Pork Marsala

I've always loved Chicken Marsala, but I never knew what Marsala was until much, much later. Marsala turned out to be this wonderful Italian wine which you use in this dish. Since I came to know what it is (a few years back), I've used the wine in my dishes a lot of times.

Well today, I did another variation of the Chicken Marsala by using pork loin chops. After searching for a recipe, I found one that I thought was right up my alley. Here it is. I would say my dish is an adaptation of this recipe. I made a couple of changes for mine. First, I added mushrooms. I thought that the meaty, earthy taste of the mushrooms would help boost the wine's flavor. Secondly, when I added the onion, I also added 2 tablespoons of flour with a tablespoon of butter to make a roux as I prefer my sauce to be thicker. Thirdly, I increased the amount of the sauce by adding 1/3 cup of chicken stock and 2/3 cup of wine. I'd recommend increasing the amount of sauce in this dish like I did - if you're the type who likes lots of sauce in your food. Remember, the liquid evaportes a little bit as you let it simmer, so a cup of liquid should make enough sauce.

I served the dish with steamed rice as suggested and garnished it with chopped italian (flat-leaf) parsley. Pasta would definitely be good too if you prefer to have it. My hubby mopped his plate with bread - that's how good this dish was.

Note: I used dry wine for this recipe. I always use dry wine for cooking, unless the recipe specifies using sweet.

Awesome Twosome

There are things that are meant to be together. Like peanut butter and jelly. Coffee and creamer. And yes, grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup.

This was my husband's craving once again. He said that he hasn't had it in a while. And it was a good time too since the temperature dropped and we had the coldest weather in 2008 that day.
For my sandwich, I wanted a firm bread that can withstand grilling, so I decided to use sourdough bread. I melted some butter and added some garlic cloves. Then I brushed the outer sides of the bread with the melted garlic-infused butter. For the sandwhich, I had deli-bought turkey and ham. I cooked a couple of strips of bacon and I added it in too, just for a smokey flavor in the background. As for the cheese, I used three different kinds - provolone (my husband's fave), guyere (swiss cheese) and parmesan cheese. Oh don't panic, I didn't put a lot - I just grated and mixed 3 different kinds of cheeses, ok?
The cheese melted beautifully. And the bread was toasted to perfection. Sourdough turned out to be an excellent choice. I don't have a panini press so I did what Asians would do... I got some good ol' foil for cover and laid some heavy canned goods on top of the sandwiches, hence the beautiful grill marks.. tadahhhh.. isn't that what you call resourcefulness?

As for the tomato soup - Mr. Campbell did it for me. I just added some julienned fresh basil leaf to it for flavor (another twosome - tomato & basil). I am a good wife but not that good. I wouldn't want to start making tomato soup from scratch when American Idol is coming on in a few minutes. Gotta have priorities, ya know?! Hahahahha... (Hubby, you're still my #1. Luv ya!)

Left-over Do-Over

Chicken carbonara is one of my favorite dishes. And I had the opportunity to make this for dinner recently because we had some left-over roasted chicken. I've tried making this dish before using the fresh skinless/boneless chicken breast. It was good too, but using roasted chicken just makes a whole lot of difference in the taste.

Carbonara, as you might know, is made from whipped cream and cheese - so it's not a dieter's food. To balance the richness of the sauce, I thought that I should use the healthier organic whole wheat pasta - which I already had in my pantry. (I'm just trying to play some tricks with my own mind, you know ;oD )
I had to cut down the recipe that I had for this as I'm cooking only for 2 people. Problem was, I overlooked the fact that whole wheat pasta absorbs more liquid than the regular one. So as you can see, the pasta didn't have the desired amount of sauce as it should have. But inspite of this, the pasta still came out tasty (thank God!). The roasted chicken, creamy sauce with parmesan cheese, the hint of lemon in the background plus the crunch of walnuts were a nice balance of flavor.

If you want to try this dish, pls. check out the recipe here. I followed most of what the recipe calls for except that I added shallots to the garlic, used bacon instead of pancetta, and like I said, I had to cut it down and used whole wheat instead of the regular pasta.

So remember, if you want to use whole wheat pasta like I did, increase the amount of liquid so you'll have a good amount of sauce in your dish. I promise you, it's going to be yum'oh!

Mung Bean Soup

This is a common Filipino dish that is probably the equivalent of lentil soup here in the United States. It's made of mung bean or "monggo" as we say in our language.

The soup is very easy to make, except that the beans take a while to cook enough to be mashed.

Ingredients:

1 c mung beans, 2 c water (more may be added when boiling), 1 clove garlic, 1 small onion, 1/4 lb meat (whatever you prefer), 1 c veggetables (spinach is suggested but you can use whatever you like)

Directions:

Boil the beans for about 30 minutes. When they're fork tender, mash them up. This will make for a creamy soup.

