Kalamansi Desserts

Well hello there stranger!  It's so nice to see you. :)

I really don't have a good excuse as to why it's taken me so long to update my blog, but this is the honest to goodness truth - I've been ridiculously busy.  So what has happened since my last post?  Well, I went on a wonderful trip with my family to the Philippines where I had a mini-reunion with my relatives who I haven't seen in almost 10 years.  I also was very lucky to try so many Filipino dishes that were, of course, vegetarian.  The dish that stood out the most was Vegetarian Kare-Kare, which is a dish that normally has beef, oxtail and tripe stewed in thick orange peanut-base sauce.  I really need to recreate it but the only thing I remember was that banana hearts were an ingredient.

When I came back to Guam, I officially became a homeowner.  That in itself took much of my time but I'm so glad I did it.  I now have the kitchen space I need!  So on to my post.

Now, I know I'm lucky to have the boyfriend I have today.  There's a million (and growing) reasons why this is so, but one of my favorite reasons is the fact that his dad always gives me fresh fruits and vegetables from his yard.  So today, his dad gave me a huge bag of kalmansi.  Kalamansi is a type of citrus fruit originally from the Philippines that's small (1"-2" in diameter) and has skin that turns orange when ripe.  I get pretty excited when I'm given kalamansi because some of my favorite foods and drinks use it as an ingredient.

 

Today, I decided to make some kalamansi cupcakes w/ cream cheese frosting and kalamansi sugar cookies.  Both turned out well, but I think my favorite is going to be the cupcakes since they came out fluffy and the cream cheese just tastes so good w/ a semi-tart cupcake. 
My kalamansi cupcake recipe is my adaptation of this recipe.  I went with less sugar so that the kalamansi flavor comes out more, and I left it in the oven for just 11 minutes instead of 30 so they came out with a golden color.

The sugar that I used in my cupcake is called cocosugar which is sugar made from the coconut plant.  It's similar to brown sugar and the reason why I use it is because it's much healthier than white or brown sugar since it has a low glycemic index.  I purchased the Benevita brand of  cocosugar at my local Pay-Less Supermarket.

I wish the frosting that I used was made of cocosugar but unfortunately, I ended up using store-bought ready to use frosting.  All my past experiences making frosting from scratch all ended horribly so I've been relying on Betty Crocker in that department.  Once I upgrade my mixer, I think I'll attempt making frosting again.

The kalamansi sugar cookies were a last-minute "eh why not?" thought.  When life hands you kalamansi, make more kalamansi treats.  I mixed 2 recipes I found online together to make one I-hope-it-goes-well recipe and in the end, I was semi-satisfied with the turnout.  I personally like my cookies on the crunchy side and these cookies came out soft.  The kalamansi taste did come out subtly so next time, I think I'll add more kalamansi and maybe some zest.  The one thing I really did like was how cute the little guys turned out.

 

Vegetarian Chicken Steaks

I can’t believe it’s already March!  The year is going by so quickly.  Sometimes I find myself on a Friday afternoon in disbelief that it’s already near the end of the week because I swore it was just Monday the day before.  In other parts of the world, it probably means the start of spring, but here on Guam, it doesn’t really mean a significant change in weather.  I’m pretty sure it’s just going to get hotter here. 

I mentioned before that I love to pack lunch.  I didn’t always have this opinion before though.  In fact, I used to always go out for lunch and wonder how in the world can other people just stay in and eat.  But that was when I didn’t cook at all.  Now that I’m cooking, I’m learning that staying in for lunch isn’t bad at all.  I’m sure everyone has heard the logic that cooking your own meals will save you money, and it’s definitely true for me.  It’s even more important now to save since gas prices are only getting higher.  As of today, premium gas is $5.79 per gallon.  Such a bummer.

One of my go-to meals to pack are foods made by Vegetarian Plus.  This time I tried their Vegetarian Chicken Steaks with black pepper sauce which I bought at Simply Food.  It was really easy to prep.  Although the package’s instructions say you can microwave it, I don’t recommend doing that.  Instead, follow the stovetop instructions.  There’s 4 steaks in a box so you can split them with someone else if you’re trying to pack a light lunch.  I think it only tasted OK and not fantastic or great, and it’s because the steaks came with so little sauce.  I would buy this again, but just not any time soon.             

