Caffeine - good or bad?

Soft drinks, coffee, chocolate and tea, caffeine is present in these drinks. What really is caffeine and what bad reaction or effect can it bring to our body, it is discussed in this article.

Caffeine is a flavorless substance that improves our body’s energy temporarily and acts as refreshment to our nervous system. Study shows that caffeine especially in coffee can reduce the risks of some illness like Diabetes and Parkinson’s disease, to mention the few. But the key there is moderation. Anything excessive is considered bad. Too much consumption or intake of caffeine is not advisable, for our body will get agitated. Extreme intake could result to tremors and sleeping problem, to mention some bad effects. If we are the kind of person who is addicted to caffeine, we have to gradually decrease our intake.

The question now, is too intake caffeine to our body or not? It is us personally, who knows how much caffeine in our body is needed. The older we get the greater caffeine we take. Remember though that to remain healthy, moderation is the secret.

The next time we go for a drink, consider the caffeine content and decide whether to drink or not to drink. THINK!

Tinolang manok (chicken ginger soup with vegetables)

I was left to cook for 4 kids...3 nephews and a niece. Before leaving, my sister asked me if I know how to cook tinolang manok for lunch, pretending that I know I answered yes... she then added that she bought malunggay leaves, then plenty of ginger for the ingredients.

I actually cooked tinolang manok before, but by now, I can’t remember the exact way to cook it, wow I need to let my memory work here… and guess what?? It turned out all right!!

Here’s the ingredients and procedure

Chicken (cut)
Fish sauce
Pepper
Ginger
Garlic
Onion
Malunggay leaves
Sayote (sliced in cubes)
Water
Salt
Vegetable oil
For the ingredients – use a minimal or balance amount depending on how many persons will consume the soup BUT I used plenty of ginger and onions here – I love them. We can also use chili leaves instead of malunggay. In cooking soups with vegetables, we often notice kids taking the leaves out and not eating them. If we use malunggay, because they are tiny, kids don’t take the effort removing.

Procedure:

Sauté ginger (cut into strips) along with crashed garlic, and then add sliced onions. Add chicken cut, I let it cook for few minutes until the color of the chicken is a little change. Pour the water and put it to boil. Let it simmer until the chicken is cook and then I added the sayote (papaya can be used) and let it boil until the vegetable is cook. Added salt and fish sauce to taste, and put again to boil, then finally added malunggay leaves, stir and DONE!! Serve!!

why eat some Green leafy vegetables?

We are always reminded and advised by our parents to eat green leafy vegetables. I remember my mothers – who often prepare meals with leafy green vegetables; and she was strict, when she notice our plates without this green leafy thing, she will scold us (verbally of course) and will then lecture us the benefits we will get if we eat these vegetables. I can’t vividly recall the exact statement but I can remember the gist, these vegetables are full of vitamins, help us to grow faster and help us to have a healthier body. Imagine eating dark green leafy vegetables almost everyday!... I didn’t really grow :) as what my mother told me, yet there are health benefits in taking green leafy vegetables.

Green leafy vegetables according to my research are great sources of minerals and vitamins (my mom was right). Green leafy vegetables are also great source of fiber. Leafy green vegetables are used best for salad, stir-fry, and steam and best for our soups too.

I see to it that I take green leafy vegetables in my meal, though not often as my mother used to. Many thanks to our mother who taught us the importance of eating green leafy vegetables, who is still reminding us to eat nutritious green vegetables and every time we are home still serving us nutritious green leafy vegetables.

Our fav - Pizza

Pizza – we all thought that the food is an Italian creation…how wrong!! Pizza was actually laid by the early Greeks, in the 18th century, the then known as flat bread, found its way to Italy which they later called Pizzas. Pizza then was topless :), and often sold to poor people because of its cheap price, then from flat bread untopped, Pizza was improved by Italian people.

Today Pizza is so known that it has its International Pizza Day. When we say Pizza - it is made of different styles with toppings…here are some Pizza styles

Pan style – cooked in a pan with oil that fried the bottom part for a crunchy bite, a little different from baked pizza. Amount of toppings has nothing to do with the name – top less or more, whatever we prefer.

Thin style – thin crust style is crispy in the outside and soft inside, toppings and cheese are moderately applied with thinner sauce.

Thick style – thicker crust usually baked on the oven heart, with bigger dough weight and proofing. When cooked – this has crispy bottom and a bit chewy with moderate thickness.

There are other different styles of Pizza, but the only thing that differs are their type of crust, their toppings and cheese – now, I guess its time to get your slice of pizza :)

All about Olive Oil

Olive Oil

Olive oil has health benefits one of which is protection against heart disease. It controls our body’s cholesterol level because it contains a large amount of mono unsaturated fatty acids, which helps prevent coronary heart disease. Study shows that in countries where people are regularly using olive oil or consume at least 2tablespoons of olive oil in their diets have lesser cases of heart disease.

Olive oil is known for its culinary use, usually for salads, stews and deep frying. Olive oil gives a best flavor to our foods. Choosing Olive oil is likened to choosing a wine, individually, peoples taste differs and more likely we choose olive oil that suite to our cooking dishes. It is best to add Olive Oil right away after cooking and best to store Olive Oil in opaque containers.

Types of Olive Oil

Pure Olive Oil

- 100% pure - a blend of virgin olive oil and refined olive oil. Better use for high heat cooking and has less vitamin E content. Pure Olive Oil has the same acidity level like that of Virgin Oil.

Virgin Olive Oil

- Produced without refining aside from washing, decanting, centrifuging and filtering. Best use for pouring over dishes such as for salad and dressings.

Olive Pomace Oil

- Obtained by treating olive pomace. Considered as lower grade and mostly used for soap making and industrial purposes.

Olive Oil is tagged as Super Food for the Heart.

Tips on how to choose Fresh Fruits

Here are some things to consider in choosing fresh fruits:

for Papayas choose greenish to yellow or full yellow. Soft papayas are about to rotten and avoid buying those with white patches.

as for Oranges – choose heavy in weight for juiciness. Try smelling oranges – avoid buying oranges with smell that is about to spoil.

for fresh Watermelon – choose firm, heavy, rounded and free from bruises and cracks. Tapped and buy those with resonant sound.

for Pineapple – choose those with nice ripe smell. Dark wet spots indicate over ripe pineapple.

while for Pears choose firm and slightly soft. Withered pears will not ripen.

for Mangoes – choose a firm and those when pressed yields a bit. Avoid buying mangoes with spots and black spots.

and for Bananas – when buying raw bananas, avoid putting them inside the refrigerator, let them ripen outside for a couple of days. For past ripening, often put inside a paper bag. Bananas are best eaten when yellow with brown speckles.

Cheekoo (my ever fav) – known as sapodilla around the world. Wrinkled and slightly soft when ripe. Overripe cheeko has soft spots or white fur near the stem.

for Strawberries – choose those with attached cap stem, bright and firm. Avoid buying those with large discolored patches.

and for Apples - the red and golden apples should be firm, juicy, crisp and sweet.

Fresh fruits are important part of good diet. Taking single fruit provides all the nutrients that we all need to be healthy.

All about Onions and Garlic

Onions and garlic are used for culinary purposes. Here’s how to choose fresh garlic and onions

Garlic
Fresh garlic is available all year round. Choose a garlic that is plump, big and firm bulbs and with intact white covering. Avoid buying soft, with green sprouts and spongy. A single bulb of garlic is made up of many individual cloves that are consumable for 5 to 10 days. Fresh and undamaged garlic could stay long for between 3 to 4 months.

In our menu, avoid overcooking garlic for it will result to bitterness. This is mostly happening when our oil is too hot. Garlic is mostly use in sautéing, we can use oil or butter in this process. Either way, will give us savory flavored garlic.

Here is how to sauté garlic

Heat the oil/butter and then add our garlic (remember that butter heats faster than the oil).
To prevent from burning, constantly stir the garlic.

Onions

Look for firm, dry with no green sprouts or any spotting. Avoid buying onions with smell, because the inner part could be spoiled.

Here is how to properly cut Onions

Choose big onions for easier cutting, and use sharp knife. If only a small potion of union is needed, just peel the portion that is enough for your usage. Pack in zip lock the rest and refrigerate. Storing in an open plastic could make the rest of the food in the refrigerator taste like onion.

Most of the time in sautéing, onions are added first followed by garlic.

Cooking Tips

Recipe books, magazines, newspapers, and televisions cooking shows – these are sources of recipes. Try to prepare a recipe that is loved and good enough for whoever we meant to cook for. Consider the size of the people that will taste or eat our menu – is it for your family? Friends? Workmates? – These will help us to prepare just enough and without spoil.

