Foot and Fire

A healthy gut is the foundation of good health. If one has a healthy gut, one can absorb vitamin and minerals and utilize them to fuel the body. Conversely, an unhealthy gut cause domino effect on health causing one issue and leading to another. Of course, many researches show us that sugar and seed oils cause inflammation while fibers from vegetables and fruits can keep us from glucose spikes. Meanwhile, fermented vegetables are twin armors which can give us fiber and healthy bacteria in our gut.  Lacto-fermentation is easy to make at home and can be done to a lot of vegetables. I live sauerkraut because of its mild tangy taste, I love kimchi because of its spiciness that gives a kick to meals and carrots are wobderful when they're slender as compared to bulky ones favored for cooking as they're peeled in one go for being large or extra large. Of course, one can use the large ones to ferment. Slender ones are tasty and one carrot is one serving of side dish for me....

Asian Dressing 2T Worcestershire Sauce 2T Soy Sauce 2T lemon juice 2T apple cider vinegar 1T Korean Spicy Dip 1T Chili Garlic Salt and pepper Put all ingredients in a jar with lid. Shake to mix well. Set aside. Salad Ingredients 1/8 cabbage, shredded 2 medium cucumber, sliced thinly 1 small carrot, julienned 1 big bellpepper, julienned 1 tomato, sliced thinly In a serving bowl, add all salad ingredients. Add all Asian dressings and massage the dressing to the vegetables using one's gloved hands. Serve chilled. Look at this video on how I gave it some massage. 

Back when I and my four siblings were growing up, my father used to make us Chicken Mami. We love how we mix our own pancit, vegetables and chicken bits and add broth to the mixture. We used to queue as we gather our bowl of ingredients.  So, I made Chicken Mami to feed my visiting nephews. They enjoy the queuing and the idea that they get to mix their own bowl of soup. The Vegetables  1 kg Fresh Pancit or egg noodles, medium or small size 200 g Chinese Pechay, cut into strips 200 g cabbage, cut into strips 1 big carrots, julienned 100 g Baguio beans, cut slantly for quarter of an inch thick The Chicken 1 kg chicken breast Water Condiments Sauce: 1/3 cup Soy Sauce 1/3 cup Worcestershire Sauce 1/4 cup Patis or Fish Sauce Ground Pepper Toppings No-pork Chicharon, crushed into pieces Spring Onions, chopped Chili Toasted Garlic Preparation:  The Vegetables  1 kg Fresh Pancit or egg noodles, medium or small size 200 g Chinese Pechay, cut into strip...

500g ground beef 6 pcs carrots, chopped 1 sayote, chopped 2 big potatoed, chopped Celery, chopped 6 cloves garlic, chopped 2 onions, chopped Salt, pepper, and soy sauce Oatmeal 2 big Cabbage heads Toothpick Dip: Soy sauce Calamansi Mix all chopped vegetables. Add salt, pepper and soy sauce to taste. Add oatmeal in small amount at a time, just enough to bind the mixture. Scoop the mixture and place in the cabbage leaf, fold and secure with toothpick. Repeat last procedure until the mixture is used up. Ready the steamer with boiling water. Place the cabbage parcel and steam for 2p minutes. Serve hot with the dipping sauce.

*** 200g Elbow Macaroni, boiled olive oil garlic, minced onions, chopped 50g Beef, ground 50g Chicken, cubed  2 pcs. Carrots, chopped 1 bunch of broccoli, chopped 25g Baguio beans, chopped Fish sauce, Worcestershire Sauce and Soy sauce Beef or chicken cube or powder  salt and pepper 1/2 head of Cabbage, chopped Do not drain the Macaroni in the pot.  In a pan, saute garlic and onions in olive oil. Add the beef and chicken pieces. Let cook. Add the macaroni with the water. Transfer in the pot and let boil. Add the vegetables except cabbage. Add flavorings as per personal taste: I added Fish sauce,  Worcestershire Sauce and Soy sauce and chicken powder.  Add salt, as needed and lots of ground pepper. Let boil. Add the cabbage and cover with lid.  Remove from fire and Serve Hot.

Cook pancit canton as directed in the package. Once boiling, put vegetables like carrots, cabbage, baguio beans and sayote and drain together with the noodles. Add the seasoning. Serve with fried tufo and slices of cucmber on the side. Merienda is ready. Pairing a food guilt with nature's food gifts... :)                                          ***                                   ***

8 heads of Chinese cabbage, halved and washed rock salt brown sugar chili powder or whatever preserved chili available ginger, chopped garlic, chopped bottled vinegared onion (optional) bottled vinegared cucumber (optional) Dry the washed halved cabbage head.  Mix the rest of the ingredients in a bowl starting from chili powder. Rub layer after layers of leaves with salt and brown sugar and then mixture until done. Arrange in a plastic container and let stand for 24 hours in a dry cool place. The next day, transfer in glass container and discard remaining water. Let stand again for another day or two.  The Kimchi is done when the cabbage and the spices are already fermented. Refrigerate to lengthen shelf life. Enjoy as appetizer. (When I made my first kimchi out of native pechay, I first rubbed the salt and let the pechay spurt its water within  24 hours before adding spices. I suggest same thing with this kind too but at any rate, this shortcut method is a success. Dont ...

