My First Vegetable Dish

You know how I bragged about my adobo. Now, I'm going to brag about my chopsuey ahaha. I'm nearing my yearly annual physical exam again and I don't want to have to be told again that my cholesterol level is up so I told Joema we have to include vegetables in our diet. So when we went grocery shopping last weekend, we bought different vegetables. I'm so happy the finished product did taste like chopsuey. You see my husband is a picky eater and aside from that he really doesn't eat much (obvious naman sa katawan di ba?). Sometimes I have to force him to eat extra servings but when we had my chopsuey he ate a LOT! Yey for me! :)

ingredients for chopsuey

my plate

the happy hubby

Here's the recipe I followed, only I didn't use celery and sitsar; and added other vegetables like baby corn, cauliflower and red and green bell pepper. Again this is from my Maya cookbook (inari ko na yung cookbook..wala ng solian 'to!)

2 pcs chicken breast, deboned and cut into strips
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 eggwhite
1/4 cup oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 onion, chopped
1 cup sitsaro, stringed
1 medium-sized carrot, sliced into rounds
2 stalks celery, cut into 1/4" lengths
1 1/2 cup shredded cabbage
1 cup water
2 tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon chicken bouillon
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon soy sauce

Combine chicken, salt, cornstarch, soy sauce and egghwite in a bowl. Marinate for a few minutes.
Heat oil in a wok or frying pan. Saute garlic until light brown. Add in onions and cook until wilted. Add the chicken and cook until tender. Stir in vegetables and stir fry for 5 mintues. Add half of the water. Disperse the cornstarch in the remaining water. Add this to pan. Blend in the bouillon, sugar and soy sauce. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat. Cover and simmer until vegetables are cooked.

My First Adobo

Before I blog about my first adobo let me tell you first about my cooking skills, or lack thereof. I don’t really cook. In our family, I’m the only one who doesn’t know how to cook. So when my brother and I are left at the house he’s the one who has to cook and I wash the dishes haha. There are only two times in my life when I attempted to cook - the first time was when we didn’t have a maid and I cooked tinola, I remember having to taste the dish every so often because I was afraid it won’t taste right, by the time it was cooked and ready to eat, I didn’t eat anything at all. The second time was when I cooked a simple pasta dish for Joema, I don’t remember if it was his birthday or it was our anniversary. My problem is I don’t know how to tell if the dish is cooked already - I know everything in theory but I don’t know anything in real life haha!

One of the wedding gifts we received was the George Foreman grill. I figured it will be a breeze cooking in this thing. So we bought chicken breasts and barbeque marinate. The manual of the grill says that the chicken should be cooked in 9 minutes. I set the alarm in my cellphone to 9 minutes and popped the chicken in the grill. After a while, I started smelling something – not like when someone is cooking. Basta it smelled and I was afraid I was going to burn the chicken. And then I heard a toot toot tooot. I was panicking already and telling Joema that it must be a fire alarm or I’ve set the smoke detector of our unit. Joema followed the sound and he tells me “E yung cellphone mo lang yun e nag-aalarm!” holding up my cellphone for me to look at. LOL That was hilarious! I was ready to call someone downstairs to help us. But anyways, inspite of the anxiety attack that chicken caused me..it tasted good (thanks to Mama Sita haha!) But suffice it to say, we haven’t used the grill after that.

I’ve only ventured into frying chicken and pork after that. Or we buy cooked dishes. The other day, I attempted to cook my very first adobo. I know it’s a simple dish for those who really know how to cook. But it’s still a milestone for me – cooking something that’s not fried haha. And I used other ingredients other than salt, pepper and oil *teehee*

Pork adobo (recipe from Maya Kitchens cookbook, which was lent to me by an officemate)

1 kilo pork, cube
1/3 cup vinegar
2 tablespoons crushed garlic
1 bay leaf, crushed
2-3 tablespoons soy sauce
salt to taste
½ teaspoon pepper
water
1 tablespoon oil

In a saucepan, put pork, vinegar, 1 tablespoon garlic, bay leaf, soy sauce, salt and pepper.



Bring to a boil then simmer uncovered until pork is tender. Remove meat from sauce.




In a skillet, heat oil then sauté remaining garlic. Add meat and fry until light brown.



Add the sauce.


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We only bought half-kilo of pork so I divided every measurement of the ingredients by two. Nasarapan naman si Joema. :-)