Amer Idol 3

Final Round!
The World I Know - David Cook with guitar
- Definitely one record you can get by (Collective Soul) Randy
- I truly applaud you... Paula
- Nicest, sincerest contestants we have... completely wrong song choice for you... Billy Jean Simon
** Same same...

Imagine - David Archuleta
- Dude you are so good tonight you are exactly what this show is about... Randy
- ... you've left me speechless... stunning, stunning... Paula
- In my opinion you came out here to win and what we have witnessed is a knockout... Simon
** A little over the top though he could have brought this out in round one

Amer Idol 2

Round Two!
Dream Day - David Cook with guitar
- King of the duel! Sing your face off! Randy
- Great way of taking a song we don't know and loving it... Paula
- End was ok made the most of what you had, didn't feel like a winning moment for me... 6.5/10 Simon
** Rock and Roll baby!

In This Moment - David Archuleta
- You could sing the phone book and it would be good... Randy
- You are on fire tonight... Paula
- Chose the better song... round two goes to David Archuleta Simon
** Definitely much better

Amer Idol 1

Round One!
Haven't Found What I'm looking for - David Cook
- His voice was hawt! Randy
- We have found what we are looking for! Paula
- Phenomenal! Simon
** Smooothhh....

Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me - David Archuleta
- Right time to peak! Crazy vocals! Randy
- Chills up and down my arms... so much sunshine from your singing... Paula
- Last week your were ok... tonight is the best you've done so far... round 1 to Archuleta Simon
** Voice could go higher...

The T 2's

It's our second year. It's still great. It's quite a ride. It's like falling in love all over again. Now gotta go as it's August Rush.

Pil Pil, Baking and Peppers

Since coming back from a quick Christmas and New Year rendezvous with truenorthgal, I was too tired to start cooking again. I am glad that my mom and dad gave me a couple of weeks worth of food so I don't have to worry about what to do for dinner as I was adjusting to my regular work schedule again. Anyway, I wanted to eat something just cooked so I got a couple of things from my local supermarket and started cooking away. Here are a couple of things I've been doing for the past two weeks.


Spicy Dinner

Gambas Pil Pil

I found this recipe from one of the Spanish cookbooks truenorthgal and I found a couple of months back. I bought a package of deveined shrimp in early December but never had a chance to take them out of the freezer. Considering that the basic ingredients are shrimp, garlic and olive oil, this is definitely easy and yummy!

1 lb peeled, uncooked shrimp (keep the head on but remove the antennas)
a good measure of olive oil
3 cloves of garlic (or as much as you want), chopped
1 or 2 chopped dried chilies
salt

1. Place a skillet over medium heat. Add the olive oil.
2. Line a pan with aluminum foil. Place the pan in the oven for two to three minutes at 350 deg F.
3. After the olive oil is hot enough, add the garlic and crumbled dried chilies. Add the shrimp and once they turn pink, pour the entire contents of the skillet onto the pan.
4. Sprinkle the salt on the shrimp and serve immediately! Use crusty bread to mop up the spiked olive oil while eating. Try not to burn your fingers or your tongue.


Baking Frenzy

Whenever I have breakfast, I am on the lookout for scones. There is something about this nice bread which may or may not contain fruits, nuts, chocolate or spices. I like them with butter and jam, peanut butter, and cream cheese. Hey if they are not plain, I have them as is. So while trying to remove any unused items in our pantry, I found some flour and a brownie mix. I thought since I liked scones I might as well try my hand making some. I have to say that I had mix results with making bread before (translation: hard disks or tough loaves) so I was hesitant to try it out. Since I had an excess amount of flour, I said I had nothing to lose anyway. So here is the recipe I used for these scones.

Cream Scones
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup sugar plus some more for sprinkling
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups heavy cream

1. Sift all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Preheat the oven to 450 deg F.
2. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour in the heavy cream. Using a large spatula, mix the ingredients with as few strokes as possible. When I tried this, it took me about 8 to 10 strokes. It may look lumpy but that's ok as you can see below.


After Mixing Ingredients

3. On a lightly floured board, pat the dough into a 8 inch round and about 3/4 inch thick. The trick here is to handle the dough as lightly as possible. You can run your hands through cold water to minimize transferring heat to the dough. Cut the dough into 8 wedges or small rounds.
4. Place the dough onto a ungreased pan. Brush the the wedges or rounds with egg whites and sprinkle with the remaining sugar.


Prepared Cream Scones

5. Place pan into the oven and bake until golden brown. It will take about 15 minutes. Serve warm with butter, jam or clotted cream!


