Aside from tequilla and yummy margaritas, Mexican food is smokin'

Mexican food is one cuisine everyone loves, i can't think of anyone who doesn't. My favorite Mexican resto in manila is Ristras and my favorite home dish is Maite's baked enchiladas. Really simple, best served with margaritas! You'll start speaking Spanish 3 minutes later.
Recipe directly quoted from Maite.


BAKED ENCHILLADA


Ingredients

2-3 Tablespoons of oil
1 onion chopped
½ kilo lean Ground beef
1 cup red beans ( pre soaked and cooked til soft)
1 pack Taco seasoning mix OR make your own out of oregano, chili powder etc..
1 cup tomato sauce
½ cup grated cheese – mozzarella is best !
1 big bottle Salsa Or Taco Sauce
12 pcs Soft Tortillas

For Garnish
Chopped lettuce or cabbage
Tomatoes
Black olives
More Cheese

• Cook soaked beans until soften. Set aside.
• In a saucepan, sauté onions in hot oil. Add the ground beef and stir until fully cooked
• Pour tomato sauce, taco seasonings and simmer until sauce dries up a bit.
• Pour in beans and mix with the meat mixture. Making sure all beans are coated but not runny. Set aside.

• Grill tortillas over open stove top flame about 5 secs each side. Set aside.

Assembly of the enchilladas

• In a big pan or pyrex, pour half of the salsa onto the bottom of the pan/pyrex.
• Get 1 tortilla and fill with the meat/beans filling, stuff with a bit of cheese then roll to seal. Place tortilla on top of the pan/pyrex on top of the sauce.
• Do the same with all the tortillas until pan/pyrex is lined with stuffed tortillas.
• Pour the remaining salsa over the tortillas and grate more cheese on top.
• Bake until cheese melts then garnish sides with lettuce, tomatoes and olives
• Let cool a bit before serving.
• You can also serve this with sour cream and guacamole/corn chips

Variations

You can also use grilled chicken instead of beef or make it purely vegetarian using just red and white beans, corn and bell peppers.

MIREN's notes:
SOURCREAM is a MUST
Dont use the whole TACO seasoning pack, try it first
I added corn in the enchilada, it was good1 neatralized the spiciness


CHILI con CARNE

Use the same bean and beef mixture above but add more tomato sauce and water.









SALAD
I just threw in lettuce, tomatoes, a little cheese, corn and avocadoes. This salad is great with Mexican food as it neutralized the spiciness of the dishes.

I went to yoga while they were eating, when I got back, there was nothing left. That's a good sign.

Tanantanananatantan..tequilla!

The Spanish also try to cook Chinese

My favorite chicken dish ever is what I made today. I love chicken but again, as stated in previous blogs, i hate cleaning it. Last time those were just chicken breasts, this time its chicken quarters and there are lungs and yucky stuff there! 15 minutes of squeamish facial expressions later, the chicken quarters looked pretty good. I still thought about their souls but this time I was more excited to make the dish. I guess that's an improvement?
For once, we had no leftovers from our house-blessing, but it also made me think, what can I add to this dish? I still want it to be the star but i need complimentary dishes. Since it is a Chinese dish, i decided to add in fried rice (i always cook too much rice so this was a good chance to use it) and chopsuey with whatever veggies I had in the crisper.

HONEY CHICKEN with SHITAKE MUSHROOMS

Wash and then soak 10 Shitake mushrooms in 1 1/4 cup water for an hour to soften. Don't throw the water.

Cut a whole chicken in half or  4 chicken quarters - brush with soy sauce and fry until its nicely browned.
Throw 75% of the oil and pour in 1 cup soy sauce, 1 cup honey and mushroom water and mushrooms (cut in half).
Simmer for 45 minutes or until chicken looks cooked inside.
Cut into the usual pieces and serve.

Since it tastes so good, a lot of people think its a hassle to make but in truth, it is super easy. The hardest part is cleaning the poor chicken!

CHOPSUEY

Saute 1 white onion (i never use red onions for anything) in a little oil. Once onions are clear, add 1/4 cup water with 1 Tablespoon cornstarch and a beef bullion disolved in it. The cornstarch is optional, it is used just to thicken the sauce. Throw in 1 cabbage chopped, one carrot chopped into circles and half circles. Make sure you wash the veggies! When it looks half done, throw in 4 tablespoons of peas. Continue sauteing. Do not overcook, veggies shouldn't be soggy.

FRIED RICE

Chop one garlic and sautee in a little oil  until slightly browned. Add 6 slices of ham, chopped into squares. Add 2 eggs and mix well to scramble it. Add 4 cups cooked rice, keep mixing for 10 minutes. Add 4 tablespoons peas No need to salt if your ham is salts or has a strong flavor. I used spiced ham.

That's it for my Chinese lunch. This is my best attempt at Chinese. I don't know any other Chinese dish! You can also change the chicken to pork belly, crazy cholesterol but crazy good too.

I wanted to make Osso Buco but....

BONG: You can cook with anything, you don't need to follow the recipe!
MIREN: (no answer, but annoyed)
BONG: Just throw this in (points at squash) and this (points at strange leaves i don't recognize) and this! (pointing to string beans)
MIREN: Thats just weird! That wont be OssoBuco!
BONG: Make do with what we have, or go the the grocery! And you dont need those herbs, use any herb.
MIREN: (thinking: OMG, this will be so BAD!, and no I'm not gonna go to the grocery in house clothes! Although its just 2 buildings away)

So what do i do with the gorgeous beef shanks? Lola's Beef Stew! But this time I'll put a lot of carrot and potatoes which my lola doen't do, I want equal portions of meat and veggies. Yum.

