See the full recipe for Stuffed Amplaya (bittermelon).

The weather has started to turn cooler, and so we've had to take in the remains from our garden. Not willing to let summer go quite yet, we've taken advantage of the fall sunshine to do a bit more grilling. I came across this recipe for Potato Salad with Dilled Vinaigrette and decided to use up some of the fresh herbs from the garden before they are dried for the winter.

This is my variation, and my entry for weekend herb blogging which this week is hosted by Fiber of 28 Cooks.

INGREDIENTS:
New Potatoes, cooked and halved/quartered
2 medium carrots, cooked, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
8 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 cup sweet onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, sliced
2 Tablespoons fresh dill
3 Tablespoons fresh italian parsley, chopped
3 Tablespoons chives or green onions, chopped
4 Tablespoons lime or lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon freshly cracked balck pepper
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar or pickle juice

Boil the potatoes and carrots, cut up, and set aside to cool. In the meantime, heat a tablespoon of the olive oil in a skillet and saute' the onions and garlic until fragrant and the onions are translucent. Add the onions and garlic to the potatoes and carrots. Add the dill, parsley, green onions, and bell pepper to the bowl with the potatoes. In a small bowl or jar, mix the remaining olive oil, lemon/lime, black pepper, salt, and pickle juice. Adjust the seasonings, and pour the dressing over the potatoes. Mix well and let sit at room temperature until you are ready to eat to let the flavors blend.

If you hadn't noticed already, yes, we do bake a lot of chicken. We have our favorite way which is also the simplest way, but once in a while, especially when we have an abundance of a particular ingredient (in this case purple basil), we like to change it up a bit just to have some variety. This is our experiment with purple pesto, and it turned out pretty well.

INGREDIENTS:
Juice from 2 limes
4 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup or 1/4 of large onion, roughly chopped
1 cup purple basil, chopped
3 Tbsp. pinenuts

Put all the ingredients above in a food processor to make a purple pesto.

Pre-heat oven to 350 F. Place the chicken pieces in a baking dish and season with salt and pepper then spread the purple pesto over each piece. Put in the oven and bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes.

This chicken was served with sauteed green beans and potatoes.

There are many versions of green bean salad, this is one of the simplest but it's my favorite because the natural flavors of each vegetable is enhanced rather than masked. This dish is also perfect when you are on a diet as it has 0% fat content.

This is the green bean salad I referred to in a previous post, green beans & tomato salad. While that salad was dressed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, this one is dressed simply with lime juice and fish sauce. To begin with, fresh green beans are blanched just until tender, about 4 to 5 minutes in boiling water. They are then quickly cooled off in a bowl of ice water to prevent additional cooking, then drained. In a bowl mix the green beans with chopped tomatoes and cilantro then toss in a dressing of equal parts lime juice and fish sauce. If you prefer you can also add thinly sliced red onions which I chose to omit this time.

Wondering about fish sauce? There are a great many misconceptions about what fish sauce is and how it is made. I was once talking to a former Vietnam Veteran who I thought would have known better since he was actually in the country, but I guess under the circumstances that brought him there, I can't expect him to glean the nuances of Vietnamese cuisine. He actually believed that nuoc mam (fish sauce) was made by hanging fish out in the sun, and as it decomposes and renders it's juices, they are then caught and this is fish sauce. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Fish sauce is a by product of a fermentation process that has been tested and perfected over generations.

Thank goodness for the internet, information is now readily available to the curious or to those who just wants to set the record straight. Here are some background information, just follow the links if you'd like to learn more.

Fish sauce is a condiment commonly used in Southeast Asian cuisine and goes by many names:

NamPlah - Thailand

Nuoc Mam - Vietnam

Ngan Byar - Myanmar

Teuk Trei - Cambodia

Patis - Philippines

Fish sauce is not exclusively of southeast asian origin however, it is also an ingredient to one of the more common western condiment, worstershire sauce. Fish sauce can also be traced as far back as the roman times when it was known as garum.

