Pumpkin Macarons

For Thanksgiving this year, I cooked a non-traditional meal. I baked a small chicken Filipino-style with a layer each of bacon, sliced onions, and sliced tomatoes in the bottom of a Dutch oven. The chicken is seasoned with soy sauce, lemon juice, and sea salt. Dessert was pumpkin flavored macarons instead of pie and because we are limiting our sweets intake, the small size of the macarons are just perfect.

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Yema and Kabocha Pastel

Filipinos have a wide variety of sweet breads. One of the most popular rolls I see on blogs and bake books is Pastel. It's a sweet bread typically filled with yema paste (egg yolk, sugar, and milk cooked to a paste). Pastel in the Philippines could be savory, as in meat or chicken pie, and also sweet empanada/pie and bread rolls.

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Coconut Milk And Sweet Corn Ice Cream

Guinatan mais, sweet corn stewed in coconut milk, is a favorite Filipino dessert or snack. It's usually served warm but this time I made it into ice cream. It's sooo yummy. Really yummy.

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Melon Pan

I've always wanted to make Japanese melon pan but the cookie topping doesn't really appeal to me. Melon pan actually doesn't have melon although recently I've seen recipes with different flavorings like strawberries and musk melon.

This bread is a variation of the Mexican concha rolls which I made once before, the topping was chocolate cinnamon cookie. There is a Malaysian coffee buns too with coffee cream filling and coffee flavored cookie topping. I wasn't wowed by both. Too sweet for me.

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Pork Belly Binagoongan

Pork binagoongan which means pork stewed in fermented micro shrimp paste called Bagoong, is one of my favorite dishes growing up but I've not made it often because I don't like the house smelling of fermented shrimps for days and days.

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Spaghetti With Mushrooms

I love mushrooms and the Asian grocery stores have lots of variety these days. I bought fresh shiitake, pearl oysters, something called bunapi, and white button. They are very good simply steamed in a banana leaf pocket and served with a sprinkle of sea salt and squirt of lemon, or sauteed in olive oil and served with steaks or baked chicken. I found a simple pasta recipe featuring mixed mushrooms. The only additional flavoring to the pasta dish is crispy fried prosciutto and chicken broth which I substituted with vegetable broth. I want the mushrooms to shine and I thought the chicken broth might overpower it. I love this simple yet packed with flavor pasta dish. 

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Sweet Pickled Eggs

I don't know why I never had pickled eggs before. I have an 18-piece package of quail eggs that were meant for making the Filipino deep fried bright orange battered egg snack called kwek kwek but changed my mind and pickled them instead. It's easy to prepare if you use sweet pickle liquid.

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Challah Bread Pudding

Last week I bought a loaf of challah at Trader's Joe although the crust is very pale unlike my homebaked. Although I already lowered my expectations, I was still disappointed for its lack of flavor. It also got moldy after 3 days. What a waste. I baked one loaf flavored with a little orange and lemon zests and vanilla extract. I cubed 4 thick slices and made bread pudding with golden raisins (sultanas). Drizzled with Hershey-style chocolate syrup or limoncello glaze, the pudding is delicious.

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Japanese-Style Omelette Burger

I've read about but not made nor eaten an American hamburger omelette. However, when the dish appears in a currently airing Japanese drama (dorama), A Girl and Three Sweethearts, I noticed that it is not served with bread but in a shallow pool of demi-glace. That's interesting.

Japanese-style hamburgers [and other Asian burgers] are a bit different because the meat is seasoned with a little onion and sake and softer like meatloaf with the addition of bread crumbs, milk, and egg. The Japanese burger steaks are usually served with a sauce made with a combination of ketchup and wooster sauce.

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Homemade Maple Sugar Granules

Every day I have steamed white rice and breads but I eat high carb food in moderation and haven't had bottled sodas for many many years now. Recently, I started incorporating stevia and xylitol together with regular white or raw sugar into desserts and baked goods. The xylitol I use is made from birch bark and manufactured here in the USA. Most xylitol brands in the USA are made with corn and they are imported from China which is a no no for me. I found out recently that ALL stevia products in the USA come from semi-processed and already whitened material from CHINA! That's absolutely unacceptable and they are most likely more harmful than white cane sugar to every person who tries to avoid processed sugar cane. Any food item made in China will always be suspect regardless of the manufacturers' assurances that their processing are the best. Are they kidding me? The words best and China shouldn't be in the same sentence...EVER!! Remember the tainted toothpaste, dog food, and powdered milk that killed people and dogs around the world, and their own babies, for crying out loud!

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Mangoes And Cream

I've made this mangoes and cream before, using Graham crackers. I called the Filipino dessert Mangoes On A Cloud [of sweetened cream]. This time I used chocolate wafers instead of Graham crackers and layered the wafers, sweetened cream, and mangoes in individual glasses (verrines). The chocolate wafers are also good with the mangoes and cream combination.

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