Lazy Man's Mussel Chowder Recipe

This is the kind of mussel chowder for the lazy person. I was so lazy doing this that I didn't take a photo of the chowder. Anyway, here's the recipe: 

Lazy Man's Mussel Chowder:

Cook Time: About 10 minutes

Ingredients:

Serves about 5

10 blast frozen-blast cooked mussels (or whatever number you have) 

1 can Campbell's condensed cream of mushroom soup

Enough milk to fit Campbell's Soup Can

1 250-mL tetra pak of all purpose cream

1 can mushrooms, sliced 

1L water 

Leftover cheese

Dried Basil leaves (to taste) 

Directions: 

1.) Empty the condensed soup onto a pot and dilute it with a can-ful of milk. Stir well. 

2.) Add the water in. 

3.) Turn on the stove, keep it on low to medium heat. Add in cream and mushrooms.

4.) Once the stew is boiling, add the mussels

5.) Add in leftover cheese to taste.

6.) Add dried basil leaves, to taste, too.

7.) Boil for a few more minutes then serve while hot. 

Perfect for a rainy day when everybody's lazy... 

Baked Mussels with Cheese, Garlic and Butter (Trial and Recipe)

I may not have muscle, but at least I have mussel!

It's that time of the year. Any Pinoy in the Philippines will need to eat baked tahong, or mussel, at least at one point of the year. Since the cravings were already too strong, I decided to do something about the boxed mussels I recently got from S&R Membership. These KONO mussels are really good, they're really fat, and the aroma is well kept even if it's a frozen set of mussels. I put the box of mussles in our freezer and came back to a fragrant, mussel-smelling freezer. A mussel-smelling freezer is sooo much better than a meat blood-smelling freezer. So yeah, I'm about to share some of the photos. 

It's 350 pesos per Kg, but I think that the deal's already good enough as the mussels are New Zealand mussels and they're already in the half shell, barnacle and sand free. 

Hershey's Chocolate Chip Cookies (Trial and Recipe)

Yesterday was All Saints' day here in Manila. The usual family goes to the cemetery on this day, but since we were already done with cemetery affairs the previous Sunday, we decided to do some shopping at S&R. It's not sale time, but the place was doing really well for a holiday as many families were doing their shopping. So I walk around, and to my happiness, I find Hershey's chocolate chips in one of the shelves. It was beside a bag of Ghriardelli chocolate chips 3 times its (the hershey's bag) size, but since mom doesn't want much to do with chocolate chips in the storage, she tells me to take this Hershey's bag. 

So here is this glorious bag of Hershey's chocolate chips in front of me. Just holding the bag and feeling the chips inside already makes me so very, very happy. 

Ube Cupcakes Trial and Recipe

I've been quite wary about the recipes I've been seeing as of late as most have problems-- cupcakes that aren't moist, recipes that call for too little liquid, and so many other problems on flavor and texture. Mom has already been having problems with the products as they're too many but giving them away randomly to neighbors is not her kind of thing either. 

I saw this recipe of Ube Cupcakes on this blog called Samiwich and Addiecakes, and upon inspection of the recipe, I thought that the recipe will more or less be fine. But to ensure that there won't be an excess of leftovers that taste bad, and that everyone will want to eat this someday, I just make a half batch to be sure. And since it was such a waste to open the big oven we had, I just baked them in our toaster oven. As a mold, I put the cupcake liners in metal custard cups. This was to ensure that the product does not come out oval or lopsided. 

Chawanmushi (trial and recipe)

One of the things I actually succeed in making is a nice set of Chawanmushi (茶碗蒸し). I know it feels like you're eating tofu, but it's made of eggs. I say this because I did have a friend who thought that this dish was made of tofu, and I can't blame her, it does resemble tofu a lot in terms of texture. 

The process is really simple-- it's just mixing the right ratio of eggs and liquid, then adding dashi and other condiments to flavor it. The steaming process isn't delicate either; you can open the lid of the steamer to check without risking the sinkage of the chawanmushi custard. And I think it really would be a good excuse to buy a set of matching cute teacups, although for this one I just used all the teacup sized cups at home regardless of whether they match or not. 

So here are the photos of the process: