Salted Caramel Apple Butter

I made [reduced carbs] salted caramel sauce yesterday and added a little of it to pan-browned apples. The result, in my honest opinion, is an improvement on the usual spiced apple butter recipe which I made once before. It pairs very well with toasted challah. If you like apple caramel candy, then this is the apple butter recipe for you.

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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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