Filipino Recipes For The Holy Week

Since its Holy Week, Filipinos, specifically, the Catholics, are now starting to practice the good old lent tradition. We, Filipinos are very much known as a solemn observer of the Holy Week. This just shows how faithful and religious we are. This is the Filipino way of reflecting God's lessons and sacrifice that are written at the Holy Bible. Holy Week, according to the traditional beliefs, is the season of repentance and mending of immoral living for many Filipinos.

Image Credit : http://htreading.blogspot.com/2010/03/holy-week-services.html

There are certain sacrificial acts done during the observance. This includes Fasting or limiting one's food intake to one full meal a day and Abstinence or avoidance of eating meat from warm-blooded animals. So meaning to say, Filipinos usually eats fish and vegetables during this season.

Here are some vegetable recipes that you may find interesting, easy and practical to cook during the Holy Week.

Pinakbet
Pinakbet is the contracted form of the Ilocano word pinakebbet, meaning "shrunk" or "shriveled". The basic vegetables used in this dish include native bitter melon, eggplant, tomato, ginger, okra, string beans, lima beans, chili peppers , parda and winged beans. A Tagalog version usually includes calabaza.

Laksa
Laksa Laksa or Bean Noodles with Vegetables is also an all time favorite of mine. This recipe or dish is best partnered with steamed rice and fried fish. This Filipino vegetable recipe is known to be a healthy food and perfect for diet conscious persons.

Ginisang Toge
Ginisang Toge is a healthy vegetable dish or recipe. It is a sauteed Mung Bean Sprout with carrots, bell pepper, shrimp, and tofu.

Adobong Kangkong
Adobong Kangkong is one of the authentic Filipino dishes that I really lov! e. It wa s pretty easy and basic to prepare and cook, and for sure, you will love this recipe too.

You can check out and find more vegetable recipes at my Filipino Vegetable Recipes category.

And for the Fish recipes, here they are:

Fish Sarciado
Fish Sarciado is a kind of Filipino dish wherein the mixture of garlic, onions and tomatoes enhances the flavor of the sauteed fish. This is one of the most finest recipe of the Filipinos. This recipe is also perfect for this lent season.

Sinigang Na Bangus

Paksiw Na Bangus
Paksiw na Bangus is one the of the easiest bangus (milkfish) dish to make. Paksiw na Bangus is a native Filipino fish dish wherein, the milkfish (bangus) is cooked with the sour aroma of vinegar and spice of ginger, onion and garlic.

You can check out and find more fish recipes at my Filipino Fish Recipes category page.

Hope this post helps you out into picking the right dish this Holy Week. Enjoy.

Siow Claypot Hot Soup (Kajang)

We wanted to eat noodle at Tua Huat in Section 19 but ended at the newly opened Siow Clay pot Hot Soup (Kajang).

They serve mainly clay pot dishes like chicken, prawn, fish head, pork, lat tong....etc while vegetables are mostly blanched with soy sauce or oyster sauce.


The setting is typical tai chow with plastic tables and chairs.


The two uncles that took our orders are real old (hope they will hire some Sweet Young Thing ) while the chef was plump and a giant of a man.


Parking is OK in the evening.


Clay pot Fish head-done Indian style-with okra, long bean, eggplant, Chinese round cabbage and chopped fish head-not much fish meat and not much oomph !-Rm18/ Deep fried Pork rolls-chunky 3 layered pork with traces of yam (the chef said there was no yam) and Tapioca flour rolled with thick yellow bean curd sheet/whisked egg and deep fried until golden brown-I would prefer it with some water chestnut- Rm12/ Lettuce-leafy, smooth and crunchy-Rm8/

Total bill:Rm43/
Location:58-A, Jalan 19/3,
Petaling Jaya.
Tel:012-977-8977.

Weekend Soundtrack: Bruno Mars "Lazy Song"

Bruno Mars - The Lazy Song - Free Music Videos - New Artists

The video of Bruno Mars' latest single, Lazy Song, has just premiered earlier this week and guess what? It features a bunch of talented dancing monkeys!

But monkey business aside, this catchy song has been my weekend jam since hearing it on his album, Doo-Wops & Hooligans. And also on days when I just feel like lying in bed all day.

Anyway, y'all have a good weekend NOT doing anything now.

Blackberry Playbook Preview Bridge Bar, G Tower

I managed to get my grubby hands on the Blackberry Playbook today.

Oh no no, I didnt buy one! But I got to fool around with one during the sneak preview session for media earlier this evening!

