Mirsbin’s Kitchen

I am so relieved that he’s eating again or should I say that he did not lose his appetite. One thing that the doctors feared when he’s taking the treatments already. But I’m really glad that he requests for food that he wants to eat. A day after his chemo, we celebrated Ate Bong’s birthday in Zensho. He specifically requested that he wanted Japanese food.

Food was really good in Zensho plus the kids enjoyed walking around the room barefoot. We got the function room since we didn’t want Manny to be exposed to other diners. We had the usual tempura, japanese rice, sukiyaki, salmon sashimi thinking of it makes me want to eat there again.

I loved the way Zensho presented the maki and the sushi. Sarap kunan ng pic.

We invited friends for Valentine’s day. A simple celebration where we had some close single friends, it was also partly my sister’s birthday celebration. We had salad with kani sticks and everything red with mango dressing, plus seafood pasta in olive oil and the all time best sellers, lamb chops and mashed potatoes.
It was a simple event, we ended the dinner by watching Shall We Dance.

It was sunny when Katrina, Janet and I headed to the NLEX for an out of town foodtrip. It was a series of food adventures that we wanted to try after the cooking class in ISCAHM was over. First it was a trip to Binondo where we sampled different dimsums and ate at 3 different restos in one day. We had dimsum in Wa Ying, Lunch at Sincerity where we ordered Buttered Chicken. We then went to the Holland shop where we did some hopia shopping.

On the second trip we went to Quiapo to buy kitchen stuff. But of course we first went to Golden Fortune where again we had dimsum for breakfast. After a tiring day of buying and haggling we went to Teriyaki boy in Ermita then went to Hizon’s to buy goodies for Pasalubong.

This time it was different, Mother Kat asked me if I wanted to go to Pampanga. I said yes immediately since I wanted a different scenery and to get some fresh air. We headed off to Clark field Pampanga, where we had lunch at a Veteran’s Club. It was open to the public and they do serve good of spare ribs. Along with the prime ribs which costs only P160.00 for a whole meal it had a dinner roll, mashed potatoes or rice, buttered veggies or buttered corn . It was really good!

We then headed to Puregold for some PX shopping . We vowed to do this again but we were thinking of different places already. We were laughing as one of my friends called and asked where I was. I told her we were in Pampanga because we wanted to eat. So the next agenda, again is to eat and buy the freshest strawberries in Baguio. Bigger plans are up ahead too like sampling the Peking duck in Beijing, eating dimsum at Causeway bay in Hongkong and of course eat and just eat in Bangkok. For the meantime I have to save some money first before I can join them for the out of country food trip.

I’m running out of fish recipes already, my family started this fish diet for a week already. So far we’ve had baked salmon and grilled salmon already. Then the other day was grilled tuna with a lot of garlic and virgin coconut oil (not for flavoring but Manny needs it as a supplement). Then I’ve just started to be familiar with the names of several other fishes – Matambaka, Asuhos, Danggit ( I only had it when it was dried first time I saw this fresh) of course I know Bangus, Tilapia and Galunggong.

For the Asuhos, I cooked it in “gata” or coconut milk. Then it was a whole week of paksiw na isda and pinangat. Then sinigang in tamarind. Hoping to get new ideas before I go back to Farmer’s this week.

My brother likes baked and grilled I sure hope I can think of something that’s steamed but with a lot of flavor. Please let me know if you have other recipes, it’s not supposed to be pan fried so daing na bangus is really out of the list. It should either be baked, grilled or steamed or of course the usual pangat, sinigang and paksiw.

It was Oktoberfest in 2002 when we I was invited by my friend, Micky Fenix to taste and check out the beer in Dusit Hotel Nikko. It used to be a German resto complete with a big beer brewing machine in the middle. I’ve never been back but my brother told me that they now serve freshly brewed San Miguel beer. I wasn’t really after the beer but I wanted to try out German dishes. As pulutan, we had an all meat platter from lamb chops to grilled beef and a lot of sausages. We we’re really full when we finished. All those meat that was either grilled or fried.

In another get together at Craic an Irish pub in Jupiter street way back again in 2002, we also had beer that time while watching Top TV commercials. What I really liked are the pig knuckles and the crispy beef that was named I think after an actor. I’m not sure if it was Tom Cruise or somebody else.

As for me, beer drinking is just a once in a blue moon thing but I really do enjoy making pulutan for the my friends. They will have the usual chicharon, peanuts or garlic mushrooms, but here are two recipes that they’ve enjoyed and it’s good “ulam” material too

Here are two recipes that have ketchup as a sauce, I’ve made it a number of times but I sure want to share it with you the next time you have a beer drinking night

Shrimps in Sweet and Spicy sauce

1 kilo of shrimps or prawns
1 head of garlic
1 medium sized onion
1 cup ketchup
2 cups of 7-up or sprite
chili sauce

Saute the garlic and onions until brown, then add the shrimps. Before the shrimps turn orange add the 7-up or Sprite then let it simmer for 5 minutes. Add the ketchup, chili sauce and season with salt and pepper. Cook until the sauce becomes thick. You can also try to add some sugar to make it a little sweet.

Sausages with Caramelized Onions

1 pack of frankfurters or any hotdog, sliced diagonally (except the red kind)
1 cup onions
2 tbps olive oil
1 cup ketchup
2 tbsps sugar
1 tbsp soy sauce
tabasco (optional)

Saute onions in olive oil until caramelized. Once the onions are a bit brown add the hotdogs or frankfurters then cook for 3 mins. Pour the ketchup, soy sauce and sugar and let it simmer for 5 minutes. Add tobasco or chili sauce if you want to make it spicy then season with salt and pepper.