Para sa min namang nasa abroad, maswerte na kapag may kaong at nata de coco na tinda sa pinaka malapit na Filipino store, at kapag mayroon tinda, kami na mismo ang gagawa ng sarili naming halo-halo.

One good thing in living here in Phnom Penh is having a very close Filipino store where I can buy ingredients for my daily cooking. Fil-Mart has been a good source of cheese and other native delicacies, and though their prices are a bit pricey, many Filipinos still patronize the shop and their products.

So, going back to my halo-halo. I decided to make this delicious treat the other day. I didn’t prepare much for I can easily buy most of the ingredients at Fil-Mart. I have kaong, nata de coco, cream style corn, sweetened banana, and sweetened camote, leche flan and vanilla ice cream to mix in my halo-halo. I skipped the beans and garbansos for I don’t really like them.

The next thing to do is to get a tall glass and start arranging the ingredients. Line them up as if you’re making a master piece. Make sure that you put a little of everything because you still have to leave space for your crushed ice. Pour the milk on top of the ice and so with the leche flan. Place a scoop of your ice cream and the wait is done! You now have a yummy and very refreshing halo-halo. Enjoy!

Direction and Preparation:

1. Carefully separate egg yolks from egg whites, make sure no egg whites will be mixed up to your egg yolks.

2. Beat the yolks gently for several strokes preventing it from forming too much bubbles.

3. In a separate bowl mix well the condensed milk, evaporated milk, salt,extracts of  lime or dayap rinds (put the dayap rinds in a clean white cloth and squeeze to get extracts of it)

4. Gently put the mixtures together, beating gently to prevent bubbles forming. If bubbles appear after mixing, wear off the bubbles by using a spatula or a spoon.

5. Set aside your mixture and start making your caramel syrup. In low fire, put your mold and the sugar in it.Mix it with a spoon ensuring all the sugar gets melted. Do not burn it or else it will give a bitter taste. Let it stand for at least 10 minutes before putting the mixture in. Cover it with aluminum foil.

6. While doing your caramel syrup, start boiling water for your steamer,when water is boiling, bring your fire into medium heat and put the flan container(s) in the steamer. Cover it tightly and steam for about 15 minutes.

Immediately, I organized all the stuff I bought. Cleaned the fish and washed all the vegetables. Put them in the fridge and started my way cooking lunch. I made vegetable spring rolls for everyone to eat. Then I cooked the bananas.

The bananas are beautiful and they are just the perfect fit for my dessert. I peeled them off and set them aside while waiting for my sugar to be dissolved. As the sugar in the water continues to boil, I added vanilla, bananas, and langka. Covered the pot and waited till my bananas absorbed all the sweetness from the sugar. After sometime, it’s done and I liked it. It’s yummy and it’s really good.

Here’s how you to cook minatamis na saging:

1. Boil 500 ml of water in a pot.
2. Dissolve the brown sugar in the water and bring it to boil.
3. Add 2 tbsp of vanilla to give a nice aroma to the bananas.
4. Put the bananas and cover the pot.
5. Let it simmer until the bananas acquire the color of the sugar.
6. You may also add langka to the boiling if it’s available in your area.
7.  Enjoy your sweetened bananas cold.

To achieve perfectly boiled eggs, put your eggs in a pan. Cover half of the eggs with cold water, and add 2 tbsp of vinegar and a teaspoon of salt. These will help the egg whites to gather together and give a little kick to the taste. Set to boil in high and once boiling, turn the heat off and let it rest for a minute. Turn the heat on again, cover the pan and cook the eggs in medium heat for another 10 minutes. If you’re cooking more eggs, you may want to cook them for a couple of more minutes before letting them cool down.

Once the eggs are cool to crack, take the shells off and cut them into halves, separating the white from the yolk. Put the yolk in a bowl and  together with rest of the ingredients, mix them very well.

Scoop a tablespoon of mixture on top of the eggs and plate them according to your desire. Sprinkle with paprika and serve with rice or bread on the side. Enjoy!

Thanks Gigi for the message, hayaan mo pag gumanda na ang kitchen ko gagawa na ako ng mga videos para inde ka na magprint

Hi Kailey! Thanks for adding me too and I hope you’ll never get tired of my recipes

When I started this blog last year, all I have in mind is to have a portal of recipes that I’ve learned to cook through the years. I thought having an online recipe website would be convenient on my part for I always forget the ingredients of the foods I’ve cooked. I try my best to make it simple and at the same time enjoyable, to make it easier to maintain. I love to take photos of the foods I’ve cooked and they make me hungry too whenever I look at them. Sometimes I even try to pinch myself just to be convinced that I was really the one who cooked them all. I’d say I’ve been a long way and I am liking the journey that I am heading in order to make my family’s tummies stuffed with all the foods that they can think of. Though my knowledge in cooking may be basic, I’m still thankful that it’s leading me to a path that I might be able to improve more.

I have been inspired by many cooking websites all over the world, and there are some that really stands the most like Rasa Malaysia and Simply Recipes. Most of the foods they prepare in their website are simple and yet has elegant touch of presentation. I always adore how they can do it wonderfully and I dream to be like them one day. Someone who is well-known in cooking.

Now, looking back to what I’ve started, I am very much thankful to all my readers. You’re simply making my day whenever I see some 300+ readers on Statcounter, it really means a lot for a newbie like me. Thanks for dropping a comment to my recipes and even sharing it to your family and friends. Definitely Filipino has done a great job too since they’ve started posting my food shots on their Facebook page. It makes my heart melt whenever I read how fellow Filipinos comment on my foods – Ang sarap ng feeling!

