Tuna Pasta in Olive Oil

I tried this recipe last Holy Week, because Archie and I were craving for pasta but couldn't eat meat, it being holy days of obligation and all. This dish is easy to prepare, very cheap and of course, good for your health especially your heart. Here's the recipe. :)

TUNA PASTA IN OLIVE OIL

Ingredients:

1/2 k or 400 grams spaghetti noodles
1/4 cup olive oil
2-4 heads garlic, chopped
3-5 tomatoes, seeded and julienned
2 cans tuna, drained

Directions:

1. Pre-cook pasta until al dente. Drain and set aside.
2. Heat oil in a pan in medium-high heat. Saute garlic until fragrant. Careful not to burn them!
3. Add tomatoes and cook until tender.
4. Mix in the tuna and continue cooking until heated through.
5. Season with salt and pepper.
6. To serve, mix in with the pasta and toss together.

If you don't have a measuring cup, you can just use 3-4 rounds of olive oil on your pan. As for the tuna, you can buy the tuna flakes (like Century Tuna), either in brine or vegetable oil. Be sure to leave just a teeny bit of the brine or oil so that the flavor of the tuna will be retained. Or, if you want your pasta a little bit spicy, you can also use Spanish-flavored canned tuna.

Enjoy! :)

Mediterranean quick dinner

These are our favorite bites at Cafe Mediterranean ~


Grilled Chicken Platter with Hummus, Baba Ganoush and Couscous, and Grilled Beef Gyro Sandwich, aka Shawarma ;-)

Have them with loads of garlic sauce, and dinner's just perfect. :)

Take Two: Empanada

It's only the second time I'm going to make empanada, recipe courtesy of my friend and former officemate, Roge. The first time I experimented was around this same time last year, in time for Mama's birthday which we usually celebrate in the cemetery, being All Saints' Day. That first attempt was a disaster, as I didn't have the proper kitchen tools (read: measuring cup). This time, being fully equipped, I know I can do better.

Better, yes. Can still improve, definitely.

I've practically perfected the filling, it tastes just the way Roge makes it. So on that aspect, I give myself a pat on the back.


However, the dough is another problem.

I was doing great measuring, mixing the ingredients and kneading the dough, except for a few wee bitty times when the dough would stick to the board, which I remedied by scattering flour all over. When it came, however, to the part where I had to cut the dough into 20 equal pieces, which is necessary if I want to have uniform-sized empanadas, and then roll them out into perfect circles, I faltered. I couldn't seem to roll the dough thinly, and into circles ~ they just roll out into shapeless, uneven masses, and continued to stick to the board and the rolling pin. My neck and shoulders were sooo sore by the time I decided to make do with whatever shapes I came up with ~ at least, I can adjust when I folded and crimped the edges. Yun nga lang, di magkakasinlaki yung finished product. :(

Another blunder was when I dropped the first pieces onto very hot oil ~ I should've cooked them in medium-heat oil only. Mabilis tuloy nag-brown yung first batch, which is not really a problem because the filling is already cooked, anyway. But I would've wanted them to turn a golden brown sana, not toasted brown...


When it came to my favorite part though ~ the taste-testing ~ I had to just give myself not just a pat on the back, but a huge round of applause as well. Tasted really good!

I'll just have to work on the aesthetics. ;-)

Tokyo Cafe

This was our second time to visit the restaurant in Mall of Asia, and as per usual, we love what we had.

Their two-piece Hamburg Steak (really just your ol' familiar hamburger steak) with gravy is of course a delight. Archie had this before but with demi glace sauce, which is also good. The patties are not as thick as I'd like, but juicy and tender nonetheless. Trademarks of a worthy hamburger.



We also had their Pescatore, which is essentially seafood pasta with tomatoes and olive oil. It had a generous amount of clams and shrimps in it, and the tomato sauce wasn't too sour (some people like the Italian-style sour sauces... I like mine tempered).



Down it all with peach iced tea, and we're good to go! Price is reasonable and the wait staff are courteous, too, so we'll definitely be going back to this place.

Next time, we'll try the crepes. ;-)

The best thing since Tia Maria's itself.

SALSA overload!!!

Gone are the days when you have to pay extra for a second small serving of Tia Maria's to-die-for, nothing-can-compare salsa.

I think I'm craving now for their Nachos Grande, a burrito or some soft tacos, with LOADS of salsa.... Yum!

Conti's Mango Bravo

The first time Archie and I visited Conti's several weeks ago, we didn't know what to try. I only know that their chicken pies and ensaymadas are to-die-for, but other than that, we were clueless.

