Kubiertos

I just love birthdays. Simply because birthdays result in celebrations and celebrations bring food with it. For my birthday, we opted to have the celebration at home this time so what I will be sharing is a lot of homecooking goodness that we experienced last week.

First celebration was at my parents house. My mom cooked tons of food as if I wasn’t able to eat for a whole year and she wanted to make sure I made up for it.

We had my favorite “Ginataang Kuhol” (snails in coconut milk), Barbecued spareribs, grilled stuffed squid and ensaladang talong.

I guess you could say I inherited my knack for cooking and eating. Of us 4 kids, I was always the one tagging along with my father to the market to buy food for the house. I remember that I was always watching him cook. Initially, I watched because my dad would ask me to. He always said it would do me good to learn how to cook. Eventually, I watched because I wanted to learn more. I always loved to play house when I was little and I guess that was as close as I can get to it.

I decided to do the same at home. I planned a special home cooked dinner for my family and some friends.

It was fortunate that I had the whole day off from work because it really takes a whole day to prepare for such a gathering. Although what I had planned did not really take that much effort, the time was prolonged by my two sons who kept wanting to get into the game of my cooking.

I had planned to make baked mussels and bruschetta for appetizers and just baked zitti for the main course. Of course dessert was leche flan.

For the bruschetta, I bought some sourdough baguette from the grocery, fresh tomatoes and quickmelt cheese. Here is how you can make these little bread delights:

Procedure:

Slice the baguette in equal size diagonals. Toast them slightly just so you can easily rub the surface with garlic without having the bread crumble. Then rub the surface with freshly cut garlic. Use your nose to determine when to stop rubbing. Next step is to sprinkle the bread with olive oil (others may just want to spread some light butter). I like cheese so I grated quickmelt cheese over my bruschetta. Bake them until the cheese melts over the bread.

Meanwhile, cut the tomatoes in small cubes. It will give some chunkiness to the bruschetta. Others may choose to place a large slice of round tomato on top. Either one is fine. Mix up your tomatoes with some herbs and olive oil. I used McCormick’s Italian dressing. Put a generous amount of the tomatoes on top of each baked bread. Serve and eat!

Mussels are a fairly inexpensive seafood choice but very good and used in a variety of dishes around the world.

When buying mussels, you have to remember to buy them from the market on the day that you plan to cook them. Keep in mind that fresh mussels tend to be tightly closed. Also, make sure that there are no news about red tide as it will be safe to stay away from mussels during this time.

How to cook baked mussels:

Procedure:

First cook the mussels in a pot filled with water. After the shells open, take the flesh from each shell and set aside.

Melt butter in a saucepan. When melted pour in lemon juice or calamansi juice. Taste the mixture to get your desired combination.

On the baking pan line up the mussels half shell and place one piece of flesh on each half. Pour just enough of the butter mixture over each half shell. Sprinkle each piece with grated cheese. Bake until the cheese has melted. Yummy!

Last one that I prepared was the baked zitti. For this dish, all you need are the pasta, the meat - ground pork or chicken will do, fresh tomatoes, tomato sauce, mushrooms, heavy cream, mozzarella, ricotta, and quickmelt cheese.

Procedure:

Sauce. Saute some garlic and onion in a saucepan. Pour in meat and stir until cooked. Next put in the tomatoes and the mushrooms. Cook until the tomato’s juice pours out. Next pour in the tomato sauce. Season with salt, pepper and herbs. For me, I always use basil leaves combined with italian seasoning. Make sure to season to your desired taste.

In a baking pan or pyrex tray, spoon some of the cooked noodles to make some sort of base. Then layer with mozzarella cheese. Next layer would be the tomato sauce mixed with cream. And then sprinkle with ricotta cheese. Continue to layer until the pan is full to the brim. Sprinkle the top with grated quickmelt cheese. Bake until the cheese has melted. Enjoy!

Part 2: I will tackle the leche flan at another time. Meanwhile… anticipate more goodness!

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 22nd, 2007 at 8:49 pm and is filed under Bread, Fish and Seafood, Pork, Recipes . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.