Semi-Vegetarian Treat

Our neighbor gave me a summer squash.  I don't really know how to cook the kind of squash that's available here so I  tried  this for the first time.  I sliced them  with the skin still on, I just washed it good.  Then I stacked them as shown in the picture at my pie pan.

Here are my other ingredients: 

• 2 sliced mushrooms,
• 1 sliced pepper 
• 5 cherry tomatoes, sliced 
• scallions
• basil
• I used the Gourmet Nut salt, steak seasoning, Nacho Cheddar seasoning, and ground pepper.
• I also  chopped up one  slice of fried bacon for some added flavoring.  Everything taste good  with bacon right?

Procedure:

• Add the other veggies in between the squash.  The reason I arranged the squash the way it is on the photos is because you can easily insert the other  cut up veggies in between those squash to infuse the other vegetable's  flavor.
• Add the greens and cheese on top and drizzle a little bit of olive oil. 
• When all the ingredients are incorporated, bake it for 30 minutes in a 350 degrees heat.

I know when   the food I cook turned out good when  my husband likes it especially that he doesn't like squash.  He said he love it that way I prepared it.

We ate the semi-vegetarian treat with rice and small piece of grilled  chicken breast.  

Eggs In a Veggie Bowl

My kitchen is my "Science Lab" at home. I do  different experiments on food that I cook.  I am horrible with  following recipes because whenever I am preparing it and I don't have the ingredient I need, I always end up using different thing and cook different menu instead of the recipe I am trying to make lol.  

To entice my kids' appetite, I do creative things especially on veggies.  My kids are two very different individuals.  The little Miss love egg whites while the little Mister likes the yolk. So What I always do is separate the whites from the yolk and  fry them inside  a cut up veggies.  You just need to removed the inside part of the veggies and they served as the bowl for the egg.  

The first  one I used are   red bell peppers.

Yesterday, I used sliced up squash and added some  cheese on top to make it more appealing to them and they loved it!

This morning, I picked a green tomato from my garden and used it too to fry the eggs and of course, the sprinkled cheese on top does the trick in making  them want to eat it.  When you have kids, coming up with different  menus everyday is hard  but with a little bit of creativity, it's okay.

I did not want to throw the  rest of the  tomatoes so I made it into a salsa.  I thought it was going to be sour but it was actually not.  I added some strawberry, soy sauce, hot pepper flakes, and scallions.  The strawberry counter balanced the sour note of the  tomatoes and it was refreshing to eat!

Green Beans Rolled in an Egg Sprinkled with Cheese

I have abundance supply of green beans from our garden so  I look for ways on how I could prepare it differently and serve it to my kids.  Here's is what I came up with this morning.

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• A handful of fresh beans, blanched
• Cheese (this serve as the binding ingredients between the egg and the  beans and it is also the  like factor for the  kids.

Procedure:

• Boil 2 cups of water, put  some  butter and salt in it.  Put the beans and blanched for 3 minutes. Remove it from the pat and let it set in a place.
• Break one egg, beat it in a small bowl with a little salt and pepper.  Fry it in a small pan.
  

• When the egg is halfway done, sprinkle  some  cheese. 
  

• Put the beans in the middle and sprinkle  a little cheese on top then roll it.  Cut it in half in a slanting  position
  

My Burritos ate it with a toast but I ate mine with  rice.  This kind of menu is always a delight to my little miss who love veggies so much!

With my son, he eats the egg first then the beans lol.

Ravioli Lasagna

My  Burritos are  craving for some ravioli and my husband want some lasagna so to  compensate the two desires, I make this Ravioli Lasagna.  I found the recipe  at the  can of the ravioli.  I dunno how to make ravioli so I  use the canned one.  It's really  easy to make.  Preparation is 20-10 minutes.

Ingredients:

• No-Stick Cooking Spray
• 1 cup frozen loose spinach
• 1 can (40 oz) Chef Boyarde Beef Ravioli
• 1 can (14.5 oz) Diced Tomatoes, drained well.  (I used my homemade canned tomato.)
• 1 1/2 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning (I used the Kernel Season's Nacho Cheddar Seasoning)
• 1 cup cottage cheese (I used sour cream instead)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 cup  shredded cheese

Preparation:

• Preheat oven to 375 F. Spray 8x8 inch baking dish with  the cooking spray (I used my pie pan).
• Place spinach in a microwave safe  bowl, cover  and  microwave for one minute.

