The photos in this blog may load slowly or not at all today. Unfortunately, our photo host, photobucket.com is experiencing network problems.

So it has started cooling off, and the smell of fall is in the air; and I am just plain tired of fried chicken. Another family favorite to cook and eat is this chicken and dumpling, which I have learned is a staple in southern cooking. My husband has been missing good chicken and dumpling like his grandma used to make until I came across this recipe in Southern Living magazine. He says it comes very close to his grandmother's version. The girls like to help with this dish. Since they love working with dough, they are in charge of making the dumpling.



Boil in a large stock pot:
1 1/2 gal. of water
2 stalks of celery
1 onion, quartered
1 Tbsp. salt
1 whole chicken (washed and excess fat trimmed)

Boil for one hour and turn off heat. Cool, and remove chicken. Skin and bone chicken and shred into bite sized pieces.
Strain chicken broth and discard the vegetables. Put 10 cups (or more) of the broth in a large pan. Any excess broth can be saved for later use. To the strained broth add:
4 Tbsp. chicken granules (or small bouillons)
1 tsp. pepper
Shredded chicken meat

Simmer while making dumpling.

For dumpling combine:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/4 cup shortening
3/4 cup milk

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and cut in the shortening until the mixture becomes crumbly. Add the milk and mix until moistened. Do not over mix as this will make the dumpling tough. Roll dough on a lightly floured surface to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut into 3x2 inch strips and drop 1 at a time into the boiling broth. Stir gently until all strips are added. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occationally.

This is a recipe I used to make for breakfast potlucks at work and such, before I got married. It's great 'cause you have the option of starting it the night before and putting it together in the morning.
I haven't made it in a while since my husband does most of the baking now. But since I had some blueberries in the freezer, I thought I'd try out this recipe again and see how the kids like it. I made it for our Sunday brunch last week.



2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 cups frozen or fresh whole blueberries, unthawed
Crumb Topping (recipe at bottom)

Into a large mixing bowl, measure the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir well to blend.
Into another bowl or large measuring cup, combine eggs, milk, butter and lemon juice. Stir the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients until blended. Pour mixture into buttered 13 x 9 inch baking dish. Sprinkle blueberries evenly over the batter.
TIP: If you roll the blueberries in flour before doing this, they won't sink to the bottom as much.
Sprinkle with the Crumb Topping and bake at 375 degrees F for 40 to 50 minutes. Serve warm.

CRUMB TOPPING
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
4 Tbsp. soft butter or margarine
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and stir until mixture is evenly blended and crumbly in appearance.

TIP: To prepare in advance, blend the dry ingredients the night before. Cover and let stand at room temperature. Combine the liquid ingredients and make the crumb topping. Cover both and refrigerate. The next morning mix the batter and assemble the cake as directed.

My family loves fried chicken, so I usually indulge them. I on the other hand get so tired of it, I make something else for myself. I take the backs and wing tips, which no one really likes but me anyway, and I usually make either tinola or arroz caldo. I didn't really have the usual vegetables for tinola, so I used cabbage and baby bok choy from our garden. It still came out pretty good.

Click here for the Chicken Tinola Recipe

Yeay! It's the weekend, the girls are still asleep, and I can play on the computer for a while. I'll try to catch up on posting some recipes. Here is the Pork and vegetable stir fry that we had over a week ago, when I cooked the Curried Pork.



1/2 lb. pork meat, cut into strips
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 small onion, sliced
1/2 cup celery or 1 rib, sliced
1 carrot, peeled and sliced
1/2 lb. (approximately) Pechay or baby bok choy (we got these from our garden)
1 can baby corn
2 tablespoons of vegetable or canola oil
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 teaspoon of cornstarch dissolved in 1/4 cup of water
Salt and Pepper to taste

In a wok (or any other pot you have), heat oil in high heat until it starts to smoke and stir in first the garlic then the onions and stir until fragrant. Add the meat and stir fry until it changes color. Add the celery and carrots and stirfry for another minute. Then add the bok choy and baby corn. Stir until the bok chow wilts and the baby corn is heated through. Add the oyster sauce and stir. If needed, add the cornstarch mixture to thicken the sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste.