It turned out great! My cooking confidence is now 10%. I guess Bong was right about throwning everything in.

Stewed Beef Shanks

Fry 2 big beef shanks. throw away any extra liquid.
Add oil and 2 white onions chopped. Sautee until shanks are brownish and the onions are clear.
Add 1 cup tomato sauce and 4 cups water.
Season and simmer for 2 1/2 hours. (the beef will be super tender by then)
Add as much potatoes, carrots and string beans as you'd like and cook until tender.
Serve and watch your husband gobble.

P.s. I have no pictures yet of any of my dishes! Since we just moved, I cant find my camera charger, but don't worry, ill post as soon as i repeat these dishes. (My friend, Ayumi has never reapeated a dish for the past year, and I don't know how long before i repeat =)

The picture is bongs facebook stat after lunch,made my day! Click to enlarge

Every family seems to have a different recipe

And not just a different recipe, but a different way to eat it! Some people eat stroganof over rice and some prefer pasta. I personally prefer the latter.
Some recipes have cream or sourcream, mushrooms or no mushrooms, but the common denominator is the sirloin that makes this dish taste amazing regardless of which sauce you make,
This is one dish that makes me say, "DIET OVER!". Its just too good, you just need to stuff your face with it. Try it for yourself!

BEEF STROGANOF

Fry in butter and olive oil 1/2 kilo of thinly sliced sirloin steaks just until done, no need to brown it.
Remove sirloin and cut into strips.
Using the same pan, return sirloin and add 1 white onion sliced.
Cook until onion becomes clear.
Add 3 tubs sourcream and 1/3 cup tomato sauce.
Season with salt and pepper.
Add 1 can sliced mushrooms.
Simmer until thickened.

Serve over rice or pasta.

I ate too much of this last night =p

We need our veggies!

I got a lot of spinach, but i had no idea what to do with it. Lasagna would be good but i needed a dish with chicken or meat. I opened our freezer, and perfect, i had chicken breasts. Baked Chicken? Yes!
But there are so many ways to season a baked chicken. I asked mom what to do, she had suggestions and I also had ideas. I was more stressed thinking how to clean the chicken rather than how to bake them.

I had to clean the chicken ofcourse. I didn't want us all to get a disease!.

Okay fine, chop it. Yuck, it was so hard. I was thinking if this chicken's soul was in heaven or still watching me. Yikes. I wish i could close my eyes but then that would be crazy.
I eventually managed to chop each chicken breast into 6 pieces. I want smaller pieces so it would cook faster. Now cleaning. Gross. really gross. I remmeber mom said to take out anything slimy. So thats exactly what i did! but i also decided to remove anything that looked bloody and yucky, or like a part i could figure out. ALL CLEAN! i survived!

Now the recipe...

SPINACH AND CREAMCHEESE BAKED CHICKEN

clean and chop 4 chicken breasts, leave the skin
season w salt and pepper.
mix 1 can spinach (drained really well) and one bar of cream cheese (8oz.)
slice each chicken piece lengthwise, creating a flap, do not slice it completely in half. put 1 tablespoon creamcheese spinach mixture in each piece.
Snuggly arrange the  chicken pieces in a Pyrex
mix 1/3 cup grated cheese (any will do, i used cheddar) and 1/3 cup bread crumbs/
sprinkle on the chicken.
drizzle with 4 tablespoons olive oil and 4 tablespoons butter.
Bake at 350 degrees C for 40 mins.


Yes, i know this isnt exactly the healthiest way to eat your greens but its better than no greens and all cheese right?

Till dinner..

Gravy with no recipe

We had some beef tenderloin leftover from our housewarming, but no sauce. "Gosh", i thought, "how can i make gravy without the meat drippings?"

Now i know the magic of Beef Bullions.

I decided to just copy what our cook would do, but then again i didn't take in enough detail when i would wtach her, cause well, how can u take note of a dish if i only watched for 30 seconds.

EASY BREEZY GRAVY

brown 1 cup flour until tan (takes about 20 mins) stirring constantly.
remove from heat
add 4 tablespoons salted butter.
drain 1 can button muchrooms and add the much room water to the butter flour mixture.
Disolve 2 beef bullions in 2 cups boiling water.
Add to flour, butter, mushroom water mixture.
return to flame and simmer. stirring ocassionaly.
chop mushrooms lenghtwise and add to the gravy.

I cooked the gravy just until slightly thickened. But you can continue to cook it until it reaches your desired thickness.

I tasted the gravy...yummy but it lacks something. Ah! Wine!..always saves the day.

Add 1/2 cup wine and you're ready to pour that delicious gravy on your steak, mashed potatoes and rice!

But if you have kids over, you can just split the recipe and add wine to only half the mixture and serve the rest to the kiddos.

Choose a safe dish!

Bong and I just moved into our new home and boy the kitchen looks amazing! If only i could cook something for him. My family invaded our kitchen over the weekend and whipped up dishes that i can't even imagine making myself.
Now, all alone in my kitchen stocked with enough food to feed a party of 50 (for 2 days!), I had no idea what to cook.
I decided to go with a safe dish, a family staple--

ALMONDIGAS.

Mix 1/2 kilo ground pork, half an onion and one egg.
form them into meatballs (makes 15pcs) and roll in flour.
Fry until cooked. Separate
Strain the oil used in frying and sautee half an onion and 1/2 cup tomato sauce.
Add metballs. Fill the saucepan with water until the balls are covered. simmer for 45 mins to an hour until thick.


Easy. and Bong loved it. I think  my cooking confidence is now 2%.