Buco Pandan Ice Cream

Move over coffee mangosteen ice cream! I have a new favorite ice cream flavor, Buco Pandan (young coconut and pandan leaves extract). It is sooo yummy, why didn't I make this sooner. I used frozen young coconut strips and its water, then added buco pandan flavor that comes in a small bottle. I really like the pistachio green hue. This flavor is a huge favorite in Manila using it in everything from fruit salads (a combination of young coconut strips, pandan flavored gelatin cubes, sugar and cream, ooh I'll make this next) to candies, polvoron, barquillos (filled wafer sticks), hopia (Chinese Filipino snacks made with flaky pastry filled with sweet mung bean paste) and buche (mochi).

Pancit Bihon and Atis

We had an authentic Filipino Pinoy dinner tonight: rice noodles and the fruit atis for dessert. These are thin rice sticks sauteed with garlic and onions, soy sauce, boiled pork, carrots, snow peas, and shredded cabbage. It is eaten with calamansi juice (tiny Filipino limes). I found frozen atis, a relative of cherimoya, at the Korean grocery. The consistency of the fruit is altered as expected but tastes the same nonetheless. Fresh is of course the best but I haven't had these in over 15 years, I couldn't resist buying them. I'll make ice cream using 2 of these fruits, yum.

Chichiria (Snacks)

Last Saturday my daughter and I brought some of her things to the townhouse. We used my car for the trunk space. She drives a 2 door mustang which has a fairly large trunk but not tall enough for bulky items. She asked me to help her with the heavy items so I went with her. On the way back she asked me to show her the Philasia Filipino grocery which is halfway between our houses. I ended up buying $20.00 worth of chichiria and sweets. Hoo, that's expensive, 1 can of dalandan (Philippine orange with vivid green rind and vivid orange pulp) soda is $1 each but I haven't had dalandan in over 25 years, and it was worth it.

Dalandan photo courtesy of www.flickr.com/photos/santos/. We opened a bag of adobo flavor Boy Bawang (garlic) cornicks (crispy corn kernels) while sipping our dalandan soda and almost finished the whole bag, yum, yum, yum. I declare this Boy Bawang the best munchies ever! Other chichiria we bought in addition to Boy Bawang cornicks: Potato rings, Boy chili corn, Prima toast (tiny toasted bread with lots of butter and sugar) and Jacobina biscuits. The sweets: rice paper wrapped turrones de casuy (cashew nuts), buco pandan polvorones, Ovalteenies (yep, the orange wrapped sweets are candied ovaltines), and tamarind candies. One of our favorite sweets that's already in the pantry is ChocNut, a chocolate and peanut candy.

Thai Chicken Masaman Curry

I never liked Indian food, I find it too strong that even the desserts seem to taste of curry. I went to an Indian restaurant once in Manila and almost barfed. The spices and the smell were overwhelming and I never stepped in another Indian restaurant again. However, here in the US, I went to a Pakistani fast food of sorts like a turo turo (point point) and surprisingly loved the food. It has Indian taste but somehow different or maybe my palate was already changing then and I started liking Indian and Pakistani cuisine. I even bought garam as well as chana masala to add to vegetarian chickpeas stew and regularly make it now. But the one I really love is the Thai masaman curry with coconut milk. It has Indian influence but distinctly Thai, it is much more to my liking. I made chicken with yukon gold potatoes and added egg halves to the finished dish and it is fantastic. I used the ready made canned masaman curry soup, added boneless skinless fat trimmed chicken thighs, simmered for 40 minutes then added the potaoes and simmered for another 20 minutes. It can easily be made full vegetarian by substituting seitan and fried tofu for the chicken. My daughter suggested to use this masaman curry with the chickpeas stew. I ate so much I feel like my tummy is bursting. Now I need some Lindt dark chocolate truffles for dessert. Mmmm.