~* Dinner with the Parents - STEAK!!!*~

Sorry for the photo quality -there was a lot of steam coming off the plate!

 The picture above shows exactly why I love dining at my parents' house!!

The last time I went to visit my parents, which was a couple of days ago, my mum cooked an amazing steak (tenderized very well with kiwi fruit - a tip she learned while holidaying in California!) and served it with boiled potatoes, brocolli and asparagus - super healthy!!
I always saw steak as "man food" but I love it and could probably eat more than any man could! :)

My mum is incredibly versatile when it comes to cooking. When I was living at home, it was guaranteed that she would always cook something different everyday. Her menu would consist of dishes from different countries, so one day it would be Filipino food, the next could be Japanese and the next, Italian. Growing up, my dad, brother and I were very lucky to have so much variety in our diet.

I miss my mum's cooking now I have left home, but I am in the process of learning so I too can give my future family the variety which my mum gave us.

But I have to admit, my mum always seems to make the BEST meals :)


 

~* English Sunday Lunch*~

As part of Kris's birthday celebrations, we went to a local restaurant called Fiume, which is a quaint, little restaurant in our town, Washington.

Fiume is an Italian restaurant, but every Sunday, they serve delicious (and huge!) English Sunday Lunches (which also gets called "Sunday Dinner" by the Brits, who sometimes refer to lunch as "dinner").

For those who are unfamiliar with English Sunday Lunches, they are traditionally served every Sunday (hence the name) in most British homes, pubs and restaurants. They consist mainly of a type of meat (chicken, pork, beef, lamb or turkey, or a nut roast or Quorn sausages for vegetarians), yorkshire pudding, potatoes (roasted, mashed and boiled) and a variety of boiled vegetables, such as carrots, peas, turnip and cabbage. This is almost always topped with gravy.

Kris and I both opted for a 2-course Sunday lunch, with me having a starter and main and Kris having a main and a dessert (well, coffee).

For my starter, I chose a Prawn Cocktail served with cucumber and gem lettuce. The prawns were so big, juicy and very tasty!! Prawn Cocktail is a very common starter in the UK.

Prawn Cocktail

For my main, I opted for a Pork Sunday Lunch, and Kris went for the Beef Sunday Lunch. The portions were sooo big, but the food was very good!! The meal itself was very British!

Pork Sunday Lunch with side dish of vegetables.

Needless to say, after such a hearty meal, both Kris and I were stuffed!! But that didn't stop us from having a cheeky tipple after our meal as a treat ;) Cosmopolitan cocktail for me, please!!

Ristorante Fiume
16 Bonemill Lane,
Fatfield, Washington
NE38 8AJ
U.K

~* Special Birthday Brekkie - Salmon & Chive Scrambled Eggs*~

Ingredients for Salmon and Chive Scrambled Eggs

Today is my other half's Kris's birthday and, as a treat, I made a special breakfast of Salmon and Chive Scrambled Eggs to help start off his day :)

I LOVE LOVE  LOVE Smoked Salmon Scrambled Eggs for breakfast, however I rarely have it because good smoked salmon is pretty expensive in the shops, hence why it is such a treat. Luckily, I managed to get the smoked salmon and the other ingredients in the bargain section of the supermarket, so I was able to make a delicious morning meal without worrying too much about the cost.

The ingredients which I used (to serve 2 people) were 4 eggs, smoked salmon, ricotta cheese (optional), a few snippets of chives, salt and pepper. I mixed all of the ingredients in a bowl (apart from the smoked salmon).

I then heated up a frying pan and added butter (oil can be used as an alternative, but I prefer butter for the taste) and poured the mixture in and left to cook like an omelette. I then added some cut-up smoked salmon and broke up the egg to "scramble".

I served the scrambled eggs with slices of buttered wholemeal bread.



Smoked Salmon and Chive Scrambled Eggs



~* Japanese Style Potato Salad*~

Yesterday, I decided to make Japanese-style potato salad to use up some organic potatoes which I got in the bargain ("Whoopsies!") section - 60p for a bag!!

The ingredients I used were very simple - potatoes, 1 carrot and sausage (as you can see in the photo, I used Mattersson's "horse-shoe" sausage). Later on in the process, I added a few bits of cucumber as well.


Ingredients for potato salad

I also used Japanese mayonnaise which my dad brought back from Japan - I know this is available in most good Asian supermarkets in the UK, but it is soooo expensive!! But it is really tasty! You can use whatever mayonnaise you want - it doesn't have to be Japanese.

Japanese mayonnaise

Once the potatoes and carrot were prepped, cooked and cooled (sausage can be served as is, but chopped ;) ), I put them in a bowl, mixed them with Japanese mayonnaise and seasoned to taste with basic salt and pepper. I also added a bit of sugar to sweeten the mixture up a bit.

For Japanese-style potato salad, the potatoes are broken up so they appear mashed - but not completely mashed, just broken up!

Potato salad mixture

And here is the finished result....I added some cherry tomatoes and a couple of hot dog octupus for decoration.


TA-DAAAA!!!

~*Longanisa!!*~

Supermarket Longanisa

Yey, my first post!!

So...a few weeks ago, as a "Pay Day Treat" to myself, I bought some frozen Filipino Chicken Longanisa (sweet sausages) from the local Asian supermarket. I had never had shop-bought Longanisa before, but since I love home-cooked Longanisa (my mum is an amazing cook!!), I thought I would give it a shot to see what they were like. And they were delicious!! Really tasty and just as lovely as my mum's...HOWEVER, at £4.50 for 6 Longanisas, they did not come cheap. So I thought, "why not cook them myself?", and after finding a good recipe, that is exactly what I did. For around the same price for all of the ingredients, I managed to make 18 Longanisas and I have to admit, I was proud of them :)


To make home-made Filipino Longanisa, I mixed a normal sized pack of ground pork (about 2lbs) with garlic powder, brown sugar, worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, salt and pepper. I then moulded them into typical Longanisa shapes (small, sausage-shape) and shallow fried them without oil. Very simple, and very tasty :) I served this with white rice,a fuss-free salad and a hard boiled egg. Yum!!