The Unofficial Cook

I’m back and it’s all because my 93-year old uncle found my blog when he entered his name on google and found a post I wrote a couple of years back about our family and soybeans. Go check it out to understand the strange connection. Now, I’m in touch through email with my cousin like I’ve never been before.

I’ve written about some other family members too so I wondered if I was ever going to be found out. It had to be my uncle, the oldest member of our family - and I am so very proud of his internet savvy!

Even if I haven’t written in a few months, I’ve been cooking and trying out different recipes. My biggest thrill is to try out recipes with my family who never really got to try a lot of my cooking. This is one recipe that was a great success with everyone. I cooked this at Eldest Sister’s once and one by one, my nieces and Eldest Nephew came to see me while I was still frying away. They came out to the dirty kitchen, fish in hand, to tell me it was great. It was the sweetest thing. Eldest Sister’s kids are not that easy to please so that show was really appreciated.

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The Philippines has over 7,100 islands and you bet we eat a lot of fish and seafood, aside from rice of course. If you are in the Philippines and thinking of having steaks for dinner, your best bet is fresh fish steaks in calamansi butter sauce.

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Another entry for Lasang Pinoy’s 20th Edition titled “Binalot - All Wrapped Up!”. This dish is simply called “Binalot” by Bicolanos. It’s shrimp and coconut meat wrapped in gabi leaves then stewed and braised in coconut cream and herbs and spices.

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This is the first of a series for the Lasang Pinoy Edition 20: Binalot, All Wrapped Up! I’m hosting this month’s event and while I thought it might be interesting, I had no clue what I was in for! This was actually the easiest dish I made so I’m posting it first.
The dishes I had in mind were all rather complicated and required dexterity, which I unfortunately lack….big-time. Then there was the scrounging around for ingredients and recipes. Then there’s the fact that these are recipes I’ve never tried to do on my own before. I even attempted a recipe I’d only heard of, but never tasted or saw before. Despite all the hassles, I enjoyed myself but am glad I’m done with the cooking.

Here’s a photo of the Ginataang Tilapia. It’s a whole tilapia unwrapped from its white bok choy encasement after stewing in coconut cream, onion, garlic and ginger:

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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…)

Think about this…Fried Rice is probably the most unique dish that comes out of your kitchen.  What’s in your fried rice all depends on what’s in your refrigerator and that will differ from household to household and even from time to time…because we never have all the same leftovers. (more…)

I made this Shrimp Sinigang for one the other day.  This is probably Spouse’s favorite Filipino dish and I very seldom cook it owing to my shrimp allergy.  But some days, Spouse will get lucky….

Sinigang is a popular Filipino dish I featured in a previous post.  We sometimes mix shrimps with milkfish and that makes it pretty interesting.  My mother always used mustard greens in her seafood sinigang and it gives a nice kick, a different flavor than the more common “kangkong” or swamp cabbage.  Mustard greens are also packed with Vitamin C and combined with the tamarind flavoring, that’s going to drive away any cold that comes near you. (more…)

This Shrimp Salad definitely qualifies as an easy summer lunch.  It requires a minimum of cooking, plus, it’s very light and cooling on a hot summer day.  I love that it looks so appetizing too.

There have been heatwaves in both US coasts the last few weeks.  Thankfully, the summer has been pretty mild in Colorado this year. The fact is, I’ve never experienced a summer here that’s been so cool and wet before.  Hot or not, a cool salad like this is always an enjoyable lunch. (more…)

Spouse and I have been eating too much pork lately so I thought this would be a nice change from the usual.  I fried this rockfish in olive oil and was not so sure what to do with it.  Then I looked for some capers and found  I was out…so I ended up substituting green olives for this lemon butter sauce.  I thought I’d throw in the mushrooms and cook it with the sauce so it turned out to be something quite different.

Athough frying fish is always a hassle for me, this was pretty easy and is a delicious way to serve fish.

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