Spaghetti with chicken sausages and rosemary-flavoured cherry tomatoes
Over the years I realized that the best pasta dishes I’ve made were the ones where I didn’t have to use a recipe. Once I’ve learned the 4 basic steps, it becomes easy to experiment with different kinds of ingredients and flavours.
Carrot cake with pistachios and walnuts
About two weeks ago, I met an American from Michigan who moved to New Zealand and unexpectedly became a Kiwi farmer. In 2009, he started a WordPress blog called Moon Over Martinborough to chronicle their life in the farm which eventually led to a best-selling book of the same title. Carrot cake everyone wants is the most enticing story behind a recipe that I’ve ever read. It teaches you a lesson about sharing your most beloved recipes, unless you want an angry mob of pitchfork-carrying farmers at your door.
Sunday at home with nothing to do except create a new recipe and practice food styling and photography.
I have to thank Jessica of http://brownpaperbelle.com for introducing me to Marcella Hazan’s classic Italian tomato sauce recipe. Jessica used the tomato sauce for her Pizza On The Run. The moment I read about it, I just had to make it (Not the pizza dough, just the tomato sauce!) It is the simplest, easiest to make tomato sauce ever. Although it took 45 minutes to cook it, it’s the throw-everything-in-the-pot-and-forget-about-it-while-you-do-something-else kind which is so sexy if I may say so.
Have you ever cooked those green vegetables with yellow flowers? They are called Yu Choy or Chinese spinach. I dream of deep frying those flowers into crunchy crispiness. In the meantime, I have left-over chicken Adobo sauce from last week. A 15-minute recipe is in the works!
I am asked plenty of times, “What is your favorite Filipino recipe?” And I always answer automatically, “Adobo.” (And when I say Adobo I mean the chicken version since I don’t eat four-legged animals.)
One of the highlights of my trip to Portland Oregon was spending time with Lara Ferroni in her studio. If you are a food blogger + photographer and you don’t know who Lara Ferroni is, then you should read no further.
I HAD THE WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITY to meet up with two very talented pro food photographers while on vacation in this foodie-haven-of-a-city called Portland.
The kitchen is my playground. 