PurpleGirl's Kitchen

Lasang Pinoy Sundays: Kitchens

2009-03-15T16:31:00.011-04:00

When my 7-year old was 3, he asked me where my office was. I told him my office is the kitchen. It is. As a stay-at-home mom, my domain is the kitchen. When we built our house, I was able to specify what I wanted in my kitchen. I wanted lots of windows for natural light, lots of cabinets, a big island, and commercial appliances. I also wanted a desk for my PowerBook. When the 7-year old boy became tall enough, we were able to replace our breakfast table with a bar height one that seats 8.

The most used and cannot-live-without gadget in my kitchen is the boiling hot water dispenser (above right). I used it to warm breast milk while I was nursing. And I use it for everyday cooking. Dispensing water on demand at a scalding 200-degrees-Farenheit, it allows me to cook soups faster. It also allows me to make a cup of tea anytime without having to boil water. It's also a good way to rinse oily utensils and pots. Really, I can't live without it.

Kitchens. I have two. My other kitchen is in the basement. When we built our house, we had the builder fully finish the basement. There was a dead space in one part of the house and my mom suggested building a complete kitchen in an otherwise empty space. This kitchen has never been used (except for the refrigerator) and I doubt we'll ever use it. It's a neat idea, though.

My dream kitchen will have 2 dishwashers, a separate beverage refrigerator, and a commercial 8-burner stove. Someday. Someday.

More beautiful kitchens through the comment thread here.

Off to the beach... Happy Holidays!!!

2008-12-17T21:06:00.003-05:00

My family has a yearly tradition -- my over-generous parents take all their children (us) and our families to a 2-week trip every Christmas. We've been doing this since we were small and we were able to see the world because of it. It's a great tradition in that we get to spend time as a family. This year, we're off to the Caribbean.

As I cram Christmas shopping and packing in 1.5 days, allow me to wish all of you a very safe and joyous holiday season. See you next year!!!

National Anthem @ the NBA

2008-12-10T08:42:00.002-05:00

My 7-year old takes private piano lessons. The school has about 500 students and the owner is well known in the community. Last week, a few kids from the school sang the National Anthem during the NBA's Hawks vs. Knicks game. Here's the video... (he's in the first row).

Make sure to click watch in high quality at the bottom of the screen.

Lasang Pinoy Sundays #25: SILOG

2008-11-30T18:50:00.003-05:00

We spent two weeks in Germany and Prague last March during spring break. We visited family in Germany and stayed/toured Prague for a week on our own. I love Prague. I love all the gothic-style churches. Most of all, I loved the food. The hotel we stayed at had a full breakfast buffet. We ate it for 7 straight mornings. We got tired after a while...

SILOGS in Prague:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Bonus: The famous Infant Jesus of Prague which we visited every day--

Lasang Pinoy, Sundays #23: Stuffed

2008-11-16T13:32:00.003-05:00

We had cousins visit us from Toronto and Kansas City for an extended weekend. We hosted an early Sunday dinner at our house with 3 different kinds of grilled steak, grilled ribs, beef sinigang, and tons of desserts. We were all in a food coma afterward ;)

LaPis: Halloween

2008-10-27T00:01:00.005-04:00

It's always fun to see a whole bunch of pumpkins. We usually go every year except last year and this year, we almost missed it (this weekend is the last weekend before Halloween) so we went bright and early up in the mountains. Although there weren't as much pumpkins anymore, it is always a sight to behold: hundreds of pumpkins in different sizes. The best part: the hayride.

Lasang Pinoy, Sundays #17

2008-10-05T19:38:00.004-04:00

Theme #17: Pica-pica

I live in a city where Pinoy goodies are rare to find. Therefore, I have to make my own goodies. Enter my very own Adobong Peanuts. By the way, why is it called Adobo when there's nothing adobo about it? In any case, I looooove Adobong Peanuts. I make mine using huge peanuts and add chili flakes to make it spicy. Yummy!!!

Meatloaf & Mash

2008-03-27T07:45:00.005-04:00

I've neglected this blog. Somehow, I just wasn't inspired to cook or post. Plus lots of travel got in the way. Hope this is the beginning of resurrecting this site. And here goes...

