Posts from — June 2007

I have missed cooking a lot. Ever since Erin was born, I have taken a break from the kitchen because I hardly have any time anymore to prepare food. These days, J does most of the kitchen work but with me supervising.

But last weekend, I just needed to get back into it once again. For one, there were two bars of Philly cream cheeses waiting for me to bake them into my long-time craving of blueberry cheesecake. Last time I made one was probably five years ago. It’s definitely time to do a repeat!

So, I entrusted Erin to J for the entire Sunday afternoon to get things done. After months of researching/studying of recipes, I decided Mik’s was the easiest one to make. Since it has been +/- five years since I last baked one, I lost the recipe my tita gave me so I needed to find another one fast.

I followed Mik’s recipe for the crust and the filling except I used just plain thickened cream (250 ml) in place of the mascarpone cheese. Also, instead of the sour cream topping, I made a blueberry glaze. Recipe of which is as follows:

Blueberry Glaze

1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup water
2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries, divided

In a 1-quart saucepan combine sugar and cornstarch. Stir in water. Crush 1/2 cup blueberries; add to sugar and water mixture. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is thickened and begins to bubble. Continue to boil gently for about 2 minutes, or until blueberry glaze mixture is clear. Cool completely. Arrange remaining blueberries over the top of the cheesecake. Pour cooled blueberry glaze over berries. Keep blueberry cheesecake tightly covered in refrigerator.

It was perfect! At least to our standards.

J and I have been yearning for some of mom’s pasta that I just had to email and ask her for the recipe. The sauce is pesto with sundried tomatoes and shrimp. Sounds complicated right? But I found out it was surprisingly easy to do. Thanks to this…

Leggo’s Sundried Tomato Pesto Sauce

The secret is to saute first a whole head of chopped garlic in lots of olive oil until they’re golden. Add the peeled shrimps. Once the shrimp is cooked, pour in one bottle (190 g) of the pesto sauce. Season with salt and pepper then mix it with your preferred pasta which has been previously cooked. Serve with a sprinkling of grated parmesan cheese and some toasted garlic bread on the side. Voila!

It was so delicious, I ate two platefuls of the dish! Yummy!

My Lakbayan grade is C-!

How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out at Lakbayan! (Created by Eugene Villar.)

Geez, I really should try to get out more.

No, I’m not talking about a real baby and no, I am definitely not pregnant once again! Thought I’d try the Knocked-up Babymaker which was featured in Jean’s blog.

Hmmm… so this could possibly be the face of Erin’s potential sibling. The bub’s got my eyes; the other features belong to J.

Tip for those who’d want to try it out: choose pictures with the parents facing front for a less ‘mutated’ offspring.