Chicken Soup & Salad

After breakfast, I had my husband & my kids help me finish the laundry and clean up the apartment.  It takes forever to do this with them than when I do cleaning with my girlfriends which is the reason why I did not do any fancy schmanzy breakfast menu.  By the time we were done with our house chores we were all ravenous and ready for lunch. Being that we had no more time to cook lunch, we all got into the car and drove to Central Avenue in Hartsdale to our new favorite dimsum restaurant: Central Seafood Chinese Restaurant.  We ordered our twin boys' favorite beef ball & chicken feet asado(yes, for some reason they successfully acquired a taste for this most unusual chicken part), shark's fin siomai (my apologies to the conservationists but I was assured by my server that a very small amount of shark's fin was used for this dish), pork siomai, Chinese style calamari, and white rice.  All in all, our bill came up to only a little over $45.00.  We were so full that we decided to walk it off a little bit but ended up eating more as we eventually decided to have dessert at a nearby Haagen Dasz ice cream shop.  How could we resist! Coffee ice cream for the hubby and chocolate for moi--heaven! It was a good thing that there was a Marshall's store next door because I had a valid reason to now walk some more:)But shopping is just not a favorable activity for the boys in my life so we all went back to the car to go to our next destination: nowhere.

After driving aimlessly around the city of White Plains and pointing out edifices & statues of historical significance (my husband is currently into the history of White Plains, NY), my husband finally asked me where I wanted to go next.  I immediately replied that I wanted to visit a local organic farm & restaurant located in Pocantico Hills known as Blue Hill at Stone Barns.  You see, I passed this charming farm about 2 weeks ago by accident after coming from the hospital I worked in.  I was originally planning to go to the Home Depot on Saw Mill Road but I made a wrong turn and wound up in Pocantico Hills! I have always read about Blue Hill and its farm-to-table philosophy in the New York Times, Zagat and the Westchester Wag but we have never really been in there.  It is a fine dining restaurant that actually uses produce from the nearby farms in the Hudson Valley. The Farmer's feast tasting menu costs $135.00 so eating there would have to planned well in advance and only for special occasions! So we just drove there out of curiosity and also to familiarize ourselves with the area.  I was hoping that we could at least show our kids a working farm and let them breathe some farm fresh air but by the time we got there, the twins were fast asleep. We will have to go back there again at an earlier time when the kids are awake.

We had such an enjoyable time just driving around Westchester that I failed to realize that I still did not have an idea what I will be cooking for dinner! As soon as we got home, I immediately took out left over frozen roast chicken, some garlic and onion--Then boom! It dawned on me to cook chicken soup with pasta and to prepare a big bowl of romaine lettuce salad with a homemade vinaigrette dressing.  The whole production took me only 30 minutes from chopping the garlic to plating. Take note: my roast chicken was frozen.  Amazing, huh?!!?  But more amazing are the happy and contented faces of my husband & kids!

20 MINUTE CHICKEN SOUP

Ingredients:

Left over roast chicken
2 cloves garlic-crushed and chopped
1 medium onion-sliced
1 tbsp annato (achiote) seeds
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1/4 cup cilantro-chopped
salt & pepper to taste
1 cup uncooked Penne Rigate
coarsly chopped snow pea shoots or spinach

Procedure:

In a large pot, saute annato seeds in oil until oil is dark red orange in color.  Remove seeds & discard.  Saute garlic & onion in the same oil then add the chicken.  After 2 minutes, add cold filtered water until it covers chicken.  Bring to a rolling boil, add pasta, then simmer until chicken & pasta are tender.  Season with salt and pepper. Boil some more then add snow pea shoots.  Simmer then add cilantro last. Serve immediately.

ROMAINE LETTUCE SALAD WITH HOMEMADE VINAIGRETTE DRESSING

Ingedients:

1 bunch Romaine lettuce-washed & sliced into 1 inch strips
1/2 red onion-sliced in circles
1 beefsteak tomato- sliced in circles
1 can small black olives-strained
1/4 cup edam cheese--shaved or grated
1 cup julienned carrots

As you cut above ingredients, arrange/ layer in a salad bowl.

Vinaigrette:
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp salt
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
1/2 tsp brown sugar
1 clove macerated garlic
anchovies-optional

Combine all of the above in a bowl. Mix well with fork. Pour on salad greens and toss gently.