I went with pretty low expectations. And it didnt help to have read, heard and watch some pretty negative reviews about the Playbook throughout the day prior to the preview. The critics & techies havent been too kind.

Still, nothing beats the experience of actually holding one in your hands. And while everyone are entitled to their opinions & tech gurus can have all their say, its best to judge for yourself if this would be the tablet that you should invest in, and whether it suits your lifestyle and needs.

And all that starts from actually testing out a unit.

Personally Im a sucker for tech products that boasts of a solid feel, so the material used is of paramount importance to me. Solid doesnt necessary equates to heavy. I mean, light is fine, but it shouldnt feel plasticky & hollow. I hope you could get what Im trying to convey without me having to name names of products that falls in that category!
Anyhow, the Playbook scored points in that department for me. I liked the solid, heavy feel of the device.

Call me superficial, but Im all for prettiness and esthetics. I find the applications a bit plain in colours & pretty simplistic in functionality. Navigating around on the Playbook took some getting used to as well, for there are no buttons on the edge, but everything was navigated through swiping of the screen from the top/bottom/left or right. Swiping your fingers from each side carries out a different function, for example, swiping your fingers from bottom to top takes you back to the main menu.

And yeah, put a bunch of tech people together in a room and out comes all the gadgets. Here, we were comparing the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Playbook side by side.

The Playbook looked a! nd felt better in the hands to me. The Samsung Galaxy Tab is bulkier somehow and lacked the sleekness factor.

The Ipad, Blackberry Playbook & Samsung Galaxy Tab. No prize for guessing which was the favoured tablet among us all.

The Playbook Specifications:

Ultra portable, super convenient
Height: 5.1/130mm
Width: 7.6/194mm
Depth: 0.4/10mm
Weight: 0.9lbs/425g

7 LCD display, 1024 x 600 screen resolution
Multi-touch capacitive screen

Professional grade performance
Full computing power in tablet format
1 GHz dual-core processor
1 GB RAM
Symmetric multi-processing

Web without limits
Games, media, apps and everything the real Internet offers
Full Adobe Flash 10.1 enabled
Built-in support for HTML 5
No-compromise rendering of text, graphics and video

High-speed connections
3G network access using your BlackBerry smartphone as a modem
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n
Bluetooth 2.1+EDR

Amplified BlackBerry experience
Wirelessly connect to your BlackBerry smartphone for real t! ime acce ss to:
Email, calendar, address book, task list and BBM

Best-in-class media
3 MP high-definition forward-facing camera
5MP high-definition rear-facing camera
Codec support for superior media playback, creation and video calling
1080p HD video; H.264, MPEG4, WMV HDMI video output
Micro USB and Micro HDMI ports

Video-conferencing
Crystal clear HD display
Rich stereo sound
Dual HD video cameras

Built for business
Out-of-the-box compatibility with BlackBerry Enterprise Server
Seamless pairing for a secure window into your BlackBerry smartphone
Corporate data access
Secure and manageable

BlackBerry Tablet OS
Powerful, user friendly QNX technology: Its what the World Wide Web runs on
Multi-processing for true multitasking

Rich application ecosystem
Rapid development environment
Reliable BlackBerry Tablet OS, powered by QNX technology
Supports POSIX OS, SMP, Open GL, BlackBerry 6, WebKit, Adobe Flash,
Java and Adobe Mobile AIR

Availability
The BlackBerry PlayBook is expected to be available in retail outlets and other channels in the United States in early 2011 with rollouts in other international markets beginning in (calendar) Q2.

Cava

Reservations are recommended at this oft-packed restaurant, where the setting is charming, the service team is cheerful and the food is mostly commendable.

Tapas are the highlight here; Cava's braised oxtail is as good as it gets _ less bony and more succulent and flavorsome than many versions elsewhere.

Bacalao with tomatoes, kalamata olive salad & lemon coriander dressing. Works well as a light, refreshing starter, but there seems to be very little salt-dried cod mixed in this.

Lamb boulette, with a minty pepper sauce to counter a smidgen of gaminess.

Paella. Not bad; packed with mixed chorizo, lamb marquez sausages, broccoli & wild mushrooms, but more saffron might help.

Aussie 1824 rib-eye. Meaty and rich in flavor, though a tad too tough.

Freixenet Carta Nevada Semi Seco Cava. Bubbly, bubbly, no toil or trouble.

A long list of sangria is laced with delicious ingredients. The honeyed red wine comes with drambuie, orange juice & sweet-&-sour; the white wine one with gin, honeydew & lime juice.

Cava,

Jalan Bangkung, Bangsar.

Red Velvet Icebox Cake

Did it again.

