A Kare-kare First

A relative went to the market yesterday and mistakenly bought 2 kilos of tripe.  Yes, you read it right.  TWO KILOS.  I was like, what the heck are we going to do with this much tripe?!

So, I made some lugaw and after the guilty relative pressure cooked the tripe, I added some to the congee.  We had the lugaw for breakfast and then breakfast the following day.  But we still had a lot of tripe left.  Then it hit me. Why not make kare-kare?  I never made kare-kare though so I was a bit apprehensive.  I checked out some recipes and they didn't seem too bad since the longest part of making kare-kare was softening the meat and tripe.  So I told myself: "it's time to make kare-kare."

I decided to use kare-kare mix to lessen the chance of botching up the most important part of the dish.  Here's what I did:

1. Soften the meats (oxtail, tripe, etc).  My relative did this for me.  Using a pressure cooker saves a whole lot of time and gas.  Keep the broth.  You'll use it later.

2. Pre-cook the vegetables (sitaw, eggplant and pechay - in that order.  I forgot to buy banana blossom.) My mother-in-law makes kare-kare.  More often than not, the eggplant is still hard come serving time.  I didn't want that to happen to my kare-kare.   I saw in a website that pre-cooking the vegetables was advisable and I thought that was a good idea.  It's best to pre-cook the vegetables in the broth that was used to soften the meat to make them flavorful. I simply half-cooked the veggies which only took a few minutes.  Set aside.

3. In a saucepan, saute chopped garlic and then some sliced onions in some oil. Add the softened meats and stir-fry for a few minutes.  Dissolve 1 pack kare-kare mix in 1 cup broth and add to the pan.  I then added another cup of broth to make sure the sauce won't dry up after it thickens.  I added one beef cube and let the sauce simmer.

4.  After a few minutes, I added 2 tbsp peanut butter because I simply love the smell and peanut-ty taste of kare-kare.  I added the vegetables and let it simmer for a few minutes.

5. All done!  Serve with yummy bagoong and rice!

Easy, right?  I never thought that it would be that easy!  Again, the toughest part of preparing kare-kare is softening the meats.  After that, it's all good.  Now I wonder why I was so afraid to make kare-kare before!  

YOUNG CHEFS

So yesterday was the third and last day of the Young Chefs Cooking Camp.  They made chicken and eggplant nuggets (which tasted yummy!) and buffalo chicken tenders.  Nikki had a lot of fun and even won in the raffle at the end of the session! Since they got certificates, I’m planning on putting them in his portfolio.  Hopefully I’ll be able to make a comprehensive one for him.

…..

We got our flu shots the other day.  At least that one’s over.  Enzo was a bit fussy and Nikki tried his best to be brave (since we’ve already studied why vaccines are important for our bodies).  I was so worried about Ethan because I know he’s scared of needles.  I asked Ruther to help me hold him down and I thought, “This is it”.  But after he got the shot and we all cheered, all he did was look up and say, “Huh?” I was so wrong.  I was really proud of him that night.  He even said “Thank you!” to the doctor!  My boy is so sweet.  For his reward, he got a band-aid (he LOVES band-aids and used up boxes of those once). Now that it’s over, I am only sorry that I was too worried over Ethan’s reaction to the shot that I forgot to take photos!

YOUNG CHEFS COOKING CAMP

Today was Nikki’s second day at Cooking Camp.  We first discovered about this last week when we were shopping at SM Sucat with my mom and dad.  I showed Nikki the poster and he seemed pretty excited.  Joining was fairly easy (and cheap) so I thought, why not?  It would be another great experience for him.  To join the 3-day event, all we had to do was to show a single-purchase receipt worth P2500 and above from SM hypermart. My mom did her grocery-shopping there so I asked for her receipt for this purpose. I then had to fill out an application form and pay P240 for the ingredients used (it was P80 per day).  The kids get free toques and aprons.  

Yesterday, Nikki made Yummy Pasta and Adobo Pasta.  He was shy at first because there were 5 of them in the group but they were good kids and he spoke to them eventually. I liked that he tried to chat with them despite knowing little Tagalog. I feel that his self-confidence is growing and that is always good in my book. 

Today, they made brownies and pancakes.  Simple, I know but there were young kids there so I suppose it was okay to mix easy with more challenging recipes.  Besides, the kids had fun trying to crack the eggs (some eggshells fell into the mixing bowl and they had to retrieve them) and flip the pancakes.  Some of the other kids (in the other groups) burned their pancakes and had to do them again.  You’d think making pancakes is easy but when you’re a kid and have to do it the first time and do everything yourself, it’s far from easy.  Nikki’s group did great! They had browner-than-usual pancakes but not blackened like the pancakes from other groups.  So, all in all, it was a success.  Not to mention that Nikki won a utility bag in the raffle so that was a perfect end to the day.  Tomorrow is Main Course Galore and I’m sure it will be more exciting!  Can’t wait!