Pizza

pizza base ready and waiting!

Pizza

Sitting on a Saturday night eating pizza, drinking a glass of wine and hanging out with friends is a pretty fun way to spend a Saturday night, of course if you have trashy TV on in the background too, that adds additional entertainment. However, it can get pretty expensive, especially if there’s four or five of you munching on pizza that you’ve got delivered and you all want different types…it soon adds up!

This is a really simple and quick cost busting recipe. It doesn’t take any more than an hour, you can make the pizza whatever size you want and put whatever toppings you want on them. Oh, and they’re really yummy and healthy!

 

Ingredients: 

Basic bread recipe ( https://filipinoveggiefood.wordpress.com/2013/05/27/simple-bread/)
250g Tomato sauce
Tomatoes
1 Onion
2 cloves Garlic
Cheese
Mixed herbs
Veggie meat
Mixed veggies

time to decorate

Method:

1. When the bread has risen, take out an amount (about the size of a small orange) and roll in to a ball. Flatten down like a pancake. Place in a hot frying pan with no oil. When it’s in the pan, flatten it down some more, you can you the back of two spoons so you don’t burn yourself. If you don’t flatten it down in the pan, it rises too high to be a ‘traditional’ pizza.
2. Fry the base of the pizza for around 3 minutes on either side
3. When it’s done, place under a grill until one side is lightly browned
4. When it is lightly brown, take it out the oven and put the brown side down on a board.
5. Toppings time!
6. To make the pizza sauce base, put the tomato sauce, a chopped up onion (small) and few cloves of chopped up garlic (also small) and mix together in a bowl.
7. Add some mixed herbs, it’s up to you how many herbs you want, I tend to add a couple of teaspoons but depends on personal taste
8. Put the pizza base sauce on the pizza base (just in case you wondered where to put it). Not loads of sauce, but so it’s covered.
9. Then put your topping on of whatever you want, veggie meat, mixed veggies, cheese, whatever you want J
10. Bake in the oven until the cheese is melted.
11. Then it’s time to eat the most healthy and cheap pizza ever!

yummyyyy

Estimated number of 6in pizza: 10

Estimated complete cost: P100

Estimate price per pizza:  P10

Estimate length of time: 1 hour

Serving suggestion:  Homemade chips (aka French fries), bakes beans, coleslaw, some form of alcohol and some trashy movie or TV.

Tip: When you’re making the base, you can add some herbs and onion and garlic to the actual dough for added flavour!

Simple Bread

 

bread ready to be left to rise

Bread

Bread is so quick and easy to make yourself. This dough is so simple to make, the kids I work with can make it themselves. It is also much cheaper to make it than to buy it and is healthier getting rid of all the preservatives and sugar that is in shop bought bread. Amazingly this bread also doesn’t really need kneading and it still comes out great.

Ingredients: 

2 teaspoons yeast
2 cups of warmish water
5ish cups of flour
1 teaspoon salt

 

Method: 

ready for the oven…you can shape it anyway you like…bread rolls, loaf of bread, shapes 🙂

 

 

1. Put the yeast in the water and leave for 5 minutes
2. Sieve 4 cups of flour in to a bowl add the salt
3. Add the water and yeast
4. Mix the flour and water together
5. Add more flour if needed. If it’s slightly sticky, you’ll get fluffier bread (which is yummy). If you add more flour, the bread will be heavier but still good. A good rule of thumb (strange expression I know) is that if you can pick up the bread and it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the bowl, it’s good to go.
6. Once you think the breads mixed up enough, cover it with a towel and put in a warm place until doubled in size
7. When the bread has risen, kneed it a bit more (punch it around a bit) and shape in to bread buns.
8. Cook on 200oC for 15 minutes or until you can knock the bottom of the bread and it sounds hollow.
9. When it’s cooked, store in an airtight container.

finished and ready to be eaten!

Estimated number of bread buns: 25

Estimated complete cost: P48

Estimate price per bun:  P2

Estimate length of time: 1 hour

Serving suggestion:  Eat hot with butter and jam or cheese, or both together is pretty good too. Unless of course you have crunchy cookie butter…even better!

Tip: You can also add onion and garlic or other flavourings to the bread. After the bread rises, add your extra stuff and then allow to rise for another 30 minutes before baking!

so yummy!

Hidden away veggie meat supermarket!

Veggie place

Quan Yin Chay

It’s so hard to find decent fake meat! In Europe being a vegetarian is almost a fashion, not so much in the Philippines. It’s not an uncommon conversation when eating out and you ask the waiter “is there meat in this?” and for the waiter to reply “no ma’am, only chicken” or sometimes “no ma’am, only ground pork”! Or to ask “What on your menu is vegetarian please?” and for your waiter to reply “this dish ma’am, it’s fish”. Sometimes it’s just easier to cook your own food at home but also, at times, it can get boring just eating vegetables and sauces, sometimes it’s nice to add something a little different.

To that end, I must tell you about an awesome, hidden away, veggie meat supermarket! Quan Yin Chay. Sounds Chinese right? So that gives a clue as to where this place is and why it’s so hard to find. Most people assume (myself included) that to find veggie meat, you look in the big supermarkets or in the rich areas of the Philippines. That would be wrong, for this little place is hidden away down a side street of China town, not far from the main immigration building, it’s a great little time waster whilst waiting for visas.

Veggie meat heaven!

Before I get to how amazing the selection of veggie meat is, I should explain how to get there. From immigration, you take a tricycle for P70 to “Ogpin street” China town. It’s a special trip and it’s about 10 minutes so that’s why it’s a little more expensive than you’d normally pay for a tricycle journey. You ask the driver to drop you off at the front of “Café France”. Yes, there is a Café France, in the middle of China Town, in the Philippines! When you get to Café France, walk over a little bridge, when you get to the second street you pass, turn left there. Walk straight down there for a couple of minutes and there, ahead of you, is this tiny gem.

Inside, it’s half restaurant, half supermarket. I’ve never eaten in the restaurant as I’ve always been rushing to get back to immigration once I’ve bought my stock of veggie meat. However, it might be worth a try as it does look pretty good. It’s the supermarket part that is the exciting part though. It has everything, veggie bacon, veggie goose (awesome!), veggie chicken, veggie fish, veggie tuna in a can, veggie sausages and so much more, I’ve just listed the stuff I normally get. It’s not the cheapest but given how difficult it is to find decent veggie meat and how good this stuff is, it’s totally worth it. For a block of veggie bacon it’s about P200. Might sound like a lot, but it’s really worth it. If you buy a lot, they also give you discount. They also sell things like veggie barbeque sauce, veggie oyster sauce and veggie meatloaf in a can.

Yummy stuff!!

This place is a hidden gem in the most unlikely place. I am seriously thankful to my friend Amie who showed me this place and to the nice people in Café France who helped me find it again the second time I went. If you’re veggie and in the Philippines, it is the best place I’ve found in all my searching to buy quality veggie meat to cook at home. I’ll post some recipies soon about some of the yummy things you can make using this stuff 🙂

Full Address: Quan Yin Chay, 821 Masangkay St., Binondo, Manila, Phils.

It is near to: Dia Eng Chay.

Contact number of them: (02) 24303356

Email: meganet@netasia.net

Tomatoy Slop

 

Preparing veggies

Tomatoy slop!

I like to experiment with different cooking methods and different vegetables. As such, I make a lot of random meals which tend to end up with pretty strange names, such as creamy slop, tomato slop, sayote and egg stuff.

Calling food slop actually was started by a friend of mine who was trying to wind me up (and succeeded at first) but it eventually just became the name of different meals. This particular slop is a bit of a cross between menudo and adobo, two traditional Filipino dishes. It’s tangy, salty and can be made with pretty much any vegetables you have lying around. It’s one of those meals that you can just chuck together in 20mins, is filling and healthy. Anyway, try it for yourself sometime…here’s the recipe.

