Choco Loco

I only asked the boy to bring me home 2 things from his recent trip:  Tim Tams and Violet Crumble.  For some reason Tim Tams here taste differently and Violet Crumble's hardly available anywhere.  Turns out looking for these babies were just as difficult to find where he was because it was always a full day of museums and zoos such that the time they were finally free was the same time shops closed.  Bummer.  But, he did find a suitable replacement in Cadbury's Crunchie Bars--similar honeycomb center covered with milk chocolate that is guaranteed to stick to your teeth or what's left of it.  Incidentally, I will be making these for our Halloween shindig this Saturday where I will dress up as Bellatrix Lestrange.

For today, I adapted a recipe from the blog Give Me Some Oven-- Cocoa and Chili-rubbed Pork Chops.  I tweaked it by changing the chili powder into chipotle peppers in Adobo sauce--everything else I retained, including the brining which is much needed to keep the chop moist even when it becomes cold by lunch time.

Today's lunchbox: Cocoa and Chipotle Rubbed Pork Chops and Mexi-Cali Rice

Now, as I still have remnants of the weekend's flu, I must go back to my chemically-enhanced, deep sleep.

Good night and good morning to y'all.  :-) 

We're Back!

So after a week's absence, we are back.  As you know, the boy went on a field trip somewhere far, far away and has just returned last Saturday hence the absence of the posts.  It was the first time he went away overseas without either parent so I was a bit antsy which apparently (thank God) was for no reason.  He mingled quite well with the other kids and was not a bother to the upper school prefect.  He told me that he did not miss me nor feel homesick--a proof that he's super sick of my nagging (which I vowed I will keep doing so long as he keeps on doing stuff he's not supposed to and vice-versa) and of his growing independence.  However, as independent as he may seem, it still gave me much satisfaction hearing this third sentence from him: "Mom, what for my lunchbox next week?" ***sighs***  I am mighty pleased with these lunchboxes.

So this week I am sharing my recipe of Cereal Prawns, something so easy to make but is sold in restaurants here in Manila at disgustingly exorbitant prices.  It's pretty sick.  One restaurant even sells it at PhP150.00 a piece.  That's just too much for something so very simple to make.   One may actually buy mixes for Cereal Prawns in groceries abroad which I too tried.  We purchased some in Singapore which tasted a bit too salty and one in Malaysia which was perfect.  Both  also contained MSG. However, there is no reason why you can't make it here from readily available and very cheap store-bought stuff sans the MSG too.  I must admit though, that I have not tried those versions sold here. This recipe is based on what I remember tasting in Singapore and so I dare say, this is a pretty good guide.  :-)

Today's lunchbox:  Cereal Prawns (Cereal separated), Steamed Rice with Babirang

Cereal Prawns

1 Kilo medium-sized prawns, shelled and deveined

salt and pepper to taste

3 Packets Nesvita Cereal Drink--original flavor (Nestum in other countries)

4 Tablespoons Coffee Creamer

4 Tablespoons Cerelac--original flavor which is wheat and banana (Yes the baby food)

4 Teaspoons Quick-Cooking Oats

2-3 Tablespoons Butter

a fist-full of curry leaves

4 cloves crushed garlic

2 chili padi (or more if you like it spicy)

1. Season your prawns with salt and pepper and quickly fry in oil. Set aside but do not drain because the oil is needed if you want the cereal to stick to the prawns. 
2. In a bowl, mix together all dry ingredients:  cereal drink, creamer, cerelac, oats and season with a bit of salt and pepper.
3. In the same pan where you fried the prawns, remove nearly all the oil and saute in it the garlic, chili padi and curry leaves.  When garlic is golden and the chili has released its oil, add in the butter and all of the cereal mix.  Toss around until crumbly like the texture of polvoron or pie crust.  
4. Toss in the prawns and voila!  Cereal Prawns that didn't cost an arm and a leg to make.

PS  If you get to try this recipe, please do share your experience.  Would appreciate any comment at all.  Cheers!

Meat Loaf Lunch

Yesterday was a Meat Loaf lunch for the boy.  Didn't get to post it as I had a million things to do and was too tired to think of what to write about it.  Actually I'm still tired and haven't figured out what to write about it.  So instead, I will write about next week since there will be no lunch boxes all of next week.

The boy is going away for the week, out of the country and an ocean (maybe 2?  I suck at geography too) for the very first time without either parent.  And I'm fiddling with my fingers and making a hundred lists in my head of what could possibly go wrong with this trip.  I think this is where my fatigue is coming from.  I should totally stop.  The boy is taller than I am and can very well figure out a crook from a good bloke.  I should relax, probably have a drink with my girlfriends and let him have fun without me.  Yes. He is after all turning 14 this year.  I'm sure he will learn a lot of things both on an academic and personal level.

Relax Mama...relax.  Inhale...exhale...

Yesterday's lunch box:  Homemade Meat Loaf, New Potatoes and Gravy

See you week after next.

Çok Lezizdi! (It Was Delicious!)

Hello darlings.  Sorry for having been absent for the past two days.  Monday's lunchbox was a replay (Garlic Steak) and Tuesday, the cook made Tonkatsu--I was too spent to get up so I told the boy that I'd rest for a day.  So today, I made one of his most favorite things in the world: Bulgur Köftesi, Turkish Kofte.

If you haven't tried it, you really are missing a whole lot, if you are into bold and exotic flavors that is--like my boy, Enzo.  He has a very mature and diverse palate.  He eats anything from street food to high street food, from the very cheap to the, well, during special occasions, very expensive (emphasis on special occasions).  Today's recipe was adapted from the blog Almost Turkish which I tweaked a little bit to suit Filipino taste buds. The yummy salad which I made into a sauce (just so that he would eat eggplant) was from a Turkish chef, Ismail Tosun of the restaurant Eminem in Perth, Australia (what a cutie!).  

Try making these to spice up your repertoire.  It is easy, yummy and different.  You may, of course adjust the spice level according to your preference and fry a bit of the meat mixture to taste if it is already to your liking.  But remember, be brave!  You'll never know what culinary delights you're missing if you fail to try what the world has to offer.  If you don't like it, then you'll find out you don't.  And if you like it, just say--Çok Lezizdi!  And be thankful for finding one more beautiful, yummy thing to live for.  

Şerefe! (Cheers!)
Bulgur Koftesi (adapted from Almost Turkish)


500 grams ground beef (you can use a mixture of beef/lamb or beef/pork)
1/2 cup bulgur (I bought mine at Santi's Delicatessen but there's also some at Taj in Makati)
1 big onion, finely minced (I do this in the food processor)
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 cup cilantro (wansuy-you could use less if you don't like this so much)
1/2 teaspoon cumin (a lot less than the original recipe which calls for 1 1/2!)
1/4 cup Italian or flat-leaf Parsley, minced
4 cloves of minced garlic
salt and pepper to taste

1. Put the bulgur in a bowl and cover it just until the surface with boiling water.  Let sit for 10 minutes then drain. 
2. Combine all ingredients in a biggish bowl and mix with your hands until uniform in color and texture. 
3. Let the flavors develop for at least 4 hours, I do this overnight.  Just make sure to cover the mixture well or else your water will taste like onions.  (Yuck!) 
4. Form into patties, or oblongs or whatever shape you like.  Traditionally, they are skewered into to long kebab like sausages but I find that too difficult to grill.  They always disintegrate on me so we do it like pelotas--little teardrop disks.  I think they're cute! 
5. Grill on coals or on an electric grill like we did this morning or fry in a little bit of olive oil on a non-stick pan.

Narli Paticlan Kizartma (Fried Eggplant with Tomato and Pomegranate Sauce) recipe adapted from Ismail Tosun 

500 grams fire-roasted and peeled eggplant
5 pieces canned, whole, peeled Italian tomatoes
4 cloves of garlic
3 tablespoons Pomegranate Molasses (I made my own by reducing 2 cups of pomegranate juice, 1/4 Cup sugar and squeeze of lemon until the consistency was that of molasses.  About 7 minutes in high heat)  

1. The original recipe said that you fry the seasoned eggplant (not roasted--that's my take) and put aside.  My son won't eat that because it still looks like an eggplant.  But you can do it that way, of course.  In my version, I fire-roasted the eggplants for that smokey taste and then sauteed it with the tomatoes and garlic until it looked pretty much like a thick sauce.
2. Add in pomegranate molasses, season with salt and pepper.
3. That's it.  Serve and wait for the ooohs and aaaahs.  Oh and a great big hug! :-)

One Cut, Err- 3 Dishes

Hello there.  As promised, here are the two other dishes I served for the boy's lunch box.  I originally planned to make four, but classes were suspended Tuesday because of the typhoon so here are the other two.

Babirang, Rice Spice (Korean)

Lunchbox #2 contained Beef Teppanyaki with Enoki Mushrooms which was really just a stir-fry with some onions, the mushrooms and a bit of butter.  The fried rice was seasoned with a sweetish onion sauce a la Pepper Lunch which I made by sweating finely minced onion until they were translucent.  I steeped them overnight with equal parts mirin and Japanese Soy, around 1 tablespoon each.  In the morning I used that sauce to season the fried rice and to that I added some sweet corn and spring onions.  I shaped it in a flat bottomed container, topped it with some more corn and Babirang, a Korean rice spice mix.  Also packed some fudge brownies I baked during the height of the typhoon the previous day.