Vegetarian Italian Sausage and Tomato Pasta

I love cooking food that I can make in huge quantities because it'll last for a couple of days.  This really helps me on work days when I prefer to pack lunch instead of eating out.  This  past weekend, I was in the mood to make some sort of pasta.  The last time I made pasta was when I made Filipino spaghetti (which I didn't blog about because I somewhat overcooked the noodles...I swear I will get it right the next time and blog about it) so I wanted to make something different this time.  I was originally going to make a tomato and basil pasta but I found a recipe for Italian sausage and tomato pasta and I just couldn't resist.

I love Tofurky's Italian sausage with sun dried tomato and basil, which I purchased at Micronesia Mall Pay-Less Supermarket, and I thought it would be perfect in this recipe.  It's super flavorful and I think, by far, the best vegetarian Italian sausage available on Guam.  The sausages are about the same size as hot dog franks, but I didn't ground it up like the original recipe called for.  Instead, I just sliced them up which was much easier to do.  Prepping the pasta sauce was relatively easy since I used a can of already diced tomatoes instead of dicing the tomatoes myself.  Efficiency is the name of the game!
The original recipe called for 1 teaspoon of dried oregano, but I went with 1/2 teaspoon of dried oregano and 1/2 teaspoon of dried basil.  To be honest, I really don't know the difference between the two.  I did a little research and it looks as though the two are interchangeable.  I did read some blogs on this topic and some say that basil is their herb of choice while others are Team Oregano.  I'm totally neutral between the two and my tastebuds aren't refined enough to tell the difference so I just went with half and half.
The pasta turned out super delicious.  The Parmesan cheese really helped balance out the strong flavor of the sausage and it helped make the pasta sauce thicker.  It makes me pretty happy to know that I don't have to suffer from bland food just because I'm vegetarian.  I can't wait to make other types of pastas!  If I can replicate Capricciosa's pastas then I would be one super happy vegetarian.

Two Ingredient Juice Recipe

Sometimes I feel dead-beat tired or just plain lazy after work, which I'm sure everyone feels every now and then.  On these days, I follow a quick juice recipe so I can maximize my relaxation time.  This recipe requires just two ingredients: watermelon and kale and it's enough for four 16 oz. servings.  It's a great fruit to juice since it's mostly made of water and there's not a lot of preparation involved.  The juice taste isn't as sweet as the other juice recipes I've posted so it's perfect if you're also looking for a juice mix that's somewhat mild.  I call this the two-ingredient juice recipe because you can substitute the watermelon for other fruits that are mostly made up of water: honeydew, cantaloupe, and even pineapple.  I've tried all of these fruits with kale and the juice always tastes like the fruit I used in the recipe.

Burger King Veggie Burger

Yes, vegetarians can go with their friends to Burger King and not feel left out while everyone is eating Whoppers.  I wish other fast food restaurants can take a page out of Burger King's book and serve veggie burgers on their menu.  Burger King's Veggie Burger is a burger that has lettuce, tomatoes, onions, ketchup on top of a veggie patty.  The veggie patty is so juicy and reminds me of GardenBurger's veggie burger patties.  After doing a little research, I found that the patty is made out of soy, mushrooms, water chestnuts, onions, carrots, green and red bell peppers, and black olives. (Yuuuuum.)  It's also a burger that's about the same size as a Whopper so it fits in with the rest of BK's popular burgers.  The last thing I like about Burger King's Veggie Burger is the way they cook it.  Instead of cooking the veggie burger patty with the rest of the regular burger patties, BK actually cooks it separately by microwaving it.  I love having things my way.          