Saturday Breakfast

It is 29 degrees Fahrenheit outside but the skies are clear and blue.  We have a lot of errands to do today so my plan of baking breakfast muffins will have to be put off for another day.  Instead, I prepared whole wheat toast with butter and light brown sugar, blueberries, sliced bananas, and 2% milk for the children. For my husband & I: we are having fried eggs, blueberries, coffee, whole wheat toast with butter (no sugar).  SImple, quick & fairly "healthy".:-) I have no plans for lunch and dinner yet... We might just end up eating out! Have a good day everyone!!

No Meat Fridays

Today, since we are still in the Lenten Season, I prepared a fish and vegetable dish for my family that only took 30 minutes to prepare. It was a recipe that I learned from my friend & fellow mother of 2 boys, Wing P. when she brought this during our last swim/play date 3 weeks ago.  It was so delicious that I had made this dish more than 2  times since then.  I was not able to take pictures because I was too hungry to even bother.  Next time I'll be more creative & ready!

You could use any kind of white fish fillet for this dish, just make sure it is completely thawed and thoroughly dry to avoid a soggy fish dinner (has happened to me many times). If the fillets are frozen, leave it in the refrigerator overnight to thaw completely.  If you are in a bind & have to cook the fish immediately from a frozen state, just microwave the fillets for about 3 minutes, run lukewarm water over it until thawed out, separate the fillets gently and dry them individually. 

Easy Fish Dinner (for lack of a better name!)

Ingredients:
1 pound (1/2 kg) white fish fillet (tilapia,whiting, or cod)seasoned with salt & pepper
2 tbsp canola oil for pan searing
1 flat can of flat anchovy fillets mashed into a paste, mixed with 2 tbsp melted butter & 2 tbsp olive oil &1 tbsp mirin (Japanese sweet wine)
lemon wedges
capers

Directions:
Pan sear the fish fillets on both sides until lightly browned. Carefully transfer & arrange fillets onto a flat serving dish. Decoratively sprinkle anchovy mixture onto cooked fillets.  Serve with lemon wedges & capers and steamed Jasmine or Japanese rice.  Also goes well with garlic & oil pasta.


Broccoli with Oyster sauce

Ingredients:

2 tbsp Canola oil
1/2 tsp chopped garlic
1/4 cup sliced white onion
3 cups of Broccoli florets
1/2 cup water
2 tbsp Oyster sauce
salt & pepper
1/2 tsp cornstach dispersed in 2 tbsp water

Directions:

Heat canola oil in a wok. Saute garlic, followed by onion until slightly transparent. Add in broccoli florets and saute in high heat until broccoli turns into a rich dark greenish hue.  Season with salt & pepper. Add 1/2 cup water and continue sauteing broccoli for another 2 minutes. Add oyster sauce.  Move broccoli around wok with a wok ladle and then add the cornstarch mixture.  Cook until sauce is thick. Add a little bit of water at a time if sauce is reduced too much before the broccoli is cooked. Serve in shallow serving dish. 

Recipe for Oven-Baked Visayan Lechon

Belated Christmas greetings to everyone! This is my maiden voyage in the world wide blogosphere so please bear with me.
OK, here goes...One of our main dishes for Christmas Eve dinner (Noche Buena) was a whole roast suckling pig that I baked in my 30 inch wide oven. What inspired me to make home baked lechon? It was my craving for lechon de leche. Unfortunately, I do not know of any place in New York, New Jersey or Connecticut that sells lechon de leche. And, if I ordered a regular sized lechon for our christmas eve party of about 20 family members, it might be too much for us. Moreover, I wanted the challenge!

So, two weeks before Xmas, I practiced making lechon that I planned to serve at my husband's yearly fraternity christmas party, with the thought that whatever the result may be, there will be more than enough intoxicated people at that party to finish a whole pig=).

