Happy Birthday To Me!

Today is yours truly's birthday; grandson Benjamin brought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers and sang a beautiful birthday song!! Thanx Benj, you can try out for American Idol.

After working most of the day, hubby took me to a Chinese restaurant, one that we haven't been to before. It was a nice place and the food was good.

This is what the birthday girl ordered, Kung Pao chicken which was good except the sauce was a little bit salty

My hubby ordered sweet and sour sauce chicken with brown rice. He said it was really good. Over all the dinner was good and we had an enjoyable dinner.

#42_Stuffing with Italian Sausage

Let me back track and post a recipe or two from the Thanksgiving dinner before everything gets so crazy again this month. I am afraid I will never get caught up with all the recipes I intend to post from last month's event. So I better squeeze in this one recipe:

Stuffing or Dressing with Italian Sausage
before it hit the oven

I've never stuffed the turkey with the dressing, but always baked it separately from the turkey like a casserole. It probably has something to do with psychological effect rather than taste.

Home-style Stuffing Bread

Stuffing bread is one of the few items that I make days ahead of time, but there was a disastrous moment that occurred this year as I tried making the stuffing bread few days before Thanksgiving day. I was multi-tasking at the time I had the bread cubes in the oven, and didn't hear the timer go off, so I ended with burnt bread cubes. I went and bought these stuffing bread from a local grocery store, who makes homemade style stuffings, by that I mean the bread cubes are larger and do not have too much crumbs, unlike the kind you buy in boxes.

sausage is sauteed in skillet

Recipe for the stuffing:
2 packages (1 lb. each) Italian sausages
1 can black olives, sliced
1 onion, chopped
5 stalks celery, sliced
1 lb. stuffing bread
1 tsp salt
1 tsp. poultry seasoning
1- 1/4 to 1-1/2 cans chicken broth (updated)

Procedure:
Heat a skillet. (there is no need to use cooking oil). In it, saute the sausages and onions together until the sausage starts to render its fat. Cover and let it simmer on low heat, stirring occasionally, until the meat is tender. Turn off heat then add in the celery, olives and seasonings, stir well; then add the bread cubes. Pour in chicken broth (more if you prefer very moist stuffing) and lightly mix together.

Transfer the mixture to a greased baking dish (or aluminum foil pan) then cover with aluminum foil and bake in a pre-heated 350 degrees oven for about 30 minutes.

Optional: You can add coarsely chopped pecan nuts before baking.

#41_ Lace Cookies

These cookies are very thin, crispy and have buttery taste.
They are so delicate that they tend to shatter to pieces
when you bite into them,
but they are very good, in fact, they can be addicting.

Drop them by teaspoonfuls on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet.

As they are baked they spread out and become bubbly
and form lace-like holes where they got their name from, thus,
Lace Cookies

Here's the recipe:

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 egg, slightly beaten

1 cup rolled oats, ground in food processor

1 cup granulated sugar

1/4 tsp salt

2 Tbsp. flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup pecans, finely chopped

Procedure:

1) In a bowl, mix all ingredients together with a fork. Cover with a plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator overnight. ( if you can't wait that long, at least 2 hours)

2) Heat oven to 350 degrees F.

3) Line cookie sheets with parchment papers.

4) Drop cookie dough by teaspoonfuls and about 3 inches apart on the prepared pans.

5) Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until the edges turn light brown.

6) Let them stand for about 3 minutes or til cookies are firm then peel them off the parchment paper and transfer them to cooling racks. Cool completely before storing.

Note from MaMely:

1) This is optional: after peeling them off the parchment paper, you can sprinkle them with powdered sugar.

#40_No-Bake Cheesecakes

I found this recipe on the label of Cool Whip topping over 20 years ago and since then it has been in my family and has become my husband's favorite kind of cheesecake.

This cheesecake is irresistibly delish and very easy to make. It is a "no-bake" and "no-cook" kind. How easy can that be? You can make this dessert in 10 minutes, but you have to wait about 5 hours though before you can slice it up. It needs to be chilled first.

The main ingredients are: graham cracker crust, cream cheese, sour cream and cool whip....and of course, your favorite toppings.

For toppings you can use your favorite canned fruit pie fillings or toppings as pictured above or you can make your own out of fresh fruits. ( Blueberry pie filling is missing from the picture)


These are mini or personal sizsepie crusts ready to be filled with CreamCheese fillings. I love using these ready crusts because they cut down on my preparation time by half. They are so convenient and make baking a little easier.

Don't these look like fruit tarts? I don't understand why they are called cheesecakes as they look more of tarts or pies than cakes.

Here's the recipe for 2 cheesecakes:

2 (9 inch) graham cracker pie crusts
1 brick (8oz) cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 cup sour cream
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 container (8 oz) Cool Whip topping
1 can fruit pie filling or topping

Procedure:
1) Cream together cream cheese and sugar
2) Stir in sour cream and vanilla
3) Fold in the Cool Whip (do not stir or mix...just fold)
4) Fill the crusts equally with the cream cheese mixture
5) Top with your favorite fruit pie fillings
5) Chill in the fridge for at least 5 hours before slicing

Note from Mamely:

1) The pie crusts will stand up to the pie fillings a lot better if you brush them with egg wash (egg yolk and 2 tbsp. milk) then bake them in a pre-heated 350 degrees oven for just 3 minutes. Cool before filling.

#39_Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Chewy and moist inside, they have good crusts on the outside, these cookies will vanish quickly. I found this recipe on the lid of Quaker oatmeal canister and the original name of it was Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. I pretty much followed the recipe except for a couple of changes. One, I soaked the raisins in fruit juice like orange juice or apple juice for one hour before adding them in with the mixture. By doing this, the raisins will plump up and become soft and makes the cookies so flavorful. Two, I added some walnuts.