Pad Ki Mow and Red Curry

Before I start posting about where I tasted delicious Thai food, I would just like to apologize for the decrease in posts this month.  This month has been somewhat of a whirlwind for me and I really don't like to blog unless I'm  sure I have a couple of hours of uninterrupted quiet time.  By the looks of it, I'll be finding those hours in the early hours of the day.
Anyways, here I am and ready to blog.  The picture above is a Thai dish called pad ki mow and, according to the restaurant's menu, means "spicy noodle with basil."  The restaurant I'm referring to is Khaohom Thai and it's a pretty new place that opened just last year.  They're located on Marine Corps Drive in Hagatna across Alupang Beach Tower.  It's a hard place to miss since its building is painted mustard yellow (one of my favorite colors) with a red roof.  What I love about Thai food is the fact that it's definitely vegetarian-friendly.  All the Thai restaurants I've been to on Guam have vegetarian versions of most of their dishes.  Perfect for someone like me since I get tired of salads every now and then.  Khaohom Thai's pad ki mow was tasty with not too much spice in it and saucy without being oily.  The vegetables in it were broccoli, carrots, and lettuce and none were overcooked.

It's hard to go to a Thai restaurant and not order some form of curry.  This day, I decided to have their red curry with just vegetables.  I like my curry spicy and so this one was pretty hot.  There wasn't much variety in the vegetables but there definitely was a generous serving of it.  There were bamboo shoots, broccoli, lettuce, and bell peppers.  I was happy to find the curry wasn't oily at all either.  I drowned my bowl of rice with soup and ate every single grain.
Serving sizes for both dishes were large enough so that 2 people can split them.  Both dishes are available at any Thai restaurant on Guam, but I think Khaohom Thai's version are the least oiliest.          

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

I can relate to Cookie Monster and his extreme love for cookies.  I love all kinds of cookies, but I have to say my favorite is the classic chocolate chip cookie.  When I was little, I made sure my mom always stocked our house with Chips Ahoy. When Chips Ahoy introduced their Chewy version and I followed its microwave suggestion, I marked the day I bit into that warm, chewy cookie as a milestone in my life.

I wanted to share my love of chocolate chip cookies with my friends this past Christmas, so I baked vegan chocolate chip cookies and gave them as Christmas gifts.  They're pretty easy to make.  The hardest part of the whole process was waiting for the cookies to be ready to taste.  Three items that are critical for this vegan recipe are Earth Balance Natural Butter Spread, Ener-G Egg Replacer, and Sunspire Vegan Carob Chips.  All work great as substitutes so there's no need to worry about sacrificing taste.  Carob chips serve as chocolate chip substitutes and are made from the Carob tree.  It's not too sweet and can actually act as a dark chocolate substitute.  I purchased all of them at Simply Food. 

Vegan Kung Pao Chicken

For the past 5 months, I've been packing lunch for my boyfriend and I on a regular basis instead of eating out at restaurants during lunch breaks.  Doing this has helped us save money and at the same time, gave us peace of mind that what we're actually eating is vegetarian.  One issue that I did encounter with packing lunch is finding the time to cook.  Cooking in the morning is definitely out of the question because I'm, unfortunately, not an early bird.  My body is stubborn and refuses to wake up earlier than 7am.  One of my New Year's resolutions was to train my body to wake up at 6am but so far, I've made zero progress.  But I digress, and what I actually wanted to point out was that I found vegan food that tastes good and is so easy to prepare.  I've blogged about Vegetarian Plus' products, which I've always been able to find at Simply Food, in previous posts, and this is another one that I have to give a thumbs up to.  This is Vegetarian Plus Vegan Kung Pao Chicken and it's a pretty saucy and spicy dish.  I really like the heat from this dish, but I think the next time I cook it, I have to add some bell peppers and water chestnuts just to make it more authentic.  However, if you're pressed for time like I normally am, just opening the box and warming it up on the stove without additional ingredients will suffice.     

Garlic Sautéed Spinach

I've been on a roll lately with easy to make recipes and this one is no exception.  I guess I've been in somewhat of a "lazy" mode and this dish matched my level of productivity.  Luckily, it tasted good even though there wasn't much need of an effort on preparation.  What I discovered was that adding a little vegan butter and a squeeze of lemon at the end made all the difference to the dish.  (Thank you Barefoot Contessa!)  Now I don't need to go to a Chinese restaurant to get garlic sautéed vegetables.

