bake the nuggets.
4. Quesadillas – so easy to make with just flour tortillas spread with olive oil, mozarella cheese and some veggies like spinach or fresh basil. Grill them and they’re ready to go! See my post here.
5. Make ahead viands – could be adobo or pork steak. Just last Thursday, my daughter brought pork sinigang (pork tamarind soup) for baon. Haha! She loves my sinigang cooked with boiled real tamarind.
6. Fluffy shrimp cakes – recipe here.
7. Boiled eggs with crafty designs – the little boy calls this oval eggs. 

I found some cute and crafty designs for boiled eggs and other meals on the web. Look how interesting a simple sandwhich or boiled egg can look. Kids will surely love to munch on these.

photo credit

Care to share more baon ideas? Moms and Dads need as much ideas to last the whole school year :)

Recipe Share: Burger with Mushroom Sauce + A Party

Sick and tired of the old burger patties? Or, as in our case, we bought too much for Sophie's birthday and didn't know what to make with the rest of the packs. We're not really fond of burgers on a regular basis.

To remedy, I made mushroom a sauce so these patties become consumable for lunch. I decided on a mushroom sauce because we received a big pack of dried mushroom last Christmas. So you see, this recipe is a collaboration of ingredients that's been sitting around far too long in our pantry and freezer.

Here goes the recipe, hope you can try it out. Hubby and I really enjoyed it (the kids aren't burger eaters but they like the sauce).

What you need:
6 burger patties (meat or veggie burger, your choice)
8 dried mushrooms, soaked in water and sliced thinly
1 tbsp butter
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, julienne
1/2 cup evaporated milk
salt and pepper to taste

What To Do:
1. In a pan, melt butter in medium heat. Saute garlic and onions.
2. Saute mushrooms (when it starts to get done, you can smell that oh so familiar nutty mushroom smell)
3. Put the fire to low and pour in milk, stirring constantly until it thickens. The amount of milk depends on how much sauce you want and ratio of mushroom to sauce. I put in about half a cup of evaporated milk. Add salt and pepper to taste.

You're ready to eat!:)

While on the topic of cooking, we got invited to a birthday celebration at Max's Restaurant. They served the usual menu - resto's signature fried chicken, pancit, etc. What's interestingly new is that the theme of the party was Junior Masterchef. Kids who participated were given a set of gear and utensils for baking: toque, apron, gloves, pot holders and mixing spoons, all with the famous show's logo. Cool right? Sophie, being keen in the kitchen, really enjoyed making choco crinkles, the ingredients were of course provided by Max's. Another activity to make kids really feel kitchen masters for a day was the shake making contest. I say, this is a unique way to celebrate kids' birthday now.

Progressive School: Nutrition Week

I’m sure mommies who have school kids have had a busy nutrition week as schools celebrated this event by either bringing only healthy snacks to school, students being that plump tomato or a carrot mascot who struggled to deliver their lines in a school play.

My kids spent Nutrition week with mini field trips to Greenwhich for my Nursery son and to Johnny Rockets for my K2 daughter. Both of them loved the out-of-school activities.  My daughter particularly loved that she went to a trip for the first time without her yaya. She felt so adult. My little boy naman had so much fun winning the parlor games hosted by the fast food chain. He even brought home to Mommy the pizza he made during their pizza-making activity. Isn’t he the sweetest?

the little kulitog and his pizza 

Why Johnny Rockets and Greenwhich on a Nutrition week you say? I asked the same boggling question. The teachers shared during culmination day that they explained to kids that these places serve sometimes food and the kids should visit these places only accasionally. Ayun naman pala…

Part of the homework of my K2 girl was to produce a 3-5 minute video ala cooking show featuring one main ingredient which was mango. The video should show a parent-child cooking tandem and the dish should be nutricious and delicious. Came culmination day, the video was shown and judged by guest judges including a nutritionist. Sample of the dishes were also presented to the judges and the scored based on taste. Effort 'di ba?

Although I wanted to see our submitted video as they presented it in school, I was busy preparing the sample dishes. Sophie and I prepared two: Creamy Mango Jelly and Rainbow Salad for the judges to taste. By the time I got out of the classroom-turned-mini-kitchen, I only had a glimpe of the CBB (closing billboard or credits) of our video.

Our submitted recipes: Rainbow salad and Creamy Mango Jelly 

Came awarding time, I was seriously praying that Sophie gets at least 3rd place. She put so much energy and effort during our rehearsals and she was such a great host :) The heavens heard my prayer and gave us something more - a 1st place! Yay! 

The little girl (and I) proudly went on stage and took her prize. I shared in several posts how my kids love to cook and bake and this prize is a great motivation for the little girl to continue with her passion. Her prize was a cookbook made for kids and she’s just excited to do everything in that book ( I think I need to stock more butter and flour now).

I’m as happy that all the efforts (and one sleep-deprived weekend) paid off. My husband told me that our video was a hands down winner because it was edited just like a cooking show; that we can make more cooking videos and upload it online. Well, for one it would be a shame that my job is to make sure programs on TV have everything they need to launch and air without glitch but can’t make a simple cooking show project for my kid. 

The video was shot using a Samsung digicam (in HD) and edited using Window Movie Maker. One tip: unless you have a powerful PC, better to convert an HD video to SD (standard definition) so that it will be faster to edit. You can donwload free converters/transcoder online. Our video was simple but it has all the elements of a 5 –minuter cooking show: title card and chargens (made with powerpoint), music/score, an edited body and credits. 

As for making this a regular thing, let's see... I even don't have the guts to post our video here (super shy?). For now, I'll give you the title card, the title was Sophie's idea :)

our tcard, with downloaded template from Microsoft 

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Mommy Moments - Mommy's Hobby

Husband was wondering why I haven't blogged about my new toy. Simple, busyness ang lola for weeks now :( 

Here it is, my new toy! :) An Electrolux gas range with oven, the one I've been eyeing to buy for months now. 

What's even winner about this is that I got it through an auction. I joined a sealed bidding for slightly used appliances and other kitchen gadgets from a cooking show and won. I got this baby for less than half the original price. Winner talaga! (got a sizzler and chopping board, too, from the auction)

My first ever baked dish using my oven - Lasagna made with ground beef and pork, bechamel sauce and mozarella cheese. Topped with fresh basil leaves from our garden. Yum!

Cooking/baking is a hobby I am most passionate about. I love to experiment new recipes, follow recipes from a cookbook and give it a personal touch. Cooking also helps me loosen up those tightened nerves after a stressful week at work. You'll know when I'm stressed, I cook and bake and cook and make everyone at home fat haha! :)

Linking this post to Mommy Moments.

 

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A Cookbook Giveaway

I rarely join blog contests for reason that I can't finish all requirements because I'm always busy. Huhu :(
But it's just so hard to pass up this one because the prize is something I love, cookbook! Yes, I'm an avid collector of cookbooks and I hope to win this limited edition cookbook.
If you like to join too, hop on to Purple Plum Fairy for the mechanics. Good luck to us all! :)