A Cake-Y Soda Bread
This past Christmas was the 3rd time I made soda bread. What is soda bread? In a nutshell, it’s an Irish Bread that accompanies the corned beef brisket, potatoes, carrots and cabbages. The previous times I made this, the recipe I followed rendered a dry soda bread. I wanted a different version. Something cake-y. Almost like a lighter version of pound cake but doesn’t have the buttery texture and sweet taste to it.
I was lucky to find this cake-y soda bread recipe from All Recipes. It came out really good. My sister-in-law who happens to have Irish blood running through her veins said it was delicious. My husband said it wasn’t as dry as the past soda breads I’ve baked before. He said there was something different but good change about it. I asked, “was it cake-y?” to which he replied “that’s it, cake-y and much better” like he just had an “a-ha” moment ala Oprah. My husband knows his food 
.
The Apple Pie
If pumpkin or sweet potatoes pies are for Thanksgiving, our traditional Christmas dessert is apple pie. I have to make this every year or else I’ll hear about not having apple pie one Christmas for the rest of my life. Truthfully, I quite enjoy baking an apple pie and seeing everyone’s faces after a bite or in my brother-in-law’s case, surprise that I could actually bake one. I guess it could get intimidating especially if you’re a baking novice but once you get used to it you’ll find joy in peeling and slicing the apples, then rolling the dough especially if you’re using a non-stick rolling pin like mine .
For a better tasting apple pie, it’s better to combine tart and sweet apples. 4 each.
Filipino Fruit Salad
This is the Filipino Fruit Salad that I included in our Christmas dessert besides the traditional Apple Pie. I haven’t had this in a long time so when I was planning my menu I made sure to make this too. Thank goodness there’s a Filipino store about 30 minutes drive away from us. I couldn’t make this with just fruit cocktails and pineapples. The essential ingredients for the Filipino Fruit Salad are the coconut gel and sugar palm fruit. The stuff that makes it sweet are easily found in any grocery store.
Kitchen Gadgets : My New Rolling Pin
Before I made our Christmas sugar cookies I knew I had to buy a new rolling pin. My old rolling pin which I’ve had for almost 5 years had seen it’s last days. The last time I used it was when I made the sweet potato pies this past Thanksgiving. It was wood, small, and needed an upgrade.
This new rolling pin has a non-stick surface, easy to roll and bigger than my old wood rolling pin. I love it so much even though I’ve only used for the sugar cookies thus far. I will be making apple pie in a couple of days for our Christmas dessert and I am looking forward to rolling my crust with this new rolling pin .
NOTE : This is my entry for Lasang Pinoy Sundays’ theme of Kitchen Gadgets.
Bacon Wrapped Beef Stuffed With Portobello Mushrooms, Cheese, and Asparagus
… And caramelized apples on the side. Sorry but adding the caramelized apples on the title would’ve made it too long.
After reading Connie’s (Pinoycook) Penne with creamed portobello mushrooms I was reminded of the bacon wrapped beef stuffed with portobello mushrooms, cheese and asparagus dish that has been sitting in my folder since October. Yes I know, I’m so behind . This is actually a variation of the bacon wrapped boneless chicken that I’ve posted years ago which my sister-in-law learned from her Father while he was over for a short visit from New Jersey. The original recipe was using button mushrooms. I sometimes do that but this time I used portobello mushrooms. There is no rule that says you can’t .
We have bacon, asparagus, portobello mushrooms, cheese, beef and the caramelized apples. What more do we need?
Christmas Sugar Cookies
One of our family’s Christmas tradition is baking and decorating sugar cookies. I started this tradition with my son when he was 5 yrs old. It is something he looks forward too every year. That and making the gingerbread house that we started last year. We’ll make the latter sometime this week.
I started prepping this at about 6pm yesterday. I was really tired from all the errands that day that all I wanted to do was stretch my legs and read a book. I did that four about 30 minutes and decided I must get up and start getting the cookies done. My son was able to help with cutting the different shapes but by 8pm, which is his bedtime, as much as he didn’t want to, went to bed. So it was Dad’s responsibility to help me out. He would’ve rather done something else like read his own book or watch TV but I TOLD him we were decorating cookies so he didn’t have a choice. We did watch Mission Impossible 3 while decorating so we had fun .
Chocolate Trifle Bowl
If you were expecting a chocolate trifle oozing with rich chocolate goodness, this isn’t it. My chocolate trifle bowl is literally a trifle bowl, filled with assorted chocolate candies. My husband, the Man who is always after my heart and whatever else he’s after 
, bought all sorts of chocolates to fill my trifle bowl.
Chocolate candy cane flavored Hershey Kisses, Hershey assorted chocolate square miniatures, Lindor dark chocolate truffles and white chocolate truffles.
Bacon and Potatoes Frittata
Here’s another version of frittata that my family loves for Weekend Breakfast. The day I posted the recipe for corned beef hash frittata, my husband saw my monitor and asked if we could have the same thing for breakfast the next day. That day happens to be Sunday so I happily obliged.
I didn’t have any corned beef hash, nor did we have any leftover meat in the fridge so I decided to use bacon and potatoes instead. All the ingredients and steps from corned beef hash frittata are the same except for the replacement of corned beef hash with bacon and potatoes.
Pork Hocks Adobo With Potatoes
The day after Thanksgiving, we did not want to partake on the Turkey leftovers. We had it for lunch, we couldn’t possibly have it for dinner too. I decided to use some of the turkey leftovers and shrimp leftover for a turkey & shrimp fried rice to accompany the pork hocks adobo.
This would actually be better with just plain white rice. Pork adobo being my most favorite Filipino dish, I knew this but I still went ahead and made fried rice instead. Oh well, it was still good nonetheless and a good use of turkey leftovers .