Quick and Easy Juice Recipe

I was feeling a little lazy tonight and wanted to make juice as quick as possible so that I could catch Episode 4 of  Downton Abbey (my latest TV obsession).  This juice recipe calls for just 3 ingredients - kale, pineapple, and coconut water.  Since coconut water can be bought at any supermarket, and kale can be juiced immediately after a good wash, this juice was really easy to prep with my just having to peel the pineapple.  I play around with this kind of recipe a lot and I found that you can easily replace the pineapple and coconut water with honeydew or cantaloupes.

Mmmm...Firecracker Sauce

Last night I ate dinner at Table 35 for my nephew's 17th birthday and decided to order their vegetable wraps from their new menu. Before I go into how delicious those wraps were, I just want to mention how time is flying by before my very eyes. I swear it was just yesterday that my nephew was in elementary running around like a little tazmanian devil! Time is so sneaky like that.

I ordered the vegetable wraps because I wanted something light since earlier during the day, I had stuffed myself with not so few dinner rolls, olive dip, and enchiladas. I also liked the fact that it came with 3 sauces because a girl needs options you know?

When I was served the vegetable wraps, I knew I wouldn't want to share this with anyone. There was an awesome medley of vegetables in the bowl which I'm going to attempt to list - bok choy, celery, carrots, shitake mushrooms, spinach, and nuts all cooked together with some sort of soy based sauce. As if that wasn't enough to win me over, each of the three sauces the dish came with complimented the vegetables. The three sauces were sweet chili sauce, peanut sauce, and something they call "firecracker" sauce. The firecracker sauce (bottom sauce in the picture) was, I think, the best one out of the trio. I couldn't tell what was in it except it was tangy and spicy but not over-powerly hot. I think I just found my favorite dish at Table 35.

In my haste to post this, I forgot to mention where Table 35 was! It's on 665 South Marine Drive right next to First Hawaiian Bank in Tamuning.    

International Vegetarian Food Fair

Yesterday, my boyfriend and I made the drive down south to check out the International Vegetarian Food Fair, which was being held at the Guam Adventist Academy.  It was our first time going to this fair, but it turns this was the fair's 5th run.  I'm really glad we decided to go because there was so much good food.  There were booths showcasing Chamorro, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, American, French, Mexican, and Israeli dishes.  We arrived around 1pm and so unfortunately, we weren't able to try all the dishes, but the food we did get a chance to try was pretty good and filling I might add.  It's funny to say but we actually started out with sampling some delicious baklava dessert.  Then we made our rounds and tried chik'n adobo, cooked spinach, chalakilis, flour tortillas, stir fry noodles with vegetables, papaya salad, spanakopita and a fruit smoothie.  The turnout was pretty good I think and the fair itself was organized.  Food was fairly priced and some of the portions were pretty huge!  I actually scored the stir fry noodles with vegetables and papaya salad for just $2 so the fair didn't hurt our wallet at all but probably stretched our stomachs a bit.  I hope this fair is held again in the future, and once I know I'll definitely post the dates.  Here are the pics I took from the fair:

What's Your Eating Schedule?

I find so many articles on how many times a person should eat daily and they fall into basically 2 categories:  Those that recommend eating little meals every 3-4 hours and those that recommend 3 meals a day.  I'm more for the "little meals" school of thought because I found that when I really listened to my body and ate only when I was hungry, it turned out that my body gets hungry every 3-4 hours.  My daily eating schedule looks something like this: breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, and then dinner.  My breakfast is always a 16 ounce serving of juice and my dinner majority of the time is another 16 ounce serving of juice.  Snacks mostly consist of nuts, crackers, and/or granola bars.  Lately, I've been my own version of a trail mix and mixing nuts with dark chocolate covered fruits.  I don't pack a lot for snacks; majority of the time, it's just 2-3 handfuls of whatever I feel like snacking on.