Here's the recipe:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups oatmeal
1 cup raisins (soak in juice for an hour)
1 cup nuts, chopped

Procedure:

1) Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
2) Beat together the butter and sugars until creamy.
3) Add eggs and vanilla; beat well.
4) Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt and mix with the egg and butter mixture; mix well
5) Stir in oats, raisins and nuts; mix well.
6) Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet
7) Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown.
8) Remove to wire rack to cool.

ENJOY!!

Johnson's Thanksgiving Dinner (Check out related pictures in my other blog: pinayinutah.blogspot.com)

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh...sumpal la! Nalpasen apo!

I'm still so exhausted so I will be posting some recipes maybe next week. In the meantime, here are pictures of some items which I took while I was cooking them this morning. I found out that I can't do both cooking and taking pictures at the same time, specially when I am running behind the schedule. Like today, it was very hectic. I didn't get to take a lot of pictures.

Butterball turkeys don't come with pop-up timers. Therefore I bought a pop-up timer and stuck it into the turkey breast before I put it in the oven. When I took the bird out of the oven, when the timer popped up, the turkey was nice and golden brown. Everybody at the dinner said that the turkey was so moist and tender.

Swedish meatballs cooking in a crockpot

I put the spiral ham in a roaster oven to bake while I roasted the turkey in the big oven

Stuffing with Italian sausage

Bulalo, my favorite dish and comfort food, with yam, potatoes, green cabbage, plantain banana, bokchoy, and napa cabbage. This is one dish that you can make ahead of time. I boiled the meat a few days before and just before serving, I reheated it and put in the veggies.

I peeled and mashed 20 lbs. of potatoes and put it in another roaster oven which I borrowed from my friend, Aida, to keep the mashed potatoes warm.

What's for Dessert? ( Check out related pictures in my other blog: pinayinutah.blogspot.com

Cheesecakes, Cheesecakes and Cheesecakes!!!

Cherry cheesescake

Raspberry cheesecake

Strawberry cheesecake



The three kinds of cheesecakes shown in mini-tart shells or mini-pie crusts



Cherry cheesecake in a mini pie crust

Notes:

I will be posting the recipe next week.

I didn't have a chance to take a picture of the dessert table because I was so busy. Aside from cheesecakes, I made German chocolate cake, crema de fruta, and pistachio salad.

My friend Erlinda made some fruit salad with cottage cheese. Charley made some frosted brownies and pumpkin squares. Pumpkin pies were made by Wayne and Amy. They were all sinfully delish!!

The brazo de Mercedes con ube haleya didn't turn out good and it is not worth blogging about. As I was rolling the meringue, it cracked across that I couldn't roll it up. So I just made it into a flat cake with layers of the meringue, halaya, yema. Then I topped it with the other half of meringue. It tasted like brazo with ube, but of course didn't look like brazo because it's a flat layered cake. I decided to make one another time.

#38_Ube de Jalea or Halaya Ube

Jalea de Ube

This is one of the "make-ahead" items on my list for the Thanksgiving dinner. It was getting late and the lighting wasn't very good, but I went ahead and took this picture anyway so that I can post this entry tonight as I'm afraid I won't be able to do it in the next few days.

Some people might wonder what ube is? It is a root crop which is sometimes called purple yam used in making desserts. Mr. Wiki (pedia) can tell you more about it.

I will be making a Brazo de Mercedes with Ube on Wednesday for my Filipino friends who are coming to the dinner. For the halaya ube, I can make it days ahead, so that will be real helpful with the time element. As the chefs in Food Network say, a sucessful dinner is all about timing. I hope so.

I only need one batch for the cake but I doubled the recipe (above picture) because I love to eat this dessert.

The recipe is really simple as you can see it has only 3 ingredients and if you want a good workout for your arm, you'll want to try making this dessert.

Here's the recipe for the Ube de Jalea:

1 package grated frozen ube, thawed out

1 stick butter

1 can condensed milk


Procedure:

1) Pass the thawed out ube through a sieve because you want this to be really smooth.

2) Put all the ingredients in a non-stick pan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thick.

3) Press the cooked jalea onto a buttered dish.

Notes:

1. Because I will be spreading the ube halaya on the merigue (for the brazo cake) I made it a little thinner than I normally do.

2. I usually mix in about 2 tbsp. of mochico with just enough water to dissolve it, into the halaya mixture for body and better texture.

Let's Talk Turkey

Gobble,Gobble! My quest for a 22 pound turkey

The biggest turkey I found only weighed 19.91 pounds

Thanksgiving Dinner Menu

Exactly one week from today is Thanksgiving Day. I have been busy planning and preparing for the dinner. There's going to be about 45 people for the dinner. I might not have time to post an entry between now and Thanksgiving because I have tons of stuffs to do. I will also squeeze in my Christmas lights and Christmas decorations outside before it gets too cold to do it. I hope I will have time to take pictures of the food so I will have some materials to post in this blog.

Here's a sample of the Johnson family traditional Thanksgiving dinner menu:

Roast turkey ....and all the trimmings, such as gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffings/dressings, and ham. I hope I will be able to find a 22-pound turkey. I looked today, but the biggest I saw was 20 lbs. I will be making some cheesecakes which is my husbands favorite dessert
The kids will be bringing the drinks, side dishes and desserts, desserts and lots of desserts

I will have about 15 Filipino friends at the dinner so maybe I will make the following:

Crema de frutas, ube brazo de mercedes and maybe some nilagang karneng baka (pochero? or bulalo?)