Day 22: Persistence makes perfect

Tags

30-day blog challenge, baking, cupcakes, persistence

Before and after (left and right): Diane's hollow cupcakes from three weeks ago, and yesterday's perfect baked treats.

I’d like to talk about my friend Diane’s pursuit of the perfect cupcake. About three weeks ago, she set out to bake according to someone’s no-fail recipe. The result? Exhibit A on the left. While they tasted good, the cupcakes’ tops fell and hollowed out, and her icing had the consistency of…milk (you had to sip it before you ate the cupcake). The good part? The cupcakes tasted good.

She reported back to her friend, the recipe owner, who told her never go back into the kitchen. Which Diane didn’t do. She was back in the kitchen a week later. I was away so I didn’t taste her cupcakes, but they apparently didn’t cave in.

Then yesterday, week 3, Diane did it again — the result is Exhibit B on the right. Perfect cupcakes, icing and all! When I asked her what was the secret of her success, she said: “I learned from my mistakes, and researched on ways to do it better.” Despite her friend’s advice to give up baking (a joke, I am sure), she did the exact opposite and tried again. And again. I think it helped that our friend Maan, who has done some baking, lent her a hand (chief sifter and taster). More than the extra head to offer wisdom, it’s always more fun baking with good company (at least I think so).

The verdict: Deliciously moist cupcakes with just the right amount of sweetness — the sprinkles were the icing on the icing of the cupcake.

What’s your version of a sunken cupcake? How can you work on it?

P.S. I’ll be on a road trip for two days so will do makeup blog entries on Wednesday. Will still try my best

Day 8: “Grate” expectations

Tags

30-day blog challenge, baked chicken, coriander, Ella Fitzgerald, lemon zest

Cooking with grated lemon zest and coriander on a Sunday morning

I love to harp about doing what you love, even if it scares you. So here goes…

One of the items on my “fear list” was cooking for the very reason that I was afraid I’d fail at it. While growing up, my sisters were more savvy in the kitchen: Mica assisted Dad in the kitchen when he grilled fat steaks with a mushroom gravy. Rissa was our sukiyaki expert. Rina was always whipping up her healthy “café exotica” (as Dad would put it) dishes. Michi once cooked a successful beer-battered chicken for Sunday lunch when our kusinera was on day off (I raved about it a la Maurice Arcache for an in-house article for our family, which I laid out like a magazine article with MacPaint using Dad’s 128k Macintosh!). Pinky was our dessert queen, making us her famous Cathedral Windows. And Marie, she was a natural: she once cooked lamb adobo which I relished…and at that time I didn’t like lamb.

If you ask them what I was known for back then, they’d say “No-bake brownies!” This was a brownie mix that didn’t require an oven (hence the name!). And I also ordered lechon manok from the corner Andok’s whenever Tessie, our all-around helper, was on vacation, and I was on dinner duty.

Well, I am happy to report that I have come to a point in my life that the love for cooking has overtaken my fear of failing at it. This morning, as I type this entry, I am waiting on a lemon-coriander butter chicken baking in the oven. I say ‘love’ with passion, because the rituals that go along with cooking give me pleasure: the walk to the market to buy choice cuts of chicken. The light banter with my suki for vegetables (yes, I have become my mother!). Visiting the flower shop where I get my cut flowers — from sunflowers to spring arrangements.

Fresh flowers in the market

I enjoy chopping vegetables, grating lemons, and mixing ingredients while listening to music (right now I am playing a mix of Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne and Sarah Vaughn — the oldies). I love the smell of coriander and lemon zest on my fingertips even after I’ve rinsed them under the tap for two minutes, and then the aroma of a roast in the oven.

Will my chicken taste good? I am having too much fun to worry about that now! So what will you cook today?

orange you glad it’s healthy?

Tags

Mila Chia seeds Miracle seed Lifemax orange Greek yogurt healthy breakfast

I love Greek yogurt! I found it in Cold Storage and have used it to whip up a quick breakfast or lunch meal. I bumped up its nutritional value with a scoop of Mila, Miracle Seeds  by Lifemax I wrote about earlier. Because Mila is a rich source of Omega 3s — the natural anti-inflammatory food. And since inflammation is the main source of disease, Omega 3s are an essential fatty acid we must have everyday.