We had chicken adobo for dinner last night. It was good, one of the best versions I've ever made. Unfortunately, we were all hungry and didn't get a chance to photograph it before it was all devoured. I ran out of regular soy sauce. When I went to pour some in, all I got was a couple of drops. So I used dark soy sauce instead. I didn't use as much as I usually do, 'cause I've done that before, and it gets too dark, plus the flavor is just slightly sweeter than regular soy. I don't know why, but it is. So I just put enough to color the dish, and I added salt to season.

I don't ever measure when I cook adobo, it's like second nature, and I cook it often when I am tired and want something easy to cook or when I am running short on time and need something cooked fast. Last night, it was both. Plus, I was trying to get dinner over with before 9:00 when Amazing Race 5 started. Actually, my target time was 8:00 as it was premiere night for Gilmore Girls, Jade's and my favorite show. Anyway, maybe Jade will take a photo of the few pieces of chicken that was left over and post it on here later. Here's what I did:

1 whole chicken, chopped in pieces
8 cloves of garlic or the whole head if its rather small
1 large onion, sliced
1/4 cup vinegar (I used cider vinegar)
3 tablespoons of dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon (approximately) whole peppercorns
4 bay leaves
1/2 cup of water
add a little more salt to taste

Put everything in a pot large enough to hold them, simmer for about 1 hour or until the juices have reduced and thickened slightly. Done! I just love easy dishes!

Ok, this isn't in very sequential order but mom put a link for the original home of the chicken, but here's the recipe. I did it on my own though, no one was there, hence forth the chicken was upside down until mom came home to check on it. Who knew that you were supposed to always keep the breast up? Or was it down? Hmmm....

Whole baked Chicken

Fresh outta' the Oven

Ingredients/Materials/Equipment:
Large pan that will hold juices and support chicken
Stove and cutting board, large sharp chopping knife

1 whole chicken
2-4 whole carrots-skinned
2-4 stalks of celery
1 1/2-1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
Dried herbs(prefforably chopped ones that you can just sprinkle on)

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Clean your chicken well, and place in large cooking pan. Chop celery, onion and carrots roughly in big chunks, on your cutting board. Then mince your garlic. Put veggies(not the garlic) around the chicken and inside of it as well. Sprinkle some of your herbs and garlic inside, on top and around, too. Then add your salt and pepper inside, out and around. Place in oven and cook until golden brown. Cool for about 3-5 minutes and then carve, and serve as desired.

This makes a good meal, although you sometimes can't avoid the bland middle meat but the meat that's been soaking in the juices at the bottom is really good. Hopefully it's as juicy as mine was.


After dinner

*Remember to tie the legs together with twine to keep juicy and to cook evenly. Just remember to remove before serving.

This is my version of curried pork, which I cooked when the girls and I had a taste for a stir fried dish with plenty of vegetables.



Click here for the recipe for Curried Pork.

A few months ago, I bought a bundle of Kamote Tops from the oriental market for an exorbitant amount. $2.99 for a bundle about 8 inches long, about as thick as my wrist. Probably just a little over a pound. By the time I took the leaves off the vine and blanched it, I had a bowls worth of leaves. Well, I just had a taste for kamote tops which always reminded me and the girls of our Lola Dora in L.A. who always fixes this for us when we visit. Anyway, since it was spring and we had just fixed our garden, I decided to stick the stems in the ground just to see if it would grow. My mom has been telling me to do this for a while now, I was just too lazy to do it. What do you know, that little plant has taken off, and we have had an abundance of kamote tops all summer! The good thing is, the bugs didn't seem to have a taste for it. While most of the leafy vegetables we planted were pock marked with holes from the worms feasting on the leaves, the kamote leaves stayed pristine and unmolested.

Our usual treatment of kamote, as our Lola (grandmother) always fixed it, is to simply blanch it and dress it with patis (fish sauce), lemon, minced ginger, onion, and sliced tomatoes. Asienne likes this kamote salad cold, and usually Lola fixes this when we are eating something fried like fish or pork chops. Since I have been addicted to bloghopping, especially food sites, I noticed that people use the Kamote tops in different ways. Sauteeing in olive oil and garlic has always been my favorite way of cooking vegetables but I just never thought about kamote this way. So, just to try something different, I tried sauteeing it this way, and it wasn't that bad. It was actually pretty good! But the consensus is, Asi still likes her fish sauce and onions.



