Let's Bake Easy

Are you in a baking rut but kids are nudging you to make cookies or cakes? Do you feel intimated by baking ingredients and jargons you read in those cook books but wanted so much to make your own brownies or cupcakes?

Why not take it one step at a time. These tips and easy-to-find mixes will help you through your baking experience. This is how I started as well when I tried baking for the first time and it's what I recommend to friends who are first-time bakers and wants to create their own confections. 

Pancake mix

We make the traditional pancake with this mix. 

If you want a muffin, you can add sweet corn (canned in water) or cheese in your pancake batter (see package instructions for the batter). Line the cupcake pan with liners and fill cupcake liners with batter, pop in the over (oven toaster will do) and ta-da! You got corn or cheese muffins for the family. 

For the muffin, I used softened butter instead of oil.

More tip: when filling the cupcake liner with batter, make sure to fill only ¾ of the cup. The batter will rise a few minutes after you popped the muffin in the oven and the ¼ allowance from the rim is meant for this.

Everything is store-bought, canned corn, cheese, pancake mix. We love Maya or Queens brands. 

Sharon’s Choco Crinkles.

Easy to follow steps, you just need to have confectioner sugar available as this does not come with the box. 

We used an oven toaster for this recipe and the first one. Aside from baking based on instructions on the box, make sure to check and turn your goodies every now and then so they bake evenly on all sides. I do this even if I use my conventional oven. 

My happy bakers

And just like that, the kids prepared the table for our choco crinkle party!

Maya Fudge Brownie Mix

I have said it before, we're a big Maya products fan. This store-bought mix is my quick go-to when the kids have this urge to bake. Last weekend, we baked again and tweaked the ingredients a little because the little girl saw this recipe while watching Food Network (she said she wants to be a chef when she grows up) :) Instead of adding ½ cup butter, we put in ¼ c. butter and ¼ cup mayo. Once chocolate mixture is well blended, we folded in mallows and chopped cherries and it turned out gooey than fudgy. Just the way we likey J

 Any easy baking tip you want to share? Have a wacky Wednesday :)

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. 

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.