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. 

Cheese Cupcakes Trial and Recipe (from Meiji's Website)

A screenshot of the recipe selection page at meiji's website. So there are recipes for soups, mousses, cakes, desserts, and all other kinds of treats. 

For people who love to cook and can read in Japanese, going to Meiji's (the confectionery company) website  is great as there are over a hundred recipes for all sorts of dishes, from savory dishes to all sorts of sweets and cakes. What I like is that the website is Japanese but a lot of the recipes are western in nature, with a lot of the recipes having cream and cheese.

But I guess what intrigued me the most was their recipe for cheese muffins. This is because my mom has a weird fixation over  cheese muffins. While I care about ice cream, she cares about cheese muffins. My mom and I are on this mini quest to find the best recipe ever for cheese muffins-- we want the kind of muffins that are moist, cheesy, and not too sweet. We just want the perfect muffin.  

So I try out their recipe for Camembert Cheese Muffins. For those who can read Japanese, just click on the link. But to those who can't, I'll provide a skeleton translation soon. 

The English recipe for these muffins is as follows: 

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. 

Pork Sinigang sa Strawberry (Trial and Recipe)

I've been craving for some sinigang all week long for no apparent reason. I was browsing Overseas Pinoy Cooking for a good sinigang recipe, and I was unexpectedly shocked after seeing a recipe that had strawberries in it! STRAWBERRIES! At that moment I was just mind blown. How could I have not enocuntered something all my life? The richness of tamarind mix and the fruity tangyness of strawberry in one stew?! GAH. 

Okay so let's get it on with the recipes and the photos. This recipe is adapted from the peach kitchen. This serves about 10-12 people. 

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: