Tag: Recipe

Cannellini Bean Salad

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I shall be reaching my fifth decade in just a few weeks’ time and I thought that I should really start to look after myself, especially my diet. My younger years are now in the past, huhuhu. This was made real to me after doing just a few minutes of Zumba  with my daughter-in-law, Stacey. I was breathless within minutes of dancing salsa. LOL

Anyway I started to look into my enormous library of cookbooks, which have been gathering dusts. I found this recipe which looks yummy as well as easy to make. Apparently it is also an ideal lunchbox din-din.

Cannellini Bean Salad

Ingredients:

1 small red onion
1 red or yellow pepper
400g cannellini beans
4 tbsp vinaigrette, which can easily be bought ready-made in any good supermarket.
1/2 iceberg (I prefer as crunchier than any lettuce I know) or cos lettuce
250g Feta cheese

Method of Preparation:

1. Halve and finely chop the onion and pepper.

2. Drain and rinse the cannellini beans (the beans is canned)

3. Add the vinaigrette and mix well into the beans, pepper and onion.

4. Tear roughly the lettuce and add.

5. Chopped the feta cheese and throw in into the mix.

6. Season with black pepper. And decorate with some parsley.

This is delicious served with a warm bread.


Photo from the perfectpantry.com

Berry Smoothie

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After the richness of Christmas, we tend to start the new year with good intentions. One of our usual goals is to lose that extra belly from good food and lots of it from the weeks of Christmas office parties, house parties, Christmas lunch, and up to the New Year celebration.

For a healthy yummy breakfast on the go, why not try a Berry Smoothie

Ingredients

125g blackberries
125g blueberries
125g raspberries
300g Natural wholemilk bio live yogurt
15ml wheatgerm

Reserve a few of the berries for decoration then mix all the leftover berries together and push them to a juicer.

In a separate bowl, mix the yogurt with the wheatgerm.

Divide the berry juice between to glasses.

Top up with the yogurt mix.

And then gently swirl the mixture and decorate with berries to make a really appetising look.

Enjoy.


Photo from mothersdaycentral,com

Hot Salabat (Ginger Tea)

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Hot salabat is the drink to wash down all those rich and delicious suman and kakanen.

Here is a quick recipe for salabat.

1 pound fresh ginger cut into chunks.

2 oranges peeled and sliced

2 apples, peeled, cored and sliced.

Place the ginger, oranges and apples into a large pan.

Add about 10 cups of water.

Bring to the boil and reduce the heat and let it simmer for at least 10 minutes.

Strain using a sieve onto a large teapot.

Serve this with honey or sugar.

Enjoy.

Ginataan with Bilo-Bilo Recipe

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Ginataan is a Tagalog/Pilipino word which means cooked in coconut milk. Bilo-bilo is actually rice ball. Ginataan is a very popular merienda, afternoon snack, in the Philippines. Our meriendas are usually eaten at around 3:00pm, which is the second snack of the day, the first snack is eaten between 10:45- 11:00 and rather lighter in consistency as we have our lunch as mid-day.

Anyway Ginataan is a sumptuous mixture of fruits in season, although the main ingredient is usually a root crop – the Camote or better known as Sweet Potato. The bilo bilo is made from special glutenous rice which had been pounded and ground as in flour consistency. You would know that the bilo-bilo is cooked when it floats into the surface of the boiling ginataan.

Anyway to make this really delicious snack, ideal for those wintry afternoon , you’ll need the following ingredients, which thank goodness are now widely available in good Oriental or African supermarkets.

Ginataan with Bilo-Bilo Recipe

 

Ingredients:

1 cup ground rice (glutinous)
2 medium size camote (sweet potatoes)
2 medium size gabi (taro)
4 bananas (saba)
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 small size ube (yam)
5 cups coconut milk
1 cup jackfruit (langka)
2 tbsp tapioca.

Pare the ube, camote and gabi, Cut them into half and inch cubes.

Peel the bananas and cut them into slices crosswise.

Boil the ube, camote and gabi in the coconut milk.

Dilute the ground rice with small amount of water, just enough that you can make little balls from the mixture. Drop the little balls into the bubbling ginataan.

When the ube, camote and gabi have soften, drop the bananas, langka, tapioca, vanilla.

Sugar to taste.

Simmer until fully cooked.

Serve and enjoy.

Pinipig Cookies

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The smell of a newly pounded pinipig is up there in my top ten list of the most divine scent in the world.

Pinipig comes from immature glutinous rice, which then roasted and pounded. Pinipig can then be eaten as it is for  snack, made into kakanen or used as toppings to Filipino drinks.

 

Pinipig is so versatile that they are also scrumptious baked as cookies.

This measurement apparently will make 4 dozens cookies

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup pinipig
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp finely grated lemon zest
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Method of preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350F and set the racks in the upper and middle part of the oven. Grease 2 baking sheets.

Warm a pan and gently roast the pinipig until it turns slightly brown. Take it out from the pan and let it cool.

Cream the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs bit by bit, thoroughly incorporating it to the mixture. Beat in the lemon zest

In a separate bowl sift in the flour, baking powder and salt. Gradually add the butter mixture and make sure they are combined completely. Now add the pinipig and mix once again.

Using a tablespoon make a dough and drop it on the baking sheet. Repeat this until the both the baking sheets are full; ensure that enough spaces are in between each dough.

Bake the cookies on the top and middle part of the preheated oven. Midway during the cooking ensure to rotate the positions of the sheets. The top to the middle and the middle to the top of the oven.

Cooking should take 12 minutes or until the cookies are nicely brown.

Enjoy.