Although I am no dietician or nutritionist, I really feel snacking is necessary and good for the body.  The key things to think about when it comes to snacks are the content and the portion.  What I plan on snacking on and how much of it do I plan on eating are questions I normally ask myself when thinking about snacks.  Surprisingly, I stopped caring about how much calories are in a particular food ever since I found out half a cup of pistachios is almost the same amount of calories as an order of McDonald's medium-sized french fries.  Since I refrain from eating anything that's deep fried, my list of choices is narrowed and its easier for me to choose a snack.

I think the best thing to do before making a conscious decision to snack is to (1) listen to your body and see if you really are hungry and (2) to stop eating when you feel full.  Granted there's lots of environmental stimuli around us that can affect the way we think (ie. food commercials, people eating around you, etc.) so it'll take some time before you figure out what's your body's preferred eating schedule.  Trust me though, taking that time is definitely worth it.       

  

Carmen's Cha Cha Cha!

I love going to Carmen's Restaurant, which is located across the Hagatna Cathedral.  Their menu is so awesome for vegetarians and their prices are pretty affordable too.  It's a shame I don't go there often since I live far from it, but every time I do there, I'm not disappointed.  They always start you off with tortilla chips and two types of salsa right when you sit down.  I don't eat anything deep fried so I don't eat the chips, but the salsas are so good they're perfectly fine to eat sans chips.

Beans are a great source of protein, and Carmen's does a great job of cookin' some beans.  I ordered a bowl on the side to eat with my grilled vegetables taco.  Their taco is served in a warm flour tortilla filled with grilled cucumbers, red and yellow bell peppers, and onions.  The tortilla is so good I can and have eaten it by itself.  (Actually, I wish I had some right now.)  What I ate may not seem like a lot, but when I left the restaurant, my stomach was satisfyingly full.    

  
 

Cheesy Hash Brown Bake

It's true that delicious food doesn't have to be associated with complicated ingredients or recipe instructions.  This Cheesy Hash Brown Bake is a perfect example.  I only used 3 main ingredients - vegetarian chili, shredded hash brown potatoes, and vegan mozzarella cheese.  The only additional ingredients were salt and pepper.  The original recipe called for cilantro, but I didn't think it would taste great with the ingredients.  In the end, it turned out to be a spicy delicious comfort food.  It was supposed to be lunch for my boyfriend and I tomorrow, but I really couldn't resist eating a chunk out of the bake.  I'm sure my boyfriend wouldn't notice if his lunch wasn't the normal serving amount ;).

For my vegetarian chili, I used Health Valley's Spicy Tomato Vegetarian Chili because I was craving something spicy.  It tasted pretty good, but I am still on the look out for vegetarian chili with the least amount of sodium.  I purchased this at Micronesia Mall Pay-Less Supermarket.  For my vegan cheese, I used Daiya Shredded Mozzarella Cheese, which I posted about here.  They taste great by themselves, but I really prefer them in melted form.  They also make great cheddar cheese so you can definitely use that if you prefer it over mozzarella.

Icing on the Cake

I received a funny yet definitely helpful present from my co-worker this year - The Complete Idiot's Guide to Vegan Baking.  I'll always be the first to admit that I'm no Iron Chef, so this book was perfect for a beginner cook like me.  Everything is simplified and there's a great section in the book about egg and dairy product substitutions.
The first recipes I tried from this book were the recipes for vegan mocha cake and vegan vanilla bean frosting.  I think my mocha cake turned into a chocolate cake which was a bit disappointing, but the frosting made up for it twice over.  It was the first time I ever used extract from a vanilla bean pod and it made all the difference in the world.  I was a little wary at how such a small amount of extract (scraping a vanilla bean pod can get a little sticky) would make the frosting taste better, but now I'm a convert.  This frosting was so good because it wasn't too sweet.  When I was younger, I was always excited to eat the icing off a cake and get as much sugar as I can into my system, but at some point in my life, I became pretty sick of super sweet icing.  So, I was pretty surprised when I found myself actually eating the spare icing I made for this cake.

For my shortening, I used Spectrum Organic All Vegetable Shortening which I found at Micronesia Mall Pay-Less Supermarket .  I chose this because it was non-hydrogenated, and in this post, I explain why non-hydrogenated products are better than regular hydrogenated products.  For my vegan margarine, I just used my trusty Earth Balance Natural Buttery Spread, which is available at both Simply Food and Micronesia Mall Pay-Less Supermarket.  It makes vegetarian life so much easier when products are easily available on-island!