Lunchbox #3 was transformed into Beef with Brocolli, another stir-fry.  I cooked the brocolli separately and just seasoned it in salt.  When it was done, I put it aside and sauteed in the same pan the remaining beef with 2 slices of ginger and a yellow onion.  And that's it!  If you want this dish to taste more Chinese, you can add some oyster sauce and finish it off with a few dribbles of Sesame Oil.  The rice in this lunch ox was again sprinkled with that yummy Babirang.  :-)

So, there you go.  One cut, 3 dishes.  There's a lot more you can do with this very versatile cut of meat.  You can try most anything to toss it with to make exciting stir-fries.  Just pay attention to the combination of taste, texture, color and you're well on your way to making a better lunch box for your dear kids.

Hope that helped!

One Cut, Four Dishes

This week I will share a very basic mother recipe for sukiyaki cut beef that can be tweaked and transformed in 4 ways.  It is easy, quick and very economical to make and will keep your kid excited as to how it will be transformed next.  As you know, sukiyaki cut is the thinnest possible cut of beef and as such, remains tender even when served cold.  It is also taken from a relatively lean part of the beast such that your child will not complain that the some fat has solidified on the surface of his lunch, in Filipino it's called sebo and it is that yucky powdery and greasy animal fat that clogs arteries.  Yikes!

Here is the mother recipe:

1 K Sukiyaki Cut Beef

1/4 Cup Japanese Soy

1/4 Cup Mirin

1/4 Cup Water

For this mother recipe, just boil the mixture covered until the meat is fully cooked while skimming as much dirt as you can every now and then.  Also, be sure to toss the meat around to separate the pieces so that there won't be just one clump of beef in your pan at the end of the procedure.  Cool then store the mixture in your refrigerator.  At this point, you can portion what you intend to cook the next day and freeze the remainder for future consumption.

For today's lunch box, I did again--as requested by the boy, last week's Teriyaki Tapa and served it with some Kimchi Fried Rice.  For the Teriyaki Tapa, I got a portion of beef from the mother recipe which I sweetened with a bit of honey (not too much, it is lunch remember, not dessert) and stir-fried it in a bit of oil until it was nicely browned with little bit of caramelization.  I finished it off with a teaspoon of butter.  This process takes all of five minutes and I'm telling you that after you've tried this, you will never again buy those heavily-nitrate laden, double-dead versions you find in groceries. 

The Kimchi Fried Rice was made with the help of some Korean-style Furikake which contains Kimchi, some dried nori, sesame seeds and other Korean spices. I think that  Moms should find as many healthy products in the grocery that can help make meals easier, more interesting and of course, yummier for our kids.  There really is a lot out there and I will be featuring some of them in the coming days.

Please do come back tomorrow and we will transform this same cut into a Pepper Lunch Style dish.  Hope to see you then!

Today's Lunch Box:  Teriyaki Tapa and Kimchi Fried Rice.

Japanese Tapsilog (Tapsirog II)

It is stressful Thursday once again and I've been up since 3AM to prepare some special arrangements for today's catering event.  Today was so stressful that I drove the kid to school crying because we had one of our usual arguments...*sighs*.  I think the tears came as a result of a combination of things: some staff drama, not being able to have my usual cup of Joe for the past few days since the other help poured water INSIDE the coffee bean grinder, and the biggest contributor of all--this low-carb diet that I got myself into.  It's driving my carb-addicted mind and body nuts!  I'm wondering if all the trouble it takes to fit into that dress is really worth it.  And to make matters worse, in about a month, we're going to the beach!  I think it's time write a love letter to my waistline:

Dear Waistline,

I don't know how much grovelling I need to do for you to come back.  I realize now that I was wrong and you were right.  All the sweets, cakes and chocolates...the pasta, the bacon and those grilled steaks and fluffy white rice were bound to keep us apart. You are so right for walking out on me as I put that lechon skin in my mouth. 

I know that now and I am sorry.  Please come back to me.

Love,

Nicole

 P.S.  I dedicate Natalie Cole's Miss you Like Crazy  to you

And when I hold you in my arms I promise you

You're gonna feel a love that's beautiful and true

This time I'll love you even better, than I ever did before...lalalalalala)

Now if it were that easy, life would be wonderful.

Today's lunch:  Teriyaki Tapa, Japanese Style Omelet, Shio-Spiced Fresh Bacon, Garlic Rice with Furikake and some Korean Chapjae