I was watching FoodTV two days ago. In it, Ina Garten was feeding some guys fixing a windmill. The food was good and easy. To date, I've only made meatloaf, if I remember correctly, once. This is my second try and I love her recipe. Granted, it's more laborious than the usual meatloaf but it's so worth the trouble.

The original recipe for meatloaf is here and the one for the buttermilk mash is here.

I did a little tweaking on the meatloaf --

I used lean ground sirloin instead of turkey (I've had turkey meatloaf before and I still like the texture of the beef version).
I added lots of sliced white mushrooms to the sauteed onions
I used homemade bread crumbs (only because I have 2-day old baguettes so I just cubed them then threw them into the food processor)
I added a bit more Worcestershire sauce (it tasted a lot better - with a kick!)
I placed them in loaf pans (and only because I hate the mess afterwards -- this recipe yields 2 loaf pans; I also tried to get fancy and half of the mixture was put in individual tiny loaf pans for better presentation.)
I put a pan of water in the oven so the tops of the loaves will stay moist and not cracked.

I didn't mess with the buttermilk mashed potatoes recipe much except to use a fork for mashing (easier and less to wash) and I had to add a bit more salt and pepper. It was so good and creamy. By the way Ina said never to use a food processor for mashing as it will make it chewy. Whatever that means.

Chinese New Year Chicken Soup

2008-02-18T20:01:00.006-05:00

We got invited to Chinese New Year dinner a couple of weeks ago by our Chinese good friends. Their son happens to be in the same 1st Grade class as ours. Funny thing, both boys look so much alike -- Asian boys wearing eyeglasses, both reading at 4th Grade level, they get mistaken for each other a lot. Anyway, it was one of the most sumptuous dinners we've ever had. Maybe because we've never been to a Chinese New Year dinner before, let alone an authentic one.

The dishes served were all so elaborate except for the first course: Chicken Soup. Pictures to follow later. Here's the recipe first:

Chinese New Year Chicken Soup

The Ingredients:
1 whole young chicken (or Cornish hen), skin and fat removed then washed
6-8 cups water
3 cloves garlic
1 medium yellow onion, diced
a few whole peppercorns
2-3 tsp salt to taste
cabbage
napa cabbage
yellow potatoes (optional)
scallions (optional)

The Method:

Place whole chicken in a stock pot
Add water
Place garlic, onion, and peppercorns in a piece of cheesecloth and tie tightly to keep ingredients from escaping (putting these in a cheesecloth ensures your broth is clear)
Add salt
Turn heat on to high and allow to boil. Once boiling, turn down heat to low, skim off stuff that floats, and simmer covered for 2 hours.
Turn heat back on to high and add sliced cabbage and nappa cabbage (I always remove the white parts and only use the leafy parts). Allow to boil then turn off heat and serve.

You can add cubed potatoes and scallions if you want. Tips on cooking: do not use fish sauce (patis) or it will alter the broth's taste and color. A mere 2-3 teaspoons of salt is enough to make it tasty. Adjust seasoning as necessary. Tip on serving: the meat will be fork tender so just use a fork to get pieces of the chicken as you serve into individual bowls.

Believe me, this is the best chicken soup ever!

Pakistani Food

2007-09-30T20:50:00.000-04:00

We recently got invited to dinner by one of hubby's squash buddies. The hosts, a Pakistani couple (real-estate-wife and doctor-husband tandem) went all out and prepared a lavish buffet for us and a few other friends from their squash circuit. Their food culture is so similar to ours -- lots of food (there were at least 8 entrees plus the salads and desserts), all prepared from scratch, and everyone is welcome to bring home left-overs.

the food set-up

the lentils tasted like our sauteed monggo, the stewed okra was delicious and spicy, the chicken with sauce was so yummy it reminds me of our chicken asado but more spicy and less tomato sauce

It was a lovely evening with lots of conversation, lots of play time for both adults and kids (there was a ping-pong table, air hockey, xBox, Wii, and many more toys down in the basement), and a great dinner.

hot summer

2007-08-22T22:37:00.000-04:00

whew, we have been having a very hot summer. we've had temperatures soaring to the 3 digits for 2 straight weeks now. see my car's dashboard -- yep, you read it right, it was 109-degrees-Fahrenheit! let me cool off a little. be right back.

a brief hiatus...