In honor of the new classic film hitting theaters today, Scream 4 or Scre4m, I wanted to make a bloody treat.

I've been counting down to this movie since the summer. Scream holds a dear place in my heart because it was the first R rated movie I had ever seen. All of the cool kids had seen it at school so I begged my parents to rent it. They said I could only if they could watch it with me, to stop it if it gets too bad. I was too smart for that, so one morning I got up at 5 to watch it by myself. By 7, I was watching two kids stabbing each other in the stomach in hysterical laughter.

Needless to say I was probably traumatized from this. I refused to answer the phone. Still hate telephone calls. But I still loved that movie.

With limited red food coloring, this came out pinkish. After I took these pictures they became much more red. So you may, may not, want to add more coloring.

Red or Pink Velvet Icebox cake

What you need:

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon cider vinegar

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 bottle of red food coloring

2 cups heavy cream

1/2 cup sugar

1 box chocolate wafer cookies

What you do:

Mix together the cocoa powder, cider vinegar, vanilla and food coloring in a small bowl. In a large bowl with an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, combine the heavy cream and sugar on high speed. Then add in the red mixture. Beat until soft peaks form. Put some of the cream on a plate. Place the chocolate cookies on the cream making a circle with one cookie in the center. Spread a laye! r of whi pped cream on top of that. Add another layer of the cookies. Keep repeating this process until all of the cream and cookies have been used. Chill overnight.

Hot Cross Biscuits

Its that time of year.

Its time to put a marshmallow Peep in your hat.

Its time to pipe a cross on your biscuit.

Its time to eat way way way too many white chocolate Easter bunnies.

Or maybe you gave up sugar for Lent in which case Im sorry to torture you with dessert everyday. Im sorry.

Hot Cross Buns are traditional this time of year.

These are not Hot Cross Buns.

These are the totally lazy version of Hot Cross Buns.

Hot Cross Buns are traditionally and English Spring/Easter time treat.

Theyre yeasted and spiced and adorned with a frosting cross. Theyre usually served on Good Friday. Theyre always always delicious.

I dont do well with rules.

I turned buns into biscuits, added currants and lemon zest, and added a cream cheese frosting cross.

Jesus would totally be down. Im almost certain.

and I love when things turn into a pretty pretty mess.

Like my kitten, hes a pretty mess too (picture not included).

I like this.

These biscuits are subtly sweet, filled with sweet and tender dried currants, and have a hint of citrus flavor. If youre tempted to have a heavy hand with the cream cheese frosting we must be related. I like you.

Hot Cross Biscuits

Makes 8 to 12 biscuits (depending on how thick you like them. I made 8.)

Print this Recipe!

For the Biscuits:

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 tablespoon granulated sugar

4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cold, cut into small cubes

1 large egg

3/4 cup buttermilk, cold

2 teaspoons lemon zest

1/2 cup dried currants

For the Frosting:

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

2 tablespoons cream cheese, softened

1 cup powdered sugar

dash of vanilla extract

Place racks in the center and upper third of the oven and preheat to 425 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add lemon zest. Add cold butter and, using your fingers, work the butter into the flour mixture. Work quickly to incorporate the butter into the flour. The butter bits will be the size of small pebbles and oat flakes.

Whisk together egg and buttermilk.

Toss the dried currants into the dry ingredient mixture, and create a small well in the center of the ! flour an d butter mixture. Pour in the buttermilk, all at once, and use a fork to incorporate the ingredients. Make sure that all of the flour bits are moistened by the egg and buttermilk.

Dump the shaggy dough onto a lightly floured work surface. Bring together, kneading lightly, until the dough forms a 1-inch thick disk. Use a 2 1/2-inch round biscuit cutter to cut biscuit circles. Place on the baking sheet. Gently knead the remaining dough scraps together. Form into a 1-inch thick disk and cut out more round biscuits until no dough remains.

Brush biscuit tops with buttermilk and baker for 12 to 15 minutes, until lightly browned on top and firm-ish in the center.

Remove from the oven and let cool completely before frosting with a cross.

In a medium bowl, using a firm spatula, blend together 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, 2 tablespoons cream cheese, and 1 cup of powdered sugar. Add just a dash of vanilla extract and a sprinkle of cinnamon if youd like. Mixture will be thick.

Cut a small tip off of a zip lock bag (you can also use a small round cake decorating tip). Fold down the sides of the bag and scoop the frosting into the bag. Pipe crosses onto completely cooked biscuits and serve.

Biscuits are best served the day they are made, but will last, well wrapped at room temperature, for one day.