This is a favorite beef stew! Beef meat banana (sab-a) camote (sweet potatoes) white kidney beans (pre-boiled or use canned garbanzos) cabbage Cook cubed meat until tender (about 2 hours or by pressure cooker). Add banana, camote and kidney beans and let boil until very tender. Mash some camote to thicken the soup. Season to taste. Add cabbage and remove from fire. Serve hot.

This is the outcome! For chop suey, I used canned young corn and mushroom, ground beef, carrots, potatoes, sayote, bell pepper, cabbage. A little of cornstarch was used to adjust the consistency as the chop suey should not be soupy.   *** For cripsy noodles, I washed the sotanghon or the vermicelli in warm water and soak for a while before draining. Then, I heated a pan until a little smoke comes out of it. I arranged the noodle spreading it out on the pan to get the pan shape. *** For chop suey recipe, pleaes see older posts.

Shredded cabbage Grated carrots Grated cucumber Four tablespoons of Pickle relish with syrup Two tablespoons of sandwich spread or mayonnaise Blanch cabbage and drain. In a bowl, combine all ingredients and mix. Chill and serve immediately.

This instant Korean noodles is highly recommended to anyone who loves hot and spicy taste. The chiliness is indeed piping hot! This instant noodles can serve four. For this one, I added carrots and cabbage. Egg may also be added as egg drop or beaten. While sharing this with my nephew, he wondered out loud after sipping the soup why I chose this so hot and so spicy noodles... And I reminded him of that jampong commercial with a couple hanging their tongues out! The tongue out culprit! A generous serving of a hot and spicy noodle soup!

Bam-i is actually a combination of pansit bihon and dried pansit canton. For this one, I used vermicelli (mung bean glass noodle) and fettuccine (dried one available in the local market). 250 g vermicelli 250 g fettuccine 1 can tuna in oil garlic onion cabbage, sliced thinly 1 carrot, sliced thinly 12 sticks of baguio beans, sliced thinly salt and pepper to taste calamansi Place dried noodles in a bowl, add hot water and set aside. Drain water when the noodles wilt. Saute garlic, onion and tuna in the oil from the same can, add minimal oil if desired.  Add the vegetables and let cook for 3 minutes and adjust flavor with salt and pepper. Add the noodles until cooked. Add a spoonful of water at a time so as not to dry the noodles. Simmer until noodles are cooked. Serve hot with calamansi on the side.

I love noodles when i cook them as i cook them with fresh vegetables. 2 T olive oil Cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed 1 medium onion, cubed 2 pcs carrots, julienned 12 pcs baguio beans, sliced slantly 200g vermicilli, soaked in hot water until tender 200g egg noodles, soaked in hot water until tender Soy sauce Salt and pepper 1 medium head cabbage, sliced horizontally 1 can Tuna in oil or with calamansi Saute garlic and onion In oil. Add carrots and baguio beans. Let cook. Add drained noodles and season with soy sauce, salt and pepper. Add cabbage, cover and let cook but not overcook. Add tuna in oil or calamansi and mix just before removing from fire.

By GERLIE M. UY (FYI: In my Beijing trip, I learned that this is a lucky cabbage for the Chinese and they make jade and gold sculptures of this)  Two heads of Chinese Cabbage 3 medium pieces sweet potatoes or potatoes 1 can tuna (solid in water) salt and pepper to taste Some toothpicks How to: Prepare the Chinese Cabbage by remove 1/4 of an inch from the ends. Separate and wash each leaf. Save the smaller leaves for other recipes. Can yield 12 pieces for each head. Boil the sweet potatoes. Peel and mash. Put the mashed potatoes in a bowl, add the tuna (include the water). Season to taste. Form the mixture into balls. Since we just love cabbages, I use the whole leaf to cover the ball of potato and tuna. You may opted to cut them into half. Secure the wraps with toothpicks. Steam for five minutes. Remove the toothpicks and serve as appetizer or side dish. For dipping sauce, I used dalanghita. Any citrus will do. Fish Sauce 2 pieces long chili (jalapeno) See my previous post of...

By GERLIE M. UY Eating is one of the highlights of every trip, next to photo shoots of course. And in vietnam, Pho is the mother of all meals...After a week of partaking Pho, we almost adapted to the no-salt taste and always-with-herbs mixture. In Tam Coc, a friend "luckily" picked a summer roll with lampunaya inside, we were all amused. My friends had their first taste of the abundant Dragon Fruit  there too. Meanwhile, I enjoyed their instant Pho on our last supper before heading to the airport; it tasted like the real thing. The instant hit among us was the deep fried dpring rolls and the beef/chicken with mushrooms and onions of Sa Pa Global hotel... Fried chicken with stir fried bamboo shoot. Unlike the way we cook it, they do not blanch the shoot so that it taste and smells so wrong. Fried chicken on top of fried rice. PHO BO, or beef noodle soup.. we were accustomed to its almost no-salt taste after a week of having it...LOL Condiments for the Pho... L_R Chili sauce w...