Churros con Chocolate

Since classes were suspended today, I have decided to take a time off my school works and share with you a simple recipe for making churros! :) I am still sharing with you Spanish cuisine recipes and I only have 1 more recipe left to share after this one...

Churros are actually quite easy to make and are really delicious! All you need is an icing piper for the churros to form its long edgy shape. :)

Ingredients
for the chocolate dip:
200 g semi sweet chocolate
2 cups evaporated milk
2 Tbsp cornstarch
1/2 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp butter

for the churro dough:
1 L olive oil or just the plain cooking oil
1/2 cup butter
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup flour
3 pcs eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Procedure:
1. To make the churro dough, heat water, margarine and salt to rolling boil in 3-quart saucepan; stir in flour. Stir vigorously over low heat until mixture forms a ball, about 1 minute; remove from heat. Beat eggs all at once; continue beating until smooth and then add to saucepan while stirring mixture.
2.Spoon mixture into cake decorators' tube with large star tip (like the kind use to decorate cakes). Squeeze 4-inch strips of dough into hot oil. Fry 3 or 4 strips at a time until golden brown, turning once, about 2 minutes on each side. Drain on paper towels.
3.Mix Sugar and the optional cinnamon; roll churros in sugar or dump the sugar on the pile of churros.
4. Serve with the Chocolate dip.. by just simply mixing all of the said ingredients in a double boiler and stir until it becomes very thick or to your desired consistency.

Don't use olive oil unless you are rich! You can simply use the regular cooking oil. I also did not use 1 liter, I just filled my frying pan enough oil to let the dough float while it is being fried. :) Hope you would try this simple recipe for making churros! Til' my next recipe! ^^.

My Tiny Herb Garden

We don't even have a lawn for that matter, only pots that I plant with different herbs. :D

First off is the 2 kinds of green onions that we bought from the wet market.

The first one doesn't get wet or soaked when you wash it, unlike the second one that does get soaked and sticks to your hands when you wash it.

What I did was after slicing out the green part, I simply planted the part with roots in to the pot and let the sunshine do the rest of the job

Another thing that I am planting are tomorrow leaves which are said to have a lots of benefits for our health. To know more about them, just click here.

You just need one part or branch of it then plant it into the soil. During the first week, the leaves will look withered but don't worry and don't do anything, because after that one week, it will start to grow again. All it needs is water and a lot of sunshine! ^^,

The last thing that I started to grow are Basil leaves, which is by far the hardest one to grow out of the rest.
I actually don't have any idea on how to take care of it but, I started to let it have some water and sunshine like the rest but it seemed that it doesn't like the sun that much and started to get weak, so my mom decided to move it to a cooler place (like the kitchen). After that it started to grow and become a lot bigger :)

If you could just help me and share some ideas on how to take care of my plants, please do tell me.. okay? thanks! :D

Spit Roasted Chicken Brushed with Honey and Cumin

This next recipe that I'm gonna share with you is very is to make and is also flavorful at the same time! :) I'm still sharing recipes of what we cooked for Spanish Cuisines! :) I still have more recipes coming both for Spanish as well as French Cuisine. We would also be cooking Asian cuisine starting tomorrow, that means there will be mo recipes piling up for me to share with everyone.. At the same time, I would also squeeze in some other food experiences I had so far as well as my mini herb garden :)

So for this Spanish chicken recipe, you will be needing the following ingredients:
1/4 cup Olive Oil
1 1/2 Vinegar
2 tsp Cumin
2 cloves Garlic, crushed
2 Tbsp Honey
1 tsp Salt
1 1/2 kilo Chicken, trussed

Procedure:

1. In a small bowl, mix all ingredients except the chicken. Place the chicken in a shallow bowl and pour on the sweet-sour mixture. Marinate for at least 1 hour, turning, and brushing the chicken with the marinade frequently.

2. Roast the chicken on a spit or in an oven pan (preferably an oval earthenware dish) at 350F for 1 hour. Reserve the marinade and brush the chicken frequently as it roasts. Serve with roast potatoes and a light red wine like Vina Lanciano.