2007-06-02T01:24:00.000-04:00

the gigantic cookie cake i brought to 5-year old's class during the last day of school...

I will be going on vacation for the next couple of weeks. I'll try to post as much as I can but you know how it is...

Weekend in Nashville

2007-05-31T02:05:00.000-04:00

We stayed in Nashville's grandiose, five-star The Hermitage Hotel over the holiday weekend. The trip was actually to help out some very close friends who were producing a benefit concert. Incidentally, the performer also happens to be old friends of ours.

The hotel was grand in every sense. The Frette linens were luxurious, the pillow top bed was so comfortable, the Turkish bath towels and robes were plushy, the Molton Brown toiletries were amazing, the free bottles of water were refreshing... It was a busy weekend but relaxing in a way. Being with good friends made it more special.

Score! this summer...

2007-05-29T13:02:00.000-04:00

Summer break starts today and for my 5-year old, this means summer camps and fun activities. He'll be continuing with his swimming lessons, ice hockey lessons, and just being outdoors. For the intellectual side, just so he won't forget everything he's learned the past school year, I went to a Score! learning center to ask what they can offer.

Score! is an innovative tutor and an education program for kids from Pre-Kindergarten through 10th grade. The learning method is via the use of computers and curriculum is based on the child's ability and pace. The major subject matters are: Reading, Spelling, and Math. Every time a child finishes a program, a report is generated to allow the parents to determine how the child is doing.

We came in for a screening and after a brief introduction and interview, my son was allowed to go through a Reading, Math, and Spelling program. He thoroughly enjoyed everything because to him, it was child's play! Little did he know that it was a way for him to increase his knowledge. I was quite impressed with the Score! program. After the screening, they even game me a written report indicating my son's score for the programs he finished and also included comments from the learning coach. In addition to that, I was given a course report that identified my son's learning level: as a 5-year old, his Reading, Spelling, and Mathematical abilities are for a 2nd-Grader!

Because my son is advanced for his age, Score! will customize a curriculum in order for him to take advantage of his abilities. It's a win-win situation. For this summer, they are running several savings programs. Come in for a free screening and see for yourself how they can help your child this summer!

[**This is a sponsored post.**]

a gathering for beef blood stew (dinuguan)

2007-05-21T07:02:00.000-04:00

hubby and i have a tight group of Fil-Am friends we've grown up with and have been hanging out with since the 80s. now that we all have graduated and have homes of our own, we've been doing a regular Pot Luck-themed party for the last few years. it was supposed to be our turn to host but i'm currently re-arranging furniture in the house so another friend agreed to take my place.

this month's theme was Filipino food. it was originally borne out of most of our friends' inability to cook Filipino food (especially the single guys) and would rely on those who do in order to satisfy their craving. it's always a fun theme because it makes the single guys and the American members stressed out. most times, we give them slack so we just allow them to bring appetizers and desserts. case in point, here's what one of our American friends' response:

I may be a few minutes late. I'm racking my brain to find out what my signature Filipino dish is. If I don't come up with something, I'll bring some kind of dessert.

it's so great because these Americans so love Filipino food and will eat just about anything Pinoy. including my Dinuguan which they love. i always get tasked to bring Dinuguan because they love my version. they said it tastes clean and delicious. i guess they mean as opposed to malansa or fishy. well that's because i only use chunks of fork-tender, pure, lean, USDA grade or Angus, all beef rib-eye meat and nothing else. just like my mom's.

it's quite laborious to make but so worth it. especially when a whole 8-quart pot i bring gets all eaten up. just goes to show they really like it. and it's also my 5-year old's favorite food.

here he is enjoying it with a side of veggies. (side note: this 5-year old of mine doesn't eat fast food. he prefers home-cooked Filipino meals eaten with a spoon and fork. and he looooves vegetables. when i give him a plate of food, he asks in perfect Tagalog, "eto lang? wala ng iba? asan yun gulay?" ("is this it? nothing else? where are the veggies?" when we go home to Manila for a visit, i'd be eating Jollibee Yumburger and he'd be watching me making nauseated faces while looking at my delicious burger. weird boy.)