In choosing recipes, especially if we are first time, choose recipes with easy to look ingredients and will not consume most of our time. In simple word, choose simple meal recipes.

Make sure that we have the needed utensils and ingredients for our recipe. And the must – we understand the directions or procedures.

In most cases, the amount of time for the recipe is written in our recipe book, so make sure we have enough time to make our recipe.

Prepare all that is needed for our menu. This will help us avoid of crumbling later on while cooking. For some, measuring ingredients ahead of time is practiced.

Remember to keep our hands clean before preparing the food. Washing our hands several times is needed especially if raw ingredients like fish and meat is used. We always wear apron to avoid messing up with our clothes and of course avoid cooking with long hair untie.

monday dinner @ moa

superbowl in mall of asia....best place for chinese cuisine lovers...

mall of asia after our dinner courtesy of Jade (leftmost)

naked juice bar - (courtesy of mariane) best place for those who loves fresh fruit juices like "me"...try their watermelon lychee flavor plus a very accommodating staff who later took pic of us :)

sunday with dawn

went to meet some friends yesterday - we end up going to another friends' house in cavite...before going to cavite, we bought some food for our friend dawn and her adorable daughter danna! reached cavite at around 3pm and then cool macaroni salad was ready... it was so sunny outside so right away we made ourselves comfortable and entertain ourselves with plate of salad...as we all love sweets we enjoyed eating while laughingly recalled our younger days, ube cake we bought from goldilocks was sliced and wow so yummy while another friend sliced chocolate cake and of course a glass of coke then = burrrrrrrrrpppppp LOL

we were so happy recalling our primary days and since dawn is married we let her tell us her love story and her present life, happy to know dawn is trying to be a good cook - a good mother and a wonderful wife to her husband...laughingly telling us how she end up marrying her husband, the reasons of some small fights with her husband,. of course we know that behind those negative words about her husband is the unconditional love she has for alex …

dawn prepared some sea foods and fried chicken for dinner....quite early though it was around 5.30pm when my friends decided that we eat dinner.,. yet as always hungry as we are, we ate with our hands lol

seeing dawn yesterday = a wonderful sunday!!

Cheese..cheese and cheese

I just love cheese, in my spaghetti or pizza; it must be overly coated with cheese. Love cheesy foods!

So funny because I wasn’t aware that there are different types of cheese, yeah I love cheese but wasn’t really interested on how cheese was processed until I got my own copy of cooking and baking magazines, and here’s what I found out about my/our favorite cheese:

Cheeses are made of milk – cow, goat or sheep. Usual processing of cheese - Cheese processing differs depending on cheese type. Standard way is first the milk turns into curds or curdling process. Then draining or removing the whey. Next is to mold and shape them into cheese. Salting process is where plenty of salts are added for the cheese formation. Ripening is allowing the cheese to mature. Because of the latest technology, cheeses are now made in commercial factories and instead of fresh milk cheeses are now made from pasteurized milk.

Mozzarella and Cheddar Cheese

Mozzarella cheese is used on our pizza. Milk mozzarella is creamy and makes an excellent pizza. If mozzarella is not available, there are substitute such as feta or provolone cheese or use different cheeses for unique pizza flavor.

Cheddar cheese – very popular in United Kingdom, cheddar originated from a small English village named cheddar, there is uniqueness on cheddars processing than the other cheeses. English Cheddar is matured for minimum of 9 months, and cheddar cheese is now widely produced in other countries.

Have a cheesy day!!

Chicken Curry

Found this wonderful recipe of chicken curry in one of my favorite website … better try!!

Chicken Curry
5 cloves garlic
One 3-inch chunk peeled, fresh ginger
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 heaping teaspoon whole cloves
10 green cardamom pods
8 whole allspice
1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
1 bay leaf
1 medium yellow onion
2 teaspoons Madras-style curry powder
1/2 jalapeno, or more to taste
3 pounds mixed skinless, bone-in chicken thighs and drumsticks (separated)
1/2 cup whole, peeled, canned tomatoes (with puree), roughly chopped
2 cups cold water
In a small food processor (mini-chopper), combine the garlic and ginger and puree to a paste.
Heat the oil in a stew pot or Dutch Oven over medium-high heat. Add the cloves, cardamom, allspice, cinnamon stick, and bay leaf and cook, stirring constantly, until dark and fragrant and the cinnamon stick unfurls, about 30 seconds. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic-ginger paste, curry powder, and jalapeno and cook, stirring, until lightly browned and fragrant, about 1 minute.

Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Add the tomato and chicken and cook, stirring, until the oil begin to separate and there is a distinctive crackling sound as the ingredients "re-fry" in the oil, about 6 minutes. Continue to cook, stirring, until the chicken is lightly browned, about 7 minutes more.

Add the water and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to maintain a simmer, cover, and stew for 15 minutes. Uncover and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is cooked through and tender and the liquid thickens into a sauce, about 30 minutes more. Transfer chicken curry to a serving bowl and serve with rice and chutney.

(http://www.foodnetwork.com/)

Tips on how to choose and proper storage of Fresh Carrots

When I see carrots, the first thing I remember is bugs bunny :) … well actually carrots are very healthy, the orange bright colors shows that they are the richest source of beta-carotene. I can still recall how our mother used her force for us to eat carrots, mother loves eating fresh carrots – (anyway we later learned to eat carrots – I am now carrot cake fan!) Study shows that carrots actually reduce the risk of cancer aside from the fact that it is vital for us to have clear and bright eyes. Cooked and raw carrots are good source of vitamin A and potassium.

Choose fresh Carrots
There are things to consider in choosing fresh carrots. Choose carrots with smooth and firm skins and round shapes. Choose carrots with bright orange colors and green tops attached because they are the most fresh. It is best to buy medium sized carrots and avoid buying carrots with withered ends.

Storing Carrots
Remove the green tops before storing the carrots. Wash carrots before storing, put the carrots inside the vegetable container and put inside the refrigerator. Avoid putting carrots inside the plastic bog because they will sweat and easily be rotten. Stored carrots are consumable in one to two weeks time.

There we go… let us enjoy eating cooked or uncooked carrots!!!

Tips on how to choose Fresh Potatoes

Fresh Potatoes

Potatoes! Easy to prepare and so nutritious! Potatoes are high in potassium, good source of fiber and vitamin C. below are tips in buying, storing and preparing potatoes.

Buying - When buying potatoes, choose those that are free from cracks and bruises. Avoid buying wrinkled, wilted skin, those with spots and green in appearance. Choose solid, well shaped, smooth and those with same sizes especially if needed for our recipe.

Storing - Potatoes are to keep in cool places and dark with good ventilation, consumable in few days. It is not recommended to refrigerate uncooked potatoes.

Preparing – there are various ways to prepare potatoes. Mashed potatoes - peel and cut potatoes equally. Bring to boil until tender, add warm milk and butter for a fluffier mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes using potatoes masher.

Another way of preparing is through Baking (my favorite). Here’s how: scrub rubs the potatoes with fork or we can use knife. Rub potatoes with olive oil and salt. Bake in preheated oven until golden brown. Slice the potatoes and pat with butter or margarine, we can sprinkle some cheese if preferred.

Fried potatoes – French fries! Cut potatoes in strip. Soak for maximum of 30 minutes in cold water. Thoroughly dry them before deep frying. Drain, keep aside. Add salt then toss. Serve with hot chili sauce. Note: if we want crispier fries, we need to fry them twice. Fry for the second time, before serving.

Preparing potatoes is not that hard especially if to be dined with our family… remember to prepare with smile!!

Tips in Buying Fresh Spinach

Fresh Spinach

In buying vegetables, we don’t just buy because of the price or discounts groceries are offering, the first thing we consider is the freshness. The looks of vegetables are important, that we go for bright colors and not withered. We can often buy fresh vegetables in good quality during their seasons. Yet there are vegetables available all year round such as Spinach. Spinach is full of vitamins that we mostly used it for salads and sandwiches. Below are some tips in choosing fresh spinach, the best way to clean and store them.

When buying spinach, we choose leaves that are dark green, slightly crispy and short stems. Avoid buying yellowish leaves, mottled and damaged.

Spinach is often sandy or muddy so washing it several times is a must, and should be done right after buying it. To clean the spinach, pinch the leaves, put in a bowl full of water and change the water until clear from sand or mud. We can also clean them in running water. To dry the leaves pat with paper towel, then it is ready to use. If we wish to store them, put in a sealed plastic bag and store in the refrigerator. Spinach is consumable within 2 to 4 days.

Choosing fresh spinach is not that hard, we truly love this nutritious leaves in our salad and sandwiches!