Posts Tagged ‘soup’
Cream of Oyster Mushroom Soup
Cream of Oyster Mushroom Soup
We’re back home! Our long weekend in Manila was great, but boy am I glad to finally be home! Home to my kitchen where my fingers are itching to cook something up.
Brazil Brazil, Manila
Brazil Brazil, Manila
PhP700+ per head is not cheap and I’m not sure it’s worth it.
Cheaverz – Cebu
About 2 1/2 weeks ago, my mother-in-law was operated for a tumor removal and reconstruction. In between taking shifts staying at the hospital, taking care of the Baby, and managing our every day routine, we have been relying on food deliveries, take-outs, and pick-ups rather than home-cooked food. After 3 days of fastfood and Lechon Manok, we wanted something that would closely resemble our home-cooked meals without the time and effort to make it. I have 2 places I can think of that can provide what we want and deliver too! Golden Cowries and Cheaverz. I decided to try the latter. Why? Because it was our first time. In the past, we’ve probably had food delivered from Golden Cowrie and it was always good, so this time we were willing to try Cheaverz.
Clam Mushroom Soup
First of all, I want to greet you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR! Let us pray that we all have a blessed year. I feel that 2010 will be great!
It is with a mixture of sadness and happiness that I say goodbye to year 2009. The past month was crazy! busy, busy, busy!!! I have actually reached some moments where I wish my body could be at 2 or 3 different places at one time! Haha! I am somehow shocked that I manage to pull off the holidays gracefully and relieved that things will soon come back to our regular routine.
Sinigang na Manok / Chicken Sour Soup
This is the continuation to last night’s post, Sinigang Juice. With the juice, I made a superb Sinigang na Manok for dinner. This was my first time to make sinigang from scratch and I have no regrets. Contrary to what I thought, this was not at all hard to do. This was also my first time to make sinigang with chicken. I don’t know if it was the sour broth or the chicken, but I loved this sinigang. The taste was truly phenomenal and one of the best sinigangs I’ve ever tasted.
Sinigang Juice
I’ve never made sinigang from scratch before. For so many years, I’ve relied on sinigang powder mixes, never imagining that I was missing out on so much. Then, I got pregnant and decided to make the conscious effort to stay away from these mixes, broth cubes, and etc. From now on, I would try to make my own broth and soups from scratch. And after much research, I’ve discovered that making these dishes is not that much harder. In fact, today I decided to make sinigang. This was a day of firsts; because not only was I going to make it from scratch but I was going to use chicken, which I’ve never done before. At home, we’ve always had shrimp or beef sinigang, never chicken. But I wanted to give it a try. So, I went to the grocery store, bought 2 packs of sampalok/tamarind and the rest of my ingredients. From what I’ve read, sinigang can also be made from green mangoes, santol, basically anything sour. Today, I decided to go with sampalok/tamarind. Here’s how it went:
Don Merto’s Restaurant
Don Merto's not-so-many item selections
I had my routine check –up the other day. Everything turned out fine except for a little anemia.
“Nothing to worry about”, the Doctor said.
I don’t even have medications. I just need a little change in my diet; focus more on foods rich in iron. Did you know that sea vegetables are high in iron? I didn’t.
Anyways, I called Hubby. They were strolling around SM with Baby and Dad. Seeing that it was close to noon, I told them to pick a restaurant and I would meet them there. They decided on Don Merto’s. It was our first time to dine at this branch. We were saddened when we found out that they close their original branch at Banilad Town Center. It was much closer to our house and an easy choice for busy dinner nights. But with the construction of the flyover, they unfortunately had to close. Soon after, they opened a branch in SM Northwing and another in Escario Street, which caters for a bed and breakfast. I’ve never been to the place as it is a little out of our way, but I hope to someday. Especially since upon inspection of their items for sale in SM, it was a great disappointment to see that they have little choice to buy from. Gone are the many products they used to sell in Banilad. I wonder what happened. I used to love their frozen yogurt and would buy boxes of it, but unfortunately it’s not available anymore. Even dad’s favorite items are not available anymore. Perhaps, they sell them at Escario Street. That’s why I will try to go one of these days. The SM branch is a lot smaller than their former branch. There seems to have many changes but one thing that has stayed is their themed meals per day.
