"Sopas"

My son requested for me to cook "sopas" or the chicken noodle soup last nite. Instead of using egg noodles, I use large shell pasta mixed with spaghetti pasta. He wants to bring it as his lunch for school so as his doting mother I did.
It is loaded with different kinds of vegetable so it is good for him but ofcourse as always he requested putting the vienna sausage his favorites. We try to limit giving him canned goods for health reason. But once in awhile we give in.
With this soup, I could use different kind of pasta or what ever pasta I have in my pantry. He prefers the large shell pasta and the spaghetti pasta mixed together, go figure. Taste ofcourse will be the same well I guess how it looks make a difference, hmm. Normally, I would use only one kind of pasta but the day I was going to make it I didnt have enough so I've mixed whatever I have in my pantry and for some reason the whole pot was gone just after 2 days, normally it last longer than that. Well, the three of us had it the next day as our lunch or "baon" for work and school maybe thats why. And so the next day my husband and my son were still looking for it as their lunch or "baon" for work or school, well we dont have it anymore so I said I'll make some again next time. Been two weeks since I'd made it last, so when my son requested it last nite I went ahead and make it and it could be their baon again.
Ingredients: Garlic
Onion
chicken (ground beef or pork)
Vienna sausage optional
carrots,cabbage,green beans and celery
(other vegetable can be added if wanted)
1 can evaporated milk
1 can of chicken stocks
water
pepper and salt to taste
Procedure: Brown your ground beef or if chicken saute it with garlic and onion. Add the stocks and water. When boiling add your pasta when tender add the evaporated milk. let it simmer and add all the vegetables ( do not over cook) and the vienna sausage. Serve hot.

"Turon" (Lumpia or spring roll wrapper filled with bananas)

These are "burong saging" . I use it to make "turon" or spring roll wrapper filled with bananas and jack fruits.


"Turon" is a lumpia wrapper or egg roll wrapper or spring roll wrapper filled with bananas. You could use regular banana, plantain banana but "burong saging" are still the best. You could buy it here in the west mostly in asian store but to my surprise they have it sometimes here in our local grocery store. So when they do, I make sure that I buy it because my husband loves "turon" and bananaq. Since I have to go to the asian grocery store to buy some fresh fish, meat and other produce I went ahead and bought some. I found some good looking "burong" banana so I bought it and I made some "turon" today. You could actually make a lot, freeze them and prepare them when ever you have company or when ever you are craving for something sweet and crunchy.


What you need are, lumpia or spring roll wrapper,banana, optional jack fruit and sugar.

Banana cut according to your desire size. I cut it into four to make it smaller and easier to bite. ( bit bigger than lumpiang shanghai size)
Put 2 slices of banana in the "lumpia" wrapper
Add your jack fruit or sugar optional ( sugar is not needed, unless you want it extra sweet) .

Deep fry until golden brown. I put it in myprepared platter with some paper towel.
"Turon" and ice tea or lemonade will be on "our meza" on this very hot day. Yup just few days back it was cold now it is scorching hot. So this is just perfect, warm,crunchy,sweet turon and ice cold ice tea or lemonade will be just fine.

Fruit top Cheesecake

My husband loves dessert. Among his favorites are cheesecake, fruitsalad, rice cake or bibingka, turon or banana fritter and etc. Well, last sunday when we were reading the newspaper (my husband and I), my son ofcourse were going through it too. He loves looking at the pictures and loves spelling out the words that he sees in the ads magazines. Looking back, (please bare with me with this looking back thing) few weeks ago we surprised his Dad with a Chocolate cake. My son helped me make it. He did all the mixing and the tasting while mixing and the nonstop hmmm this is so good mom. And when we were done putting the chocolate icing ofcourse, he wanted to make some more. I asked him why he wants to make more cakes? His answer was, I want to bring it to school. I told him next time again because we dont have enough ingredients. So back to last weekend, while looking through the newspaper, he saw a picture of a cheesecake with fruits on top of it (phillycheese ads). He said Mommy, want to make this please mom. I said yes next weekend. And this is that weekend, so while my husband took him to have his hair cut at Supercuts yesterday, I went ahead and bought some groceries and got the ingredients for our fruit top cheesecake. Top picture is the finished product.

Ingredients:

1 envelope of Non flavored gelatin

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup water

1 9 inch graham cracker crust ( you could buy the ready one from the grocery)

2 packages of cream sheese, softened.

fruits ( any seasonal fruits) I happened to see some great looking strawberries and some kiwi so I bought it. No pics of the kiwi, I used and we ate them already. These were the left over of the strawberries that I bought. There were some huge ones so those were the first ones that we ate.

Procedure:

Dissolve your gelatin in the water together with the sugar and let it boil while mixing.

With a mixer beat the cream cheese and slowly add the gelatin ( you could add crumbles of oreos cookies too). when done pour it to the prepared crust. Put it in the fridge until firm. Garnish it with berries and mint. Mine I garnish it with kiwi, fresh looking strawberries that I just bought and oh aside from that these strawberies looks so good it is so sweet too. So this fruit top cheesecake is actually very refreshing with all the fruits on the top.