The Unofficial Cook

In a previous post, I shared how we picked up a few deli meats from Bretto’s Deli in Angeles City in Pampanga.   Here they are, the sandwich fillings and on the next page is the resulting sandwich…

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Whew….what a mouthful of a recipe title! Although compared to other cheesecake recipes I’ve done in the past, this was the easiest by far…and it made a deliciously wicked dessert, a perfect ending to any meal. (more…)

Here’s another meal I made to use up leftovers from my pantry.  This time I used a bottle of Merlot I’ve been using for cooking for a couple of months, canned tomatoes with balsamic vinegar and basil and bottled parmesan cheese.  It was surprisingly delicious and so easy to make.  I had more than enough Merlot so the sauce came out richly flavored. This had plenty of garlic but I still stashed a head of garlic in my luggage at the last minute! (more…)

This is my favorite fall recipe.  I found it in a cookbook Stepson’s former girlfriend gave me for Christmas and I’ve made it a staple. It’s one of the easiest things to cook and always comes out perfectly no matter what you do with it.  The original recipe calls for turkey breasts but I thought some pork chops would go even better with the apples and so it has been for us ever since.

You can serve this with rice or potatoes, either way is good.  It’s also great as is, like in the photo I have here. (more…)

I purposely looked for this recipe after we went to the Greek Festival here in Colorado Springs  last summer.  There was this particular cake that I really loved and just guessed what it was.  When I saw this recipe, I think I had it.  It’s a walnut cake  laced with citrus syrup after it’s been cooled.  The recipe was a genoise cake which I wrote about in more detail in this post.  I think I’ll make changes in the future and add some butter or shortening.

I didn’t make many changes to the recipe and found it was too dry.  Then again, I’m in high altitude so that certainly made a difference.  That was easily corrected by serving the cake with a large dollop of whipped cream.  (more…)

Sometimes, the best desserts are the simplest things you can come up with, like this bowl of  marinated strawberries with whipped cream.  It took so little effort, yet the result was stunning and delicious. (more…)

What’s in your clubhouse sandwich?  Do you even belong to a club?  Whether or not you do, I’m sure you’re familiar with the Clubhouse Sandwich.  Apparently, different clubs have different ingredients in their clubhouse sandwich. (more…)

I saw these gorgeous and big mushrooms in the supermarket the other day and immediately thought of stuffed mushrooms.  As an experiment, I made a few changes to a surprisingly good recipe I came up with earlier. 

My idea was I’d use up a couple of ingredients that have been sitting in my refrigerator for almost, not quite, too long.  I had pepperoni from the last pizza I made and also some feta cheese that I wanted to use up soon.  That sounded weird but I’ll try anything… (more…)

I looked around for the English translation of this commonly used vegetable in the Philippines which we call “upo” and  almost identified it as winter melon.  Apparently, the winter melon is  “kundol” back home.  This vegetable pictured above is a bottle gourd.  It’s a light and delicately flavored vegetable we often use sauted with pork and shrimps or dried fish. 

A Chinese friend of mine said that a winter melon is a good vegetable to “…keep you cool when you’re heaty” and I found that description to be so accurate.  Just like the winter melon, which is actually a gourd and not a melon, ”upo” makes a great soup in the summer or the tropics and perhaps does lower your body temperature, though I have no proof of that.

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Here’s a sorry attempt at plating a dish of beef caldereta.  Do you think I overdid it?  I really wasn’t going to post about this but decided I would at the last minute because of the attractively-colored vegetables.  This caldereta is missing a few key ingredients (which I’ll include in the recipe anyway) which is why I wasn’t originally going to inlcude it in the blog. 

Caldereta is a beef dish Filipinos like to serve at fiesta time.  Beef is the most common meat used.  There’s also a spicier goat caldereta that drinkers prefer.  The chicken caldereta is sweeter because of the addition of pickle relish.  For special occasions, a lot of Filipinos in the provinces would slaughter a cow, a pig, some chickens and maybe a goat for an open-to-everyone kind of feast.  The animals would be slaughtered with an open fire close by.  A huge cauldron of boiling water sitting over some large rocks or hollow blocks is always ready and required.  The men will do the slaughtering and dividing of the meat while the women prepared the rest of the ingredients.  Certain cuts go with certain dishes.  Caldereta  required mostly bones, with some meat still clinging to it.  (more…)

My inspiration for this dish was the Shrimp and Scallops Pasta Spouse had at Cucina Colore last month.  It looked so good but I couldn’t taste it because it had shrimps.  Of course, there’s always a way to re-create a dish to suit you and so I did…and I even made it better with the addition of asparagus. (more…)

I’ve been meaning to do this omelette which I first tasted at the Village Smithy in Carbondale, Colorado last July when Spouse and I went to Redstone for our anniversary.   I thought it was a perfect recipe since I’ve always been gaga over smoked salmon (anything smoked for that matter) and cream cheese.  I didn’t have any bagels this morning but a couple slices of toasted French bread smeared with more cream cheese was fine.  Serving it with orange slices was a perfect way to cleanse the palate. (more…)