nicquee goes senti

How do you like you Sinigang?

I’ve become really picky with the taste of every food I eat, all probably due to the first-trimester-bug. Now, I have come to accept it as reality when I’ve read somewhere that every pregnancy is a unique experience. It is very true and I’m a perfect example.

When I was preggy with Ayex, who is turning 3 on January, I only ate what was available. That means I never asked or requested for something that has to be bought from the market or cooked specially for me. I never experienced the first-trimester-bug more popularly known as morning sickness. I like to use the first rather than the latter because in my case, morning sickness happens spontaneously throughout the day. It can last long or short (when I’m lucky). Yes, at times I feel insane. Thanks to youtube, I can watch MELASONn moments that I missed, for a good laugh.

Ok, sorry that I digress. Let me go back to my topic. Being the picky eater that I have become, I like my food to be sour, salty and spicy most of the time. I have not craved for sweets so far. Even the candies I eat, I like them sour.

During the first weeks of my pregnancy, I had every chance to eat the food I’m craving for. Thanks to Kantineta for the (spicy) caldereta, diniguan, and pork binagoongan. And for my (spicy) and sour sinigang, thanks for the people at home. Wondering why (spicy)? That means I has to put something else to make it spicy because the dish is not as it is. 🙂

So what is the perfect sinigang for me? The soup should be plenty, sour and a little spicy. I don’t want gabi or Taro in my soup. I like it to be full of vegetables, even if it’s just kangkong, sitaw and some labanos. And the meat, I want it to be really soft and easy to chew. I specified meat because I’m not really a fan of fish in sour soup.

If I go home with sinigang cooked exactly the same as above, I would probably eat it over and over again for days until I get tired of its taste or until I craved for something else. How about you, what will make you eat sinigang for days?

Malunggay Pesto Sauce

Lately, I did a lot of cooking and experimenting and here is one of them. We all know how nutritious and beneficial Malunggay is specially to lactating moms. Did I mention it is easy to find too? This is the main ingredient of my latest experiment.

I first heard of the Malunggay Pesto Sauce in a TV show where they boiled the leaves first and used the broth as tea; and the boiled leaves were used to make the Pesto sauce. How healthy and cheap could that be?! This is a super saver specially when you have a Malunggay tree planted in your backyard or near your place like us. Without further ado, let me share with you how I made this fantastic Malunggay Pesto Sauce, which you can use in a lot of ways. I used it in different ways already.

Ingredients

1 cup fresh Malunggay leaves
4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
3/4 cup extra virgin Olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Procedure

To create this flavorful sauce, you can use a blender osterizer or food processor. In this case I used MIL’s osterizer since we don’t have a food processor.

Put the fresh Malunggay leaves in the osterizer and then grate it. When I was doing this, I had a hard time crushing the leaves into pieces because it was all dry. After a few tries and mixing, the leaves were already small. This time I included the garlic inside and do some more grinding and grating.

While the osterizer is still running, I slowly pour the olive oil into the mixture through the opening in the cap. And instead of grinding, I press puree. This time it was so much easier because of the liquid. I stopped the processor to get everything mixed together and pureed some more.

When I was happy with the consistency, I added the salt and pepper into the mixture, pureed a little more then I was done.

I transferred my Pesto sauce into a microwaveable container, tasted it and then placed it inside the fridge. Important: Do not add the Parmesan cheese if you intend to store your Malunggay Pesto Sauce. Simply add it before you use the sauce.

I brought some here at the office and let my friends taste my latest experiment thus the photo above. I don’t know where to buy crostini here so we settled with Rebisco crackers. It was like a tornado passed in my cube. We were able to finish 3 packs of crackers in a matter of five minutes with 4 people eating.

Some of the remaining sauce, I already used for spaghetti yesterday but I forgot to take a picture of my lunch as I was super excited to eat it. I’ll post it here hopefully next week.

Nutella

I was able to have a first taste of this hazelnut spread courtesy of my sister’s sponsors from Italy. Ok, let me clarify that. Back then, our parish takes care of some of their parishioners’ kids through sponsorship. They find families in Italy, the home of their congregation, who are willing to sponsor kids in their studies and in general. My sister and brother were on of the fortunate kids who were sponsored by the parish but only my sister has a family sponsor. There.

A package would arrive for her twice every year and its contents varies. As soon as we get home from the parish where we pick up her package, we would gather around and open her box altogether. That’s how excited we are for her. Then in one of the packages comes this Nutella. That’s the first time we heard of it as we’re used to peanut butter and other local spreads. After that first taste, the more we looked forward to every package my sister receives from her family in Italy.

There was one time when she was sent this really huge jar of Nutella. The jar is a glass one. Somebody mistakenly placed the newly opened jar at the top of our ref. I think it was my mom who opened the ref and the Nutella fell. The jar broke into pieces and the spread is all over our floor. We were so sad and regretful because we just opened it. But we didn’t want to gamble so we just threw everything to the bin. Sad.

Then sister graduated and no longer needs support from her Italian family. This is also when we stopped eating Nutella. Little did we know that it is actually being sold in the local supermarket. And since we receive this yummy goody for free, we didn’t know how much it costs until we saw it in the grocery. My eyes got big when I saw the tag price of the smallest jar! PhP250+ or $5 for a 375g jar, I think. Eh yung biggest jar kaya magkano?!

But my friend Therese taught me something. If you go to duty free in Subic, you’ll be able to get the large jar for a price of the small jar. And that’s what exactly I did, thus the picture above. When she went to Subic, I asked her to buy me one. A few hours ago, while eating merienda, I told her that I should have asked her to buy 2 so I could have given the other jar to my sisters. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it even if I ask them to pay me PhP380 or $7.6 because they’ll not be able to buy this large jar at that amount if they go to the nearest grocery.

Hay, Nutella is addicting! I can eat it with or without bread. I still have to try it with banana though, which I read is a fantastic combination.

How about you, what spreads do you swear by?