First Post for the Year 2012

Happiness + Prosperity in 2012!
This was my new year's greeting to everyone via FB, Twitter and SMS, my way of spreading holiday cheer and what have you.

I checked out my fate for the year 2012 and according to some Chinese wise men (i.e. Feng Shui experts), those born in the year of the rat will have good fortune in the year of the Dragon. Whupak! Haters back off, I shall own this and believe that this year will be fabulous for me.

I actually spent most of New Year's eve cooking in my parent's house. I made 2 kinds of pasta (one with pesto and another with meat sauce), baked 2 kinds of cake, made cream cheese icing, and made one dish for my Dad (Creamy Dory Parmesan Fillets). I don't have a picture of the food as we forgot the memory card of my hi-tech camera at home. So all we had to show for our exciting new year's eve celebration was a phone video footage where the only thing I could see was the lame flame coming from my bummed out sparklers. Nice.

The next day, I had the chance of taking a photo of the left-over chocolate cake. So here goes:


My daughter Ripley helped me with the icing, and although the cake doesn't look like a million bucks, believe me, it was delicious.

Here are also a few dishes I've whipped up since the new year that I wanted to document for future reference. My son calls some of my dishes "one-hit wonders" because I can't duplicate them after I've cooked them. I cook from the heart and whatever is in the refrigerator, and being a busy working mom, I don't have all day to write down recipes. At least, with these dishes holding residence in this blog, I can finally duplicate them by sight. Yahoo!


This is actually what I made as a side dish to my Parmesan Chicken with Coriander. It's good old eggplant and red bell pepper sauteed in olive oil and sprinkled with chili flakes. I dribbled some balsamic vinegar with olive oil to it and voila!


Here's my Parm Chicken. I pounded a few slices of chicken breasts, roughly sliced some coriander and mixed it with bread crumbs and parmesan cheese. Then I slathered the chicken slices with flour, dipped them in my egg mixture (1 beaten egg with a teaspoon of water), and dunked them in the bread crumb mixture. Of course, the next step is frying them in vegetable oil. Yum!

Tonight, we had Pork Sisig for dinner. It's made of pork cutlets, chili flakes, fresh sili (native chili pepper), green bell pepper, green beans, egg, and my secret sisig mixture. I then squeezed some lemon before serving. Sinful!


Yes, I had to double the dose of my hypertensive meds for this!

Hmm... this blog is turning out to be a food blog. But it's not. It's just that these days I'm obsessed with food. And losing weight.

Till next post! Happy eating!

Radioactive Chili Project

I am convinced. Chili will never come out appetizing in photos. The other day, I made chili for the very first time and with my hi-tech 5 mega pixel camera (I'm trying to be sarcastic here because clearly, my camera stinks), I took a shot.

I have no idea why this photo is sideways, but it's not my fault. Wake up Blogger.com. Going back to the chili, I call it my "Radioactive Chili Project." My greatest fan, my 12-year old son Zach absolutely loved it. He loved it so much that he wanted to swim in it. But of course, with the small bowl, that's not possible -- and I'm being silly.

It was actually pretty easy making the chili. I have like a secret ingredient that I won't divulge, just because I'm a selfish, self-centered cook, but if you have ground beef, onions, fresh tomatoes, tomato paste, garlic, cumin, paprika, chili powder, fresh chili (whatever you have in the house), beef stock, salt and pepper to taste, and gorgeous red beans -- you're good to go. All you have to do is cook the beans first, bring to boil, maybe 1 1/2 hours of cooking will do until tender. Saute the ground beef with the onions, garlic, and spices and add to the cooked beans. Add the tomato paste, stock, a bit of water, and season. Voila, radioactive chili is ready to serve.

I don't know about you folks, but cooking for me is not really all about the measurements and how anal you are about how much of this and that you have to put in the dish you're cooking. Aside from the basic techniques that you should master as a cook, it's also about your taste buds telling you that you either suck or rock. I've been cooking for a few years now and the first years were the most challenging. Now, I'm pretty comfortable in the kitchen and can whip up dishes in a jiffy based on what's in the ref or my cupboard.

Now, here's my question: can you call yourself a chef or, say, put up a culinary business just because you claim to have studied in some obscure culinary school after being "inspired" by cooking shows on TV?

Are cooks or chefs made (overnight after an epiphany while watching Mr. Ramsay say, "This looks like what's in my grandpa's colostomy bag!") or are they born with that innate talent to cook? Of course, when I say "born with it," I don't mean that you should come out of your mom's stomach with a spatula and a toque. What I mean is, you don't have to have a fancy degree in culinary arts. You should, however, maybe from a young age, have that genuine interest in cooking (I made my first muffin at the age of 8) along with that effortless something that allows you to create delicious dishes. "Effortless" being the operative word.

Some cook from the heart, and to me, they're the ones who really succeed in the culinary industry. In the same way that writers, to me, are born, not made. Case closed.