Dress up your meal or ‘baon’ by going bento

This being exam week, I decided to motivate my kids to do well by making their ‘baon’ (brown bag meal) a little more special. And when I think of something more special than the usual pack of Oreos and peanut butter sandwich, all I can think about is a bento. It’s something I’ve wanted to do as a project anyway. In Japan, mothers pride themselves in making artistic bento meals for their kids. I like the fact that preparing a bento can be a good venue for creative expression as you plan the colors, textures and shapes that should go into the box. There is also room to include everything in the major food groups, rather than the junk food that our kids are bound to have. With the right presentation, kids can change their mind about eating healthy fruits and veggies after all.

I call this our Pinoy bento which the kids had as a meal in the house.

What went inside the box:

braised pork adobo with hard-boiled egg
lumpiang sariwa (fresh egg rolls made of ubod or palm tree trunk) with brown sauce
buttered mixed vegetables
cupcake with chocolate swirl (bought from our local bakery)
rice with fish ball decor

The Hello Kitty Bento which the kids brought to school:

Spaghetti
Chicken Nuggets Fun Shapes
Mixed veggies
Star- Shaped Mini-Pancakes with syrup

veer away from the usual round pancakes by shaping it with a cookie cutter!

Read more

The Day-Off Chef: ‘Pata Bihon’

For this month’s edition of Lasang Pinoy hosted by the fabulous Toni with a focus on vegetables, I would have wanted to feature those favorite dishes of mine cooked with coconut milk. Problem is, cooking with coconut milk remains my waterloo. Somehow, I can’t seem to perfect the recipe for guinataang langka or guinataang sitaw at kalabasa – all yummy with native fish, fried to a crunchy perfection. Between these and a gourmet meal, I’d take home-cooked/ carinderia mush anytime.

The dish I cooked won’t qualify as a veggie dish since its star ingredient is pork hocks (pata) , but this can be transformed into vegetarian all the way with a little use of the imagination. “Pata Bihon” is something you can order on some Chinese restaurants even if it’s not listed on the menu; that’s because this is very easy to make and is guaranteed to relieve your hunger pangs/noodle cravings.

Read more

The Day-Off Chef: Cooking with Smoked Salmon

Happy Mother’s Day I would like to thank all my friends for the greetings.Please share in this blog feast as I make this post on one of my all-time favorites – smoked salmon.

High school buddy Anna Lyn had sent me a few pounds all the way from Norway. I remember meeting her dear mom in faraway Las Pinas just to get this precious commodity. Opening the whole package at home, I took my first bite and it so excited my palate that I had to open my long-stocked bottle of white wine to complete the experience.
Read more

The Day-Off Chef: Chinese Food for the Weekend

Two things that made the past weekend fabulous for me: I was able to get off my lazy butt and cook some Chinese food (or perhaps, a poor imitation of it) and have a date with my son at the mall. Certainly a pleasant diversion from my work-write/blog-sleep routine.
Read more

The Day-Off Chef: Sukiyaki Con Pinoy (updated)

Daaaarn…with the 12% EVAT, dining out seems more of a pain than the joy it used to be. So if you tell me that there’s a new place in town that’s worth checking out, I am not gonna relate… unless you’re picking up the tab.The one good thing that came out of higher taxes is that we get more motivated to try out new dishes at home in order to spare our wallet the agony, hence the advent of my dish for today, good ol’ sukiyaki.

Read more

Presenting… The Day-Off Chef

“The Day-Off Chef” is a new category am putting in this blog which will detail my hard-pressed attempts at domesticity in the most-cherished part of my week: my day-off. Hopefully, this will motivate me to spend more time in the kitchen -something I have been doing less and less of ever since I discovered that snoozing, shopping, gadget-reviewing, blogging and doingathousandotherthingsbesidescannotbe doneallatthesametime by someone pretending to be Superwoman. Thankfully, my kiddies are still eating decent meals but I thought it’s high time to flash the apron and try something new.

My first venture was the Banana Chocolate Chip muffins I saw on Epicurious. I have been meaning to bake cupcakes and was taken in by the recipe because the kids love both bananas and choco chips. It was a bonus that these muffins were easy to make even though they were not as robust as Mrs. Fields. Still, they tasted luscious coming straight from the oven and are best eaten when hot, just as the choco chips are melting away from all that heat. Hmmm.. For the do-it-yourself, click here.

The second dish I tried for this DO (day-off) is a comfort food and family favorite. My mom calls this picadillo although I doubt if that’s the correct name. It’s a tasty soup which basically falls for sauteing strips of lean beef in onion, garlic and lots tomatoes. Then, add water and cover the meat till it’s almost tender, season to taste with patis and put in the potatoes cut into cubes. Lastly, add the pechay leaves (also cut into strips) and turn off the heat. The pechay will cook by itself in the hot broth. Serve fresh from the casserole.

Hurrah! I’ve just updated my dormant food blog (heheh)