This is something that would appeal most to one of our senses – the taste buds. And yes, the hungry tummy. 🙂

Cooking is indeed, like art. It is a skill that you need to practice in order to create a wonderful masterpiece from combining the ingredients, to choosing the right cooking temperature, to coming up with a well-cooked, superb dish. It is TOUGH. It took me how many years before I can finally say that I am doing good with it. Keeping my fingers crossed on that. 😉

Yes, I have been cooking since I was in first year college. That was the moment when I had to make good use of the new-found freedom which is to try and learn different things. Learning, for me, didn’t stop there though. Until quite recently, I still crave to learn more as I possibly could.

Most of my dishes are Filipino dishes. I haven’t tried baking, although I really would want to learn how. That would be next on my to-do list. Definitely. So here are some of the Pinoy dishes that I have cooked, which are all this – a labor of love.

Bulalo or Filipino Beef Marrow Soup is one of my personal favorites. Especially during the cold weather. The beef bone marrow and the beef shanks are boiled until the meat becomes tender along with the cabbage/pechay, corn and potatoes. When done, you can garnish it with onion leeks just like what I did below. Yes, cooking is not complete without garnishing your dish before placing it on the table. :-p

Bulalo

This next dish is called Sinigang na Hipon or Pinoy Style Shrimp in Sour Soup. The shrimp is boiled along with the   tomatoes, onions and camote tops using either tamarinds, calamansi or a sinigang mix to make the soup sour. You can also use fish or meat instead of shrimps.

Sinigang na Hipon

Next would be Menudo, cooked the Filipino style. We usually use beef or pork as the main ingredient and just add carrots, potatoes, bell pepper, and chick peas. As for the sauce, I bought a pack of ready-made Menudo sauce and just mixed it along with the other ingredients when tenderizing the meat. And yep, I did not add chick peas for this one.

Menudo

What I have next is Bistek Tagalog or the Filipino version of Beef Steak. We just boil the beef sirloin until it becomes tender in soy sauce, garlic, onion rings, calamansi, and season with black pepper. I usually like my Bistek Tagalog topped with lots of onion rings. Don’t worry, I usually prepare a mint candy every after a meal with this dish. I guess you already know why. 😉

Bistek Tagalog

This is originally a Chinese dish but it became a common Filipino dish through time. We call it the Lumpiang Shanghai. It is made of ground pork seasoned with salt and pepper and I usually add carrots and onions before mixing them together. I place a thin portion of the mixture on a lumpia wrapper which can be bought in the local supermarkets and fry them until they are golden brown. My mom would put an egg in the ground pork mixture as a “binder” so that ground pork tidbits won’t scatter on your pan while frying.

Lumpiang Shanghai

Last but definitely not the least would be the Misua soup. Another dish adapted from the Chinese. The noodles used for this dish would be salted Chinese noodles made from wheat flour. We usually add along with it meatballs or ground pork, patola (sponge gourd), onions and then season with black pepper. I replaced the sponge gourd (which I don’t have at that time) with carrots and cabbage.

Misua Soup

I am sure by the time you finished reading this, you’re all hungry and famished ready to devour any food you see. Yes, good food is food not just for a healthy tummy but for good thoughts too. Now, writing this post just made me hungry. Off to the kitchen, I go. 😀

P.S.

Just in case you are wondering how I learned cooking, I owe it all and would have to say my utmost gratitude to my family starting from Dad, my Mom, my 3 older sisters and my brother who taught me the art of cooking and are now my (worst) food critics. hahaha Kidding. Nah, they are the best critics when it comes to everything. 😉