First off, I'd like to greet everyone a Happy New Year! Its a Dragon Year and they say its the best year to launch new enterprises and projects.

One of the resolutions I have for this year is to update my recipe list again. I didn't really learn any new dishes in the last few months. It was  pretty mundane lifestyle until mid December when my mom arrived from overseas. She bought a new oven and we used it to cook a few classic dishes.

We had roast beef and lasagna as our main dishes for our New Year's eve meal. The lasagna was the more work intensive of the two so I will make a longer post for that within the month. I am grateful that there a few other blog worthy events and recipes coming. Creating content isn't as easy once you've ran out of your initial stock of experience and recipes.

Anyway, on to the recipe.

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A few weeks ago me and my fiancee went on a 4 day vacation in Puerto Galera, Mindoro. My partner informed me that she would be able to take a few days off around the middle of May.  I was hoping there was enough time to setup a trip to Palawan, but budgetary and time constraints limited our options.

We were also a bit reluctant to shell out cash for plane tickets that would cost more than the accommodation, food and the tour combined. I promised her I would be on the lookout for a plane ticket sale which have flights that would fall on May next year.
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Kare Kare 03/28/2011
 
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Cooked this recently. I will add the recipe post once http://www.filipinorecipes.eu/ posts my recipe contribution.

This was worth the 7 hours cooking time and the preparation. I was able to pull off my first decent batch of kare kare. I call it decent because I made it from scratch, without any helper mixes added.

The Recipe can be found here : http://www.filipinorecipes.eu/beef-recipes/kare-kare.html

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This is PULUTAN, Chicken Bottom (Tail) marinated and barbecued to a nice golden hue.
Those dark caramelized spots just add to the flavor.
Does not disappoint when paired with Freezing Cold Beer.
Enjoy!
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This version of fried spring rolls is new to me. I picked up the recipe from my mother who had learned it while working overseas as a cook. This version shares a few common ingredients with the Filipino lumpia, namely; shrimp, onions, and dried wood mushrooms. What makes it stand out for me is the use of a different type of wrapper. It is delicious when used in fresh spring rolls but it really stands out when fried.

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       I admit I have been quite inconsistent with my blog updates. I usually have 1 or 2 every month which is still not as often as I want to. My cooking and recipe testing is still ongoing but I don't do it primarily for the blog.  Recently I was asked to contribute recipes to another site. Last January I was able to test out around 20 recipes and submitted those to filipinorecipes.eu. You might want to check it out. A few of my favorite recipes are posted there.

This blog has just reached its 1st year. I started this blog to learn about blogging and the web. I had never planned to earn anything from it. I placed a few ads here and there and entered some contests, hoping to earn enough to pay for the domain name. No bites yet, but having a blog has benefited me in other ways.

There are a few insights I'd like to share. First, if you google for tulingan or ginataang tulingan, my tulingan posts seem to come up either first or on the front page. I'm no expert and I'm stumped how it happened, but it does amuse me a whole lot. It doesn't work on bing or yahoo search though. Second, I am happy to say that this blog has helped me land a few good online job leads. So the blog is paying for itself, but indirectly. Third, I have learned a lot from the upkeep of this blog, mainly, knowledge about the online environment and article writing.

I'd like to thank everyone who has visited my site and I hopemost of you have gotten something useful out of my kitchen and cuisineexperiments.  I am hoping to be able to make postings regularly soon, so stay tuned.

Until next time!

Ka_Fredo

*The picture above is inasal syle chicken cooked in a cast iron griddle. The food was my contribution to my family's Tagaytay Picnic.

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I just drank a bottle of Minute Maid Pulpy. They say it’s got ‘no preservatives added’. Aw, c’mon…It’s bottled juice. Is that even possible? So I thought maybe... I'd check the label on the bottle.I didn’t believe it the first time I heard it’s got no preservatives added.  So I read the ingredients (even the fine print) and everything checked out! It really has NO PRESERVATIVES ADDED!  That means it doesn’t have ingredients that may turn out to be allergens, or worse...carcinogens!  Whew! Now that’s healthy goodness that tastes so good, I... would choose it over soft drinks anytime.



So okay, it’s got no preservatives added. That’s really good, right?  Not just because it doesn’t have those icky, harmful ingredients, but it also means... it's  a good source of Vitamins C since it'smade from real fruit juice.

So far anyone who still has a hard time believing that Minute Maid has got no preservatives added - meaning it's THAT natural, it's almost like it's plucked straight from the tree, it's just as Mother Nature wanted your orange juice to be, it's got nothing but the good stuff yes, none of those potentially toxic stuff that can harm your brain, kidneys, heart; cause tumors aargh- the list of preservatives' bad effects just go on!!! Anyway, just to prove a point on just how good Minute Maid Pulpy is 'cause it's got NO PRESERVATIVES ADDED, I'm gonna stock up a dozen or two in my fridge so I can drink it anytime I want.

Feels good to know about the real pulpy deal, right? C’mon show me a smile on the comment box, and you might win yourself a Really Pulpy Deal! (That’s a chance to win a Minute Maid gift pack simply by commenting. Sweet! C'mon you just might be picked as the lucky 'commentor'!)

Love,

ka_fredo



This post is from a Facebook contest I joined. I like fruit juice in general and Minute Maid's offerings are one of the few that I purchase regularly. If you have a blog, you might want to try your hand at their contest too. Leave comments about my post and you can win too!

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A standard fare during fiestas and family occasions. This is a very basic version of this dish. I  will be featuring other lumpia recipes in the coming weeks.

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Lamb Curry 11/21/2010
 
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I bought some Lamb after I saw a buy 1 take 1 sale for lambchops at Mr. Sy's hypermarket.  I made half of the chops into curry and the rest I just fried. This is my 3rd attempt at lamb curry and it has yielded the best results so far.

Feel free to adjust some of the listed quantities of chopped spices to lighten up the sauce a bit. I had to resort to the regular packaged curry powder but on my next opportunity I'll try to use pure powdered spices .
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Chili Fries 10/17/2010
 
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I I bought this from a food truck during my San Diego trip. Its fries with a whole lot of toppings. This was the spicy pork version. I can probably make some but I'll have to research on how to make guacamole. It was a very filling lunch.
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