Tropical Fruits Lassi

One of my favorite hangouts is the bookstore, and one the bookstores that I frequent is a secondhand books store named... Booksale!!!  I find many treasures there - cookbooks, magazines, kids' books.  Last week, a found a pristine copy of AWW Kids Cooking for Health.  I got it for the little girl.  She has a few cookbooks of her own, from which she chooses recipes to make.  I knew that she would like this "new" cookbook!

Of course I was right!  The minute she got her hands on it, she flipped through the pages (looking at the pictures mostly) and decided immediately that she wanted to make 2 of the recipes.  The first was the egg-in-a-basket sandwich (which we modified by adding ham) and this...

For this project, the little girl learned about how to weigh ingredients using the digital scale!

Here is the recipe:

Blend together:

1 cup yogurt
1/2 cup  water

100 grams each rockmelon (cantaloupe), mango, pineapple and strawberries

1 tablespoon sugar (honey in our case)

6 ice cubes

(actually the recipe specifies 1 small mango.  Our mango yielded about 98 grams of flesh.)

The little girl poured the lassi into glasses (each person got about half a cup to drink) and we all agreed... yummilicious!  Just perfect for the summer heat!!!!

Thai-Inspired Roast Chicken

Actually, this is a tale of 2 chickens, both inspired by Thai cuisine...

I bought 2 spring chickens from the weekend market... I was thinking of grilled or roast chicken for dinner... both Thai-inspired.

The first one was a chili-lime chicken, for hubby who loves spicy dishes!

The second one was this...

1 spring chicken, about 1 to 1.1 kilo (clean and rinse), cut in half lengthwise

8 to 10 cloves of garlic
3 to 4 stems of wansoy (coriander)
1 teaspoon black and white peppercorns
3 pieces 3-in tanglad (lemongrass, white part only)
2 tablespoons each fish sauce, dark soy sauce, honey
1 to 2 chilis, optional

Place everything in a (small) food processor or pound (mortar and pestle).

Marinate the chicken halves overnight.

Roast at 400F for about 30 to 40 minutes.  Cover with foil if the skin gets too burned.  (I placed each half in its own little roasting pan.)

Rest for 10 minutes before slicing.

Everyone agreed that this was the better of the 2 chickens... and even better than the local Andoks!

Chocolate Ice Cream, in a bag...

It's summer break from school!  The little is happy... but bored!  So we try to find activities for her to do... one of which is making ice cream in a plastic bag.

Of course she wanted chocolate ice cream!

Our deal was for her to do everything... well almost everything... which she did.

1. She measured and placed into a 2-cup capacity Pyrex liquid measuring cup, 1/4 cup of each:  cocoa (then sifted), chocolate milk, and condensed milk, and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla.  And she mixed everything until the cocoa was fully dissolved. (first pic, top left)

2. She measured 3/4 cup of whipping cream and added it to the chocolate mixture (second pic, top right)

3. She mixed until the mixture was well combined. (second row, left)

4. Then she poured the mixture in a small zip-lock bag (we used Reynolds secure seal) [second row, right).  We placed the zip bag in the freezer while we prepared the bag of ice - mix 1/3 cup rock salt and 3 trays of ice cubes in a bigger zip lock bag.  Then place the small bag containing the chocolate milk into the big bag of ice cubes and salt.

5. Shake, shake, shake... or massage the bags... We used gloves because the plastic bag was really, really cold!  (third row, left)  The bags were to be shaken or massaged for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the the consistency was that of soft serve ice cream.

6. Of course, the little girl got tired in about 4 minutes!  So I had to take over the shaking of the bags. Meanwhile, she decided that she wanted her ice cream stuffed with chocolate chip cookies, so she "chopped" some Mini Chips Ahoy while I was busy shaking and massaging the super-cold bags!  (third row, right)

7. The finished product!  (bottom row, left)  After about 15 minutes, the mixture had thickened.  We place the bags in the freezer for about 15 minutes while I looked for a container!  To transfer to the container, remove the inner bag from the out bag.  Wipe the inner bag well.  Snip a corner and squeeze the ice cream out (soft serve consistency) into the container.  Add the chocolate chip cookie pieces and fold.  At this point the little girl took a couple of spoonfuls.

