The Unofficial Cook

This sherbet is made with young coconut which we call “buko” in the Philippines. Buko is perfect for a sherbet because the water from a young coconut has a slight sweetness that makes the perfect base. The tender coconut meat when chopped fine and churned with the buko juice also enhances the sherbet’s texture, making it amazingly creamier.

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 Has anyone tried the new slow churned ice cream Dreyer’s has been advertising with that goofy commercial?  I say goofy because I didn’t get it that the man who enters the supermarket is the manager…oh well, my brain was slow-churning I guess. (more…)

I bought dried fish from the Filipino Sari-Sari Store the other day…my craving for a Filipino breakfast overcame my apprehensions about getting one of good-quality.  This wasn’t so bad.  But man…was it salty!  My tastes must have changed more than I realized.  I used to enjoy dried fish. 

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The Filipino food bloggers’ event, Lasang Pinoy celebrates it’s first year anniversary this month of August. Congratulations and here’s to more participants and anniversaries!

This month’s theme, Definitively Pinoy, was not so easy for me.  I wanted to do  the Ilokano dishes “dinengdeng” or  “pinakbet” that my mother does so well.  I could,  but it just wouldn’t be the same without the best ingredients.  So instead, I decided to feature a very Pinoy food product everyone who grew up in the Philippines will remember from their childhood:  Choc-Nut.  Just the mention of this chocolate and peanut confection elicits happy memories for Pinoys.  (more…)

This is Number 6 in the Top Ten Flavors from Ben & Jerry’s.  I’m surprised it isn’t higher on the list!  I scooped out a bit of the ice cream to show some of the chunks.  If you’ll look closely, the ice cream is almost overflowing.  That’s really because of the lower air pressure in Colorado.  Products packaged at lower altitudes have this tendency to almost jump out of their packaging when we open it here.  Looks like there’s more of the product….and that works fine for me.

This is really THE chocolate lover’s dream ice cream.  The base is a smooth milk chocolate, not too sweet, which is just the way I like it.  Then they  put a lot into this little pint.  What isn’t in this ice cream?  Not much.  It had generous chunks of white chocolate (my favorite), walnuts, chocolate covered almonds, pecans and dark chocolate chips.  If you haven’t tried it, you really must.

We went food shopping at the Peterson AFB Commissary this afternoon and I saw MRE packs on a shelf.  It’s not the first time they went on sale at the commissary. They had individual packs going for $7.32 and boxes at about $87.00.  As I was sifting through the packs, Spouse came up to me and suggested I get a couple to test for this blog.  Good excuse I thought….why no? Let’s see what US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are eating out on the field.  I chose only one very common American meal:  Roast Beef with Vegetables.  There were others but this sounded like a good place to start… (more…)

Green papayas are not always available in the Filipino Sari-Sari Store here in Colorado Springs.  I normally use potatoes or chayote for my Chicken Tinola but there’s no substitute for green papayas when it comes to Atsara.  I picked up a bottle of this Tropical Atsara to go with my Daing na Bangus.

Atsara is anything pickled. The most popular being a mix of green papayas, bell peppers, onions, etc.  It makes a perfect side dish to fried fish. (more…)

Aahhh…bangus. I haven’t found a Filipino bangus in stores here since I moved five years ago.  Most of the time, the bangus (milkfish) available in stores here are from Taiwan.  It’s just not the same.

Last time I was at the Filipino Sari-Sari Store, they had Philippine bangus!  It’s frozen and vacuum-packed and it’s from Saranggani in Mindanao and not Bonoan in Pangasinan, which produces the best bangus in the whole, wide world.  But hey… I’m very happy to find a bangus that is finally from the Philippines here in Colorful Colorado!

Thank you, Alsons Aquaculture Corporation!

I’ve been kicking myself since last night for not having this ice cream flavor from Haagen Dazs sooner.

A flavor description you’ll find on the inside of the lid says that black walnuts are more intensely flavored than regular English walnuts and they meant it!  This ice cream almost tasted like a mix of regular walnuts with real maple syrup drizzled in…but it wasn’t. Apparently, black walnuts have this really intense, woodsy flavor like real maple syrup has,  but you get a deeper walnut flavoring from the chopped, evenly-sized nuts sprinkled generously throughout the ice cream.

Awesome……

Someone told me about this product saying it was a good substitute to fresh egg noodles. I found it at the frozen food section at Wal*Mart and bought one to see if they were really good. It’s made locally in Denver, Colorado.

If I hadn’t made my own noodles for a homemamde chicken noodle soup I made some months back, I’d say this was great.  But now, I have to say it’s a weak substitute for the real, homemade thing.  It also takes much longer to cook than fresh ones.  The texture does get better reheated the next day.