I am overwhelmed with these simple gestures. Maraming salamat po sa inyong suporta, sana po wag kayong magsawa at maging guide ko po sana kayong lahat para mapagbuti ko ang aking pagluluto. To all mothers like me who feels incompetent in cooking, bumangon kayo at kuhain ang sandok at kaldero, sabihin ninyo sa inyong sarili na “Ako ang reyna ng kusina, kaya ko to! Isang luto ka lang!”

Happy cooking everybody

Since it’s something that we look forward to in a week, I think making it a little special by prepping some nice meal won’t hurt. Also, enchilada is ideal to eat when you don’t have much time to prepare. It’s easy, yummy, and way healthy!

I love the simplicity in my hubby’s plate for most of the seasoning are just out of my cupboard. Flank steak is a lean, somewhat tough but flavorful cut of beef that benefits from the tenderizing effects of a marinade, if you have the time. It is best cooked medium rare and thinly sliced at an angle.

Here’s how to cook it:

1. Wash the flank steak thoroughly in running water and pat dry with a paper towel.

2. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and place the steak, make sure all the sides are evenly coated. Cover it with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for an hour or two.

3. Preheat the grill to high and coat the rack with olive oil. Place steak on the hot grill. If you are using a gas grill, cover the grill. Grill for 4-6 minutes on each side. Half way through grilling on each side, turn the steak 90° so that you get more grill marks.

4. When the steak has cooked to your preferred level of doneness, remove from the grill and place on a cutting board. Cover with aluminum foil to hold in the heat and to keep the steak from drying out, and let rest for 10 minutes.

5. Serve with your favorite side dish.

Last Wednesday was my husband and I’s 50th month of being together and since he needed to practice for his upcoming paintball match in Malaysia, we weren’t able to celebrate like we normally do every 9th of the month. Being sweet as always, my husband brought the dinner home, only I will cook. He had a plastic full of foods, burgers of different kinds – chicken, beef, and pork, then there’s salmon, mixed veggies, potatoes, and beef fillet. I will write about what I did with the other stuff in my next post.

To wrap up, I ate the salmon, the kids had burgers and potatoes, and my husband had steak. Nom! Nom!

Cooking salmon is easy as 1-2-3 and it’s very simple. Just simply follow the steps and you’ll sure have a nice fish meal.

1. Preheat your pan in medium heat for 3 minutes.
2. Coat salmon with garlic salt, pepper, and olive oil. Then place in the pan and cook for 3 minutes. Turn salmon over, and cook for 5 minutes, or until browned. You will see that salmon is done when it flakes easily with a fork.
3. Transfer the cooked salmon to individual plates, and garnish with lemon slices or buttered mixed vegetables like what I did with my plate.

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Prepare two 9” pans or one 12” cake pan or one 9”x 13” sheet pan by lining with parchment or wax paper.

2. In a bowl, sift the cake flour and add 1 cup of sugar, baking powder and salt.

3. Add the orange juice, oil, and egg yolks in the dry ingredients. Mix them until light and fluffy for 2-3 minutes using an electric mixer.

4. In another bowl, whisk eggwhites until frothy. Add in cream of tartar. Slowly add the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar. Beat the eggwhites until stiff peaks have formed.

5. Gently fold the eggwhites in to the batter.

6. Pour batter in prepared cake pans and bake for approx. 45 minutes.

7. The cake is ready when an inserted wooden skewer or cake tester comes out clean or when cake springs back when lightly pressed with a finger.

8. Loosen the sides with a knife or metal spatula and invert to a metal rack almost immediately. Invert again to another rack to prevent the cake from splitting.

As soon as I arrived home and finished prepping everything I bought for the week, I started to look for some nice octopus recipes on the internet and felt thrilled over the takoyaki recipe. Takoyaki is a famous Japanese dumpling made into balls with cooked octopus inside. Cooking it is pretty much similar with Cambodia’s num kruc, so after a few minutes of figuring out where I’ll get the rest of the ingredients for my takoyaki I told myself “This is it!”

The very first thing you’ll need in cooking takoyaki is your pan. I bought mine at Orussey market for only $3 and it can cook 8 takoyaki at one time. However, it is not non-stick like the ones on the internet. I also went to Lucky Supermarket to grab some more of the ingredients like aonori and bonito powder for the dashi soup.

Here’s how to make Takoyaki:

1. Wash the octopus thoroughly and boil it over high heat for 10-15 minutes. Chop the cooked octopus in bite sizes and put it aside.

2. Meanwhile, use a food processor in grinding the red shrimps. You can also use hibi or dried shrimps if the first one is not available. Once it is grinded, pour a little oil in a frying pan and put in the shrimps. Cook it for 5 minutes and set aside.

3. In a bowl, beat the egg and pour in the cold water. Add the bonito flavor dashi and mix thoroughly.

4. Add the flour little by little, then incorporate all the dry ingredients. Mix well.

5. Heat the takoyaki pan and drizzle a little oil in each hole. Wait until it’s hot.

6. Pour the batter, covering at least 75% of each hole. Add a piece of octopus, a pinch of red shrimps, some green onions,  a little of onions, and aonori. If ever aonori is not available in the market, you can use the regular roasted nori or seaweed and cut it into tiny pieces.

7. Cover each hole with batter and cook for 90 seconds.

8. Turn the takoyaki 90 degrees and cook for 30 seconds.

9. Turn it over again until all sides are golden brown.

10.Line up the cooked takoyaki in a plate and drizzle some aonori and mayonnaise.

11. To make the sauce, combine all the rest of the ingredients in a small bowl and pour a little on top of the dumplings.

12. Enjoy your takoyaki while it is hot.