recipes, cooking tips & food trips
Chocolate chip cookie ice cream
I’ve posted my homemade vanilla ice cream recipe and I’ve also posted my version of the classic Toll House chocolate chip cookies. Now, let me tell you how I combined those two lovely sweets to make the best ice cream I’ve created so far. And it wasn’t even my idea.
My younger daughter, Alex, and I were in the supermarket last week and we were debating what ice cream flavor we should make next. She wanted mango ice cream but it isn’t mango season and fresh mangoes in the market are very expensive and not at all sweet. Then, Alex said, “Cookies and cream.” I paused and thought about it. Buying cookies, crushing them and throwing them into the ice cream maker isn’t exactly my idea of fun and exciting so I decided I’d bake the cookies that would go into the ice cream. And so I did.
The result is really, truly, utterly delicious. (more…)
Lettuce, tomato and egg salad with cream cheese dressing
Remember the cream cheese topping for my 15-minute bacon and spaghetti dish? This is the salad dressing version with garlic bits and finely sliced onion leaves. Serve as a plated salad or use the salad -- with the cream cheese … (more...)
Chocolate chip cookies, the Toll House recipe
Story has it that the chocolate chip cookie recipe was created by American Ruth Graves Wakefield, owner of the Toll House Inn, in 1933. She later sold the recipe to Nestle. Nestle's bags of chocolate morsels carry the Toll House … (more...)
Ilocos empanada… in Quezon City!
My daughter, Sam, went on a school field trip to Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur a few weeks ago and came home bearing a box of delicious bibingka royal. I asked her if she was able to sample Ilocos empanada and she said she didn't. … (more...)
How to clean fresh whole squids
Calamari is the Italian name for squid. But in the English-speaking world, calamari has become synonymous with squid dishes, especially fried and breaded (or batter-coated) squid rings -- a dish that, in the Philippines, is known … (more...)
How to slice meat across the grain
To cut the cooking time of meat, slice it across the grain. It's a technique used mostly for stir fried dishes where the meat should cook over high heat in the shortest possible time but you can apply this technique when cutting … (more...)
20-minute chicken and vegetables with coconut cream
Spicy, aromatic, rich and, best of all, fast. This is an express version of my mixed vegetables with coconut cream. Chicken thigh fillet strips are sauteed then boiled gently with parboiled vegetables in coconut cream. Chicken … (more...)
Chocolate panna cotta with vanilla ice cream and strawberry syrup
If you're not tired of desserts yet, neither am I. So many things I can do with the vanilla ice cream I made a couple of days ago. We're down to our last few scoops and I thought I'd use what's left of the ice cream to create … (more...)
Vanilla ice cream recipe (plus a coffee and vanilla ice cream dessert)
The substance derived from vanilla beans is so heady and richly aromatic that it seems ironic that in the dictionary, the word vanilla is also defined as something plain, ordinary or lacking any special features. The irony becomes … (more...)
Congee is rice porridge is arroz caldo
Last Thursday, Speedy and I were at the market. There was one stall selling premature chicken eggs (if we had left the house earlier, there would have been more stalls selling them but these things sell like hot cakes and I was … (more...)
15-minute spaghetti with cream cheese topping
My younger daughter, Alex, had been hankering for pasta for weeks so when she suddenly sent a text message yesterday saying she was arriving home in three hours or so, I decided I would cook some spaghetti for her. For those of … (more...)
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