Chicken Tinola
Don’t you love rain? I do. When I was younger and going to school, I used to hate it. It’s only in the past couple of years that I’ve come to enjoy it. One of my favorite things to do is sit at the window bench listening and watching the rain fall, sometimes indulging myself to a good cup of hot choco. I don’t know what it is, but the air around seems calmer; almost Zen-like at times. Coincidentally, the rain season has arrived. It has rained every day for this past week. Unfortunately, with the Zen-like atmosphere, rain also brings the usual colds and coughs. Thankfully, we have not been affected, especially Baby.
As it was raining this afternoon, I looked at my recipe box and thought to myself, “This is the chance to make good soups”. I stumbled on a copy of Chicken Tinola and instantly knew I would make this tonight. I mentally took note if I had all the ingredients and just to make this even more perfect, I remembered that my mother-in-law had given me 2 huge pieces of sayote the day before. Perfect, indeed. The only thing I didn’t have in my pantry was the Kalamunggay, but thankfully our neighbors have some growing in their backyard and give them out for free.
My mom would make this soup for me when I was sick, but instead of using sayote, she would use green papaya. I like it either way. Others like to cook it with potatoes, too. Chicken tinola was also one of my cravings when I was pregnant. I went for 2 weeks, eating only Chicken Tinola. Although, hubby had to buy it out because I hated cooking it myself. My ob-gyne encouraged this craving because unknown to some, Kalamunggay is very nutritious. I remember reading in a book that it contains high levels of calcium and is vitamin-filled!
Salmon Belly Sinigang Soup
Sinigang is a popularly known Filipino soup. Originally, the broth came from natural agents such as tamarind to extract the flavors that make this soup otherwise called as the “Sour Soup”. Although less common than tamarind, other agents such as santol, guavas, green mango, green pineapple, and kamias can also be used. Nowadays, powder mix packs are available in the market to replace the manual extraction. Sinigang is unbelievably easy to make. It can be made with different meats and seafood (beef, pork, fish, shrimps, and shellfish). Take your pick of vegetables, most commonly radish, tomatoes, kangkong leaves, spinach, mustard leaves, string beans, camote tops, eggplant, singkamas, and more.
The Gustavian
I guess by now most of the people in Cebu have visited the new structure in Ayala Center called The Terraces. The Terraces is an expansion of the mall, which was originally called the lagoon. It features mostly restaurants and favors alfresco eating with their outdoor look. And who wouldn’t want to eat outdoors when you have a beautiful view of fountains, luscious greens, and people passing by. The first restaurant we decided to try was The Gustavian.
The Gustavian made a name for itself when it settled its first branch in Banilad, along the road going to Maria Luisa. I had heard a lot of good and bad feedbacks and I wanted to check the place myself. We live in Banilad but unfortunately the construction of the flyover was taking place and going to The Gustavian was kind of a hassle at the time. So I was glad to see that they opened another branch in The Terraces.
We got in the restaurant and immediately I was very impressed with the decors. The atmosphere welcomes you to an air of coziness mixed with sophistication; an ambiance which is very hard to achieve. I took a glance at the menu and I now understood what people meant about the prices. They were in fact a little steep. They had steaks at P1,500. Sandwiches cost P280 and up. Main courses were around P400-P600. Salads started at P300. It is definitely a restaurant to go to for special occasions only. But then again, with steaks costing that much, you know, you are definitely eating good meat. Since we didn’t feel like breaking the bank that night, we stuck to the seafood portion of the menu. There, the prices ranged from P400-P600. I was pacing back and forth on whether to choose the sole fish or the salmon. I prefer the sole fish because it is less dry than the salmon, but I was also attracted to the salmon because it was cooked with a dill cream sauce, which I really wanted to try. I’ve been trying to perfect that sauce at home and I still can’t manage to accomplish that.
