Tomato-Spinach with Brie Cheese Pasta

When some of my Italian friends have left the country, they left behind some things in our fridge that they couldnt take with them. One of these things were 1) this big wheel of President Brie Cheese that I didn't want to see go to waste 2) Leftover fusilli good for 1 hungry person.

I searched for recipes online on what I could do, and I found this video on youtube where the sauce ingredients were only olive oil, fresh diced tomatoes, garlic oregano, and brie cheese.

I didn't have oregano or any kind of herbs, so I ended up putting spinach instead (for greens). A friend suggested I should have put tuna so it has some protein in it... which I did later on for a salad with brie cheese (the salad didnt turn out very well).

Ingredients (good for 1 hungry person)
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 clove of garlic chopped but not too small
- 1/2 cup of diced tomatoes (or more)
- 2 handfuls of fresh spinach
- a big tablespoon chunk of brie cheese
- cooked leftover pasta good enough for one!

Steps:
1) Saute the tomatoes and garlic first in olive oil
2) Dump in the cheese and wait for it to go all melty
3) Put in the spinach (although in hindsight, I should have put the spinach first so they'd wilt further before I burn the cheese).
4) Put in the cooked pasta!

5) Then just eat off the pan. Saves time cleaning dishes. Yum.

Vegetarian... and then Not-Vegetarian Chilli

I had an American friend who told me she was going to cook Vegetarian Chilli for me. However, I didn't get a chance to try it because of time constraints. :-/ I was craving for it the other day and then my boyfriend's birthday potluck was coming up and asked me to bring veggies (because everyone was bringing meat) so I ended up making it!

This blog entry starts off with making the vegetarian version... and then later on mixing it with leftovers so it wasn't vegetarian anymore. According to one of my food-critic friends, he thought it tasted delicious, but his mind was still searching for that "bite of meat".

How I made the Chilli, the summarized version :)

Vegetarian Version

The ingredients! Lots of beans, tomatoes, corn, herbs... don't mind the photo-bombing banana.

Ingredients:

• 2 cans of mixed bean
• 1 can of red kiney beans
• 1 can of whole kernel corns
• 2 cans of whole peeled tomatoes, blended but still keep some chunks
• 1 can of chicken broth
• 1 medium red onion, chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground chilli powder
• salt and pepper
• a spring of rosemary -- just because I had it. be careful not to add too much!
• a little bit of maple syrup - why? because I wanted it a bit sweeter

Steps:

1.) Drain and rinse the beans and corn. We need to get rid of the icky chemical-tasting liquid. Chop the garlic, onions, and bell pepper.

Drained and rinsed the beans and corn, chopped the onions, garlic, and bell pepper

2. Saute first the onions and the bell peppers in olive oil until soft. Then add the garlic and saute until golden brown.

Sautee the bell peppers, onions, and garlic

3. Pour over everything else, and let it simmer for about 30 minutes. The liquid will have reduced by then and the flavors would seep into the beans and corn.

Everything's in the pot, then boil

4. This is what it looks like reduced after simmering for half an hour.

Boiling for quite some time already

5. Serve it into a bowl. :D Eat with rice or with bread.

Served in a bowl

With Leftover Meat Version

As for the non-vegetarian version... I had some kesong puti (white cheese) from Mr. Moo in Tagaytay and we had some leftover Deli Mondo Spicy corned beef (favorite!!!). I combined everything together and nuked it in the microwave.

Leftover Chilli, Kesong Puti, and Corned Beef

The cheese got all melty and I swirled it a little bit around. I had this marbly thing going. :) I'm no vegetarian, so I definitely liked this one better!

The Instagrammed Version

Fishing for Shrimps in Shilin Taipei 釣蝦場

Last week when I was in Taipei, I was brought to this shrimp-fishing place in Shilin (釣蝦場). You fish for shrimps and you cook them later on. We had to go by car because there's no MRT nearby.

The rent for 1 fishing rod for 1 hour was 350 NTD, while for 2 hours it was 600 NTD. We used the fishing rods to fish for shrimps in this murky pool. As for the bait, my friend bought it for us.

釣蝦場 - Shrimp Fishing Place

There's a certain "art" to catching a shrimp. You have to move the bait slowly around, as if it was moving like a fish. I had to be reminded several times - "that's not how a fish moves!". The bait movement needs to be slow and steady. According to my friend, the shrimp will first test the bait for danger by using its claws (I only found out this day that shrimps actually had claws!). After testing, it will start to nibble the bait and pull at the hook. When it does, I jerked the fishing rod and the shrimp gets hooked! (Ouch). Then I pull out the fishing rod.

My friends, posing with the shrimp they caught

After catching the shrimp, my friend had to pull out its claws (double-ouch! :( poor things). If he didn't pull it out, it would be hard for him to remove the hook from the mouth. I didn't take photos, but there's a bunch of shrimp claws/arms all over the floor. I only tried pulling out the shrimp's claw/arm once.

This is me, posing with the shrimp I caught

For the 2 hours that we've been fishing, I managed to catch 8. Not bad for a first-timer. At the earlier parts, a lot of them managed to get away, along with the bait from the hook (waited for too long before jerking or pulling too slow).

I cleaned those 8 myself. By cleaning, I mean pulling out its legs and the long thing from its snout. I felt really bad doing it... it must be torture for them.

Ready for skewering

After the shrimps have been cleaned, the next step is to skewer them with the BBQ sticks from the tail up to the head. While I'm excited to eat grilled shrimps, I just feel really bad for them. After skewering them all, we lined them up and poured salt to coat them.

Grilling shrimps

After this, we grilled them! I think we overcooked some, but majority of the shrimps were grilled correctly. Of course, the shrimps were fresh. We bought drinks, rice, and other food after this. For the shrimp sauce, they gave us soy sauce and wasabi. For me, I had my shrimps with Heineken.

Cooked Shrimps!

Overall, I had fun! Mixed feelings of excitement over the fishing activity but guilt for torturing shrimps (according to scientific studies, shrimps do feel pain). If I were to do this again, I would probably just behead them from the start and then bring over some pesto, chopped garlic, and lemon for marinade prior to grilling. Yum.

Quick recap of the whole thing!

Creme dela Creme Blog

My brother and sister-in-law are starting a new blog together. It's called Creme dela Creme. http://itsacremedelacremelife.com/

Check it out! They only have 1 entry so far on their Brazilian Stew (Feijoada). The upcoming one is a cheesecake. :)

Here's a photo of their Feijoada. I've tried it and it's really yummy.

Photo of Feijoada that I took using iPhone 5s

Hot Sweet Ginger Tea with Chia Seeds

I've been consuming chia seeds on a daily basis since my friend gave it to me as a gift. The other day, I passed by a stall that gave out ginger tea with chia seeds as a sample. It turned out pretty awesome! Because of that, I decided to make some for myself.

Ingredients
- a knob of ginger
- 1 tbsp of chia seeds
- 1 tsp brown sugar or honey (optional)
- 1 1/2 cups of water

Steps:
1. Boil the ginger, sugar/honey, and water to make the ginger tea.
2. Soak the chia seeds in half cup of water for about 5 minutes.
3. When it's ready, serve it in mugs and mix with chia seeds. Serve hot! :)

Quick Apple Crumble!

I got inspired to try this after seeing it on a site that I now can't find. :( I dont remember my search keywords and I dont remember what it looked like. So now I'm posting it to keep it in memory.

This is a microwave recipe. I know there are anti-microwave people out there, i know you can use a normal oven with this, but I just don't have one with me now.

So here goes!

Ingredients:
- An apple
- 4 tbsp instant oatmeal (plain)
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- a dash of cinnamon if you have it!
- 2 tbsp butter chunks
- dollop of plain yogurt or vanilla ice cream

Steps:
1. Chop the apples into .5 cm thickness
2. Place it around the bowl
3. Mix the oatmeal and sugar. Put on top of the apples. Sprinkle cinnamon if you have it.
4. Spread the butter chunks/dots around the top.
5. Microwave for a minute or 1 1/2 minutes. (Or put in an oven but I dont know yet for how long).
6. Put the yogurt or ice cream and dig in!