Lasang Pinoy 18 Part 2: Monggo Soup

2007-05-17T19:26:00.000-04:00

Ok so I go on years not joining LP and then bam, I have two posts for event number 18. Toni will be pleased. In any case, another Filipino vegetable dish that I truly consider as comfort food is Monggo Soup (mung bean soup). Mung bean is where bean sprouts come from, in case you don't know.

My mom cooked Mung Bean soup a lot back in Manila every time it would rain. I don't really know the connection. To this day, she still associates Mung Bean soup with rain or chilly weather. When we moved here to the states, my mom would make monggo soup (when it's raining or cold outside) as an accompanying vegetable/soup dish with fried/grilled porkchops, steaks, or fish. We never ate it by itself. Always with something protein.

My Americanized version of Monggo soup is influenced by a local actress named Jenny who opened an eatery in town not too long ago. She's pioneering the "fresh" concept wherein she comes in at 5am daily to cook 6 kinds of soups, 1 pasta, 2 salads, and 2 sandwiches. She only uses fresh ingredients available locally so the menu changes daily. Because it's an amazing concept, people line up all the way out the street before opening time at 11am (she closes at 3pm). One day, I came in (after waiting 20 minutes in line) and had the most amazing barley-artichoke-mushroom soup I've ever tasted in my life. So I had an epiphany -- why not use or include barley with the usual Monggo soup? So I did!

My Monggo-Barley soup started with using the right kind of barley. I didn't know there were several kinds so I used common sense and chose Peeled Split Barley because that's how the barley looked like in Jenny's soup.

Ingredients:
1 cup barley
1 cup mung beans
olive oil
minced garlic
chopped onions
lots of chopped tomatoes
sliced shitake mushrooms
dried shrimp (hibe)
bitter melon slices
fish sauce and freshly ground pepper to taste

Method:
1. Wash barley thoroughly. Boil in 3 cups water for 70 minutes.
2. At the same time, and in another pot, boil washed mung beans in 5 cups water until mung beans just begin to crack open.
3. While waiting for the beans and barley to cook, in a pot, saute onions, garlic, and lots of tomatoes (I used about a pound), and mushrooms in a little bit of olive oil until the tomatoes are mushy (about 10 minutes).
4. Add a pack of dried shrimp. Cook for a minute or two.
5. Add the cooked barley and beans and all of the water where the mung beans were boiled. Cook until a rolling boil.
6. Add bitter melon slices (we don't have leaves available here), then season with fish sauce and lots of freshly ground pepper. Turn off heat.

The result: extraordinary! There were a lot of textures in this dish: softness from the mung beans, chewy from the barley and mushrooms, mushy from the tomatoes, and crunch from the bitter melon. This is one amazing mung bean soup and I am proud to say, it's my invention (and I should call this PurpleGirl's Monggo-Barley Soup)! In any case, it's Pinoy comfort food.

Lasang Pinoy

Lasang Pinoy 18: Pinakbet

2007-05-16T00:09:00.000-04:00

I honestly don't remember if I ever ate Pinakbet when I was small. Come to think of it, I probably never did. Not until we moved to the US before my teens. My mom would cook 2-3 times a day (she raised kids who don't eat left overs) and I distinctly remember her Pinakbet (stir-fried vegetables in shrimp anchovy sauce) as my favorite. To this day, it's still my most favorite vegetable dish.

My mom's Pinakbet (which is now mine since she stopped cooking daily given that all three of us have moved out into our own homes) is pretty straight-forward. She uses the usual veggies: squash, long beans, bitter melon, eggplant, and okra. She stir-fries the veggies in olive oil with garlic, onions, and peeled shrimp, then adds shrimp paste. I do exactly the same thing but these days, I make Pinakbet with just squash and okra. Sometimes, I kick it up a notch and add coconut milk.

