Treasure Jar

Hearty Meal Recipes from Dona Elena Cuisinera Club presented last January 30, 2010. Click here for more recipes.

Tilapia Fillets

For Tilapia Fillets:

• 150 – 200 g tilapia fillets (2 pieces)
• pinch of salt
• pinch of pepper
• pinch of paprika
• 1/4 c almonds, salted, crushed finely

Season tilapia fillet with salt, pepper and paprika. Coat with almonds and bake at 180C for 4 minutes.

Pasta

For pasta:

• 10 g butter
• 15ml Dona Elena Pure Olive Oil
• 30 g diced white onions
• 3 g minced garlic
• 50 g diced tomatoes
• 50 g (Dona Elena) capers
• 30 ml (Dona Elena) white wine
• 250 g spaghetti noodles

In a sauce pan, heat the olive oil and melt the butter. Saute the onions and garlic then add tomatoes and capers. Add the white wine and simmer. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Toss the spaghetti in the sauce.

Sauce:

• 30 ml garlic sauce, reduced until thick
• 15 ml balsamic vinegar, reduced to a syrup

Serve using medium pan. Place pasta on one side and the fillets on the other side. Drizzle the fillets with garlic sauce and balsamic sauce.

Enjoy.

UPDATE: I made this last night (Feb3, 2010) though I still have to write a post.

UPDATE 2: here is the post as promised 🙂

Tags: almonds, baking, cooking, Dona Elena Cuisinera Club, Dona Elena Pure Olive Oil, fish, food, food and dining, food photos, fresh tomatoes, olive oil, pasta, Philippines, spaghetti, tilapia fillets

Home cooking is not only inexpensive but it sure guarantees safe handling of food. Home cooking is also a way to be creative in preparing healthier choices as compared to food prepared elsewhere.

If only most of our meals are prepared at home then I know we are eating better than the alternative.

Being creative in the kitchen enables one to experiment with different tastes, textures, flavors and adaptation to what is readily available in the kitchen.

Here is one alternative food preparation we did recently, introducing our homemade chicken shawarma:

Thinly sliced chicken strips (from chicken breast fillet) with oyster sauce, a bit of light soy sauce, and a little muscovado sugar, were cooked in olive oil.

I seasoned with salt and pepper.

For the vegetables, I sliced green bell peppers and cucumber (I removed the seeds). Lettuce is still very expensive so I skipped that.

For the dressing I used light mayonnaise.

I then topped these with grated cheese and voila, a homemade chicken shawarma for us.

The wrap consisted of store bought wheat soft tortilla wrap.

Yes, it was ‘sawrap”!

Tags: cheese, chicken, cooking, dining, food, food and dining, food photo, healthy eating, home, Photography, Purse Strings, shawarma

Kraft Eden Cheese aims to target having 5,000 Filipino dishes cooked to set a Guinness World Record on December 14, 2009 at the Araneta Coliseum.

5,000 dishes? Filipino food, a fusion of the many scrumptious concoctions from the different cultural influences we had for several centuries, have evolved and these definitely can mean uniquely extra-ordinary and uber delicious.

Foodies, chefs, people who love to cook, culinary arts students and kusineros and kusineras will be whipping up these 5,000 dishes using Kraft Eden Cheese on December 14, 2009 at Araneta Coliseum.

Be a YUMM (Your Ulam, Mas Masarap) member and contribute your cheese recipes at the Sarap ng Buhay website.

I am contributing this Cheesy Turon recipe, yipee!

Cheese is a must-have item in our home. There are times when we just munch on cheese slices. The children and hubby too love to put heaps of cheese on their pasta.

French toast for breakfast or afternoon snacks have cheese slices in it:

Sandwiches are like meals in itself, with cheese and tomato slices and greens. Easy to prepare and easy to bring when going to the workplace or doing chores outside the home.

If you want to be a part of history, be more creative in whipping up those yummy flavorful recipes and help promote Filipino dishes through this event.

Visit for more details!

Tags: cheese, cooking, dining, egg, food, food and dining, food photos, Parma, Philippines, Photography

Last Friday, mommy bloggers namely Noemi, AnnaManila, Chats, Rachel, Jane, Aileen and Cookie ( and I ) had lunch at the A Venetto in TriNoma to celebrate belatedly Dine’s (aka Sexy Mom) birthday and as a celebration for the graduation of her two daughters. We had several pasta varieties on the table: seafood pasta with marinara sauce, pasta with pesto and nuts, pasta with sausages and carbonara pasta.

Seafood pasta marinara

For dessert, we had this: Continue Reading »

Tags: A Venetto, food, food and dining, Lasang Pinoy Sundays, lunch, Red Mango, TriNoma

Almost everyone I know loves coffee.

Why, even my 7 year old son would declare that “coffee is his favorite smell”. Really.

I love coffee too though I can survive the day without drinking a cup. My hubby makes a wonderful cup which I love to drink.

We rarely use coffee makers since we use instant coffee drink. In fact our coffee maker has been unused since we got it five or so years ago.

Coffee shops have grown exponentially for the past year.

These are sprouting like mushrooms, they are almost everywhere! Proof that this country loves to drink this beverage or just want to hang out with friends holding on and drinking a cup of coffee for two hours. Ugh.

UPDATE (Feb07,2013)

Since this blog post, we started on drinking brewed coffee and has not gone back to drinking instant coffee.

Tags: coffee, drinks, food, food and dining

I thought I didn’t have kitchen gadgets to write about which is this week’s Lasang Pinoy Sundays theme. Well, I do! *insert Plurk banana dance here 😀

I would have taken a photo of my (almost) newly bought Rubbermaid can opener as suggested my Munchkin Mommy but then I thought about my Tupperware Quick Chef Food Processor which is rarely used. Mine though is bigger and colored white, because its older than the one in the link.

In fact I think I have had this for several years but have used it less than ten times only.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I used this de-mano gadget to chop tomatoes, garlic and fresh basil together for a pasta dish.

The tomatoes, garlic and fresh basil (when my basil plant was still “alive”) sitting in the Tuppeware Quick Chef Food Processor.

This was the dish when it was finally cooked:

Continue Reading »

Tags: food, food and dining, food processor, fresh tomatoes, Lasang Pinoy Sundays, pasta, Tupperware Quick Chef