Tag Archives: Filipino food

Adobo Cook-Off, Fire Pit and a Long Bike Ride

Posted on by

 

What a fun-filled weekend!

  • Attended a Filipino food cook-off, Adobofest 2011, in one of the many forest preserves around Chicago. It seemed pretty well attended, but I heard there were four times as many entries as there were this year. More on this event tomorrow.

    Filipino Cook-Off Event: Adobofest 2011

  • Used our fire pit for the first time. Told the kids this was a close to camping as we’ll ever get! I’ve never been camping. Ever. But I am open to the idea of putting up a tent in the backyard one nice summer night. Maybe next year?

    Roasting dinner over the fire in the backyard with the kids

  • Abby’s soccer team won their game after a harsh season opener (they lost 8-2)!
  • And I rode 50 miles in the North Shore Century Ride! Started with a lovely sunrise over Lake Michigan – but quickly turned into a rainy mess of a day. I was drenched by the end. Took me 4 hours and 25 minutes, and on somewhat spongy tires for the middle leg of 20 miles (Oops.). It was really fun, but I won’t lie – it was a lot of work in some spots. And, I’m not very athletic at all. This may be my one big athletic accomplishment to date.

    Sunrise at Lake Michigan - Dawes Park - Evanston, IL

    The eager cyclist - I'm so excited

    Morning registration

    Bike odometer reached 50 miles at Bahai Temple of Worship, Wilmette, IL

I’m ready for a relaxing week. Too bad it won’t be… always something happening around our here! *grin*

Have a great week everyone!

Filipino Style Pressed Sandwich

Posted on by

Honestly, I don’t know that Filipinos (well, old school ones) like sandwiches all that much. Rice trumps bread…always. Bread is mainly reserved for breakfast or snacktime, and it’s dunked in coffee nonetheless.

Growing up, sandwiches were not a staple in my home and were made really thin: too little meat, thin bread, thin layer of chicken salad or (and I even hate admitting this) it was just sandwich spread. We had road trips with thin sandwich spread sandwiches, like eating mayonnaise on white bread. Imagine the look on my face when I actually saw a well-made deli sandwich for the first time? I remember my mom taking my brother and me to Wag’s (Late 1970’s Walgreen’s had a little restaurant) for lunch and we ordered a BLT. It was delicious, but I remember I had a torn-up upper palate from the toasted bread. Thirty years later, BLT’s are still a favorite, and my mouth still gets raw.

It wasn’t long after that I started making my own sandwiches for school lunches. No more Miracle Whip sandwiches for me. Had a big love affair with Philly steak sandwiches in college, and my brother introduced me to Bahn Mi, Vietnamese sandwiches, a few years ago. But, I really like paninis; it’s like a grown-up grilled cheese sandwich but bigger and with more fixin’s. The crispy, toasted bread with fluted ridges did me in – Pretty and tasty at the same time.

So, why not a Filipino version? Is there one? A good one? Mine are a bit like bahn mi in the respect I used cilantro and matchstick carrots. I couldn’t think of vegetables that represented Filipino cuisine, would taste good with sweet, seasoned sausages and wouldn’t necessarily have to be cooked. And I definitely wanted to keep an Asian flavor. Maybe next time, I could try a Napa cabbage slaw? I don’t own a panini maker, either. I did this all on the range with our cast-iron grill.

  • 1 pkg. (typically 9-10 pcs.) of Longanisa (Filipino pork sausage: sweet, garlicky, peppery)
  • Pan de Sal (Filipino rolls: soft, airy bread)
  • Sauteed onions (optional)
  • Cilantro
  • Carrots (cut into small matchsticks)

Butterfly cut the sausages so they will lay flat for the sandwich. Place on grill at medium-high heat. Cover with foil, heavy cookie sheet and then a weight (filled tea kettle) so the sausages won’t curl while cooking. Cook for 4 min. Remove weight, flip over the sausages and cover up again. Cook for another 3-4 min. When done, remove from grill and set aside.

While sausages are cooking, prepare the bread by cutting open and brushing olive oil on both sides. Place cooked sausage on prepped bread, then layer cilantro, carrots and onions. Top with bread. Return to grill,cooking the sandwiches on medium heat. Again, cover with foil, cookie sheet and weigh down. This will press the sandwiches. Cook for 2 min. or until toasted to your liking. Remove weight, flip sandwiches and weigh down again. Cook until toasted. Enjoy with a San Miguel (or your beer of choice).

Will be back next week with lots of art project updates!

There’s Gluten-free Filipino Food?

Posted on by

Went to Assi International (pronounced ah-see) in our neighboring suburb of Niles, IL. I like to refer to the market as the Asian mega-mart. This is not to say that I don’t shop at the other one nearby, Super H Mart, which is larger, but more chaotic to me. Not only does Assi have a great produce section, there’s every kind of Asian cuisine cooking product you might ever need: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Filipino. Oh, and I also buy my Cafe Du Monde coffee there, Makes a great Vietnamese iced coffee, I hear, but I like mine straight from a French press. But I digress.

I’ll be heading there tomorrow (Saturday) because I need to get some fixin’s for a Korean BBQ lunch. We have some marinated rib eye (bulgogi) that we’ll grill. Who am I kidding…my husband will grill. I want to buy a few different kim chee (or sometimes kimchi, kimchee or gimchi), for you non-Asians that’s pickled vegetables with varying degrees of spice and seasonings. Some of them are so red with chili heat, my forehead starts sweating just looking at it. I wouldn’t even touch the stuff before, but I’ve gotten used to the taste, and it really does lend a nice flavor if you eat it along side of your grilled meat and rice.

If you go on a weekend, they often have samples of products and you might be lucky enough to eat the right amount of food for a light meal. So, last weekend, my family and I were walking through the frozen section and we saw an elaborate setup of Filipino food by Pronto Foods. Holy cow, they had all sorts of fried spring rolls: chicken, pork, plantain. Actually the plantain spring roll is called turon, and there are different kinds other than plantain: Ube (taro root/purple yam), ube and cream cheese, plantain with cream cheese. They were sampling this with a gluten-free wrapper (corn) that had been fried three hours prior. It was still crispy! Definitely not oily, either. I was impressed. Granted, they weren’t shaped like traditional turon, which is wide and sort of rectangular. These were more like cylinders, a bit bigger than a cigar, I think. We’re looking forward to trying it at home.

**Update – taro root and ube are totally different. While they are both monocots, they are different plant species.

Filipino Food Turon Spring Roll

One of the Pronto Foods representatives who was working that afternoon, Eddie Chua, gave me quite an in-depth explanation of their cooking philosophy and product formulation. This was all okay because my kids and husband were busy sampling their full-size chicken siopao (steamed bun) and other spring rolls. So, he told me, as if in secret, to come back this Saturday because they were going to sample their crab rangoon, which has REAL crab and a cheese blend rather than cream cheese. Maybe we’ll run into Eddie again.

Related Posts with Thumbnails