Category Link Friday

I made my first custard cake in March 2012. I’m quite impressed that it is almost a year before I’d make it again. I actually planned on making a chocolate version but I saw the box of caramel cake mix and I thought, hmm, a layer of caramel base, custard, and caramel cake sounds interesting. So at the last minute I decided on Custard Caramel Cake instead. Yes, you’ve read it right, a caramel cake box mix. Guilty as charged.

Summer means a lot of things. One of them is making cold pasta salads. I suppose it’s ok to make them during winter too but it is usually during the Summer that I get to indulge in whipping up different kinds of cold pasta salads. They’d go with any grilled meat entrees, including kebabs, satays, burgers, just to name a couple. Pasta salads prefect to serve as side dishes during the summer parties in the backyard or as lunch for the family on regular days. This Mini Rotelle Cold Pasta Salad W/ Cheese & Sunflower Seeds is basically another version of Pasta & Broccoli Salad W/ Golden Raisins and Sunflower Seeds but without the golden raisins and chopped fresh broccoli. I added chopped eggs instead.

Pork Binagoongan is NOT one of the Filipino dishes that I make often. Truth be told, this is probably the 2nd time I’ve made it in my married life of 14 years. The first time I made it was years ago that I can’t even remember the exact year. I do remember though that I turned it into a filling for lettuce wraps. Yup, no rice. My husband would be surprised about this info too. This time around though, I ate the pork binagoongan with rice. Hey, why not, right?

After I cooked and consumed this Spicy Pork Bingoongan W/ Napa Cabbage dish for lunch the other day, I googled how other Filipinos cook it. Most of the recipes I’ve read call for big chunks of pork, simmered for a while, some in coconut milk, and some even cooked the pork chunks on the crispy side before adding the shrimp paste. I thought, well, that explains why I don’t cook this dish often. I know nothing of how to make it authentically, hah. I just sliced a pork steak in cubes, then sauteed them with garlic, ginger, tomatoes, green onions, and for a vegetable factor, I added slices of napa cabbage. VOILA!

I had 9 full ziploc bags of catfish in my freezer after my husband’s fishing trip last Thursday. So far I’ve made creole catfish nuggets out of the stomach fillets. The other night I cooked up another bag of the fillets by simmering the fish in coconut milk. It was soooo good. Anything simmered in coconut milk always turns out well, right? This Catfish Fillets In Creamy Coconut Milk Sauce is not an exception.

I adapted t...