Poached Eggs on Top of Bacon-fat Toasted Bread

Kind of difficult to write an entry now on my phone... but i wanted to post my food pics here of the poached eggs, ham, salsa, amaranth, and bacon-fat toasted bread (unhealthy, I know).

As for the salsa I made, I made a jar-ful of it and ill be eating it throughout the week. I'm trying out some efficiency strategies these week to cut down on time required. :)

Beef Salpicao-style Marinated in Red Wine

Today, I cooked raw meat all by myself. I've always been used to veggies/fruits/canned stuff so preparing something out of raw meat is something new for me. I saw the chunk of raw tenderloin in the Supermarket today which costed roughly PhP 90, so I decided to try it out for today. 

All day, I was concerned if I was working with spoiled meat. Throughout the prep-work, I was checking online on how to know if the meat is spoiled. So far, it all boiled down to the smell. Mine didnt smell funky. The color was good too! The parts that were frozen had a deeper color but I knew it was of a different color because certain parts got frozen.

With the limited stuff available in the apartment kitchen, I just ended up grabbing again whatever was available. I used a Red Wine marinade recipe as a guide, though I didnt have everything.

So anyway, it turned out really well, so that's why I'm posting it here today!

Ingredients:

• 8 oz tenderloin
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/3 cup dry red wine
• sprinkle salt and pepper
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar
• 1 tbsp Yakiniku sauce (i didnt have the Worcestershire sauce, so I ended up with this)
• 1/2 tsp sugar

Procedure:

1. Cut the beef into 1 inch by 1/2 inch (salpicao style).
2. Mix everything together. Make sure to taste and adjust . Don't make it too salty.
3. Marinate it for at least 2 hours, maximum 6 hours.
4. When it's ready, put some olive oil in the pan at high heat. Put in the beef chunks one at a time. Flip it over once. It should get that crusty seared texture on the outside.
5. For the sauce, pour the marinade into the pan to cook for about a minute. When it's done, pour over the beef.

Pizza Hut Party at the Office, Thanks to BPI Credit Card Charge Slips

I had some credit card charge slips from BPI over the past 2 months and I saw in the Real Thrills website that the promo with Pizzahut/DQ/Taco Bell would be over in July 31.

My officemates went with me to the nearest Pizza Hut branch to get our freebies. :) (Take-out only) The maximum charge slips we could use was 3. We used 2 charge slips above 12k and 1 above 6k.

We ended up with:

• 1 family size bacon cheeseburger
• 1 regular size supreme
• 1 family size spaghetti with meatballs

I added in an additional order of their chicken wings (I love the Medium Buffalo!)



We brought it back to the office and we had a mini merienda party!

If you've got BPI charge slips (at least 2k) from May 15 , 2013 to July 31, 2013 from BPI, avail it soon! You can only do so until Sept 29, 2013.

I still have a couple left. I'd like to go to Taco Bell for my next set. It's been a long time since I had a Taco.

Update: For charge slips dated August 1, 2013 to October 24, 2013, they have freebies in Chowking!

Painting Ceramics at Color Me Mine Hobbes & Landes

As early as I could, I influenced my niece to like artsy craftsy stuff. When she was around 3, I started bringing her to the Color Me Mine section of Hobbes and Landes.

Our most recent trip was to paint an angel. She's now into the more-complicated stuff. We started before with small and simple fishes or butterflies. The plaster figurines range from 300-1000 Php, depending on the size and complexity. There's also a painting and baking fee which is about 180 Php, if I remember correctly.

Here's photos of our most recent Angel figurine!

We first choose the figurine we want to paint

They lent us their tools and they gave us paint. We get to choose 5 at a time. My niece really wanted purple & pink.

Here's what it looks like after we finish painting! But we can't take it home yet...

We left it with Hobbes & Landes for glazing. General waiting time is 3 weeks.
When it comes back, it's all shiny and the colors are more vibrant.. :)

Here's what their station looks like. Lots of figurines and paint to choose from!

Here's some of the old stuff she did. We've done a lot more, but these were the only ones which I still had in my phone.

Here's a fairy

Freaky fish?

You can visit their international site at http://www.colormemine.com