Foot and Fire

LASWA, an Ilongo vegetable soup that is worth featuring for the nth time in this blog.  One secret to a good laswa is to use odd number of vegetables so it can have a perfect result. So in this one, I used squash, malungay or moringa, saluyot or locally called tugabang, balagay or winged beans and okra.  My nephew asked me what are the other names of okra as.my readers might not understand it. I said, it is mostly known as okra but Wiki suggested "English-speaking countries as  ladies' fingers  or  ochro." So be it, but lady's finger here in the Philippines refers to a small fragrant and tasty banana that looks like its name, a lady's finger. So back to laswa, I have 5 ingredients and they all went well together.  I used miso paste as my seasoning and it went well with the fish sauce. That is a must try inlieu of the usual dried anchovies or shrimps. 2 tomatoes 1 onion Saluyot, 1/3 chopped and reserve the rest Winged beans Squash Okr...

 For this one, i used the store-bought spaghetti fortified with malunggay a.k.a moringa and carrots and made partly with durum semolina flour (El Real). I always use the other brand (ideal) which is made with durum wheat alone. I must say that the former has silky texture while the latter is al dente and rotund. I can choose both because they are not merely made with wheat flour, the ordinary flour used for our common white bread. This means, we can access now more nutritious and fiber rich pastas... i believe, this attempt from El Real is a success. I will patronize it from now on. This is what a grocery girl can do, compare products and eliminate the more evil in the basket. The chiliness of this pasta wards off the chilliness of the windy weekend. Here's how to: 500gms spaghetti pasta  Olive oil Garlic, minced Onion, chopped 4 pcs long chile, seeded and halved 500gms italian style tomato sauce  1 can meat and mushroom or 200gm ground beef Half cup evap milk Cheddar Che...

For lunch today, we had laswa. We mixed all solid vegetables available: papaya called kapayas here, squash or kalabasa, okra, takway (gabi roots) and saykwa or patola and the green leaves at hand: malunggay called balunggay here and saluyot called tugabang. The secret addition is the lemon grass known as tanglad here and some dried fish. .N.B. the ingredients are actually flexible; compare this laswa with my previous post.... Match this vegetable soup with fried fish and rice... Perfect!

This is my favorite because while I get the full beef flavor just like bulalo without too much animal grease, I also get the vegetable serving of the day. 1 tablespoon canola oil 4 cloves of garlic 1 pc onion, cubed 2 ripe tomatoes, sliced 1/4 ground beef Soy sauce Salt and black pepper 1 pc upo or bottle gourd, sliced 12 stalks of malunggay, leaves separated from stalks Saute garlic in oil until it turns golden brown and add onion. Add sliced tomatoes until cooked and add then ground beef. Let cook until tender and add soy sauce, salt and pepper to taste. Let meat cook through. Add 4 cups of water and bring to boil. Add about 3 cups of upo and bring to boil until upo is cooked. Add malunggay and close lid. Remove from fire and serve hot over rice or as soup.

By GERLIE M. UY FOR LUNCH. Pito ka klase sang panakot para sa laswa. The tradition among "experts" in laswa is that one has to have an odd number of ingredients in order for the laswa to taste good. We describe the mixture "sampat" here in Negros Occ. 1 L to 1 1/2 L water 2 medium ripe tomatoes onions dried fish or dilis (Balingon) (may use dried shrimp, if desired) about 100 g squash (kalabasa), cubed about 100 g Papaya or Kapayas, sliced about 100 g string beans (snake beans), sitaw or balatong, cut into an inch long about 100 g okra three handful Malunggay, Moringa or Balungay leaves three handful Saluyot or Tugabang leaves, slice a handful of Ampalaya or Amargoso leaves salt or fish sauce In a casserole, bring to boil the water with ripe tomatoes, onions and dried fish. Add the next four solid ingredients. To get the desired slimy soup, add this early a portion of the Saluyot (Tugabang). Let cook. Adjust flavor with salt or fish sauce (patis). Add the rest of t...