I must thank P of What's Cooking in Carolina for inviting us to her garden/vineyard to have a taste of these beautiful muscadine grapes that her husband breed. They were delicious! I wasn't sure if my girls were going to like them as they tend to have a very strong, sweet flavor. My concern was for naught as the girls, especially Asi and Jade, have been devouring these beauties since we went to pick them last weekend. They have even been bringing them to school with their lunches.

Btw, besides her beautiful garden and vineyard, P also has ENTS surrounding her house. We loved them!!

What can be simpler than frying up some meat for dinner? This is one of those dishes that just kind of evolves simply because you have ran out of time and hungry kids are banging on the table for food (I'm exaggerating). I was going to make a slow simmered stew with these cubes, but between the slicing and dicing of all the veggies and spices required for the stew, I knew that would be out of the question. So as a quick and easy solution, I simply salt and peppered the pork cubes and fried them up in hot oil until they were nicely browned. Just so they won't look so pitiful, I sliced up some green onions and threw them in the skillet just before taking the meat out. Stirred through, they were ready to serve.

These were dipped in a mixture of soy, vinegar and pepper flakes. Or if you are not the dipping kind like my husband, just drizzle the sauce over the meat.

Rambutan is exquisitely exotic, it's one of my favorite fruits when I can get it. So I was highly amused when I read this post from the blog Bad Fortune Cookie. Nowadays when I think of rambutan, I can't help but think of my good friend the baby rambutan, who is a terrific baker. But that's beside the point :)

Tell me, have you ever had a taste of these spiky morsels?


Filipino Cookbooks

Whenever I see this grouping of vegetables, the first thing that comes to mind is another traditional Filipino dish called Pinakbet. This is what I call Pinakbet waiting to happen. When cornered into translating this dish for English speakers, I simply call it vegetable stew. Basically, that is what it is, a melange of vegetables stewed until their flavors meld.

I called this one Pinakbet Tagalog because that is what my Ilocano grandmother calls this sauteed with meat version. The Ilocano version uses no oil and uses Bagoong (fermented anchovies) instead of Alamang (shrimp paste).

Although this dish is traditionally cooked with pork, I have also cooked this as a side dish sans the meat and it is just as delicious. The combination of the vegetables is just classic. There have also been occasions when I didn't have bittermelon on hand, plus the girls arent' too crazy about the bitter gourd, so I have also been known to leave this particular vegetable out. There are many variations to this dish so don't be afraid to substitute or add other vegetables of your choosing. Another traditional ingredient to this dish that I didn't happen to have this time around is butter squash which I have also substituted with zucchini squash. No matter which vegetables you choose to "stew", the mandatory ones for me to be considered pinakbet are the eggplants and okra. Luckily, I have the holy trinity of Pinakbet in my garden and as the weather is starting to turn cool and I will soon be without these, I figured as a last hurrah to the summer I would cook Pinakbet one more time.

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 lb. Pork (with some fat on it - I used pork butt)
2 tablespoons Oil
1 Onion, sliced
4 cloves of Garlic, chopped
Thumb sized knob of Ginger, sliced into rounds
1 cup Tomatoes, chopped (I used cherry tomatoes)
2 Tablespoons of Shrimp Paste (Alamang)

Start by cooking the meat in about 1 cup of water until all the liquid evaporates and the meat starts to render some fat. Depending on how much fat is rendered, you may have to add another tablespoon or two of oil to saute' the rest of the ingredients in. When the pork is slightly browned on the edges, add the garlic and onions and cook until fragrant, about a minute or two. Add the ginger, tomatoes and shrimp paste and cook for another couple of minutes until the tomatoes have softened and flavors are starting to blend. Note: if you can't find shrimp paste or just don't want to add it, you can omit it. I have also been known to do this especially when I want my non-fish-eating daughter to eat some of it.