Ingredients: 

cooking…colourful 🙂

 

5 Okra
1 Bell pepper
1 medium Carrot
1 Onion
3 cloves of Garlic
¼ kg of Mongo sprout (or if you’re in Europe, you can also you bean sprouts)
1 Sayote
2 TBSP Malunggay Powder
¼ kg string beans
500g Tomato sauce
Soy sauce to taste
1 stock cube dissolved in half a cup of water

Method: 

1. Chop up the onion and garlic and lightly fry
2. Cut up the other vegetables into chunks
3. Add the carrots and Sayote to the onion and garlic, allow to cook on a low heat for about 5 minutes
4. Add the pepper, okra, mongo sprout and string beans to the pan
5. Turn the heat down low, put a pan on the lid and allow to cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
6. Add the tomato sauce, stock and soy sauce and Malunggay powder. Personally I like this slop quite salty but it’s really personal taste how much soy sauce you add.
7. Allow to cook for a further 5 minute or until the vegetables are soft
8. Kain na!

completed and time to eat 🙂

Estimated servings: 4 – 5

Estimated complete cost: P100

Estimate price per serving: P20

Estimate length of time: 20 minutes

Serving suggestion:  Serve with rice and grated cheese (cheese makes everything taste better!)

Malunggay Powder: Malunggay is a very healthy leaf with loads of vitamins. You can buy it as a powder in the Echo store outside Market in the Fort, Metro Manila. I’m sure you can buy it in other places too but that’s the only place I’ve ever found it. Alternatively, you can buy it in the market for Php5 a bunch and either add it fresh or dry it out and grind it up to make a powder.

Stock cubes: You cannot buy vegetarian stock cubes in the Philippines. Even the vegetable stock cubes have fish in them. What you can buy instead is Knorr liquid seasoning. It’s not as good as having actual stock cubes but at least it’s vegetarian and adds that extra flavour that sometimes some meals just lack. If you do use the seasoning instead of a cube, add about a tablespoon.

Tofu Menudo…

Tofu Menudo

Raw tofu

Philippine Menudo is different from the Mexican version which is more of a soup.  Menudo in the Philippines is better described as a stew. Traditionally it’s made from pork and/or liver but for my veggie version I changed the pork and/or liver to tofu. A pretty simple change really. It’s not really recommended that foreigners eat the tofu bought at the market. Personally though, I’ve never had any problem eating it but just a warning that it’s not really recommended. In the market, tofu is only about Php3 per cube, in the supermarket on the other hand the cheapest is around Php20 for 4 cubes and they tend to be a bit thinner than those in the market and not quite as fresh.

So on to the dish, Menudo typically is slightly sweet, as most Filipino food is actually, and also slightly tangy (due to the tomato) it is traditionally served with rice.

 

 

Ingredients

Almost finished cooking

 

4 pcs firm tofu
1 small Onion
3 cloves of Garlic
Approx. 1 TBSP Soy sauce
250mls Tomato sauce (if you want it slightly sweeter, get the Filipino blend, if not, buy the original)
1 medium carrot
1 medium potato

Method

1. Lightly fry garlic in a pan
2. Add the onion and fry until transparent
3. Wash and chop up the tofu in to smallish cubes,
4. Add the tofu to the onion and garlic
5. Fry on a low heat for about 3 minutes.
6. Peel and chop the potato and carrots into roughly the same size chunks as the tofu
7. Add the carrots and potato to the onion, garlic and tofu
8. Add the tomato sauce and half a cup of water
9. Cook on a low heat until the carrots and potato are cooked
10. Add the soy sauce to taste.
11. When the potato and carrot is cooked and the sauce tastes good, it’s time to eat!

You can also pre-cook the tofu (fry the cube on either side till golden brown, then cut up to small cubes) and add when the carrots and potatoes are cooked  (step 9). Personally though, I find this a bit dry but everyone has their own preference when it comes to tofu.

Serving suggestion: as previously mentioned Menudo is traditionally served with rice but also tastes pretty yummy with baked

Time to eat 🙂

potatoes and cheese.

Serves approximately: 5 – 6 people

Total approx. cost: PHP 60

Total cost per person: PHP 10 (PHP15 including rice)

Length of time: Approx. 30mins

Tip: When you buy tofu, put it in a tub and cover it completely with water, this keeps the tofu fresher for longer.