Arce Dairy Ice Cream

Arce used to be the makers of Selecta Ice Cream but they eventually built their own brand in the late 90s. Since I've tasted the ice cream on a cone in UP during my college days, it has since become my favorite local ice cream.

My top 3 favorite flavors of Arce are pistachio, caramel and sweet corn. What I like about the ice cream is that the flavors are not too sweet and the milky taste is prominent. It also melts a bit faster than other local brand ice creams, I guess it having less artificial stuff.

I have yet to taste some of their other unique flavors like buko lychee, atis and blueberry cheese cake.

My version of risotto

This is the second time I've made "risotto" and it's more of Filipino rather than Italian. The first time I did this, I added uncooked rice into the broth and stirred constantly. It tasted great but the rice was cooked unevenly. So this time around I used cooked rice, since we had a lot of left overs from last night's dinner. And it was faster to cook too. If you love mushrooms and cream then this is a nice dish for you.

Patty's Beef and Mushroom Risotto

Ingredients:

Rice (cooked, about 3 cups)

Mushrooms of your choice (we used brown and shitake, put as many as you like)

Beef sirloin (or any thinly sliced beef in the grocery store cut into tiny pieces)

Frozen peas and carrots (thawed)

Butter ( 2 tbsps)

Garlic (1-2 cloves, minced)

Evaporated milk (one small can)

All Purpose Cream (the one in the small box)

Beef cube (1 cube)

Salt and sugar to taste

Water

Parmesan cheese

Saute minced garlic in butter. Add the beef and stir fry until it turns brown. Add the mushrooms then the vegetables. Add a half cup of water then add the beef cube, let it simmer. Add the can of milk and the whole box of cream. Add salt and sugar to taste. When it begins to boil, add the rice. Stir the rice thoroughly and mix the beef, vegetables and mushroom evenly. Stir constantly. You can add a bit more of water if it appears a little dry. Let it heat a bit then serve. Sprinkle parmesan cheese on top for more of that Italian taste.

Hope you like this one.

Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache Icing

I wanted to try my aunt's delicious chocolate cake recipe but I didn't want to be too ambitious and made it into chocolate cupcakes. She didn't share with me though her icing recipe and told me to buy the instant fudge icing at the store.

I didn't want to do that so since it's small scale stuff, I decided to use Martha Stewart's chocolate ganache icing recipe. It has three ingredients: chocolate, heavy cream and some corn syrup. I used dark chocolate for my icing and I was amazed with how easy it was to make. And look how shiny my cupcakes are!

I'm gonna make some more of these and this time with my Hershey's chocolate cupcake recipe. Chocolate overload! :)

Mango Hello Kitty Cake

I've had these molds for quite sometime and it is only now I got to use them. I wanted to make my boyfriend something special for our 5th month so I looked for a mango cake recipe online since he likes mangoes a lot. The recipe I found was actually for a cupcake one from the cupcake project, so the cake I think is a bit heavy, with a bibingka like consistency. I placed mangoes and strawberries inside with butter cream icing. I hope he likes it. :)

Sittori Chocolates from Daiso/Saizen

My sister and I were surprised to find snacks and noodles being sold at Saizen. Saizen here in Manila is known as Daiso in other parts of the world. We saw some of the snacks sold here in Taipei. The one I bought and is writing about is called Sittori Chocolates.

From the package I thought the chocolate snacks were covered in chocolate. But when I opened it, it was a kind of wafer snack with a very light chocolate coating. The wafer-like biscuit tasted like Nissin's Rubik's Wafer but a bit more chocolatey to the taste, probably because of the choco coating. It was sweet yet light so it's not overwhelming. I'd definitely buy some again.

Glico Potato Stick

My sister went to Thailand about two months ago and like all our travels, we always visit the convenience store to find any interesting snacks. And here is one of her interesting finds, Glico Potato Stick. It had interesting flavors like Japanese curry and BBQ but we found the cheese flavor the yummiest.

The sticks were light and flakey and the flavor wasn't too overpowering. I think it's much better than chips because it wasn't too salty for me. But I dunno really since I couldn't read the nutrition information since it was all in squiggles.

Cheese pimiento, my version

And I'm back. Sorry to have been out for sometime. :)


Anyway, I've got a lot of food pictures, waiting to be uploaded and written about here so I guess I better get started.


My sister and I went to the grocery a week ago and saw this package of buy-one-take-one bread by the counter and it looked yummy enough for us to buy. However, we had an arguement about what to put on the bread with our limited budget at the moment. I suggested to make a cheese pimiento spread but she didn't like the idea because it reminded her of our school baon when we were kids, those days when our mom didn't have much money to buy hotdogs or ham.


Anyway, I bought the ingredients for the cheese pimiento the following day when I wasn't with her and did my own version of my mom's recipe. And when I asked her if it tasted like anything we ate before and she sheepishly said it was much, much better. The cheese pimiento spread could even be a dip for chips and snacks. When we were kids, I used to think my mom used mayonaisse. But she actually used milk.

So here's how I did it:




















Cheese Pimiento

1 package of Eden Cheese
1 small can of Carnation Evaporated Milk
1 small can of red pimiento
sugar (optional)


1. Grate the cheese in a bowl.

2. Cut the pimiento into small slivers or slices. How many to put in will depend entirely on how much you'd like it to taste "pimiento".

3. Combine the cheese, pimiento and mix in the evaporated milk. Add sugar to taste.


Hope it's as easy for you to do as it was for me.