Then she decided to save the rest for dessert after dinner (to share with Daddy, as well!)  So we stored the ice cream in the freezer.

8.  After dinner, the little ater with gusto and proclaimed:  Best choco ice cream ever, Mommy!

Yay!!!

Mushroom, Pepper and Cheese Omelette on English Muffin

English Muffin Breakfasts, Again!  Yes!

This time, it's a thick single-egg omelette with a lot of mix-ins - a large pinch each of thyme and salt, 3 tablespoons cream cheese, 1 red chili pepper (sliced) and a handful of sliced mushrooms.

I like using a very small non-stick pan.  The pan is really an egg pan, it even came with a spatula in the form of a fried egg! The diameter of the pan is about 4.5 inches!

screenshot from Google images

And it is the perfect size for a dish to put on top of an English muffin.

Choco Mallow Cupcakes

Sometime ago, I bought these humongous marshmallows...  the first thing I did with them was to make S'mores Cupcakes.  For the last remaining marshmallows, I made the simpler cousin - Choco Mallow Cupcakes.

The cupcakes are chocolate cupcakes, topped with half a marshmallow that is melted onto the cupcakes itself, then topped with chocolate ganache!

(Don't tell anyone but I liked these better than the S'mores Cupcakes!)

Baked Bacon-Wrapped Chicken

I am not that much of a big fan of bacon.  It was banned in my mother's house.  The first I ever heard or saw of bacon was at a breakfast buffet at the Manila Hotel.  I remember it clearly, like it was yesterday.  I was 9 or 10, it was during summer break, and my father said it would be fun.  It would have been fun, except that my parents argued.  About what you may wonder?  Well, the buffet then was basic with pancakes, garlic rice, hash brown, bread and various deli meats (hotdogs, ham, that sort of thing), and bacon, which I wanted to try.  My parents disagreed - in the end my mom won and no bacon for me.

Fast forward to college and someone asked me to the Saisaki Eat-All-You-Can Tempura.  My companion, in addition to the tempura, ordered the bacon-wrapped kani (Kani Bacon Maki, if I remember correctly).  That was my first taste of bacon, and I liked it!

Still I did not eat much of it because I did not like the fatty part (yes, thanks to my mom, I do not like the fat part of pork!) but when I could find lean bacon, I indulged.

Well, recently hubby brought back a lot of bacon after his gig in the province.  At first I was excited, until I saw that there was little meat and a whole lot of fat!  That put me off, but I trimmed most of the fat away and ended up with just enough to wrap some chicken livers...

12 pieces of chicken livers (cleaned, trimmed, patted dry)
6 pieces bacon, sliced in half

Wrap the liver in bacon and secure with toothpicks.  Arrange on a Pyrex dish and bake in a preheated 375F oven for about 15 to 20 minutes (depending on the size of the livers), until a tester comes out clean and no blood comes out of the liver.

Baked Chicken Cordon Bleu

This is a dish I often order at restaurants.  I like chicken, ham and cheese... and because we have a lot of ham I decided to try make Chicken Cordon Bleu at home.  Except that I did not like the idea of frying the whole thing.



So I ended up baking them...



7 to 8 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (half breasts)

1/4 cup butter, diced into 12 small pieces
7 to 8 thin slices pina ham

7 to 8 pieces quick melt sandwich cheese

1 cup flour, mixed with 1/2 teaspoon each salt, black pepper and Italian spice
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1-1/2 cups bread crumbs mixed with 1 teaspoon Italian spice

Rinse the chicken breasts and then pat dry.  Pound between plastic sheets until thin.  Place a slice of ham and a slice of cheese on the chicken breasts and fold over; secure with toothpicks.  (Personally I pound the chicken not too thin and slice/make a pocket and stuff the ham and cheese inside; then secure with toothpicks).

Roll in the flour mix, dip in beaten egg and then roll in breadcrumbs.  Re-dip in beaten egg and then roll again in breadcrumbs.

Lightly grease a large Pyrex baking dish.  Scatter half the butter in the dish then arrange the chicken in the pan.  Dot the tops with the remaining butter.  Bake at 375F for about 30 minutes.

Don't forget to take out the toothpicks before eating!