Now ain't it easy to make? Just don't forget to brush the chicken with the marinade frequently! And you can serve it like we did, with blanched and stir-fried with butter broccoli, green beans, carrots, and potatoes! :D If you don't know how to truss a chicken, here is the link that helped me learn how! :)

Paella Recipe

How soon is soon?? Well in my case, I promised to post the recipe of the Spanish we cooked last last week but it seems that I have been to tired and tired to post the recipes.. But now that I feel like things or recipes to post are piling up.. So I decided to lessen the load with giving you the recipe of Paella (paeya) which we and our professor cooked! :) I also like to share with you my mini garden of green onion, tomorrow leaves, and basil leaves (which is so hard to take care of).



So to make this post quick and short, I'm just gonna simply post the recipe and my suggestions! :)

Ingredients
1/2 cup olive oil
100 g. garlic
200 g. tomatoes
100 g. onions
250 g. chicken breast, sliced into bite size
1 pc. chorizo
250 g. pork kasim
500 g. long grain rice (do not wash and don't let it get wet!!!)
2 cups of chicken broth (or more)
75 g. clams
75 g. mussels
150 g. tiger prawns (better to keep its head on for more flavor)
125 g. fresh/frozen peas
3 pcs. hard-boiled egg
1 pc. alive and kicking crab ^^,
1 pack saffron (around 3g)
2 pcs lemon
2 pcs bell pepper (red or green or one of each)

Procedure:
1. Heat the paella pan or a simple wok then add in the olive oil, and saute the onion and garlic. Add in the chicken, pork, and tomatoes.
2. Add the rice and stir thoroughly, making sure that every grain of rice is coated with oil.
3. Once coated, add in the saffron and stir thoroughly until evenly distributed. Add in the chicken broth until it covers the uncooked rice. Cover it with aluminum foil or the cover for your wok then wait for the rice to be half cooked or when the broth runs out. (put the fire in low or medium-low)
4. If the broth dries out, add in more water or chicken stock, then add in the clams, mussels, crab, chorizo, and the tiger prawns. Cover again with the aluminum foil and wait until the clams and mussels open and when the crab is cooked. (around 15 minutes)
5. Arrange the sliced bell peppers and peas and cover again with foil and cook it for 2-3 minutes.
6. Garnish the paella with the lemon wedges and hard boiled eggs and serve immediately.

my notes!
-never stir the paella when you have already started to cover it with aluminum foil. Paellas are made without stirring and is solely served with that lavishing color and design! NEVER STIR. okay?
- make sure that your broth is always enough when cooking the rice to avoid any burned rice at the bottom..
-don't be overwhelmed with the steps and ingredients of this dish because making it is quite an ease.. :) just give it a try! :)


so far these are just some of my notes! hope you like and will try this recipe!

till my next post. bye!

Spanish Cuisines

These are the Spanish dishes that we cooked for this week! Recipes will be posted on my next posts! :)

Paella (read as paeya!)

Churros con Chocolate

Baked Mussels with Mushroom and Cheese

a yummy Roast Chicken

Saturday Lunch

This was the lunch I had last Saturday! :) It is one of my mom's best one-pot-like-dishes. :)) It is my mom's famous kiampong or sticky pork rice.. :) It is so yummy that all of us wants a second or even up to a third serving of this!! :) I consider the recipe as top secret and is a family recipe thing, so I just can't really share with you yet what I know :))



Its a mix of rice, mushrooms, carrots, soy sauce, pork stew or hong ma :D I am always trying to learn how to make this, but I am 100% sure that it will take me a very long time to do so.. :D


I just really wanted to share with you the pictures I took because I think that it really makes you want to have one!!! does it?? does it? :))

Bread and Pasta

So for our own recipe for Italian dishes, we chose to make Tomato-Cheese Bruschetta and Spaghetti with Mussels, Tomatoes and Parsley! :) We got good grades for both so I thought of sharing with you the recipes! :D I also love the photos I took and I even played with saturation, color enhancement and stuff! :)

The bruschetta was easy to make and instead of using mozzarella cheese I just used quickmelt cheese! :)
Bruschetta Recipe

Ingredients:
1 loaf crusty Italian bread, cut diagonally into serving slices
1/2 cup olive oil
1 can (14.5 ounce) Diced Tomatoes, drained
1/2 chopped sweet onion
2 tbsp chopped fresh basil
1/2 tsp finely chopped garlic
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper (ground)
2 cups Mozzarella Chesse (shredded) or quickmelt cheese! :)

Procedure:
1. Preheat oven to 400F. Brush both sides of bread slice with oil. Place slices on baking sheet, bake 5 minutes on each side, or until golden brown.
2. Combine tomatoes, onion, basil, garlic, salt and pepper; mix well. Spoon evenly divided onto each slice of toast. Sprinkle with cheese.
3. Bake for another 3 minutes or until the cheese starts bubbling then serve! :)

for our take, we placed the cheese on top first then when it melted, that's the time we placed the diced tomatoes. What I like about this dish is the play with color or the contrast of different colors especially red..