My next challenge was where to get a fresh whole suckling pig. I went to our local Asian grocery store but they did not have fresh whole pig that day and they required at least 2 days to pre-order the whole pig. Then I asked my husband to drive me to the nearest Western Beef Grocery Store in the Bronx as suggested by a good chef friend of ours but the pig they had was frozen solid and I needed to start prepping my pig "ahora mismo" as the party was to be the following day. The Western Beef butcher was willing to mechanically(or electronically?)thaw out my pig but 2 hours was too long a wait for me. I had to be back in White Plains ASAP. My last resort was to purchase my pig from "The Source": Hunts Point Market--the Largest Wholesale Meat Distributor in the tri-state area. I knew from reading other foodie blogs that Hunts Point was located in the Bronx. Thanks to my handy dandy iPhone, I was able to google the address for this market. All I knew as we were on our way there was that this is the place where all the food of NY,NJ, CT stores & restaurants get traded & distributed so they must have my whole suckling pig. But I was not even sure if Hunts Point sells to the retail market. Then again, I & my husband just followed our instincts and followed the GPS directions to Hunts Point. And get there, we did! After paying the entrance fee of $3.00, we asked the toll person where we could get whole pig and he kindly directed us to go to the Berlin Denmar Meat Suppliers. I was a little hesitant to go into the warehouse at first because it looked like there was no one around. You just see ginormous refrigerated trailer trucks and muddy floors. But I was desperate. So I bravely went up the concrete steps to the Berlin Denmar Office and was surprised at the sudden onslaught of the sound of forklifts and shouting butchers warning me to be careful. They all wanted me to step aside so I do not get injured. It actually felt like I was in Bacolod's Banago Port during peak hours except here, the "stevedores" were Caucasian and Hispanic but they were all very friendly, very helpful and they all spoke English. After describing to them what I needed, they brought out the smallest pig that they had for that day--a 30 pound white pig that I paid about $70 for, at $2.39 per pound. I paid cash for my pig but it is possible to pay with any major credit card here. I felt so giddy after that "acquisition"--it felt like I just bought a crocodile skin Birkin bag at half the price! Hunts Point is a frugal foodies' paradise where one can get the best and the most rare and exotic ingredients at wholesale prices. I will definitely go back there.

But,my food adventure (or misadventure?!?) does not end here because when I got home, I found out that my pig cannot fit in my oven if i were to bake it whole. So i cut it in half and placed it in two racks and prayed for perfectly baked crispy lechon skin. I think my prayers were answered as evidenced by my attached pictures and the oohs and the ahhs I garnered after placing the cooked lechon on the serving table!

Moral of the Story: If I could do it, you could do it, too!! If you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to leave a message for me. Your feedback is most welcome!

Herewith is my precious recipe for home made Lechon.

Ingredients:

1 whole suckling pig 15-20 pounds

salt & pepper

evaporated milk

2 packages pandan leaves tied into a knot

lemon grass-diagonally sliced in 2 inch lengths

2 onions-peeled & halved

2 heads of garlic-crushed

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 pack sinigang ng sampaloc mix

(tamarind powder)

Basting mix: melted Star Margarine or butter with 1/2 cup atchuete (annato seeds)& salt

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees fahrenheit. Wash suckling pig thoroughly. Pat dry with paper towel. Cut pig crosswise in half (to make it fit in a standard 30 inch wide oven) and place each halved carcass on a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil.
Baste evaporated milk all over the pig, inside & out. Season inner cavity liberally with salt, pepper & sinigang mix. Stuff inner cavity with onions, pandan leaves, garlic & lemongrass. Wrap both ears, and the pig's tail with aluminum foil to prevent it from burning or getting overcooked. Baste the skin with butter/atchuete mixture then place in oven for about 2 hours, basting with the same mix, occasionally (approximately every 30 to 40 minutes or whenever you remember). Bake until internal temperature of pig reaches 160 degrees fahrenheit. Change oven setting to "broil" on a high setting or "Convection Roast-450 degrees F" to make the pig skin crispy. Watch roasting pig closely during this stage making sure skin does not get burned. If necessary, move cookie sheet around to expose as much pig skin to the oven burners as possible. At this point, baste the pig skin every 5 to 10 minutes being careful not to injure/burn your hands/arms. Broil until skin all over pig creates a hollow sound when tapped with tongs. Take the pig out of the oven and let it rest for about 5 minutes before serving. Transfer roast pig onto a serving dish lined with romaine lettuce. Place small red/green apple in roast pig's oral cavity. Carve & serve with lechon sauce or vinegar with garlic and patis (fish sauce).