Kamote tops
2 cloves of garlic, sliced thin
2 tablespoons of Olive Oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil in a sautee pan and add the garlic. Cook until fragrant, and add the washed kamote tops. I didn't add any additional liquid, just the water on the leaves from being washed. Sautee until the leaves are wilted and tender, season with salt and pepper, and remove from the heat.

My baby was in a cooking mood yesterday. It was teacher work day, and they were off from school. I unfortunately, had to work, so they were left in the kitchen with their dad. I was so glad when I came home and found dinner cooked! What a treat :) Read about Jade's cooking adventure yesterday, at her personal site.

My recipe for this sauce changes all the time, it just depends on what I have on hand. This is the simplest version, without any additional vegetables or meats.




Click here for the Meat Sauce recipe

We are some lucky girls. Their dad is in a baking mood this week. Imagine this is the second cake we've had! After he came in from cutting the grass this morning, he ate the breakfast I fixed for him, and after a while he decided to bake us a cake. This is also a super cake. Now this, I have the recipe for, but I have to tell you, when I've made it, it never comes out quite like this. So you've been warned:



1 cup Butter, room temperature
1/2 cup shortening
3 cups granulated sugar
5 large Eggs
1/2 tsp. Baking powder
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup Milk
2 Tbsp. Vanilla extract

Cream butter and shortening. Gradually add sugar, beating until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Combine the baking powder and flour and add to creamed mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour, and beating well after each addition. Stir in vanilla.
Pour batter into a greased and floured 10-inch tube pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes; invert onto serving plate.

TGIF!! This week has been a long week, and was I glad to see Friday come! I didn't really feel like cooking, but we didn't have enough left overs to eat from. So, I figured this is fast and easy. I had everything cooked in 30 minutes.



Ingredients:
1 side of Salmon fillet
1 Lemon, sliced thin
1/2 Onion, sliced thin
2 sprig of fresh basil
Ground Pepper
Kosher Salt
Olive Oil

Place the fillet of salmon in a baking dish, and sprinkle with ground pepper and about a teaspoon of kosher salt. Layer the lemon and onion slices across the fillet, as in the photo above. Take the leaves off of one sprig of basil and place leaves on top of lemon and onions. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with more kosher salt.
Bake in a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes. When it is done, chop the leaves from the reserved sprig of basil and sprinkle on top of the salmon.


Served with garlic fried rice and green salad.

I planned on cooking chicken tonight, I had already put a whole chicken in the refrigerator to defrost before I left for work this morning. While I was looking around at other blogs today, there must have been a cosmic chicken force at work because my regular food reads all had chicken! Check here, here, and here for example. I really had planned on making adobo, since it's fast and easy. When I got home and announced what I was making, my husband said, "Let's make a deal". I almost said, "Already? But it's still so early!" till I realized he was talking about the chicken :) Ha! Ha!
Anyway, he said, "If you fry the chicken, I'll make you my special Chocolate 'love' Cake" with a sly smile. See, he knows just how to get me. No matter how tired I was from working all day, how can I possibly resist an offer like that? It's CHOCOLATE for goodness sake!! I immediately took him up on the deal. I'm no fool.
So, I made my version of southern fried chicken, which we like better as it is not as heavily battered as most version. It's simple, and you know how I like to keep things simple. I've tried marinating the chicken, battering it, spicing it up, and they all came out pretty good, but I always come back to this tried and true version.

SOUTHERN FRIED CHICKEN



1 whole chicken cut in pieces (about 8-12 pieces)
Flour
Garlic Powder
Salt & Pepper

Mix the flour, garlic powder, salt and pepper in a bowl or plastic bag. Wash and dry the chicken pieces, and dredge in the flour mixture. Fry in medium hot oil until golden brown. I use a cast iron pan for frying meats, it seems to give them a richer color, and they cook more evenly.

Now on to the good stuff... I didn't really eat any fried chicken, I was saving my appetite for what's to come later, so I only ate some of the steamed broccoli. Now, don't expect any recipes for this cake, because I am not the baker in this family. My husband has his own recipes for his cakes, and they are sacred to him. He won't share it with anyone. That's why I had to marry him. (just joking :) This is the best ever chocolate cake, and we eat it while it is still warm. He pours on the ganache frosting while the cake is still warm, so it seeps in, and keeps the cake moist. It is heaven on earth. Yummy!