Creamed Scones after 15 minutes

Oh as for that brownie mix, I just added one egg and 1 cup of vegetable oil. Then just for a chunkier consistency, I added some slivered almonds and roughly chopped unsweetened chocolate. This is one wicked brownie.


Mmmm Chunky Brownie


Lacking Veggies

After a couple of days, I noticed that I wasn't getting enough veggies in my meals. I resolved to look for some vegetable recipes. It still took til this past Friday (past 2130) before I got to cook the stuffed peppers though but it was worth it!

Stuffed Bell Peppers
4 bell peppers
salt
5 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
five cloves of garlic, chopped
1 lb ground beef
1 1/2 cup cooked rice
1 cup chopped tomatoes
1 tsp dried oregano
fresh ground pepper
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup water
dash of habanero, tabasco or whatever hot sauce you like

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the bell peppers whose tops and seeds have been removed. Make sure the peppers are submerged for about three minutes. Remove the peppers from the water and let cool.
2. Preheat the oven to 400 deg F. In a skillet, heat the 4 tbsp olive oil. Add the onions and garlic and cook them until they are soft and translucent. Add the meat, rice, tomatoes, and oregano. Season with salt and pepper. Cook the stuffing until the beef is pinkish as seen below.


Half Cooked Stuffing

3. Using the remaining olive oil, spread them on the inside of the peppers. Put the peppers in a baking dish with 1/4 cup water. Place the stuffing in the peppers. Mix the hot sauce, 1/4 cup water and ketchup in a bowl. Spread the mixture on top of the stuffing. Place the baking dish in the oven for about 45 minutes.


Cooked Stuffed Peppers


A Close Up of a Pepper


Stuffed Peppers with their Caps


Dinner!

White times ahead...

The first snow fall has arrived. Our little house is blanketed in white. By back is going to complain.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and your loved ones!

Grass is greener...?

Yeah the grass is greener but after almost a month of no mowing, our lawn is covered in healthy, green and almost knee-high grass! My mower is not really cooperating with me and the grass is too tall to cut using the manual push powered mower.

Yep, I gotta hire someone.

It's a sad, sad day for DIYers everywhere!

Veggies and my figs...

Kamusta na?

It's been a while since we've posted to our blog. Too many things have happened since April so we'll just say that it feels like the year has passed by even though it's only August.

Anyway, over a month ago I had the most fortunate encounter with figs. Yes, figs. They don't natively grow in the Philippines as far as I know but I remember those fig bars when I was a kid. I thought, those were sweet! A while back, my aunt had a fig tree growing in her yard so one summer, she asked me if I would take a bag of it's delicious fruits. She felt bad that some had already fallen because they were so ripe. Anyway, once I got home I fired up the oven and popped all of them in there. I only spread a bit of olive oil on their flesh (after running them through running cold water) and made a cross like mark on top. Once they were out of the oven, I drizzled a bit of honey on top and had a feast with the missus.

So last month, I saw a bunch of green figs in the fruit section of our local supermarket. I bought about ten or so pieces thinking I could have them for dessert sometime during the week. It was over a week before I realized I have yet to taste the figs again! So out the ref they came and rinsed in water. I basically did the same as last time but I added some crumbled gorgonzola cheese within the figs. Boy that was tasty. Too bad though it wasn't as sweet as I expected. Here is a picture of my dessert.



Now let's talk about yesterday. I had a pretty full schedule yesterday. I don't believe I stopped working on something at the office until just before I left for the day. So I wasn't looking forward to cooking dinner. Well, after putting away my bag, taking care of my chores, I looked in the ref. There was a lot of plastic in the there and I felt that I needed to cook the vegetables before they rotted. It's not a good feeling to be throwing all that good money away.

So, after a lot of cleaning, shaving, cutting and chopping, I produced three dishes. The first was my favorite spargel soup. The second was roasted asparagus, sweet onion and mushrooms. Finally, I made a veggie and tofu stir fry.

Here is how I did it.




Spargel Soup

1 bunch of asparagus (thick green stalks)
1/2 liter good stock (chicken preferably)
carrot tops or whatever leftover veggies you have
salt to taste

1. Bring your stock to a simmer.
2. Wash your asparagus stalks. Break them into two and that will separate the tough part from the tender area. Works every time. Set the tender stalks aside.
3. Peel the tough remainders. Chop them coarsely and add them to the stock.
4. Add the remainder of the vegetables to the soup.
5. Add salt. Taste a bit and add water or more stock if necessary.
6. After about 30 minutes, remove the soup from the stove and pour it into a blender. Puree the soup. You can add a bit of cream or milk if you like.




