1st Weekly Challenge :D

After arriving home from the office Sara and I were trying to figure out what to do for dinner and neither of us wanted to go out to get any groceries so I came up with a new weekly challenge for me!
Here is how it goes...you make dinner...with what ever you have in the house! Unoriginal? Yes I know. Cheesy? Just a bit but oh boy was it fun!
I am proud to say that this brand new challenge for tonight earned me a 4.5 star and Sara's only complaint was that the potatoes could have been a bit softer. In my defense...I knew they would be but I was so hungry!
Anywho, as usual, I shall explain. My ingredients were beef broth, tenderloin (pork, of course :D), carrots, potatoes, soy sauce, oyster sauce, corn starch, garlic annnnd flour. All very common things in my house!
When I started, I looked in the cabinet and I saw mixed veggies and thought...I could do something with that...then I realized, nah! I decided to not go with a CAN of veggies when I saw I had a fresh carrot and potatoes! That is like sacrilegious to use a can of vegetables when you have fresh ones! (juuuust playing) After I decided I was going to use the fresh vegetables instead I saw frozen chicken and frozen tenderloin. I could have used either of them...The deciding factor? The tenderloin was not as solidly frozen! Ha!

Here is how it goes together. Cut up all the veggies and meat and set all of it aside and make the sauce first. In a small bowl add beef broth, soy sauce, and oyster sauce then mix it up. Set that aside and in a bigger bowl, add some beef broth, the meat, corn starch and flour and mix it up. A lot like you do for the sweet and sour pork. This batter is a lot thicker though. Once that is mixed up, fry it in oil.

Once it is all fried, set it aside and add a small bit oil in the bottom of a pan, add veggies and garlic. Stir around for a bit then add the sauce mix, cover then let steam for a bit. Stir now and then so it doesn't burn but leave covered for as long as you can so the potatoes get soft.

After about 20 minutes, add the meat and let simmer for about 10 minutes, thicken the sauce with corn starch! And there you have it! A 4.5 star recipe that tool less than an hour to come up with! I was so hungry that I almost forgot to take a picture of the final product! Thankfully there was some left over (:D)

I really enjoyed the "challenge" aspect of this meal. I used no recipe and had no planning ahead involved. On the spot creations! Yay! I encourage you all to get in the kitchen and try this challenge now and then!
Happy Eating!
Amy

Pork with Broccoli

I decided tonight to try something I have never tried all the way from scratch. It is a play on "Beef with Broccoli" but since beef is so expensive over here, I used pork. I tried this before using a seasoning packet from the grocery but this time, I was determined to get it all on my own. (With the exception of Sara helping me cut the meat because we were short on time! She is wonderful!)
I had to wait for Sara to get back from a grocery run before really getting into everything with the cooking for this one so I started out with cutting up the garlic and making the sauce for this stuff. Like the last recipe I used a recipe for inspiration but ended up diverting away from it almost completely by the end of it. The sauce had oyster sauce, soy sauce, vinegar, and chicken broth in it. Super easy to mix. No catches. By the time I was done with this Sara was back with the meat, broccoli annnnnd...the onion...
Me and onions...we have a history. All I have ever done to an onion is cook it and love what it does to my food. With all of this love I have given it, you know what it does to repay me? Every time? Regardless of the circumstances? Makes me cry like a little girl! I have tried everything from chewing gum, cutting it under running water (big mistake by the way) to even trying the wearing goggles! It always gets me!
This time it waited till I was sauteing it to attack!

I decided not to put a picture of me crying on here for fear of scaring you guys away (just kidding :D). I sauteed the onions and garlic in olive oil (or sesame oil) then set it all aside. The next step was the meat. You brown the meat and sprinkle however much salt and ginger you desire to have on it, on to the meat while it is browning. Then about half way through you put about 2 tablespoons of soy sauce in it and brown the rest of the way.

Once that is done you add the onions, garlic, broccoli and the sauce then you cover it and let the heat steam the veggies into the wonderful tenderness we all know and love in beef with broccoli. Once that is done you add a little corn starch to thicken the sauce then it is yours to consume.

I had quite the group of critics tonight. One of the critics was this little cutie! My niece Lily <3

After dinner was done, all the consumers (how official sounding) gave it a 5 star! I think I am on a roll here y'all! 3 for 3!
Let me know if you want my recipe!
Happy eating!
Amy

Pork Stew!

After a long day at the office cleaning and organizing yesterday, Sara and I were trying to decide what to do for dinner and I said, "Hey! I can make something to blog about!" So I did! I took 2 "stew" recipes and did what I do best :P. I Frankenstiened them!
I got this new wonderful app on my iPod called "What's for Dinner?". Basically it takes all the well known apps and combines them! You can search for a single ingredient and it pops up all sorts of 4-5 star rated recipes! You can also do meal planning if that is what you are wanting but it is an all around cool app. If you are interested you can find it here in the app store.
Anyway, the recipes I took it from pretty much were used as...inspiration. (Ha!) It took a lot more ingredients than I was really expecting but it was totally worth it.