This is the beef tacos we made tonight, from left over roast beef made a couple of nights ago. The salsa, we made from tomatoes from our garden. This year we planted red and yellow tomatoes. I think it makes for a pretty colorful salsa. We had Spanish rice with the tacos. I also made tortilla chips and crispy taco shells, but those got eaten up before I could photograph it. This was my plate, I prefer soft tacos. I think it tastes better, and it cuts out on the fat from frying. There's no recipe for this dish, it's pretty straight forward. Just assemble your meat, salsa and if you choose, sour cream inside the tortilla, and you're good to go.

Ingredients:
Roast beef, shredded
Fresh Corn Tortillas
Salsa - tomatoes, onions, jalapeno peppers, & cilantro. Add lemon or lime juice, salt & pepper to taste.
Sour Cream (optional)

I usually do my roasts on Sundays when I have more time. Since this weekend was Labor Day weekend and we got an extra day off, I saved my long cooking time for today rather than yesterday. Yesterday was beautiful, and I was glad I didn't spend too much time in the kitchen. I didn't even bother to go to the grocery store until about 4:30 in the afternoon. I spend most of Sunday sitting in the backyard reading a book. Rare in our busy schedule, so it was most appreciated. Anyway, I picked up a double pack of chuck roast from Costco yesterday. This roast beef recipe is great for cheap cuts of meat like the chuck roast, as the long cooking time allows the meat to become tender. My mom still cooks this all the time, and now I'm cooking it for my family. I kept the seasoning simple since I plan on stretching this for a couple of meals this week, to keep me from cooking everyday. When you have to work a full 8 hour day, believe me, it is a blessing when you can whip something up for dinner quickly. Since I cooked both roasts today, I plan on using the leftovers for maybe tacos or enchiladas later, or maybe we can even have BBQ beef sandwiches one day this week. Here is what was cooking in our kitchen tonight:


ROAST BEEF

1 (or in my case 2) 2-3 lb. Chuck Roast Beef
1 Onion, chopped
4 cloves of Garlic, chopped
4 bay leaves
3 cups of chicken broth (or water)
Salt & Pepper to taste
2 teaspoons Cornstarch (to thicken)

Sear both sides of the beef in a skillet until browned. Transfer to a baking or roasting dish and add the chopped onion, garlic, bay leaves, and salt and pepper. Pour the 3 cups of chicken broth or water, cover with foil, and bake in a 350 degree oven for 2-4 hours, depending on the thickness of the meat and tenderness. Most roasts will probably cook in two hours, but you can't hurt it if you leave it in there longer, it will just make it more tender. Just make sure the liquid doesn't dry out. I put mine it shortly afternoon, and just left it to bake until almost dinner time. About 30 minutes before you plan on taking the roast out, dilute the cornstarch in a bit of water and add to the cooking liquid left in the pan. This will thicken it up, and you have instant gravy.

Tonight I served this with mashed potato, green beans, and fresh corn.

MASHED POTATO

3-4 large Potatoes (depending on how many servings you want)
3 tablespoons of butter or margarine
Milk
Salt & Pepper to taste

Peel and cut the potatoes into quarter or eighth's and boil until tender. Drain the water and add the salt & pepper, butter and about a quarter cup of milk to start with. Mash with a potato masher, adding more milk as needed. You have to eyeball the amount of milk you add, it just depends on you preference, whether you want a softer or stiffer consistency.

GREEN BEANS

1-2 pounds of fresh Green or String Beans
1 clove of garlic, sliced thinly
Olive Oil

String and cut the beans and cook in boiling water for about 5 minutes. Drain. Saute the garlic in olive oil until fragrant, and return the beans to the pan. Stir, season with salt and pepper to taste.

FRESH CORN OFF THE COB

Fresh corn was on sale at the market the other day, and they have been so sweet this summer the kids can eat them everyday. However, we've had them so much this summer that they are getting tired of eating them on the cob. Sometimes I would cook them whole, and end up taking it off the cob for them at the table anyway. So to save myself the trouble, I just went ahead and took them off the cob before cooking. The girls did help me shuck the corns, so that was good.

4 cups of corn taken off the cob
1/4 cup of water
2 tablespoons of Butter

Cook the corn, water, and butter in a covered pot for 5 minutes and that's it! Don't add too much water so it doesn't get too soggy (I've done that before!). Add just enough water to warm the corn. When they are this fresh, the less cooking you do the better they taste.