Relying on their "Must Try" dishes on the menu, we ordered a couple of dishes: the seafood au gratin and the Italian pasta. I didn't have my camera with me at the time so I wasn't able to take any pictures. So I guess, sans the photos, I'll have to defer my comments on the stuff that we tried, including the very delectable bananalicious pie.



On our second visit, I still didn't have my camera with me, but this time we tried the Mango Bravo, and wow, what can we say? It was heavenly! The only thing I didn't quite like about it was the butter-based icing ~ I prefer sugar icing. But nonetheless, it was very wonderful, the best way to end a sumptuous meal.

*Photo courtesy of Food Trippings

my super-patok chocolate chip cookie balls

My experimentation with various recipes has rewarded me this Christmas month.

For my birthday this year, my friend DAEI gifted me with a small, handy cookbook containing recipes for edible gifts, i.e. food that can be prepared and shared as gifts for family and friends. Browsing through the recipes, I found several that I thought were quite easy to prepare, but unique and would be appreciated by its recipients. That's where I discovered the recipe for cookie balls. The magic word in the recipe? It's "no-bake". (Archie gifted me with a table oven for my birthday as well but I haven't gotten around to trying it yet ~ but I will one of these days. At the time, however, when DAEI gave me the cookbook, I didn't have one yet.)

So I thought, why not give out these cookie balls to my barkada for Christmas?

First, however, I had to do my usual taste-test. I made a batch for Archie, my personal food critic a.k.a. taga-tikim. ;-) What do you know? For someone who doesn't have a sweet tooth, he found that he liked it a lot (and it's not just because he really loves me, OK) and immediately coined a name for it, calling it "Archie's Cookie Crunchie". It's not at all crunchy, mind you, but he says it's because of the nuts!

I also gave one apiece to my other personal taste-testers, Roge and Devery at the office, to see how my experiment would fare. Roge says she loves it, because it's so rich, and Devery thought the same, as well. My mom and Venice, between the two of them, have eaten all but one container-full of cookies in record time. With all the positive feedback, what else did I need? I immediately bought the ingredients and prepared an entire batch, not for my barkada, but for Archie's lawyer-officemates, to be given at their office party.

This is how I packaged it. I put the cookie balls inside decorated sandwich bags like this, tying them up with festive ribbons or abaca twine ~



... and then placed them in Christmas mug boxes like this, which can be bought in Quiapo ~



So as not to hide the poinsettia effect when the box is sealed, I punched holes on gift tags and a personalized "Keep Cookies Chilled" notes, with "Foodie-at-Law" and my number printed on them, then threaded them through abaca twine to hang by the side of the box. Cute, di ba?

When I gave the cookie balls to Archie's officemates, I was all too pleased with the feedback. Minnie, Mark's wife, texted in the morning just to say that her hubby ate practically all of the cookies, and Myra told Archie how she loved it, even leaving a comment on my Friendster account simply to tell me that she, her fiance Lowell, and her brother fought for each piece. My heart can't help but swell, knowing that people liked what I made!

The following week, I prepared another batch for my lawyer-barkada's, which I gave at our get-together/dinner at Noy's house. The following morning, Bunny sent a message saying that the cookies were good and "super-chewy". That same weekend, Mau texted me telling me that he loved the cookies as well and he's placing orders for 10 boxes, saying that I should start a business... Then come Monday morning, Angie, my best friend, asks if it I really made the cookies ~ masarap daw kase at pwede na akong mag-asawa. :-) She also placed orders for 10 boxes... and here come email messages from Chai and Dyegs, asking me if there's a 2nd batch of my yummy cookies!

To make a long story short, I've begun a small, private business with these cookie balls, which I merely experimented with after seeing how easy it was to follow the recipe. I modified the recipe a bit, not finding it necessary to add the chopped nuts as the cookie itself is already so creamy and rich with all the lumps of chocolate chips that I've used.

So, to My-my, who's been, as I heard, asking for the recipe for these cookie balls, my sincerest apologies...! Maybe I can teach you how to make them later... But for now, it will remain a trade secret of my small enterprise. :-)

Now. Would you like to buy? A box of 12 pieces each costs a very cheap P125.00, and I also sell them in plastic containers of 20 pieces each ~ they can be for personal consumption, or decorated as well if you're planning to give them away as presents. The 20-piece containers cost P225.00 only.



And I'm not even factoring in the cost of labor. I only use the most sumptuous, semi-sweet branded chocolate chips, not the generic ones you can get for wholesale. So I guarantee the creaminess and richness of these cookie balls ~ need my previous recipients' testimonials? ;-)

Congratulate me and buy these cookies, OK?

Check back for more goodies for sale! :-)