Sunday, January 9, 2011

Mini-blog # 3

A mistake is an opportunity wrapped up in layers of anguish and shame.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

My Very Own Spaghetti Sauce

New Year's Day and we had some left-over pasta noodles from our Media Noche and no more sauce!
My sister asked me to make a sauce kind of like Tita Clarisse's Basil Spaghetti Sauce. TC wouldn't disclose the recipe, by the way, so I had to improvise. I'd say the result is nothing like TC's sauce but my sister and I thought it was delicious anyway.

The Recipe

Ingredients:
15 pcs medium-sized very ripe tomatoes, diced
6 cloves garlic, diced fine (i love garlic - you can use less if you like)
1 medium-sized sweet white onion, chopped coarsely
1 chicken breast, filleted and cubed
1 packet McCormick Pesto Sauce Mix (we cheated here, we couldn't find fresh basil in our local
grocery store)
2 tablespoons cooking wine
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup grated quick-melting cheese
some dried basil, salt and pepper to taste

In a saucepan over low to medium heat, melt butter and saute the garlic and onions until the onions are caramelized. Add tomatoes and wine. Simmer until the tomatoes have wilted. Add in the chicken. Simmer again until the chicken is cooked. Blend in the Pesto Sauce Mix. Add cheese and stir until it has melted before adding the olive oil. Season with basil, salt and pepper.

Tadaaa!

Notes:
You can use shrimp instead of chicken. Shelled and deveined.
It would still taste good without any sort of meat (for vegetarians). Haven't tried using eggplants. Hmmm...
Fresh basil would be better but some adjustments may have to be made to the seasoning.
Freshly grated Parmesan would be great sprinkled over the sauce just before serving.
There's just enough sauce for a 400g pack of spaghetti.
Washing the pan with left-over sauce sticking to it would be a waste of good sauce. You can wipe the pan with bread and pop the bread directly to your mouth. Yum!

I don't have pictures, though. Sayang!

Pictures

I shall be posting, soon :-)

another explanation for why I was blog-mute again

Whooooo!

I have been blog-mute for a year now!!!
Beats my previous record of 5 months. See here. A lot more has happened in this blog-mute episode than the last time. (Do I sound defensive? I'm not! Really.)

And my mini-blogs were supposed to reach 365, at least. Oh well.

Anyway, here are my reasons:

1. I fell in love! (Hi MS! Mwah mwah!)
2. I got married.
3. I had a kid. His name is Lucas and he's everything to me. Believe me, even mini-blogs take too much time and trouble when you have a baby.
4. I started my practice. Doing quite well, if I may say so myself. I'm sharing an office with my cousin who is a pediatrician. Actually, she graciously and very generously let me time-share with her. She started her practice around 5 years ago and she's quite established already. She's done a lot to help me get started. (Thank you, Ate Mayet!)
5. My cousin and I started a business. A birthing center in our hometown, Talisay City. We're still struggling to make ends meet but, so far, so good.
6. I started teaching (facilitating, actually). Who would ever have thought I'd go back to my medical school to teach? Definitely not me. But, I find that I like what I'm doing. PBL is quite different than the traditional curriculum.

Don't you think that those reasons are quite reasonable? (LOL)