Sweet and Sour Meatballs

I have resurrected!

I've been busy lately because, you know, life happens, but here i am. Since I have been by myself for almost 2 days now, (hoorah!), I am compelled to survive on my own and while in the process of keeping myself alive, i decided to make a blog entry!

Living alone without my mom for awhile has been gratifying (oh lawd, i hope she doesn't read this) but of course, there's a downside of it. My mom is pretty much the chef in town so i'll probably starve to death if i don't do something. And cooking? I have negative skills of it. Tried making this and that, and it'll be either bland, burnt, too salty and I'll end up crying in the corner in hunger. HAHA.

Can you believe that? Well, i know how to bake, but, cook? Not much. So I decided to google easy recipes and found this heavenly website I've bookmarked ages ago and haven't checked out again!. http://panlasangpinoy.com/

So I am going to show to you Panlasang Pinoy's Sweet and Sour Meatball Recipe, my today's lunch... and dinner. I actually made half of what the recipe requires. I think I did justice to the meatballs. It was delicious!

Oh by the way, sorry for the crappy pictures, I lost my phone at that time and too tired/hungry to search for it.

Ingredients

Meatballs:

• 1 lb ground pork
• 1/2 cup bread crumbs
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 piece raw egg
• 1/2 cup onion, minced

Sweet and Sour Sauce:

• 1 tablespoon garlic, minced
• 1/3 cup vinegar
• 1 cup bell pepper (red and green combined)
• 1 medium sized onion, quartered
• 1 cup water
• 3 tablespoons tomato ketchup
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup carrot, sliced
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch diluted in 3 tablespoons of water
• 8 tablespoons cooking oil

Procedure

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine ground pork, minced onion, salt, ground black pepper, egg, and bread crumbs. Mix thoroughly.
2. Scoop about 1 to 2 tablespoons of mixture and form into a ball shaped figure. It depends on how big you want your meatballs but I want the kiddie-size (DONT JUDGE MEH!)

3. Heat a frying pan then pour-in 6 tablespoons of cooking oil.

4. When the oil is hot enough, pan-fry the ball-shaped mixture until the outer side turns brown.

5. Once done, turn off the heat and transfer the fried meatballs on a serving plate or bowl. Set aside.

6. Heat a separate cooking pot then pour-in remaining 2 tablespoons of oil. (I tweaked this a bit, I just used the same oil from the meatballs to make it flavorful.)

7. When the oil is hot enough, sauté the garlic. 

8. Add the quartered onion, sliced carrot, and bell peppers then cook for 2 minutes.

9. Put-in the tomato ketchup, brown sugar, and vinegar then stir.

10.Pour-in water and let it boil.
11. Add the cornstarch diluted in water and cook until desired thickness is reached. 

 12. Add in the meatballs and let it cook for about 2 mins

13. Serve and DON'T share.:D

 
So there you have it! It was really delicious and so easy to make. Worth a try! Nom nom nom.

Death by Oreo Cupcake

Finally! My first ever cupcake post!

I was about to post my Red Velvet Cupcake recipe the other week but my good for nothing sister deleted all the pictures from my cam. (GRRR!)

But then, the other day, I was in the mood to bake some cupcakes but my sister told me she’s had enough red velvets since its peak of production last Valentine’s day. She has a point there. Even I got all my hands and tongue red from making and eating red velvets. 

So I searched for the top cupcake ideas on the web (Red Velvet Cupcake is #1 Most Searched Cupcake Recipe, hahaha). And I found this! THE OREO CUPCAKE.

I mean, who doesn’t like, nay, LOVE OREOS?

Me, when I was 10 probably. Fact. The first time I ate an Oreo was when I was in high school. Back then I settled for Rosquillos, Shamrock’s Otap, Cream-O, Nissin Eggnog. Haha.

The Oreo Cupcake recipe I’m about to share to you has some little treasure at the bottom, the Oreo cookie, which is an unexpected, delightful treat.  Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 2                  cups                    sugar
• 1 3/4            cups                    All-Purpose Flour
• 3/4               cup                      unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2                  tsp                       baking soda
• 1 1/2            tbsp                     Apple Cider
• 1                  tsp                       baking powder
• 1                  tsp                       kosher salt
• 2                                             eggs
• 1                  cup                      buttermilk
• 1                  cup                      strong black coffee (DONT skip this! Believe me, it'll make a big diff)
• 1/2               cup                      vegetable oil
• 2                  tsp                       vanilla extract   
• 2                  packs                   Oreo cookies  

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 oF or 180  oC. Line muffin pans with cupcake liners and place one oreo in each liner.

2. In a separate bowl, combine the sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder. Mix until they're thoroughly combined.

 

  3. In another bowl, mix eggs, buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Beat well. Then add the coffee! (Again, dont skip this!). Beat, again.

 4.  Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Slowly. Trust me. ;P If your using an electric mixer, beat on medium speed for about 2 minutes until the batter will be thin.

 5. So as to get equal amounts of batter in each cupcake liner, use an ice cream scoop! Genius, isnt it?

6. Bake in a preheated oven for approximately 15-20 minutes or until wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting it. Unless you wanted a glaze and not a frosting, hehe.

Look how they perfectly rise :P 

And now for the frosting, you need: 

• 1/2            cup              butter
• 1               tsp               vanilla extract
• 3               cups            confectioner's sugar  
• 3 to 4        pcs              Oreo cookies crushed

1. Remove the filling from the Oreo cookies and cream it together with the butter.  Add the vanilla extract.
  

 

2. Slowly add the confectioner's sugar. Then add the crushed oreos. Beat well. 

  
 3. Now frost those sweet cupcakes!

Here's the final product. Look at those perfect oreos at the bottom!

 You know how crappy Cebu sometimes is, especially for a baker like me. Well, you know there aren't so much baking supplies stores here that the only option i have in a cupcake liner is plain white or red or green. So last year, when i visited Manila, i found this amaaaaaazing store in Greenbelt 5 that just, ugh, i couldnt describe it. It took my breath away. I was like a kid shopping for toys when i saw it! All those Wilton cupcake liners. waaaah!

Gourdo's :)

  

But then stupidity caught me. I left the cupcake liners i bought together with my Harry Potter dvd collection at my uncles. huhuhuhuhu. Good thing i had one in my other bag and survived my, well, alzheimer moment. 

I tried it, but.. it was too big for my cupcake! :(( Well, i havent figured it out if i should put the batter directly to these paper cups (?)

Anyway, cupcakes' still awesome. *wink



 

Dense Mango Cake

My mom asked me to bake a cake for our birthday dog, Kobie. I wanted to make a chocolate cake but then chocolates are considered poison for dogs and i wanted Kobie to have a bite of his birthday cake. So i decided to make a MANGO CAKE. It's all fine, i doubled check everything to see every ingredient is good for the dog, and humans to eat. hehe.

I wasn't able to take pictures since I'm in a hurry and Kobie seems hungry already. teehee.

DENSE MANGO CAKE

Ingredients:
>  3/4                   cup                   melted butter
>  1                      cup                   refined sugar
>  3                                              eggs
>  1                      cup                   mango puree
>  1                      cup                   sour cream
>  1                      cup                   chopped dried mangoes
>  2  1/4               cup                   all-purpose flour
>  1                      tbsp                  baking powder
>  1/2                   tsp                    salt

Note: In the absence of sour cream, a cup of (250 ml) of all-purpose or heavy cream combined with 1 tbsp of white vinegar or calamansi juice

Procedure:
1. Preheat oven to 325 oF. Grease the sides and bottom of a 9-inch baking pan with butter or vegetable oil shortening.

2. In a bowl, combine the melted butter, sugar, eggs, mango puree, sour cream, and chopped dried mangoes, and beat until smooth and blended.

3. Sift flour, baking powder and salt. Then add to the butter mixture, stirring until there are no more traces of flour.

4. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until the top exterior of the cake is firm and dry when touched.

5. Cool on a cooling/wire rack before removing from the pan.


Here's how the cake looks like after i decorated it. :P

Red Velvet Pancake with Cream Cheese Glaze

For my whole life, I have been eating ready-made pancakes and I was satisfied with it. Now that I have been passionate with baking, I wanted to make my own pancakes from scratch, and my, it was just so easy! I never realized how something so good can be done as easy as doing it in ready-made mixes.

I decided to make a RED VELVET PANCAKE. Yep, it's red and it's yummy. I have been making a LOT of red velvet cupcakes and i decided, why not make it into pancake! So here it goes.


Ingredients:

• 2 cups         All-Purpose Flour
• 2 tsp            baking powder
• 1/2 tsp         salt
• 2 tbsp          cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp          sugar (optional)
• 2                  eggs
• 1 1/2 to 2     cups  milk
• 2 tbsp           room temp butter plus for cooking 
• 1 tsp             vanilla
• 2 tsp             red food coloring   

Procedure

1. Mix together the dry ingredients. Make sure to sift them all.

2. Beat the eggs into 1 1/2 cups of milk. Add 1 tsp of vanilla extract. Then stir in the 2 tbsp of butter.

 

3. Gently stir the milk mixture into the dry ingredients, mixing only enough to moisten the flour; dont worry about the few lumps. If batter seems to be thick, add a little more milk.

 4. Add 2 tsp red food coloring. You can add a few tsp of red food coloring since it wont affect the taste of your batter. In this mixture, i added 4 tsp of red food coloring to get my desired color.

You can transfer your batter in a pitcher to pour it easily into the pan, like this!

5. Use a little butter or oil each time you add batter. Always pour at the center of the melted butter. Adjust heat. Usually the first batch will require higher heat than the subsequent batches. Flip it in about 2 to 4 minutes as long as you see the sides begin to form and bubbles appear in the center of pancake.


What is a pancake without some sugary sauce right? Instead of using the typical syrup and butter, I used CREAM CHEESE GLAZE just like in Red Velvet Cupcakes!

Ingredients:

• 4 ounces            cream cheese, room temp
• 1/2 cup              powdered sugar
• 1 tsp                  vanilla extract
• 3 to 4 tbsp         milk

Beat cream cheese until very creamy. Beat in powdered sugar, vanilla and milk. Combine. Add more milk to get desired consistency. Drizzle in the pancakes.

I have to cut the sides of the pancake 'coz i hate it. So here's the finished product!

M&M's Cookies

M&M's Cookies. I didn't use chocolate chips, that's why. I'm so hungry I just need to whip up something from ingredients available at home. So I made these and took the opportunity to blog it as my first entry. Hurrah!

Anyway, cookies. Probably the easiest I made so far. I always like cookies that are chewy and chocolatey but then I don't have the best ingredients in hand so I just improvised.

Now, how to make these babies:

You'll need :

• unsalted butter, melted for greasing
• 1 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup margarine/butter, melted
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 55g/2 oz caster sugar/refined sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 125 g/ 4 1/2 oz of M&M's 

Instruction:

1. Preheat oven to 180oC for 15 mins. Line and lightly grease baking sheets. Set aside.

2. Beat the butter and sugar (both the brown and refined sugar) with mixer or wire whisk until smooth.

3. Stir in vanilla extract and egg. (You can also add 3 tbsp of liquid glucose to help improve texture of your cookies, making them extra chewy :P). Mix until well-blended.

 4. Stir in the sifted flour and baking powder. Add gradually and do not overmix. Stir until blended or until there are only a few traces of flour. Add the M&M's.

5. Drop cookie dough by tablespoons or a scoop making sure you have enough spaces apart since these cookies will grow as fast as Yao Ming.

6. Bake in a preheated oven about 10 - 12 minutes or until the sides are golden brown in color (the center of the cookies should remain soft)

And there you have it! Easy as pie. Although, i couldnt say that since I haven't tried making pies yet. Aha!

There you go teddy. 

Aaaaaand he's full. HAHA