• Combine the ravioli, tomatoes, and seasoning in a microwave safe bowl.  Cover and microwave for 4 minutes or until hot.
• Combine  sour cream, spinach, and black pepper.
• Place half of the ravioli mixture in a dish.  

• Top with  half of the  sour cream mixture and the shredded cheese.

• Bake for 15 minutes or until hot.

Bon Appetit!

Birthday at Home

This is a long over due post coz yeah,  I am a  slacker.  I just have so many things on the plate when my kids are on school break.  I don't  blog as much  when they are home because they want to do a lot of things everyday.

 But anyhow,  on my birthday last month, my husband wanted us to go out but since I was in my heaviest day (as always, Lady in Red's perfect timing), I just decided to  cook   dinner at home and bond with the kids while we wait for my husband to get home.

My kids  baked this cake by themselves, I wasn't even allowed to peek in the kitchen when they were baking.  My husband did not know that the kids baked a cake so on his way home, he   also bought a cake from Gus's Goodies so I had so much of a sweet treat on my birthday!

After our dinner, we visited my FIL and  finished the day with  some quality time at the park in Marland Heights park.  All the photos were taken by a phone... 

Oh, I'd  love to thank a very thoughtful friend who always goes out of her way to  remember  our special days!  Thanks a lot sis Dhemz for the pressies!  I love everything you sent!

So that's a wrap.  I thank God for the  41 years of blessing my life with so much precious gifts that life could offer including trials that make me a stronger person  that I am today!

Kohlrabi Achara

I don't know how many times I told you guys that I live in such a friendly neighborhood.  Our neighbors are like  family to us.  They always lend a hand when you are doing something, they give you things, I like it  here.  We look out for each other!  Anyway, one of our very good , kind, generous, and thoughtful neighbors are the  Fancher's.  They have a big garden and they always give me  veggies whenever they are harvesting.  They planted kolhrabi this year and they let me try it.  I have never   eaten kohlrabi  before nor try to cook with it.  IN fact, I did not know it's name lol.  They gave me two of them  to try.  When I was slicing them, it reminded me of papaya so I thought of picking or making it into achara.

We normally use papaya  for achara but thought of trying the kohlrabi.  I have never made  achara before but I always love eating it as a side dish.  My father used to  make it during fiesta and I missed it a lot!  Achara by the way, is the term we use for pickle.  It's Filipinos way of pickling Papaya.

Anyway, here is the recipe that I found at pinoyrecipe.net:  I slightly  altered it as I am using kohlrabi and not  papaya.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups grated fresh kohlrabi
• 1/4 cup salt
• 1 carrot, peeled and sliced
• 1 red thai pepper, sliced into long strips
• 1 (2 inch) piece fresh ginger root, peeled and sliced
• 1 green jalapeño peppers, sliced into thin rings
• 1 (1.5 ounce) box raisins
• 1 cup white vinegar
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt

Preparation:

• Combine the kohlrabi, carrot, red  and green peppers, ginger, and raisins together in a clean large bowl; mix.
• Transfer the mixture to clean, dry jars with lids.
• Stir the vinegar, water, sugar and 1 teaspoon salt together in a small saucepan; bring to a boil for 5 minutes.
• Pour the vinegar mixture into the jars, making sure the vegetables are completely submerged in liquid.
• Allow the vegetables to marinate in the liquid at least 1 day before using.
• Store in refrigerator between uses.

I let  them  taste what I made  with the kohlrabi  they gave and they liked it!  They gave me another two  and I made it for them.  The only difference is that I added  some dried cranberries to this batch  as I ran out of raisins.  

I like eating achara  with just about anything especially with  fried food like fish or BBQ.  MY husband eats it alone, he never had achara before and he said it rocks!

See, I eat it with my breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  It doesn't matter, it's just so good to eat!

So, do you want to try making achara?  Give it a try and I hope you like it as much as I do.  MY husband  like it so much that he said, he is going to make a big plot o  a garden next year just for kohlrabi lol.  Let's see about that haha.

