Foot and Fire

Recently, I was asked by an old acquaintance how many series I got for my book. I smiled and explained I got two books but they're not serial. I got a sort of a booklet of poetry and essay in 2009 I titled Framed Words and I did not count it as a book. If there is some "series" connection among my three pubs, I must say that they were tools for me to raise funds to help my cause. Here, I am sharing a celebratory post of my three books.  FRAMED WORDS, 2009 which was tied up to my birthday, bought a pc desktop, printer and pocket wifi for an elementary school; SPECKS, 2018 which was also tied up to my birthday, sponsored my four projects consisting of buying a laptop for Panay Bukidnon in Calinog which they now use to document their culture, my herb greenhouse and book drives, and food pack drive to my highschool batchmates, and recently,  GUILTY YOUR HUMOR, 2021 which is tied with my profes...

  I cooked this last time that is why I call this Mother's Day Soup in my instagram post . Actually, this was my ambitious attempt to make French's bouillabaisse, Italian's Cioppino or Mediterranean soup. Of course, if the history of bouillabaisse is to be checked, it is not that grand because they make soup out of parts of fish that is not bound to the market.  If I will name this soup, I want to call this.. Farmer and Fisherman's soup Blue Marlin, sliced to matchbox serving size Salmon, sliced to matchbox serving size   onions garlic Carrots Bellpeppers potatoes cauliflower brocolli Tomato paste Tomato sauce salt and pepper spices: turmeric powder, chili powder, cayenne, cumin, paprika dissolved in 1 C water. another cup of water, if needed.   How to: Preheat oven to 180C for 10 minutes. In a dutch oven, arrange the onions and garlic and vegetables and fish add the tomato paste and tomato sauce and a cup of water where the spices are dissol...

    I always imagine myself cooking squash flowers when they are aplenty. Since the squash flowers in the garden come one after another and not in one-time big-time occasion, I decided to root for the young leaves. Pruning the last leaves of the squash is important to guarantee a good growth of squash. I love munching the leaves in Monggo Soup (Mung bean). It's foamy chewy type of leaves.    For a change, I decide to fry it with the batter. And it's popular in the house. So I am sharing this to you.... Happy experimenting!!! Squash young leaves, roughly sliced 2 cups Flour 1 cup starch  1/2 c rolled oatmeal  salt and pepper mushroom seasoning 2 eggs, lightly beaten cold water oil for deep frying Slice roughly young squash leaves. Set aside. In a deep bowl, add flour, starch and oatmeal. Add salt and pepper and mushroom seasoning. Mix well before adding 2 lightly beaten eggs. Add cold water and mix batter well in a circular motion. Ad...

    Canola Oil Garlic Onion Chicken Liver water Soy Sauce vinegar Brown sugar Szechuan Peppercorn Bay Leaves    Saute Garlic and Onion in oil until translucent. Add Chicken Liver and water just enough to cook it. Cover for 5 minutes. Add soy sauce, vinegar and sugar. Add crushed Szechuan Peppercorn and bay leaves. Mix gently and cover again for another 5 minutes.

    Aside from the S inamakan , what else can we make out of our chili? It was my simple dream then to have a calamansi and chili by my garden so that i will just pick them when I need them. well, I got way more than I asked for because I luckily grew a lot of chili plants. Well, I tried making Chili Garlic in oil and use them in my recipe whenever it calls for some spice.   Chili Garlic, chopped canola oil   Harvest the chili, remove leaves and stems and let dry under the sun. Air fry the chili and garlic for 4 hours under the lowest temperature.  Put air-fried chili and garlic inside a clean glass jar. Add oil, enough to cover it.  Store in an area with room temperature and away from the direct sunlight.    

I am posting this today because my nephews love this bread. It is crusty and almost like toasted ciabatta with all the herbs it had. I made pizza dough breads out of the doughs I made last week. I had posted my easy pizza crust recipe in the past as I learned the difficulty of reconstructing the recipe when I wrote in random papers my recipe in the past. Check here ( https://footandfire.blogspot.com/2020/09/calzone-or-closed-pizza-and-pasta-with.html ) Same procedure is employed. But this time, instead of 2 2/3 cups All purpose flour, I used 2 cups APF and 2/3 oatmeal and added Italian oregano leaves. You may use dried herbs and slivered nuts to make the dough extra special.   Dough  Shredded or sliced cheeses  dried herbs or slivered almonds  How to:  Preheat oven at 190C for 10 minutes. Spread some flour on the work table. Work to flatten the dough using the rolling pin.  Add the cheese and herbs or nuts. Fold one side of the flatten...

Insalada for Pinoys is appetizers or side dish. In my region, we call this Insalada Nga Langka or in Filipino Insaladang Langka. This one is special because of the cocomilk. I personally Iove using an almost ripe fruit because it has an inherent sweetness already. I get to boil the seeds too and it sure tastes like chestnuts but that is a story for another post. Some other times, an unripe fruit is also preferred because of its tenderness and tasty strands. In the photo above, I used the almost ripe one. 1 medium size jackfruit 1 matured coconut 1 garlic chopped 1 onion, chopped 6 long chilis, chopped 1 thumb ginger, chopped Coconut Vinegar Salt and pepper Mushroom seasoning Brown sugar How to: Peel jackfruit, slice to desired thickness and remove seeds unless one uses a young fruit wherein the seeds are still tender. Boil the jackfruit until cooked to tenderness. Drain and set aside.  Extract cocomilk from the coconut. Don't add water for the first extract. Then use mi...

We conducted the FIRST PROJECT of Guilty Your Humor which IS A GIFT GIVING TO THE CHILDREN OF ESPERANZA last 23rd of July 2021. Thank you to all friends of Guilty your Humor - Anniv Fundraiser from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao and worldwide as well, for sending your help to this undertaking, including my two friends Engr Mayleen and Ms Leah who braved the rains and muddy way today.  Our day started with the threat of Bagyo Fabian but it gave way to us. The road going to Hda Esperanza was muddy bumpy scary but we made it through.  Thank you to our City Mayor for providing us with transportation, to our two BHW Maam Marilou and Maam Arlene for the assistance, Maam Norma of Esperanza Elem School for lending us a venue for the gift giving of food packs as well as accompanying us today. We missed the children because we required only the parents to pick up their goods. Indeed, happiness is always in sharing. 11.23.21 Please check out why we chose Hda Esperanz...

We love Chicken Feet or what we Pinoys call "adidas." While we don't like commercial dressed chicken, we are fans of this chicken part. Collagen is what we were seeping in the joints. And true, the nearest to the bones, the sweetest the meat indeed.  Canola oil Garlic Onions Chicken feet Water Monkey's ear Sesame seeds Bulgogi sauce Fish sauce Apple cider vinegar or coco vinegar Soy sauce Sesame oil Saute garlic and onions until translucent, add chicken feet. Stir and add water. Cover until boiling.  Add monkey's ear and all ingredients except sesame oil. Cover and let cook until tender. Reduce fire to low and continue to cook until juice is a bit jelly.  Add sesame oil and put off fire.