Stir-Fry Gluten Free Pasta

I reviewed Simplified Dinner: Gluten and Dairy Free Edition by Mystie Winckler and will be sharing my review of the eBook within the week. I tried another recipe in her book and tweaked it a little. This is somewhat easy to make, not as easy as the Chocolate Mousse using Coconut Milk dessert, but still doable if you’re pressed for time. My family loves pasta so I decided to give this one a try.

Here’s what you need:

½ kg Cooked Pasta (gluten-free or any regular pasta will do)

¼ kg Cooked Meat (chicken, pork, beef or any seafood that you like)

Canned mushrooms (I used champignons and shiitake)

Medium bell-pepper (sliced into strips)

4 small tomatoes (cut into wedges)

Onion

Garlic

2 tablespoons Olive oil (for cooking)

Salt and pepper to taste

Here’s how to make it:

Cook pasta according to package instructions (that would be until al dente).

Sometimes we cook then refrigerate or freeze meat for “emergencies” or when we don’t have much time to prepare “complicated” meals. The cooked meat I used here was prepared beforehand by sautéing onion, adding the ground pork and cooking over medium heat then seasoned with salt and pepper. We made a big batch and stored them in separate containers in the freezer.

Heat olive oil in a wok or deep pan.

Sautee the onion and garlic. Add the mushrooms.

Add bell-pepper and tomatoes. Stir-fry the mixture until you smell the aroma of the bell-pepper.

Add the meat and mix.

Add the cooked pasta and stir till everything is evenly mixed.

Enjoy.

Chocolate Mousse using Coconut Milk

Foodie post!

I’m currently reviewing Simplified Dinners – Gluten-Free and Dairy-Free Edition by Mystie Winckler. That review will be posted around the end of May (please watch for it). One of the recipes I wanted to try in her book was the no-frills Chocolate Mousse.

I’ve said before on this blog that I’m a big fan of easy-to-make dishes (and that includes desserts). This one caught my eye because of one ingredient in particular – coconut milk. Out here in my part of the world, this is plentiful, can be had freshly squeezed from grated coconut meat and costs very cheap (about 60 US cents). The local name is “gata”.

I modified the recipe because I forgot to refrigerate the coconut milk…

Here are the ingredients:

2 cups coconut milk

2 heaping tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tablespoons of honey

1 tablespoon of vanilla extract (I ended up with this much because my hand shook a little while holding the spoon)

Here’s how to make it:

You should refrigerate the coconut milk at least an hour before you make it. Take my word for it. I forgot that part of the recipe and dove straight into the next step.

Blend all the ingredients for 90 seconds or so. Serve immediately (if you refrigerated it) or cover and chill. In my case, here’s the next step:

Freeze the mixture for about 2 to 3 hours. Because of my mistake the mixture was all liquid and not looking very “mousse”-like right after the blending. After leaving it in the freezer, it ended up looking a bit like chocolate ice-cream.

Feed to family. They loved it.

Another lesson learned, when you’re trying to salvage a dish sometimes it turns out better than expected…

One note about the coconut milk, I used freshly squeezed coconut milk from freshly grated coconut meat. My Beloved, who’s the expert when it comes to local ingredients, suggested this versus buying the coconut milk a day ahead then freezing it before using it, to avoid possible spoilage. There’s a “wet market” near where I live so we don’t buy canned coconut milk because the freshly squeezed variety is easily available and cheaper than the canned one.

I hope you enjoy it.

 

The Chatter Blog’s Mamo Bars

This is a foodie post….

I picked up this recipe over at The Chatter Blog (all credits go to the wonderful blogger there) many weeks ago. The recipe itself was in a comment to a post in that blog, which I had a hard time finding to link to in this post. I just did a copy-paste-print job when I got the recipe; the original comment/recipe is at the end of this post.

Here’s my version:

Ingredients:

(About) 1 cup honey

(About) 1 cup peanut butter

1 cup Hershey’s unsweetened cocoa powder

(About) 1/2 cup corn flakes

(About) 3/4cup instant oatmeal (Allergen note: Oatmeal used was not gluten-free. I’m currently reviewing an eBook about gluten- and dairy-free meals and this dish was done before said review started.)

A few drops of olive oil (for the baking dish)

I had more than a cup of raisins the days before I made this but my youngest son managed to finish it all  off before I could make the Mamo bars, it would have been great to have them…

The ingredients are just estimates because I didn’t want to use so many different cups to measure each and have to wash them all up later, too.

