The following posts are from Jade, my budding chef with a penchant for drinks :D Today, she had reason to celebrate. It's her 13th Birthday!

Next up is Garlic Fried Chicken Asi. She has been cooking a lot more meats lately, but she just hasn't gotten around to posting them.

Lastly, but actually firstly, you've all seen the clone's suman.

Cooking with kids is one of the greatest joys for moms like me. There always comes that dreaded teen-age phase when nothing you do is right and nothing you say is cool. The generation gap becomes highly evident and ever widening. But the one place where there is always a bridge to cross, is in the kitchen.

Thank you, Iska for hosting this eighth round of Lasang Pinoy, Cooking with Kids.

The great thing when your kids start growing is that they can help you out more in the kitchen. This dish is entirely experimental, cooked with the help of the clone.
I found some banana leaves not too long ago and we have been on an experimental mode with banana leaves for some time. I wanted to reserve some so I can make some suman like my lola (grandmother) used to make. Since I am out of sweet rice (malagkit) though and haven't been to the Oriental Market lately, that attempt has been shelved for a while.

While cleaning out the pantry recently I also came across a container full of coarsely ground corn that my lola brought back from her last trip to the Philippines. It has to be at least three years old! But it looked fine, it had stayed cool and dry all this time, so I figured I would try cooking it anyway. I wasn't sure how tender it would be so I first washed it well then soaked 2 cups of it in water overnight.
The following day, I cooked it with 1 cup each of coconut milk and water and a dash of salt. When it has cooked through, I stirred in 4 tablespoons of sugar and let it cool before wrapping it in the banana leaves.

The Clone helped me with the wrapping, which she enjoyed very much, I think. She was the cone holder and tooth pick handler. During the wrapping process, she was also the leaf cleaner prior to me passing the leaf over the electric eye on the stove, a process that elicited much aahs and oohs as the leaf turned from a dull green to a brighter darker green and developing a sheen. She was throroughly impressed when I told her that lola didn't have toothpicks to hold the banana wrapping together, so thin sticks were fashioned from the rib of a coconut leaf. She was also amused to hear that banana leaves can be used to eat on. We called it the Filipino paper plate. They were all amazed that my lola had a backyardfull of banana trees and she can just step out of her back door and get all the banana leaves she needs.

After we wrapped all the cooked corn, we placed them in a steamer and steamed them for another hour. After they cooled, we finally got to sample our experiment and it was great! Much to my surprise, to tell you the truth, or I wouldn't have bothered posting it here. The corn is an entirely different texture and flavor from the sweet rice, of course, but it was a pleasant difference. So this was a good experiment.
The best part though is the girls and I again had a great time in the kitchen, they learned a little bit more about the culture I grew up with, and I learned you can make suman from corn.

For Lasang Pinoy 8 we are cooking with kids. My kids are on spring break this week so they have been cooking up more than usual. They will be posting their efforts too, so keep an eye out for their entries in the next couple of days.

Many thanks to Iska for hosting this round.

I made a fish-in-pastry dinner recently (will post recipe later) and since my youngest daughter does not eat fish, I had to come up with something similar but none fishy for her. I decided to use my old standby, chicken to stuff with. I had enough to make two pockets and she took the other one for lunch the next day. She even said this is better than hot pockets!

1 sheet of puff pastry (store-bought)
1 cooked chicken breast (poach in water or chicken broth first)
1 sprig of green onion (cut in half lengthwise then into 1 inch lengths)
2 slices of provolone cheese

Thaw out the puff pastry if frozen. Cut in pastry in half to make two roll ups. On each half layer chicken slices, green onions and cheese. Fold up sides to form a rectangular packet and press/seal seams together. Brush top of pastry with beaten egg to make it shine, and bake in 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.

I meant to make a post for St. Patrick's Day on March 17, but again, life got in the way of blogging and I lost track of time before you knew it. Even the photo on the left was haphazardly shot just before we ate.

Although we are not Irish, my Filipino mother raised us celebrating St. Patrick's Day. No we don't get all decked out in green clovers or nothing like that, we just partake in this traditional Irish fare of boiled corned beef. Now here is another dish that just about every culture in the world, it seems, has a version of. It is a classic boiled dish with meat and vegetables.