BBB (Buckwheat, Blueberry, Bacon) Pancake

I sent my husband the link of the breakfast we had and he said he's jealous so I made him some pancake   during the weekend.  I made him his favorite Buckwheat mix and I added some  fresh blueberries in it plus  bacon bits, he loved it!

I  just  incorporated the blueberries whole but I would recommend chopping them so it won't affect the  pancake when you flip it.  I also recommend to chop the bacon in small pieces or you can use bacon bits. 

My husband love it this way though, the  blueberries just burst and the juice  adds so much flavor into the pancake. 

My kids aren't fond of buckwheat pancake so I made them some fried rice to eat with their bacon and eggs. 

BBB Pancake was a success in our kitchen.  

Egg with Sausage and Cheese

My son has been asking for egg mcmuffin but I really don't want us buying food if I can just cook. I asked my husband what's in mcmuffin and he told me. This morning,  I tried to come up with something that I know my son would like, close enough to be mcmuffin but without a muffin. 

This is very easy to do. He asked for this again for dinner and he said he wants it again tomorrow for breakfast.

 It only takes few minutes to  make this Microwaved Egg with Sausage and Cheese Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 1 sausage link
• a teaspoon of  shredded cheese (or whatever kind of cheese)
• Slice Scallions (optional)
• salt and pepper (optional)

Procedure:

• Cooked the sausage and sliced them up.
• Cut up some scallions.
• Break the egg and put it in a small bowl, sprinkle salt on top, cover it with paper towel, then put it in the microwave.  Nuke it for 20 seconds then take them out.  The egg white should be half cook and the egg yolk is still raw. 
• Put the sliced  sausage, scallions, and top it with cheese.  
  
• Return to the microwave with the paper towel covering the bowl.  Nuke it for  40 seconds and it will be done.
  

Just look at how it light up my son's face seeing his delightful treat!  He told me that  he would love this for lunch at school, so this is added in my list for  the lunch he love to eat when they don't like the hot lunch  school is serving for certain days. 

Tip:  Spray a little  oil on your bowl for easy  removal.  I did not use any oil or butter but I still managed to take it out easily.  

Pork Chops for Dinner

My kids helped me prepare our dinner tonight.  I picked  the okra I had in my garden so the kids can try it.  I blanched them together with the green beans.  My daughter wants some mushrooms so I made her a little of that after I  prepared the pork chops.  They prepared the vegetable salad.  We had such a nice dinner tonight!

How about you, what did you have for dinner?

Salmon with Horseradish Sauce

With the success I had in  cooking  the salmon for our dinner a couple of days ago using my made-up recipe for baked salmon, I got  inspired to try another menu but this time, I followed the recipe  at the packaging of the salmon.  Here's the recipe:

Salmon with Horseradish Sauce:

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup dry white wine (I used Kristian Regale blackk currant beverage juice)
• 2 tbsp chopped onion
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp peppercorn
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 salmon portions, about 10 oz. (I used 3)
• 2 tbsp sour cream
• 2 tsp horseradish
• 1 tsp flour
• 1 tsp chopped fresh mint
• 1/8 tsp white pepper, I didn't have it so I didn't add any lol

Preparations

1. In a 10 inch non-stick skillet, combine white wine, water, onion, lemon juice, and peppercorn. Cover and cook over medium high heat until mixture comes to a boil.
2. REduce heat to medium low.  Add salmon, cover and simmer until salmon flakes easily when tested with a fork - 5-6 minutes depending on the thickness of the salmon.
3. While Salmon cooks, prepare horseradish sauce.

In a small mixing bowl, combine sour cream, horseradish, flour, mint and white pepper.  Stir to combine and set aside.

Transfer salmon to serving platter.  Keep fish warm.

Pour cooking liquid through sieve into a bowl , discarding solids.

Return to skillet and cook over medium high heat until mixture comes to a boil.  Stir in horseradish sauce.

Reduce heat to low and cook stirring frequently, until mixture thickens, about 2-3 minutes.  Pour over salmon.

My husband likes  it but I thought it  was okay.  I am not fond of horseradish so maybe next time, I will tone down the amount of horseradish so it is not over powering.