In any case, Pinakbet is my most favorite Filipino vegetable dish. It's funny how I order it at every Filipino restaurant I go to everywhere in the world -- be it in the US, Philippines, and even as far flung as Europe and the Middle East. It's comfort food. And truly Filipino.

Lasang Pinoy

Happy Mother's Day

2007-05-13T21:06:00.000-04:00

I hosted a Mother's Day lunch for the very first time ever. It's been tradition to celebrate it at my mom's (with her cooking) or for the last few years, go to a nice hotel for a Mother's Day brunch. Mom and MIL were both so touched by the food that hubby and I cooked.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers and mothers-to-be out there. May your Mother's Day be as memorable as mine always is! To our moms: Cheers!!!

the baker boy

2007-05-11T09:21:00.000-04:00

he's been helping me "bake" since he was 3. and no, i don't know how to bake and i have no patience for it. i'm the throw-everything-in-no-measuring type of cook. but i do make buttermilk pancakes using Robby's which i get from Williams-Sonoma. (i've tried 7 brands including Ina Garten's and nothing compares to Robby's).

but i digress. he's the sole reason i'm a mom today. he makes Mother's Day meaningful for me. 5 years and counting.

Happy Mother's Day to all!

fried fish

2007-05-09T00:45:00.000-04:00

i love fried butterfish especially when they're fried crispy. i love them even more with a side of sliced tomatoes, onions, and cilantro. this was dinner tonight. love it.

adobo fried rice

2007-04-24T18:03:00.000-04:00

this is the best type of fried rice in the world -- imagine adobo incorporated into garlic fried rice. oh so yummy!

pepper shrimp stir-fry

2007-04-22T22:02:00.000-04:00

inspired by MarketMan's breakfast, i did the same thing to some of the 20+kilos of freshly-caught shrimp from the shores of Charleston, South Carolina we bought during our last trip there.

i basically sauteed lots of minced garlic in olive oil, threw in the shrimp, then added lots of sliced siling haba or long peppers then seasoned with salt and lots of freshly-ground pepper. simply delicious!

cooking rice

2007-04-20T23:41:00.000-04:00

i didn't learn how to cook rice until i was 18. the other day, i thought it would be fun to "teach" the 5-year old how to cook rice. it was all play to him. and he had so much fun!

choco rolls

2007-04-17T20:41:00.000-04:00

my sister and i found these amazing rolls while walking around Ali Mall while waiting for our ticket receipts from the PAL office during our emergency visit months ago. i still can't figure out why you need to wait close to an hour for a simple receipt. but that's another post altogether. anyway, we decided to walk around while waiting. we were going to peek inside Max's Fried Chicken just to get a whiff of their food but what we discovered was their bakeshop right at the entrance. they had all sorts of baked goodies including these rolls. they came in a variety of flavors including ube, buko pandan, chocolate, and i can't remember the other ones. we didn't like the other flavors except for the delicious chocolate ones.

believe me, they're really good. so good that we both took 3 dozens each back home to the US. when my grandmother came two weeks ago, she had 4 boxes for me and my sister. took us only two weeks to finish them.

turkey noodle soup

2007-04-13T19:40:00.000-04:00

we had a simple Easter late lunch at home with my parents, sister, and my visiting Manila-based grandma, 2 uncles, and an aunt. we came home from Charleston just the day before so this was a last minute preparation. it was so simple we just had a whole smoked turkey which had just a slight hint of smokiness (delicious), pancit (noodles with chicken), stuffing, candied yams, cranberry jelly, maple ham, egg pie, pumpkin pie, and leche flan (custard). we actually had two turkeys but we were only able to finish one so the same turkey turned into this:

the turkey noodle soup was simply made, too -- i just stir-fried garlic, onions, carrots, celery, cabbage, shredded turkey then added chicken broth and pasta. when the pasta was cooked, i added a can of evaporated milk and stirred, stirred, stirred. for added oomph, i also threw in some cilantro (as influenced by my MIL who has lots of Hispanic friends and most of her cooking has a Hispanic twist).