Category Archives: Vegetable

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My Christmas 2011 in pictures: 3 days of eating

My three days of eating was full of not only food but was full of family, love and laughter.  

 

The past few months have been a really busy time. Christmas, this time has been dedicated to spending quality time with the family. Time goes so fast and I don’t want to miss any part of it. Working 7 days a week at the shop can make that a little difficult but I’ve learnt to make time for not only with my husband and children but also with my mum and dad. 

 

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas, just like me.
 

My Christmas celebrations started a month before. I held my annual Christmas Cocktail party for family. You can see the post here. 

 

I started my Christmas baking two weeks before the big day. I wanted the house to be filled with the smell of Christmas.  I found a recipe for cute mini chocolate pudding cookies. You can get the recipe here. With the left over cookie dough I made black and white cookies and tea cup cookies. 

I made mini gingerbread houses for the family to decorate. I think the children did a better job than I did.  

Christmas Eve
 

Noche Buena was held at my parent’s house. Dad worked hard on the barbequed lamb, pork and pork tocino (sweetened cured pork) and all was beautiful and delicious. Mum also had roasted chicken maryland and cooked up an amazing paella. Sis in law and I made salads to complete the feast. 

For dessert, my cousin brough along a box of sweet mangoes. Sis in law made a delicious chocolate and honey cashew bombe wtih mocha sauce. 

My contribution was a Christmas Wreath pavlova. I got the idea from Donna Hay’s Magazine, Christmas issue however, I decorated mine with fruit with Christmassy colours. 

Christmas Day
 

After the children opened their Christmas stocking presents, we started the day off with waffles with crispy bacon and maple syrup. Hubby made a buck’s fizz for me to drink while I cooked up breaky. 

The chidren then opened up their main presents. Santa was very kind to them this year. To see some of their presents, you can go to Deanna’s blog post here.
 

For our Christmas lunch, we had goose. I used Jamie Oliver’s recipe. So easy and so tasty. Our sides consisted of roast potatoes cooked in beef dripping, cauliflower cheese, corn cobs, pigs in a blanket, mashed swede and carrot and brussel sprouts with bacon. Needless to say, we were completely full after our lunch. 

For dessert, we had choc-honeycombe ice-cream pudding. A quick and easy cake, I adapted from super food ideas Magazine, December issue. Hubby also had my Christmas cake which I started 2 months ago. It’s the usual recipe I use, which you can get here, but I added chocolate chips to this one just to change it up a bit. 

For late supper, we had my home made country pate with Cheddar cheese and crustini. I made the pate about 4 days before. I try to make this every Christmas so it’s sort of a Christmas tradition in my house now. 

 

Boxing Day 

 

Boxing day is traditionally spent at my mother in law’s. As we don’t get to see her on Christmas day, the Moore families head over to her house to celebrate a late Christmas. She put on a lovely spread of roast turkey and ham, assorted roasted vegetables. As usual, we go home with full bellies. 

For dessert we had a mango cheesecake and a pavlova. Yum. 

As you can see my Christmas was fabulously filled with delicious food and fantastic company. 

 
 

I hope yours was the same. 

 
 

Happy New Year! 

 
 

Bon Appetite, 

Cherrie
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Ginisang Sayote (Chokos with minced pork)

It’s choko (sayote, chayote) season and they are abundant in Asian grocery stores and in my parent’s backyard

I only know how to cook them a few ways.  The first is Chicken Tinola.  This has to be one of my favourite Filipino dishes and it’s a dish I look forward to eating. The second is something I like to make when I need something quick and tasty. It’s chokos that is simply sauteed with pork mince.

I was taught there is a way to cut up the chokos to make sure you get rid of some of the starch inside the vegetable.  Cut about 2-3cm from the top and rub the two pieces together.  Some of the sticky starchiness will come out.  This makes the vegetables less sticky when chopping into pieces. Try not to get any of the starch on your fingers as it’s very sticky.

Recipe: (serves 4)

  • 3 chokos
  • 250g pork mince
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 2 tbs chicken stock powder
  1. Prepare the chokos by peeling and then quartering them. Remove the seed in the middle then slice. Set aside
  2. In a small saucepan, sauté the onion and garlic till opaque.
  3. Add the pork mince.  Cook until brown.
  4. Add the chokos
  5. Add enough water just to cover (about 1.5 cups)
  6. Season with salt and pepper and the chicken stock powder
  7. Simmer for 10-15 minutes until the chokos are tender
  8. Serve with steamed rice.

Bon Appetite,

Cherrie