I used the basic staples of stew (Broth, Potatoes, Carrots, Onion and some meat). I started it all out with cutting up the veggies.

It took a long time to get that all done which was really not what I was hoping for. You might notice I did not peel my potatoes. I never do! You cheat yourself out of so many good vitamins just from the skins. I just wash them and cut them. They are fantastic!
The next thing I did was I cut up the meat in cubes. I used tenderloin again because it is my favorite cut of pork. It is good for if you want an easy cut of meat you don't have to tenderize. I put it in my pan with some bay leaves and a bit of oil to make sure the meat didn't burn and browned the meat. Once it was browned I added my sauce. My sauce was just pork broth and Worcestershire sauce. Once that was mixed in I added the needed sugar, paprika, salt, pepper and ground cloves (believe it or not).

By this time...the house smelled...intense! I was already hungry so it made cooking hard. The recipe I was using said to take out the bay leaves but I decided to wait till after I was done to do that. Then it was time to add the veggies. After I got those in there it looked so pretty!

Then I just covered it and walked away...not entirely though. Had to come back and stir every now and them but it was suppose to come to "an intense boil" while it was cooking. It took about 30 minutes for the veggies to get tender and after they did I added the corn starch to thicken it to "Stewy thickness".

After that I let it go for about 10 more minutes then Sara and I feasted on this wonderful recipe of stew! She took a little taste of the soup and said, "If it tastes anything like the soup, you have another 5 star here." She then took a bite then held up 5 fingers nodding her head. This is a keeper recipe!

We had it with rice and, oh my my was it good. Like i said in the last blog, I am not shy to share my recipes so if you want it just ask!
Happy Eating!
Amy

Sweet and Sour Pork :)

Alright here we go! So last week I made my sister Rachael's favorite thing I make! Sweet and Sour Pork. This is originally a recipe from an old school Better Homes and Gardens cookbook from my mom but we have tweaked it to perfection.
Now here is how it happened for me this time.
After getting home from the office I was trying to decide what to make and so I got my "Dinner Spinner" app out and started looking. I looked for a good half hour and then just decided to go with something I knew!
I went to the grocery store and got what I needed.
When I got home I got right to work of cutting up my veggies. In my family, we like to "flower" our carrots.

Basically you cut 4 small groves in the carrot all around before chopping. After I got done with that I just set all the veggies aside and started on the meat. I am not a huge fan of cutting meat BUT, I got it done. I cut the pork tenderloin into cubes and set that aside. I then prepared the batter (Flour, cornstarch, and beef broth), the pans (Frying pan and larger pan for deep frying) and got all the other sauces (Soy sauce, vinegar, beef broth, and sugar) ready.

If you noticed, I really like having everything before hand. Makes things simple when you are starting to actually cook. Another thing I am not fond of is measuring stuff. I like to just estimate. I have cooked enough to know what a teaspoon of this and that look like :). I have not failed yet!
I started my oil for deep frying the meat and then began the dirty work! When you are cooking you have to be willing to get your hands dirty right? Well In this case you use your hands. (Wash them first please. We do not need any extra minerals :P)

Using my hands I mixed the batter onto the meat and then once the oil was ready I just put as much meat that could decently fit into the pan in the oil.

While this was going on, after getting the batter off my hands, in a frying pan, I put the oil, carrots, bell peppers and the garlic. I turned the fire on and start the cooking of the veggies. This smelled amazing by the way! I do not know about you but I love the smell of cooking bell peppers and of cooking garlic! Once they were tender I added the sauce into the pan.

Once I added the sauce I knew I was in business! It started to smell right! After it started simmering I added the meat and then I added the corn starch. It did not only smell amazing but it looked so great! I have done this recipe many times but it is still amazing when you get it right.

As we ate this wonderfully beautiful dish the "mmmm"'s and "yum"'s I was getting from the girls made me so happy!
I asked the girls to rate it for me 1 star being awful and 5 stars being amazing and without hesitation Sara said 5 and Rachael gave me a 20 out of 5 stars! :D How about that?!? I say this was a win!
This is a must try!
If you would like to try it tell me, I will give you the recipe and you can tell me how it turned out for you!
Happy eating!!!
Amy

Back from outer space!

Howdy howdy from my humble kitchen in Cebu! It has been far too long since I have been on here and blogged about anything, food or otherwise! A lot of stuff has been going on but thanks be to God all is well and I can get back to the cooking that I love! 

When I started this I was going through a couple of cookbooks but now that I am super blessed and have an iPod I have access to so so soooo many cooking apps. I really enjoy being able to view blogs and apps that have a reviews section! So what I will be doing is I will just pic a recipe from any form of cookbook and make it so (grin). I am notorious though for throwing my own twist into all the recipes I do. Just how I roll! 

Please feel free to comment or, if you feel so inclined, try them out yourself and tell me what you think. 

Happy cooking!