Have a Merry Cremas with Alaska Crema!

All year round, especially during the cold months of December and January, we find ourselves longing for some good ol’ comfort food. But not just any kind of comfort food, we crave for something rich, hearty, delectable and, most of the time, creamy. That’s why, they say, calories don’t count during the holidays. 😉

We were invited as judges at the Merry Cremas Food Bazaar in Eastwood last month. Good thing it was a Sunday so Ken and I were able to go together.

We know, from personal experience, that there’s a wide range of dishes you can prepare using Alaska Crema all-purpose cream. We knew there’ll be a ton of desserts and pastries there, but we were really hoping to see more savory dishes. There were only a few who did. Thankfully, they were all quite successful with their dishes too along with the food purveyors who served desserts.

With that said, let’s begin with our top favorites from the Merry Cremas Food Bazaar in Eastwood. These might help you with recipe ideas for your celebrations or any holiday, especially for Noche Buena and Media Noche.

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Bohol Bee Farm : a Foodie Haven

When we planned to travel to Bohol back in 2012 for our birthdays, Ken kept on insisting that we pick Bohol Bee Farm for our accommodation. He told me nonstop about how good their food was and that I’ll love our stay there. He was 100% spot on!

What we love most about Bohol Bee Farm is they continue to stay true to what they are all about. They boast of using organic ingredients in preparing their dishes, which means no fertilizers, pesticides or anything harmful were used in their farming. Most of them are produced from their own farms, and right there at Bohol Bee Farm (read about our tour on Travelsilog -soon!). They highly support organic farming and, in turn, has given jobs to Boholanos, especially with their livelihood projects at the farm.

Since they were also planting their own herbs and vegetables, you can taste the freshness of the ingredients. And the food wasn’t just healthful, but quite good too.

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Beef Pochero Recipe

As you might already know, our nanay is an excellent cook that’s why we’ve been eating very well at home since we were little kids because she can whip up a delicious meal even with a meager budget during the time when she was the only breadwinner in our family (which was almost 20 years of my life, that’s why we love her so much 🙂 ). Her specialties are too many to mention, but there are some dishes that really stand out for me. Two of which are her Kare-Kare (we already shared the recipe here!) and Beef Pochero.

Since Ken and I have been helping her with finances at home, we can now request for a repeat of some of her dishes as long as we provide the budget. 😀 Most of the time, though, she’ll just do it because she enjoys seeing us devouring (yes, that’s the appropriate word) her dishes. Now, she has another reason to cook her wonderful dishes – she loves sharing her recipes here on our food blog! Yay for all of us! 😀

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NACI Comfort Food at Bonifacio Global City

If there’s one thing we all (yes, including you!) have in common, it’s our love for pure, unadulterated comfort food. The difference lies on where we find that sense of satisfaction. It could be your nanay’s home-cooked meals, or simply from a restaurant that means business when it comes to comfort food (no pun intended). And we recently discovered one that takes it seriously, they had to add it to their name – NACI Comfort Food.

NACI Comfort Food is a family-owned restaurant located at Bonifacio Global City. We were invited to have a taste of some of their dishes, including their Kid-friendly Meals. Though they’re hours away from our home, we thought it’ll be a perfect time to revisit BGC. The restaurant was initially located at Greenhills, and they later on moved to BGC.

We got to meet Nadine (daughter of Lovely Rivero) and Natasha. They told us a little bit about their restaurant. We initially thought the name was an abbreviation or something, but we later found out that the name “Naci” actually means “rice” in Kapampangan. The menu, however, at NACI Comfort Food is not merely inspired by Kapampangan cuisine, but a fusion of various flavors. Some of the dishes at Naci Comfort Food were even concoctions of the late Chef Ed Quimson. They also have a Cohen-friendly menu. Continue reading NACI Comfort Food at Bonifacio Global City

Zoricho: Putting a Spotlight on Philippine Sausages

One late afternoon, my friend and I got out of work early (a rare feat when you’re working in the hotel industry), so we decided to hang out and grab a bite. We went to this restaurant and started ordering, but a few minutes in, the server approached our table and apologized since all the food we ordered were unavailable. Frustrated and really hungry, we beelined to Zoricho, just across the diner we were previously in.

