Category: Recipe

It’s been a while since we made this at home.  I don’t know why we hardly prepare clams when they’re so easy to fix.  I usually order this dish in my favorite local restaurant. We love the garlicky broth and how simple this dish is!

Clams in Garlic with White Wine and Tomatoes (adapted from www.food.com)

2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (or butter)
4 garlic cloves, smashed
1/3 cup Italian parsley, chopped
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 lb littleneck clams (or Manila clams or small clams of your choice)
Directions:

To the pan, add butter,garlic, half of the parsley and the hot pepper flakes; fry for 1 minute. Add wine; bring to boil over medium high heat, add clams, cover and steam until clams open, about 5 minutes. Discard any clams that do not open.
Sprinkle with parsley.
Ladle clams into small bowls and offer plenty of crusty bread to soak up the delicious broth.

I had this recipe in my bookmarks for a while now and last night I finally made it.  I was craving for chicken wings but we didn’t have any chicken wings, so to satisfy the buffalo chicken cravings, I decided to make this pasta dish( we had chicken breasts that I needed to use anyway).  I really liked the cheesy pasta (but Hubby thinks it still needed more cheese) and the spicy chicken/blue cheese combo. I’ll have to add this recipe to my favorite pasta dishes to keep.

Buffalo Chicken Macaroni and Blue Cheese (www.canyoustayfordinner.com)

1  cup 1 % milk

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 tablespoon butter

¾ cup extra sharp cheddar cheese (3 oz)

½ cup crumbled blue cheese (2 oz)

4 cups cooked elbow shaped pasta

1 lb chicken breast, cooked and chopped into bite sized pieces

1/2-2/3  cup hot buffalo wing sauce (recommended: Frank’s Red Hot)

Stir the milk and cornstarch in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer. Stir in the butter. When the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, add the cheddar cheese and stir until the cheese has melted and the mixture is silky and well blended.

Place your cooked, drained pasta in a large bowl. Pour the hot sauce over it and stir to combine.

In a separate bowl, toss the cooked chicken with the hot sauce, evenly coating and moistening the meat evenly. Use more or less hot sauce depending on your spice preference.

Gently stir the chicken into the pasta, followed by the crumbled blue cheese. Serve immediately.

A couple of weeks ago I had a hard time sleeping and found myself watching late night cooking shows.  The chef/host made this simple no cook cheesecake dessert and I knew I wanted to make it the next day.  This is so easy and tasty!  I’m really surprised at how well it turned out, in spite of being no bake.  I think this will be my go to easy cheesecake recipe. We’ve made it twice already in less than a month!

Recipe From Livewellnetwork.com

Ingredients:

I’ve prepared this dessert 3 times this week.  I like it so much because it reminds me of the Philippines.  I grew up eating a lot of banana que in the Philippines, it’s a popular snacks in the country.  Banana-que is just deep fried bananas.  I got the bananas in the asian market because I typically don’t find nice plantains in the local grocery stores here. Saging na Saba (Cardava Banana) is the kind of banana I used in this simple dessert. Recipe from Great Easy Meals (food network cookbook).

Directions:

Melt 2 Tablespoons butter in a skillet, Add 2 sliced bananas and 2 tablespoon brown sugar(I added more).  Cooked until golden and syrupy (about 5 minutes). Spoon over vanilla ice cream.

I made this chicken dish last week and it’s really easy, yet delicious.  I got the sage from our garden.  This little kind of things make me happy:-) I got the recipe from Everyday with Racheal Ray magazine (September, 2012).

Chicken with Sage:

3 tbsp butter,12 sage leaves, 4 skinless and boneless chicken breasts;pounded, 1 cup chicken broth, 2 tbsp. lemon juice, 2 tbsp. capers, 1/4 tsp. cornstarch

In skillet,melt butter. Press sage on chicken and cook, turning , 6 minutes; transfer to plate. Whisk broth,lemon juice,capers and cornstarch into skillet and reduce,6 minutes. Pour over chicken. Serves 4.

I’m not a big Rachael Ray fan but I subscribed to her magazine because I like food magazines that have lots of food pictures, thus easy to follow whenever I’m cooking.  I got this salad recipe from the latest issue of Everyday with Rachael Ray.  Simple and delicious pasta salad.  I paired it with chicken marsala.

I had my friend Faye and her family for dinner tonight.  It was such a nice summer day!  I wanted to eat outside and  grill some pork belly and bangus (milkfish). We got lucky because it looks like tomorrow we will have some rain again.  Anyways, for dessert, I prepared this Filipino dessert, Buko Pandan.  I got all of the ingredients from the asian market here in WA.  Pandan (screwpine leaves) can be bought frozen in most Asian markets( I didn’t get any) because I opted to prepare it the easy way and use pandan extract.  I also added nata de coco(pandan flavor) because I like the texture of it.  I got the recipe online (www.panlasangpinoy.com)

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup young coconut strips (Buko)
• 5 ounces condensed milk
• 8 ounces Table cream or all-purpose cream
• 3 ounces powdered gelatin
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 6 drops Buko Pandan flavoring
• 2 scoops vanilla ice cream (optional)
• 1/2 cup small tapioca pearls, cooked (optional)

Cooking Procedure

1. Combine water and powdered gelatin then stir using a spoon.
2. Add Buko Pandan flavoring then stir until everything is evenly distributed.
3. Heat a saucepan and pour-in the mixture. Bring to a boil while continuously stirring.
4. Turn off the heat and transfer the mixture to a mold. Allow the temperature to cool. The texture of the mixture should be firm once cooled. You may also place this inside the refrigerator for faster results (allow the temperature to go down before putting-in the refrigerator).
5. Combine condensed milk, table cream, tapioca pearls, and young coconut then mix well. Allow the texture to thicken by chilling in the refrigerator or freezer for a few hours.
6. Slice the firm gelatin into 1 inch cubes then combine with the condensed milk-cream-young coconut-tapioca mixture.
7. Transfer to individual serving platters or cups then top with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream.
8. Serve and Enjoy.

More Pictures of our dinner tonight:

Quick, easy and delicious Chicken Marsala recipe I saw online.  I made this tonight and will most likely cook this again:-)