The vegetables you use depends on what you have on hand. This time around I added to this dish:
3 cups of Yard-long beans and regular Green Beans combined
a few florets of cauliflower (because that is all that is left in the garden and wanted to cook them up)
1 Bell Pepper, cut into squares
3 Japanese Eggplants, cut into serving size
10-15 pods of Okra, stem removed
1 medium sized Bittermelon, sliced diagonally
1 cup of water

Add the water to the sauteed onions and tomatoes, mix briefly then start layering the vegetables in the pot starting with the vegetable that takes the longest to cook up to the one the takes the least time to cook. The vegetables above are ordered in the way they were layered in the pot. Cover, and cook for about 7 to 10 minutes until the vegetables are tender but not overcooked. Stir just before serving to distribute the flavor of the aromatics at the bottom of the pot and to mix the vegetables. Serve over rice.

This post is my contribution to this week's Weekend Herb Blogging which was conceptualized by Kalyn's Kitchen to feature different herbs, vegetables, plants or flowers. This week, this event is being hosted by Sher at What Did You Eat?

Filipino Cookbooks

This recipe is probably not very authentic, actually it is NOT authentic anything, but it is another way of using up the vegetables we have from the garden. Even the potatoes were from our garden, I'm proud to say. I was in my iron chef mode again and started pulling stuff from the refrigerator and the pantry and this is what I came up with. It's a twist on an old recipe, but isn't that what cooking is all about? Taking something you are familiar with and putting a twist on it.

INGREDIENTS:
10 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 head of garlic, chopped
1 lg. onion, chopped
1 cup cherry tomatoes, chopped
2 Tbsp. Curry Powder
2 cups coconut milk
4 small potatoes, quartered
2 carrots, cubed
3 cups yard-long beans (sitaw), cut into 2 inch length
2 cups okra
5 chili peppers
1 Tbsp. Oyster Sauce
2 tablespoons Oil
2 Tbsp. fresh basil, chopped
Salt & Pepper to taste

Heat the oil and saute' the onions and garlic for a couple of minutes until fragrant. Add the tomatoes and cook a couple of minutes more. Add the chicken and curry powder and cook until the chicken turns opaque. Add the coconut milk and season with oyster sauce, a bit of salt and pepper. Add the potatoes and carrots and simmer until tender, about 10-15 minutes. Add the yard long beans, okra and peppers and cook for 5 more minutes. Sprinkle with the chopped basil, stir and adjust the seasonings. Serve over steamed rice.


Filipino Cookbooks

Whereas the fish used for this dish is traditionally left whole, I used filets of tilapia instead. This is my version:

See the recipe for Tilapia with Ginger Sweet & Sour Sauce.

These green beans were cooked to accompany the chicken bistek previously posted. Not only do I like quick and easy dishes during the week, I also like to conserve on the number of pots I use because second to cleaning the house, I hate washing dishes. I find great satisfaction in one pot meals and even more so when I can cook two or three dishes in the same pot. Of course you have to make sure that the flavors are compatible. This is the case with these beans and the chicken bistek. After I cooked the chicken and deglazed the sauce, I put the same skillet back on the heat and melted a couple of table spoons of butter. Sauteed the green beans in the butter briefly, then squeezed a half lemon over it and drizzled a couple of tablespoons of soy sauce. Mix it thoroughly and add a couple of tablespoons of water. Put the lid on and cook just until the liquid has evaporated. Adjust the seasoning and serve.



Filipino Cookbooks

Bistek is a classic Filipino dish of beef steak marinated in soy and calamansi juice. This is a variation of that recipe using chicken. As with most of our recipes, this is perfect for a quick weekday meal because it is quick and easy to make.

INGREDIENTS:
5 chicken breasts, boneless, skinless
1 Tbsp. Olive Oil
4 Tbsp. Soy Sauce
1 Tbsp. Mirin
3 sprigs of Basil, chopped
Cracked black pepper, as much as you like
1 lemon, juiced

Marinate the chicken breasts in soy sauce, mirin, lemon juice, and chopped basil leaves for at least 30 minutes. Heat the olive sauce in a skillet and brown chicken pieces on both sides until cooked. Remove the chicken from the pan and reserve. Deglaze the pan with the marinating liquid and let it boil until it is reduced by half. Pour the sauce over the cooked chicken and top with sauteed vidalia onions.



Filipino Cookbooks