It’s a good thing I just got my pay check that day, so I wasn’t intimidated much by their chic and upscale-looking interior. 😀 Here are photos of their restaurant in Robinsons Galleria, Ortigas that I grabbed from Gianne‘s blog since I didn’t have a decent camera at that time.

If I only had Php 500 in my wallet, I wouldn’t even dare steal a peek inside. 😀 But don’t be fooled, the dishes on their menu are actually affordable. My friend had been craving for lasagna, so just imagine her delight when she saw one on the menu.

A classic done tastefully, Zoricho Lasagna (Php 250), with a twist of Zoricho meat sauce, was surprisingly good. The serving size was more than enough for one person (10 points for that!).Â The dish had a good play in flavor and texture, with its refreshing hint of herbs, the tanginess from the tomatoes, and the pork Zoricho bits that added a good crunch.

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Fish Ball Sauce Recipe, Just Like Manong’s

There is no doubt we Filipinos love our street food. And if you ask me about my favorite, it’ll have to be fish balls (or fishball). Nothing beats eating fishballs off a stick, piping hot after you just skewered them off a street vendor’s deep-frying pan. But THE best part of it all is dipping them into their famous fishball sauce. YUM!

I’ve always been curious about this well-loved fishball sauce recipe. I studied in UP Diliman and I’m sure many of you have heard that we love eating fishballs there from Manongs who sell them across the campus. It was where I got hooked on the sweet sauce, and I then moved on to the spicy version. I noticed something. It seemed to me that wherever I go, even outside the campus, the taste of the fishball sauce of every Manong fishball vendor (yes, I call all of them manong) I met had the same taste. I wondered, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!? 😀

Over the past decade or so (ugh, I’m old), I’ve asked different vendors about their sauce. Most of them took wild guesses. There were a couple who refused to tell me anything, which, to me, was an indication they really had no idea, and some were so convinced they had the right recipe.

Of course, I tried to make them at home and failed three times (twice, I was adding vinegar). It was only in late 2004 that I learned the right recipe. The manong who sold fishballs at our home in Navotas told me about his fish ball sauce recipe. The thing is, I didn’t get to making it til a year later. It was too late for me to thank him because we already moved to Malabon, but I’m forever thankful. Charot! 😀 Continue reading Fish Ball Sauce Recipe, Just Like Manong’s

Red Sinigang with Del Monte Tomato Sauce

If there’s one Filipino dish I can bear to eat daily, it’ll have to be Sinigang. Our nanay has tried a variety of Sinigang – with seafood, pork or even chicken and beef (yes, she has tried all sorts of proteins with this dish). She has always cooked it the traditional way, but she was excited and welcomed the idea of adding a tasty twist to a classic dish – Sinigang with Del Monte Tomato Sauce.

Sinigang is a savory sour soup that we Filipinos love. The acidity may come from green mangoes, guava and, more widely used, tamarind (sampaloc). Pork, bangus or shrimps are the usual main ingredients, along with vegetables like kangkong (water spinach), okra, chili (siling haba/pang-sinigang), and onions. Our nanay also add slices of tomatoes to it, but we both haven’t encountered or tasted this dish with actual tomato sauce.

That’s until we found out about Del Monte’s Red Movement where they take classic Filipino dishes and add their famous, Filipino favorite tomato sauce into the mix. Some combinations may sound weird, but knowing the brand and the recipes they share through Del Monte Kitchenomics, we know they wouldn’t just come up with concoctions like the Red Bulalo or Red Pesang Bangus without actually testing and proving that adding tomato sauce to these dishes actually works. If you want the recipes for these other dishes, visit www.delmonte.ph.

If you’re aching to know how our nanay made her Del Monte Red Sinigang, read on.