Vegan 7-Layer Taco Dip

For New Year's Eve, I decided to make a dip instead of an actual dish since I was going to spend most of my time drinking wine.  I normally spend New Year's Eve with my family at home so I was safe to drink since I wasn't going to be driving anywhere.  I actually made this dip before for my work's Christmas luncheon, but this time, I was able to make it vegan.  So, even though this taco dip had sour cream and cream cheese (both vegan), I pigged out on it guilt-free.  You could eat this dip by itself, but it tasted so much better with baked chips.

I was very lucky to find vegan versions of sour cream and cream cheese at Simply Food.  I tasted each one before placing it in the dip and they both tasted like their regular dairy counterparts.  They're both made by the brand Tofutti and it looks as though this is the only brand available on Guam.  I'm not complaining though because both the sour cream and cream cheese tasted good.  The cream cheese was actually softer than regular cream cheese, but that was a good thing for me because it made mixing a whole lot easier.
Another great thing about these two products are that they're both non-hydrogenated (not injected with hydrogen gas).  What this means is they have significantly less cholesterol and saturated oils than their hydrogenated versions.  Here's a link I found that explains how hydrogenated food products endanger your health.  

The original recipe I found on the Internet uses tomato salsa as one of the layers, but I nixed that and went with chopped fresh roma tomatoes.  This made the dip have less sodium, and who doesn't love fresh ingredients?  In fact, I think I'll be adding more tomatoes the next time I make this dip.
When I finished adding all the layers, I warmed the dip in the oven just until the cheese started to melt.  Daiya's Shredded Cheddar Cheese melted perfectly in the oven, but it also tastes great just by itself.  If you're like me and prefer your dip warm, I suggest putting in the oven at 400F for about 10 minutes.  A word of caution though: Warming up the dip in the oven will probably cause it to become a little watery because of the fresh tomatoes.
My New Year's Eve was a blast since I was able to spend it with my family eating dip, drinking Moscato, and lighting up lots of sparklers.  Happy New Year Everyone!

Cheers to the New Year

This is the first blog post of the year and I'm so excited!  Last year's highlights revolved around making lifestyle-altering choices and I think this year is going to revolve around upholding them.  Wish me luck!

2012's first post is going to be about tinola (ginger stew with vegetables), which, in my family, is served as a main course.  It's normally cooked with chicken as its meat, but in this case, I used Quorn's Naked Chik'n Cutlets as my chicken substitute.  In the box, there's 4 cutlets and I only used 2 of them since I was only cooking for my boyfriend and I.  I've only started using this chicken substitute since October, but I find it does really well in soup/stew dishes since it soaks up the flavor of the dish.

Tinola is known to be a ginger stew but the ginger flavor isn't overpowering at all because the dish has green papaya and spinach as its vegetables.  Come to think of it, tinola can be called the "Filipino chicken soup for the soul."  You could eat it by itself, but I grew up eating it with hot white rice.  Like with most Filipino dishes, the instructions on how to eat a dish usually ends with placing the food on top of hot white rice. 

 This dish was extra-exciting for me to make because I was able to use green papaya fresh out of my backyard.  My mom has grown several papaya trees and lucky for me, they're just beginning to bear fruit.  What was unlucky for me was that the papaya I wanted was much too high for me to easily grab.  I think I spent a good 15 minutes swinging a pole my mom uses to grab fruit high up in a tree and praying the papaya doesn't land on me.  I hope no one caught that on video because it wasn't exactly the most graceful sight.  In the end, I was pretty pleased with the papaya I selected since it tasted so delicious in the dish.  

I've noticed that whenever I replace the meat in a Filipino dish with a meat substitute, the dish automatically becomes a vegan meal.  It's a great discovery for me because I am really trying my best to transition over into the vegan world.  This is definitely something I need to work on this year and hopefully by 2013's first blog post, I'll be able to proudly say that I am vegan.