This next recipe is the Spaghetti with Mussles, Tomatoes, and Parsley! :) or what they call it in Italy, spaghetti con le cozze

Ingredients:
1 kg. fresh mussels or small clams, in their shells
olive oil
300 mL dry white wine
400 g spaghetti or spaghettini
3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
500 g. can chopped tomatoes
2 tbsp freshly chopped parsley
salt and pepper to taste

Procedure:
1. Put the mussels in a bowl of cold water and rinse several times to remove any grit or sand. Pull of the beards then use the back of a knife to remove any barnacles and scrub well under cold running water. Discard any mussles that are not firmly closed. Drain.

2. Heat the oil and wine in a saucepan and add the mussels. Stir over high heat until the mussels open. Remove and discard any that don't open.

3. Lift out the cooked mussels with a slotted spoon and put them in a bowl. Reserve the cooking liquid. Cook the spaghetti with plenty of boiling water according to the packet instructions, usually about 8 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, add the garlic to the mussel cooking liquid in the pan and boil fast to reduce and concentrate the flavor. Stir in the tomatoes, return to the boil and boil fast for a further 3-4 minutes, until reduced. Stir in the mussels and half the parsley and heat through. Taste and season well with salt and pepper.

5. Drain the pasta, reserving 2 tablespoons of the cooking water in the pan. Return the pasta to the hot pan and stir in the sauce. Sprinkle with the remaining parsley and serve.

This is so good that I will even consider it as a comfort food and I just love how it is different from what spaghetti taste like here in the Philippines, though I still added a little sugar ^^,

Hope you enjoy these recipes and love my pictures as I do! :) Next cuisine would be Spanish cuisines... :) Paella and Churros! :D

Italian Pizza

Pizzas are not really on top of my favorite food list but when I knew that we will be making our own pizza dough, I just can't help myself in being so excited and all!! :) I actually love making everything from scratch so I was really excited and all..


In my opinion, it really isn't that hard to make pizza dough from scratch and you just really have to follow every step carefully and precisely! :) Though it is sad to say that our own pizza dough wasn't a success because we had a problem with our yeast and we did not let our dough rest for an hour :( But I still believe in practice makes perfect and I shall continue to practice making great pizza dough and I shall take this failure as a lesson for my future adventures! :)

I think our pizza would have been great if our dough was prepared the right way! :) I mean who wouldn't want real mozzarella cheese and other fresh ingredients on their pizza, right?


Ingredients:
for the pizza dough
1 Tbsp Yeast
2 Tbsp Sugar
1 cup warm water
3 1/2 cup All-Purpose Flour
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 cup olive oil

toppings
1 bar mozzarella cheese
1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
250 grams bacon
2 pcs white onion
2 cups pizza sauce
3 slices sweet ham
slices of salami or pepperoni
1/4 cup button mushroom

Procedure:
1. Dissolve yeast in warm water together with the 2 tablespoon of sugar. Set aside in a warm dry area (like your oven, but don't turn it on) for 10 minutes to wake the yeast. In a bowl, sift together flour, salt, remaining sugar.
2. Pour in the yeast mixture and then add in oil. Knead dough until smooth and satiny.
3. Let dough rise for an hour or until double in bulk. Divide dough into 2 and fit into 12-inch pizza pans.
4. Poke the pizza dough with a fork and pre-bake the pizza crust by brushing it with olive oil and bake for 15 minutes.
5. For each pizza, spread half of the tomato or pizza sauce. Top with ham, salami, pepperoni, bacon, onion, mushrooms, and more cheese. ^^,
6. Sprinkle generously with cheese and bake in a preheated 400F oven until done or cheese is melted.

*my notes:
- FOLLOW each step carefully because it is really vital with what your dough would be like!
- you can put spices like basil, oregano,and more to your tomato sauce so that it will bring out more flavor, and you can actually let the tomato sauce simmer in advance so as to bring out the flavor of the herbs.
- Enjoy making your own pizza dough cause it is really simple and don't worry if you fail because everyone knows that practice makes perfect! :))

next post: bruschetta and spaghetti with mussels, tomatoes, and parsley! :)