Afritada

The Filipino people have a long history, starting with their indigenous native people, then being conquered and colonized by the Chinese, the Moors, the Spaniards, and then the Americans in the earlier part of the 20th century.  Their culinary style reflects all of these influences, and the food is rich with history and various flavors.  The Philippines is an archipelago of about 7000 islands in the Southeastern China sea, and it sits right on the equator so unlike the cold and seasonal climate of most of Northern Asia, the Philippines is hot, humid, and is the home to some of the world's most prized tropical beaches and rain forests.  From dishes cooked with native coconut milk and seafood, to spicy curry style foods influenced by the Moors, and more importantly, the tomato and spice braised meats and stews based on the cooking methods of the Spaniards, there is something for every palate in the Filipino culinary repertoire.

Afritada, or apritada, is a dish that was influenced by the Spaniards, and perfected in the province region of Pampanga, where my Dad hails from.  It's a dish of braised meats and vegetables in a tomato based sauce, and it's rich and wonderful when served with rice.  The most popular way to make it in the Philippines is with pork, since it's more readily available than beef, but the version I made is with beef.

Creative brainstorming

My tiny apartment has not yet recovered from the holidays.

I live in a small 850 ft.² flat in suburban San Diego with my husband, two teenage sons, and our German Shepherd dog. So you can imagine how cramped we are in this tiny space, but I am slowly starting to weed through things to narrow down the amount of stuff we have. While I do that, I am attempting to beautify it and finally make things feel a little more permanent. We have been in this unit now for just over a year, so I feel as if I can finally relax enough now to make our space feel a bit more personable.

So with that in mind, the projects I am thinking of working on include:

Introduction

It's time to put on the pretentious hat and talk about myself for a few paragraphs. I'm terrible at introductions, and I probably should have done this as a first post, but that shows how much of a socially awkward being I tend to be at times.

More after the jump, and the full monty is also posted on the About Me tab up above.

Simple baked salmon & salad with home made croutons

Such a simple, simple dinner.

Baked salmon & salad.

The salmon fillet was drizzled lightly with olive oil, and lightly sprinkled with kosher salt, black pepper, and herbs du provence before being baked in the oven. Once it comes out it's going to get a light sauce of fresh lemon juice and melted butter.

The salad is a simple lettuce leaf salad with a good quality bleu cheese dressing (I don't make that on my own... yet) and the croutons were made of a crusty french baguette cut into cubes. I put the cubes of bread into a ziploc bag, and into the bag went 1/8 cup of good quality olive oil, 1/8 stick of butter, two cloves of garlic finely minced, a pinch of kosher salt, a pinch of herbs du provence (to tie it into the salmon) and a few cracks of black pepper. Close the bag, shake together to make sure each cube of bread gets some of the butter/oil, and then bake at 400F until toasty.

Simple dinners are sometimes the most satisfying.

Basic Stir Fry

You want stir fry? I got your stir fry right here.

This has no name, because it's just your basic protein stir fry with mixed veg. Recipe after the jump. I also don't have photos for this because my Nikon is in the shop getting a tune up and sensor cleaning. My last trip to Big Sur introduced dirt onto the sensor that the camera couldn't self clean, but anyway, I digress.

On to the food!

Hello, 2012!

I am a slacker.

At least when it comes to updating this thing, indeed I am. I have been busy otherwise, with baking and cooking, working on my first quilt (ran out of cloth and still need to buy batting), sewing other projects (I made my first dog collar last night and it's adorable!), and putting away all traces of the 2011 holidays.

I still need to learn how to edit photos from mobile uploads but I suspect I'll end up using my DSLR more often since the picture quality on my phone is terrible. It's very grainy, vintage 70s colouring with faded tones in the wrong spots and that's without even trying to make it look that way, ala retro photo apps and editing.

I also ordered business cards from VistaPrint. Not that I plan on using this site as a business, but simply so that when I gift something I make, I can stick one of those cards in with the package. I think I picked a design that's playful and whimsical enough to match the intent of what I'm doing here, and soon I'll update the banner and background to match. Oh, and I made a Twitter account for this site as well.

I guess I'm making this official then. But there is so much to do, so much to update, blog pages to create, css sheets to design for the functionality of this site. That's also not counting everything I'm trying to keep up with in my offline life.

One thing at a time.

Fresh paint!

Well, not really fresh paint, but akin to the stuff because it's a new start. A blank slate, so to speak.


It's the holidays, and it's the best reason to go crazy in the kitchen. I love to experiment with recipes, and while I tend to be a somewhat picky eater, I like to try new cooking techniques. I did my first baklava and brazo de mercedes 2 weeks ago with HUGE success. I hope to keep that trend up.


My family is a mix of Spanish, Filipino, and American, and we typically celebrate on the eve, what we call Noche Buena (Spanish for 'good evening'). It's traditionally from Spain and all their one-time colonies, where midnight mass is attended and then family and friends gather for food, company, and gift exchange. To contrast the American way of celebrating, with gift exchange on Christmas morning and dinner that night, those of us who do Noche Buena sleep in on Christmas morning and then spend the rest of our day playing with our new toys. I like it :)


But this means heavy prep the day prior, as my menu is always ambitious. Here it is:

Sigh, I know it's sideways. Blogger app won't let me manipulate it.

So I guess I'll have recipes and photos to share, and very soon. This will either be a success, or a lesson to me as a fail blogger.


Until then, ciao!