Roasted Veggies

1 bunch of tender asparagus stalks
1 package of mushrooms
1 Spanish Onion
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

1. Fire up the grill or place your cast iron grill on the stove. Clean all your vegetables and make sure they are dry before you chop them.
2. Chop the onion into whatever size you like. Halve the mushrooms.
3. Toss the asparagus stalks in extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper. Do the same with the mushrooms.
4. Place vegetables on the grill. Rotate them once in a while.
5. After the onion pieces turn translucent, the mushrooms and asparagus shrink and char a bit, remove from the grill.




Stir Fry Vegetables and Tofu

1 package firm tofu
1 bunch of green beans (about 15 to 25 pieces)
1 bunch of carrots (about five long pieces)
1 green/red/yellow bell pepper (which ever one you like but not all three)
1/2 jalapeno (optional)
1/4 cup oyster sauce
3 tbsp vegetable oil

1. Clean your veggies.
2. Make 1/2 inch cubes out of the tofu.
3. Chop your green beans into 3/2 lengths. Peel your carrots and use the tops for the soup above. Chop them into disks. Chop the bell pepper into whatever shape you fancy but discard the top and all the seeds inside. Cut the jalapeno pepper into strips.
4. Heat up a wok. Add 1 tablespoon of oil. Fry the tofu cubes. Once they are golden brown on most sides, remove from the wok and set aside.
5. Add another tablespoon of oil. Toss the carrots into the wok. Cook carrots until they are soft or about 10 - 15 minutes (depending on how thick you cut the disks). Remove from the wok.
6. Stir fry the bell pepper and cook until somewhat soft. It shouldn't be too crunchy to the bite or too soft that it falls apart when you pick them up. Remove from the wok also.
7. Add the last tablespoon of oil and the green beans. Coat them with the oil and cook them for about five minutes. Add all the cooked veggies and the tofu. Stir fry the ingredients for about 3 minutes and add the oyster sauce. Cook for another 2 minutes then remove from the fire and serve.


Well I hope you like this post. Give me some feedback if you try any of the recipes above.

Now spring is here....

Finally the sun is out and the heater has stopped running (I don't have to dread my energy bill this month). Of course, along with the sun, the trees have start sprouting buds and leaves plus the grass is growing longer. Eventually, I have to mow the lawns. We have a ride-on mower (it's a Murray 42819X14A) and I have been reading a little about it for the past couple of hours. I noticed that a lot of people are saying how much emissions come out of these things and how unfriendly it is (noise, pollution). Since it's Earth Day today, I am inclined to get rid of this thing and just buy a push mower that's people powered.

I am not looking forward to this :)

Surf and Turf

Sometime in February, TNGal felt like having some mussels. She remembered how moules mariniere tasted the past two times we ordered it at a restaurant. Before heading home one day, she went and picked up a bag. So, when she picked me up from the train station, I was surprised with mussels. Also I had about a quarter of a bottle left of some sauvignon blanc so this was a perfect time to finish it off. Anyway, this is the recipe I used:



4 lbs (or 1.81kg) of mussels
1/2 a stick of sweet butter (about 57g)
1 tbsp diced jambon cru or raw cured ham or lean bacon
2 shallots or 1 small onion finely chopped
1 glass of white wine
chopped parsley and garlic and pepper to taste

1. Rinse the mussels.
2. Heat the butter until it melts in a large pan. Add the ham or bacon and the shallots or onion. Cook until they soften (but do not let them brown).
3. Add the mussels and the wine. Cover the pan and shake it. The steam should cook the mussels. Once all the mussels have opened, remove the pan from the heat immediately.
4. Mix the parsley, garlic and pepper. Serve over bowls and crusty bread!




After the clams, comes the beef. We were grocery shopping and came by the meat section. I noticed these lovely flat beef strips calling out to me. I bought a package along with some yellow baby potatoes, mushrooms and pencil thin asparagus. By the time I got home I was drooling with what I had in mind. Anyway, I mixed some olive oil and dried italian herbs (rosemary, parsley, sage and thyme). I cleaned the mushroom caps by using a moist paper towel. TNGal broke the asparagus in two and I halved the potatoes. I spread them on a pan then liberally seasoned them with salt and pepper. I then spread the olive oil mixture over each vegetable making sure they were coated. With a waiting 450 degree oven, I placed the pan inside the oven along with the cast iron pan. I cooked the veggies for about 10 - 15 minutes, just enough to heat the pan and cook the potatoes through. Then I placed the beef strips in the pan and let them cook. The nice thing about a cast iron pan is that it evenly distributes the heat plus it keeps the heat a while longer than regular pans. Anyway, after about two to three minutes on each side, dinner was ready! Here are a couple of pictures. Hope you enjoy them as much as we did!


Plating the beef and the veggies


Just the veggies


The finished product