2 more easy meals...

...and of course, tummy-filling. As a married couple, we believe that volume is part of the food experience. Well maybe it's just me, but I speak for us...so there. Anyway...


In an attempt to be healthy (and it looked just soo darn good in foodgawker - warning provided in a separate post about this app), I decided to make some parmesan-crusted eggplants with tomato sauce. A few hours before, I had a small mini-attack and took out some chicken breasts to cook along with it because: (1) I was afraid the eggplant won't be filling enough and (2) the eggplant might look lonely. I hate it when food is lonely, so I always gather up some friends to keep it company. This is how I end up having vanilla ice cream with chocolate wafer bars.


Result: A supper yummy rice-less meal which we both loved. 

I promise there's chicken there somewhere...

See that white and yellowish part? THAT's the chicken.

I made a few tweaks to the recipe because I'm stubborn like that AND because Mr. G loves spicy tomato sauce. 


BREAD AND PARMESAN MIXTURE - I used stale bread and just put it in my super mini awesome chopper. I threw in a lot of parmesan, pepper, dried thyme, and dried rosemary. I don't know why, I just felt like it. :p


CHICKEN - After much research on my iPhone while on the way to get our deck set (more on this in another post), I concluded I could bake the chicken along with the eggplants. 20 minutes, flip, 15 minutes. Done. It came out perfectly. Moist and tender with the tastiest parmesan bits. I've always been afraid of cooking chicken (and of live ones too), because it's easy to over/undercook it. I did not fail this time. I love you chicken breast cooked in an oven. I loved you so much I ate you all. It was for your own good.


TOMATO SAUCE - You can follow the recipe. I made mine the way I know best: saute some onions in olive oil, throw in some pepper flakes, add diced tomatoes, a small packet of tomato sauce, dried thyme, dried rosemary, and dried parsley. Let it simmer and thicken. Taste and season with salt and pepper (LOTS of pepper - it's a happy spice...is there a sad spice??). 


Another easy recipe is one that's easy to make and a staple among Filipinos. My husband also claims to be Filipino (he had once asked what Filipino thing he gets once we get married. I told him, "half Filipino kids." He was referring to a passport or some sort of ID. So goes our daily conversations.) and loooooves this dish. Kats had sent me a link to this cute and useful blog a day after I had come home armed with sirloin, fully intending to make bistek tagalog. And at the very top of the page was this recipe for that very dish. What can I say, Kats and I are food soulmates. 

Yes, I know. That's a lot of rice.

The only tweaks I made were: (1) marinating the beef for a few hours and (2) thickening the extra sauce with some flour dissolved in water. I had admitted defeat early on because the beef wasn't getting the fried edges and I wasn't sure how long to cook thin sirloin slices. But gut told me they might become tough if overcooked, so I just pulled them out after 2-3 minutes on each side. It turned out gooooooooood. Moist, flavorful beef and onions. TONS of onions. My husband's plate is a proof. 

His plate was more onions than beef. Just how he likes it. 

Yes, that's San Miguel Light Beer. Mr. G loves them and almost peed in his pants (maybe not, but I can imagine how excited he was) when he saw these in the supermarket here. It is now a staple in our weekly grocery list. 


I also deserved a drink...

Vodka and cranberry like to hang out in our farm.

...and we both deserved this view after assembling the deck table and chair set. Okay, he mostly assembled it. And I mostly cooked. The world is fair. 

Happy days are spent out in this deck. 

xoxo, 
Janice