Chinese Pork Adobo

It was funny how I stumbled upon this recipe from my classmate in elementary school. She was shouting out the recipe to her friend and I kinda liked the sound of it. I imagined the taste of the ingredients together....the pork and soy sauce and the sugar... Thanks Kristine!

Adobo is really a Spanish word for seasoning or marinade but Adobo or Philippine Adobo, if you want to call it that, refers to a really popular dish of chicken, pork or a combination of the two or even vegetables slowly cooked in soy sauce, vinegar, crushed garlic, bay leaf, and black peppercorns.

What gives this dish the extra Oooomph, though is the addition of Star Anise. Its enticing smell fills the kitchen as you cook the chinese pork adobo and you can't help but salivate in anticipation.

Ingredients:

400g pork belly, cut into chunks
5 cloves of garlic, minced
3 tbsp of oil
½ cup of soy sauce
½ cup white sugar
1 cup of water
2 tbsp of white vinegar
2 pieces of star anise

♥ This isn't Kristine's exact recipe but I modified it to fit my taste. I added vinegar and changed the measurements

Directions:

• Combine sugar, soy sauce and water. Stir until sugar is dissolved and set aside.
  
• Heat oil in a small pot and sauté garlic until it's a little brown.
• Throw in pork and brown on both sides. Do not add oil. Let the pork fry in its own oil.
• Pour soy sauce and sugar mixture. Simmer until pork is cooked and tender.
• The sauce has thickened as of this time.Add vinegar and simmer for a minute before stirring.
• Add the staranise and simmer for two more minutes.
• Serve with steamed rice.

Perfect lunch! This is the first time I got my mom to try my cooking..

As I was eating this, I thought of Portuguese Food because there are similarities between Spanish and Portuguese cuisine.

Oh, how I would love to taste authentic portuguese dishes! If only I could go on a microvacay with peanutbutter♥,even for a couple of days. I'd call Expedia and immediately book a flight and hotel. The car I would rent at car hire faro airport. Then I'd snap out of my dream and get back to my everyday life...

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Don't forget to join my Blogiversary Giveaway! I'll be giving away some Filipino Snacks and mixes!

Click HERE.

Want some snacks??

My 1st Blogiversary is coming up and I'm really very happy that my circle of friends have grown wider since last year. I didn't think I'd have friends around the globe and I'm really grateful for that. So now, since I'm sharing my everyday life and my culture I thought I'd give away some of my everyday snacks. So you'd know, what goodies I eat.

I'm giving away some chips and other snacks and I'll throw in some mixes too.

( I'm used to shipping snacks because I'm an experienced "snack swapper". If you've read my previous posts.)Here are some of the snacks:

This tastes like real pork rind crackling but is vegetarian so its a little guilt-free.

crispy fried corn kernels,falvored with garlic and salt

Dried Philippine mangoes











Cheese flavored chips











Tamarind Soup Mix with Taro, you can use this to cook sinigang











Kare-Kare Mix













Tocino Mix or sweetened cured pork mix








I'll put up the other giveaway pictures later.

The giveaway will run from July 15th to July 19th. The winner will be announced on July 21st.

These are the 4 possible ways to enter the giveaway:

♥ Leave a comment on why you want these snacks.
♥ Become a follower of my blog,If you're already a follower just say so.
♥ Link me to your blog (or we could exchange links too!), leave a comment that you did so I can link you back.
♥ Blog about this giveaway on your blog then leave a comment that you did

If you do all three then you'll get 4 entries!

I hope you guys would join in! It would be fun!

Kare-Kare

Kare-Kare is a Philippine stew made with a variety of vegetables, stewed oxtail, beef, offal and tripe thickened and flavored by peanut sauce. It is eaten with shrimp paste as a sauce and is often served on special occasions or during Sundays when everybody in the family is at home.

The Shrimp Paste serves as a sauce and is made of salted,fermented and then sautéed micro-shrimps.

You can substitute chicken, meat or seafood in cooking your Kare-Kare or you can even do a vegetable only Kare-Kare if you're a vegetarian.There are also a lot of available mixes in the supermarkets today which you only add to meat and you'll have Kare-Kare but nothing beats the traditional way of cooking it using freshly ground roasted peanuts. Some even add ground rice as well.

Banana Hearts are my favorite veggies mixed in Kare-Kare.

Ingredients:

500g Beef Sirloin, cubed
500g oxtail, cut into 2 inches long
500g ox tripe, boiled twice,washed and cut into 2-inch squares
300g beef tendons
2 banana hearts, sliced diagonally
5 pieces eggplants, sliced diagonally
2 bundle of string beans, cut into 2-inch long
3 bundles bok choy
1 head of cabbage, cut into serving pieces
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium onion,chopped
4 tbsp cooking oil
4 cups ground peanuts
Annato/Achiote oil for color
salt to taste

Directions:

• Boil beef, oxtail, ox tripe and tendons in a big pot until tender. Set aside including the stock you boiled it in.
• In another pot,sauté garlic and onions in oil until onions become transluscent.
• Pour the stock and let it come to a boil. Add the beef, oxtail,tripe and tendons.
• Stir in Annato oil and ground peanuts.Put salt to taste.
• Simmer until the desired thickness of the sauce.
• Add eggplant, banana hearts, string beans,bok choy and cabbage.
  
• Simmer until vegetables are cooked but not everdone.
• Serve with shrimp paste and steamed rice.

 Beef.....veggies.....peanut sauce...shrimp paste...I had such a blessed Sunday!! How was yours?

Dark Chocolate

My friend Dj won  some chocolates for answering something from a magazine and she didn't mind sharing her loot *wink*.

this is my entry and . Have a great week!

Dirty Ice Cream (Sorbetes)

The Philippines is  a hot and humid country. One of the cheap ways to cool down on a hot afternoon is to wait for the "ice cream man" or "mamang sorbetero". The ice cream man usually roams the street with a colorfully painted wooden carts or stainless cart peddling dirty ice cream or "Sorbetes". The wooden cart has two large wooden wheels at the front part to easily push the cart.

Well, Dirty Ice Cream isn't really dirty.It is called as such because of the manner that it's sold: in the street and exposed to dirt and pollution.

Usually, the cart can accommodate three flavors, each in a large metal canister. It is stuffed with shaved ice sprinkled with salt to produce a lower temperature around the metal canisters and keep the sorbetes frozen longer.

Peddlers call the customers attention by ringing a small handheld bell. Usually, there are three options when you buy dirty ice cream. It may be served in a wafer cone, plastic cup or a soft bun.

 These cups are sold for P5.00 ($0.10) each. The flavors are chocolate and cheese.

 

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I have some photos of Dirty Ice Cream from a few months months ago which I also wanna share with you..

There are three flavors, Starwberry, Cheese and chocolate.

  

 

 These are yummy!

This is what I brought for. I'll do my rounds tomorrow,it's late here.
Come see other participants at Kitchen Bouquet.

Car Upgrade

Our car runs a little bit slower nowadays and is making even my little girl sleepy. I guess to set it up on turbo, we need a a turbocharger. This is actually the first time I've heard of this because I'm not really into cars. As long as the car runs, I'm okay with it.

I've been taught a little lesson.The air induction is a major component of the automobile and by forcing air into the system either with a  supercharger or turbocharger  a car's horsepower, torque and  more can be greatly improved.

Now, I want an upgrade. If our car doesn't have a turbocharger I wanna get one and if our car already has one I absolutely want it to be upgraded! My friend got hers from Turbochargerpros.com. She said they have a very wide selection and they back-up the parts with full warranty.

Yay!!

I picked this up from the post office yesterday afternoon. It's the Rachel Ray Cookbook I won from Aggie's Kitchen! Yay!!

I'm so excited to browse and try the recipes from it... Thanks again,Aggie!