When the beans are ready, in another pan sautee garlic, onion. When the onions have turned transluscent, add the meat. (I added ground meat to mine.) When the meat is cooked, add the vegetables. (I had left-over broccoli slaw in the fridge so that's what I added in). Continue sauteing for 2-3 mins. and when the veggies have softened up, add the entire sautee mixture to the boiling soup and stir. For more flavor, I added chicken stock to my soup but this is not done tradionally. Season with salt and pepper. Just simmer for another 3 minutes and your soup is done! This soup is very versatile, as most soups are. In my country, we usually add to it a certain leafy vegetable called "kangkong" - very similar to spinach. Some even add a bit of coconut milk for a creamier soup.

The soup is served with steamed rice, to be eaten at best when it is warm.

This is a healthy soup, my ultimate comfort food. Luckily, Mr. J likes it too. Reminds him of the Philippines, he says... (of course!!! )

Berry Good

Sunday morning, I woke up with a craving for freshly baked cookies. Then I remembered that I picked up some blueberries from the grocery the other day. I intended to make blueberry pancakes with it, but hmmmnn.... blueberry cookies would be a nice alternative.

With hubby still in bed, I started preparing the cookie. I wanted him to wake up to the sweet aroma of baking cookies, you know, just to surprise him a little bit too. But unfortunately, it didn't turn out that way since he got up before I was able to pop the cookies in the oven. :o(

These cookies are the soft kind, more cake -like, with a texture similar to that of scones. Aside from the blueberries, the cookies have almonds and lemon zest in it too. But here's my secret (well, not anymore) - I added an ameretto liqueur (almond-flavored liquor) into it. Actually, the recipe called for almond extract, but since I didn't have any, I used the liquor instead - which I believe was what gave this cookie a unique almondy taste (is there a word "almondy"?). The amaretto and the lemon zest are the perfect combination.

Not only did we enjoy the cookies for breakfast, but we took some to our bible study group that night and our friends enjoyed them too. They are delicious!

For Moms out there - don't worry, these cookies are still kid friendly. The alcohol cooks off in the heat, so what you are left with is really just the concentration of flavor. You may want to try this as an alternative to chocolate chip cookies? Check out the recipe here.

Oh question -- why are the blueberries called blue when they're really purple? They should have been called purpleberries...hmnn.. I wonder...maybe I'll do a little reseach on this.

Weekend Dinner

We had a busy weekend. The hubby took on his bathroom project, while I did some grocery, cleaning and laundry. Yep, multi-tasking begins at home :o) Since we were both pre-occupied, we ended up skipping lunch. Not that it mattered since we had a good brunch that really filled us up. But by 5:00pm, both of us were already starving, especially my hubby who got some work-out on his project.

For dinner, I decided to do my hubby's all-time favorite - rib-eye steak. Having done rib-eyes so many times before, I wanted a new take on it. I remembered watching Giada de Laurentiis in Everyday Italian do some rib-eye steak with black olive vinaigrette. It looked so good, so I decided to try it.

My hubby grilled the steak and he did a good job, as usual. The meat was tender and juicy - just perfect. The combination of the steak with the black olive vinaigrette came out really well. This recipe is definitely a keeper. I suggest you try this yourself.

To go with the steak, I made some savory popovers and caesar salad. This was my first time to do popovers and I would say it came out good. For me, the popover is a cross between a yorkshire and a quiche. They were a bit crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside (yeah, like mentos..hehehe). The popovers are made of eggs, milk, a little bit of flour, parmesan cheese, parsely, salt and pepper. You won't believe it, but the very thin batter did rise up a lot - thus the name. Just remember to heat your pan up before pouring the batter (Emeril's tip). This will help make the batter rise even more.

And then, we had our favorite Caesar salad. I didn't do a whole lot on this except cut, wash and dry the lettuce and put all the ingredients together. I had a store-bought dressing but I'd love to try making a caesar salad dressing from scratch one day. By the way, just a little trivia for you. Do you know that caesar salad dressing has anchovies in it??? Yep, that saltiness you taste in the dressing isn't from the salt - it's the anchovies. You would never have guessed it, right?

Anyway, to the lettuce I added the foccacia croutons, roasted sliced almonds, freshly grated, good quality parmesan cheese.

So that's our early weekend dinner. We truly enjoyed this meal.

Indulgence

On Friday, we were invited to our friend Vicky & David's son's 2nd birthday party. Derwin made pizza from scratch. There's nothing better than home-made pizza! Kudos to Derwin for the great job!
The pizza was a meat-lover's dream with the sausage and peperoni underneath that thick layer of mozzarella cheese...Yum! Eating it was an indulgence for sure. It was definitely good but pizza, in my opinion, should be eaten once in a blue moon. This food is simply not figure and health-friendly. To borrow a friend's term, this food is a perfect "cardiac-delight".... get the joke?