How to make it:

1. Boil the honey then add peanut butter.
2. Stir the mixture until it looks creamy. My peanut butter had a few nuts in it so it didn’t look too smooth, which was what the original recipe called for.
3. Add the oatmeal and corn flakes. Then add the cocoa powder. (This is where I changed it just to make the sure the oatmeal gets cooked). You can add the raisins or whatever else you might want to put in now. You got to do this bit quickly because it gets really sticky and hard.
4. Smooth out the mixture in a baking pan or dish. I didn’t spray the dish I used because I didn’t have any on hand. Instead I used a little olive oil so it wouldn’t stick.
5. I let the mixture cool – this is where I finally followed the original recipe. But I think you need to cut it into chunks before it cools completely. I discovered it couldn’t be sliced very easily once hardened.

Prepare thyself. This yummy sweet treat will give your jaws (and teeth) a work-out!

The whole family loved it and has asked me to make it again. I hope you’ll enjoy it, too.

My next dish to try in the coming weeks:  Mustang Koji’s Tiramisu Mechanic Style….

And this is the original Comment-Recipe from The Chatter Blog:

Everything is “1 CUP”. But I double it and put the mixture in a cake pan. Cool it. Then cut it.

1 cup honey
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup cacao powder
1 cup of other stuff to add (craisins, rasisins, whatever you like)

Bring honey to a boil. Add peanut butter. Stir until smooth and creamy. Turn off heat and quickly add cacao powder. Stir it in, mixing in other ingredients at the same time is easier.

It gets VERY stiff.

Make sure the pan is sprayed. Add the mixture. Smooth it out. Let cool.

When it is cool I always flip on to a cutting board. Wipe off the spray with a paper towel. Then cut in to little chunks.

Easy peasy! 

Thank you so much Colleen for sharing this!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Lunchtime

That was today’s lunch. I actually had another photo, taken with the regular cam, of lunch yesterday. It was too late when I remembered that it was phoneography month so I took another one with the phone’s camera to play along.

Lunch was a modified version of our local “sopas” (literally…soup)…and how can a true-blue Asian have any meal without rice?

For the curious foodies:

Ingredients:

Boiled chicken strips

Carrots

Wombok (we call it Baguio pechay, I’m not sure what it is in English)

Spices: Ginger, Pepper, Salt (unfortunately this one had lots of it)

Water

Shell pasta. Or macaroni pasta. Actually whatever pasta you have in the kitchen will do.

How to cook it:

Cook the chicken in boiling water. You can keep the soup stock afterwards for another dish or day. Use your fingers or a knife to strip the meat off the bones. Set the meat aside.

The chicken we used were actually left-overs from another dish we had made earlier. But if you’re starting with fresh chicken, you can use the same soup stock you cooked the chicken with.

Add the ginger, pepper and pasta. Cook pasta till al dente.

Add carrots and wombok. Simmer till veggies are cooked. Finally add the salt to taste.

As for the rice, just cook/boil rice grains in water over a low fire till white and soft.

I left out the evaporated milk which is normally added at the end. My kids don’t like it with the milk.

There you have it folks. My “lunchtime” take on this week’s photo challenge hosted by The Daily Post. Check out the other lunchtime-themed photos taken by bloggers around the world by clicking here or taste a sample by clicking any of the links below. Bon Apetit!

• Weekly Photo Challenge: Lunchtime (katiedaisy921.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Lunchtime (juliapulia.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Lunchtime (mightwar.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Lunchtime (dramaqueenunderthesun.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Lunchtime (anditooblog.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Lunchtime (lumar1298yahoo.com)
• weekly photo challenge: lunchtime (starlight427.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Lunchtime (beijingcityphoto.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Phoneography Challenge: Lunchtime (sukiesoriginal.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Lunchtime! (windagainstcurrent.com)

Pinoy Thursdays: Maja Blanca!

Okay, I forgot all about Pinoy Thursdays last week. I mean, it totally slipped my mind. I remembered it was Thursday only after the day was almost was gone.

A few weeks ago, my Beloved gave me the opportunity to fulfill an old wish: to make maja blanca. This is a popular Pinoy sweet dessert that looks as good as it tastes. Here’s how mine turned out:

 

What you need for this are the following:

1 baking dish (an 8 or 9 inch pan will do)

2 cups coconut milk

1 cup of corn kernels

1 cup white sugar

1 cup cornstarch

1 1/4 cup water

Next,

Dissolve the cornstarch in the about ½ cup of water. Set aside.

Cook the coconut milk, ¾ cup water and sugar in a saucepan over low to medium heat.  When it boils, add the corn kernels and cornstarch mixture. Let it simmer while stirring continuously until the mixture thickens. Turn off the heat and pour the mixture into the dish.

Let the maja blanca cool.

The traditional recipe calls for fried coconut grind as toppings. I like to keep things simple so I didn’t add it this time round but it does help to balance the taste and texture of the maja blanca.

Enjoy!