So to continue the tradition, I started cooking this on St. Paddy's day for my girls too. Plus, during this time of year, the grocery stores put this cut of meat on sale. That is always a good thing, I say. It's also a perfect time to pull our the slow cooker and let it simmer all day, and dinner is ready by the time I come home from work. Although most cooks let the meat potatoes and vegetables simmer all day, I always wait to cook the vegetables just before we get ready to eat. My girls just won't have any overcooked veggies. So when I got home from work, I took the meat out of the broth to slice, and put the broth back on to boil. To this I added the potatoes and when they were almost tender, added the green beans and then the cabbage. Traditionally, root vegetables such as carrots and turnips are also added but I didn't have any turnip roots and my girls won't eat cooked carrots. So for added texture, I added some green beans instead.

Of course, I ate mine with rice :-P

COOKING SAUCE: (mix in a small bowl and set aside)
2 Tablespoons Jufran Banana Sauce
1 Tablespoon Sugar
1 teaspoon chili paste (sambal oelek)
1 teaspoon corn starch
2 Tablespoons soy sauce
1/4 cup water

STIRFRY:
1 lb. shrimps peeled and deveined
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tsp. ginger, minced
1 large eggplant, sliced into squares (I used a globe variety eggplant for this recipe, but the japanese eggplant is preferred)
1/2 cup dried, sliced shitake mushrooms (soak in hot water for 10 minutes and squeeze excess water out before using)
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
1 Tablespoon Black Bean Garlic Sauce
2 Tablespoons Oyster Sauce
4 Tablespoons Canola Oil
1/2 block Tofu (about 1 cup), cubed

In a wok, heat 2 TBSP oil and fry eggplants until browned on both sides. Set aside to drain on paper towels. Heat the remaining 2 TBSP of oil and sautee the ginger, garlic and onions until fragrant. Add mushrooms, stir fry for about a minute. Add the shrimps, black bean sauce, oyster sauce and stir. When shrimps turn opaque, add cooking sauce mixture and reserved eggplants, stir and add the tofu cubes. Cover and cook for 2-3 minutes or until sauce comes to a boil. Turn off the heat, sprinkle on the chopped cilantro, give it a quick stir and serve.

The next edition of Lasang Pinoy is again just around the corner. This time around we'll be cooking in the kitchen with children. That's nothing unusual in our kitchen, since we cook almost everything together. My daughters are budding cooks with their own ideas on how they like things done so we are really looking forward to this event. I have asked them to come up with a dish each, preferably one with a pinoy touch, so I am looking forward to what they will come up with.

Whether or not you have kids to cook with, we invite you to participate on this round of Lasang Pinoy. We all were kids at one time, and some of us are still kids at heart ;-) So invite a child to cook with or just reminisce about your cooking experiences and influences as a child. Visit Iska's blog, who is graciously hosting this round, for details.

I thought Jade took such a pretty picture of her concoction and I was waiting for her to post her recipe, but she didn't ever get around to it. So I thought I would just post her drink here for something pretty :-D

Maybe one of these days she'll remember what she put in this.

Spring is officially here in a couple of weeks and that means the grill is coming out from under the cover. Summer will be here before you know it. My hubby and girls love homemade hamburgers, and I think we have come close to perfecting this just the way we like it. It is basically a meatloaf mixture, but for some reason when cooked as meatloaf, my finicky family just refuses to eat it. Shape it into patties and put it in a bun and they are in heaven. Go figure!

For these burgers you will need:
2 pounds of lean ground beef
1 large onion finely minced
3 cloves of garlic minced
1 green bell pepper finely chopped
2 eggs
1/4 cup teriyaki sauce
3 TBSP. balsamic vinegar (or red wine if you haven't drank it all)
1 TBSP. basil (fresh if you have it, but dry works too)
1 tsp. fennel seeds
1/2 cup bread crumbs
Salt & Pepper to taste

Mix all the ingredients until well mixed and form into patties. Grill or pan fry to your preferred doneness. Having to cook everything on the well done side for the kids, hubby and I have slowly moved from the medium to the done side too. The good thing about this mixture is that it stays moist even when well cooked.