Here it is…

Greek Yoghurt with Orange and Mila

Ingredients

1 orange, peeled and sliced in small bits

three scoops of Greek yoghurt (vanilla flavor)

1 scoop of Mila

Method: Combine everything in a bowl. Scoop into mouth. Enjoy! It’s a filling and highly nutritious snack/meal that’s rich in Omega 3s, antioxidants, protein and fiber. The consistency reminded me of Cookies and Cream ice cream — the texture of the Mila combined with the yoghurt and the orange slices was delicious!

Chili love songs

Tags

chili, comfort food, cooking, easy recipe, joy, Pork Basil Rice, recipe

i

Basil, beans and chilies from the market. - Maya Calica

I have come to learn that, to get out of our own discomfort, it helps to apply our attention on serving others.

One thing I have learned to enjoy doing is to cook. So yesterday, feeling a tickle in my throat that I’d normally worry about and overmedicate to prevent a potential flu, I got up, downed a glass of spirulina, drank loads of water and then went to the market to shop for ingredients for lunch. I was craving Thai Basil Pork with Chili — one of my comfort foods here which my flatmates DnD love. I deduced this recipe from eating it almost three times a week for about five months last year at a stall called Authentic Thai in Amoy Street Food Center.

Thai Pork Basil Rice with Chili

Soundtrack: Pearl Jam and Putomayo Salsa

300 g ground pork
3 pcs chili padi (chopped)
4 gloves garlic (minced)
3 tbsps patis (fish sauce)
3 tbsps water
basil leaves
french beans (about 8 pieces, chopped)

In a heated pan, pour a tablespoon of oil. Sauté garlic until transparent. Add french beans and pork. Stir fry till meat separates and cooks. Add chilies (you may sneeze during this part), water and patis and keep cooking until meet turns a bit brown. Add basil leaves and cook through.

You can alter how much patis or chilies depending on your taste.

Serve on a bed of steaming white race, with a fried egg on top.

DnD were happy, well-fed…and so was I.

Substitute with love

Tags

action, forgiveness, healing, let go, peace, reaction

Bearing fruit by Maya Calica

I get frustrated whenever I try to follow a recipe, and some of the ingredients indicated aren’t available locally. I do breathe a sigh of relief when I see I have options — substitutions.

In life, as in cooking, we always have options to substitute. I realized that today, as I thought about the past two weeks. There were moments in my life where I could have reacted to situations in relationships using the default behavior — stonewall, avoid, grow cold and distant — each time I was disappointed. But I had done it all too often, and in my opinion, those “ingredients” made up a recipe for disaster.

So I decided to substitute the following — brooding with expressing feelings; stonewalling to assessing; avoiding to showing up; growing cold and distant to moving close and trying to understand the other’s point of view. From my recent experiments in cooking, the substitutions work much better. Earlier this week, my dear friend T told me a few days ago via chat: “I sense your happiness, and I feel happy for you.” And today, over coffee and catch-up, a dear friend affirmed that I was doing something right: “Your aura is wonderful. I can really feel your happiness.”

I have learned that the future is malleable, and formed by what we choose to think, feel and do right now. Happiness is a choice we make moment by moment. No matter how trying your situation is now, no matter how sad, be honest and express this. Let the feeling be felt and it leaves your body. And then realize that just as you can choose to stay in pain and sadness, you can also choose to substitute it with hope, with healing, with forgiveness, with a smile, with a prayer, with a joke, with a song.

What would you like to substitute today?

The Joy of Cooking Healthy

This may seem a tiny feat to some of you, but did you know that cooking used to make me nervous? Especially when I had to cook for other people. I always needed a glass (or two) of wine to relax me. The cause of all the nervousness was the fear of not getting it right. Ah the plight of the perfectionist. But I have learned, thankfully through the reassurances of friends and family, that I do a pretty good job in the kitchen. Today, I decided to try a recipe – a “healthy” dinner of tofu, zucchini, portobello mushrooms in a marinara sauce with fresh chopped basil. I topped it with parmesan cheese and paired it with some brown rice. No wine this time (not that it’s bad — I love wine but tonight I didn’t need the crutch to calm me!).

Not bad, I must say. In fact, it satisfied me and filled me up! Here’s a snap!

Looks can be deceiving...the parmesan cheese added oomph!