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SARSA : Gourmet Sauces for Quick and Delicious Meals at Home

When it comes to home-cooked meals, we’ve got very high standards because of an excellent cook at home – our nanay. She can whip up sumptuousÂ dishes from scratch without any need for a recipe guide, and just flavoring each dish from taste. We’re THAT lucky and blessed as kids. 🙂

Enjoying her home-cooked meals has been one of the many highlights of our childhood. For us, it’s of utmost importance that families enjoy a home-cooked lunch or dinner from time to time. And if you don’t have the know-how to prepare delectable meals at home, no worries. We discovered delicious, ready-made sauces you can use that will make cooking at home less of a hassle. We’re talking about SARSA Gourmet Sauces by Chef Eugene Catipon.

We were sent three (3) samples of SARSA’s gourmet sauces to try at home. We were delighted to see the ones we received: Beef Stew, Korma (curry) and Kare-kare. We were expecting to be disappointed by the latter since our nanay prepares a killer Kare-Kare, but we were pleasantly surprised.

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To Jollibee : Bring Back the Amazing Aloha Burger!!

We’ve said this before and we’ll say it again – food has drawn my brother and I closer throughout the years. It’s not just because of the flavors or the pleasant aroma in our kitchen brought about by our nanay’s cooking. It’s because of sharing. We’ve always believed food is meant to be enjoyed with others, as what our nanay instilled in us when we were growing up.

Aside from sharing, we believe that food has been a big part of some of our most memorable moments as siblings. I can count with my fingers the number of food or dishes that trigger such happy memories. One of them is definitely Jollibee’s Amazing Aloha Burger.

I remember clearly, the Amazing Aloha Burger was one of the few splurges Ken and I allow ourselves to indulge in when we feel like celebrating or when we finally find time to spend a relaxing weekend at home. It’s just so uniquely good that we regard it as something to be enjoyed on special days. 🙂

You might think the addition of the pineapple to the combination of pure beef patties, bacon, cheese and lettuce is too simple, but we beg to disagree. It was even featured on Bloomberg Business Week as one of the world’s most original burgers. It’s one of the tastiest food combinations we’ve had in our lifetime and that’s why we’re soooo craving for it! 😀

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Homemade Beef Kare Kare Recipe (PLUS Seafood Version)

If there’s one dish our nanay prepares that I would want to eat for my last meal, it would definitely be her delicious Beef Kare-kare. Looking back to my childhood days, I realize that my fondness for this dish can be traced back to the days when our nanay would prepare kare-kare as one of her sweet ways in rewarding us for doing well, may it be in school or just for simply behaving at home.

Since I started working almost a decade ago, we’ve had kare-kare more often because whenever I’m craving for it, all we need to do is provide for the ingredients and our nanay will lovingly cook it for us. She’s even made her own seafood kare-kare (after our lunch at Emohruo in Pagudpud) which I also love (see the seafood option below this article).

This is actually one reason I don’t order kare-kare at restaurants because I have high standards when it comes to the flavors of this dish. It’s certainly one of the many things I missed when I lived for a year in Cebu that I begged her for the recipe and had to have someone cook it for me exactly the way nanay instructed. It was close to how she prepares it, but nothing beats the original ’cause it’s made with pure love. 🙂

Many can attest to the tastiness of our nanay’s kare-kare. And after the long delay of sharing the recipe, we finally had the time to prepare the dish for this blog. We hope you enjoy it and please let us know how it went when you tried it. If you tweaked a couple of things, we’d love to hear about that too. 🙂

Creamy Beef Kare-kare Recipe

Kare-kare is a Philippine beef stew, usually made with oxtail or tripe, vegetables and ground peanuts. But, this recipe was made with regular beef cuts.

SERVINGS:

Good for 8-10 people, but itâ€™ll really depend on their appetites. The 4 of us can finish this off for lunch and dinner. 😀

Continue reading Homemade Beef Kare Kare Recipe (PLUS Seafood Version)