Taste It Tuesday: Homemade Milk Tea

It is that limbo once again between the summer and rainy season. It rains sporadically making the weather hotter and more humid. Ugh!

What better way to beat this moody weather than a tall glass of cold milk tea!

But a P150 price tag makes it a little less enticing. So, I decided to make my own.


Here's the process I used: (it's fairly easy!)

1. In a pan, boil 1/2 cup of water with 2 teabags. I used Lipton Peppermint Herbal Infusion. Add 1 tablespoon of sugar to taste.
2. Once it came to a boil, pour it to a tall glass half full with water.
3. Add another 1/2 cup to the pan with the teabags and heat until boiling. This is to ensure that you have extracted all the infusion.
4. Pour it to the glass and add ice cubes. You can also put in inside the freezer for a few minutes to make sure it is extra cold.

Here is my final product:



Paired with pork adobo and 2 cups of rice, perfect dinner!

Maybe I can experiment with flavors too using flavored teas! Oh, oh and I can also try making my own pearls!

Definitely excited for the next Taste It Tuesday!

Mani Monday: Italian Nude

It's Mani Monday once again!
I found a nail polish from Klik named Italian Nude. Do Italians really turn this pink when they are nude? Haha.

I decided to pair with an equally sexy color, Caronia Black Satin with a dot of SanSan Pink.

I came up with this design:


Writing this now, I realized it looked like a gothic Santa hat. Haha.

For my toes, I didn't want to be all matchy-matchy but I used the same color scheme. My toes are teeny tiny. Taping was a bit difficult but a success nonetheless.
Here is the result:

My toes look like piggies. Haha. But I'm proud of them. They look like baby toes. Haha

Yay for another Mani Monday!

Glazed Pork With Carabao Mangoes

It was one of those evenings when I want something other than plain fried pork or pork adobo. I did a quick search and was inspired by the Glazed Pork Recipe of Budget Bytes.

It looked fairly easy to make. The pork we have on hand was thinly cut so there is no need for an oven. I revised it a bit to add onions and carabao mangoes.

Here's my version:


Ingredients:
-4 pieces of thinly sliced pork
-1 tablespoon of sugar
-salt and pepper
-oil
- 1 small onion
-carabao mangoes for the side dish (I had this sudden inspiration while peeling the carabao mangoes intended to be eaten separately)

Procedure

1. Wash the pork pieces and dry them with paper towel (Don't skip drying. I'll explain later).

2. Rub the pieces with salt, pepper and sugar.

3. Leave it for a few minutes while heating the oil.

4. When your oil is hot enough ( my quick test is to place your hand a foot above the pan, if you feel the heat from there, it is hot enough), fry the onions until they become soft and translucent.

5. Place your pieces on the pan. Because I did not dry my chops, the sugar I rubbed in dissolved. So I poured the dissolved sugar to the pan as well and left it uncovered to allow the water to evaporate.

6.To pass the time while waiting for it to boil, I peeled the carabao mangoes I was going to eat after dinner and had a sudden inspiration of including it to the dish. So I sliced it into strips and added it to the boiling mixture.

7. Turn the chops to the other side. When the water evaporated, the sugar and onion will caramelize. You will see it sticking to the pan. So whenever you turn the chops, be sure to rub it to the sides so that the glaze will stick to the pork.

8. After about 5 minutes of frying on each side, you are now ready to serve!

The pork turned out nice, sweet and tender and the mango gave its flavor a surprise kick.

Perfect for those summer craving nights!

Stove Top Pizza With Stale Bread Base

I was craving for pizza yesterday but it wasn't in my budget for the week. So, I realized why not make my own?

I have stale bread, tomato sauce, pineapples from the fruit snack, cheese and hotdog.

I figured, I'll just make the conventional loaf pizza. But after minutes of googling, I found this site.

She used stale bread as base for her pizza. She first broke it into little pieces, added milk and water, mashed it and pressed it to a pan. She then placed her favorite toppings and cooked it inside the oven.

It was a great unconventional idea compared to ordinary loaf pizza. And I have all the ingredients right here in our kitchen.

My next problem was I do not have any form of oven, just the stove and a rice cooker. Mr. Google did not fail to give me a solution to this one too! I found this incredible site listing several methods of cooking pizza without an oven.

So, here's the fusion of the two ideas.

Stove Top Pizza With Stale Bread Base

Ingredients: -6 slices of loaf bread
-100 ml evaporated milk
-1 cup water
-1 egg (I figured I need the egg so the bread would stick to each other when cooked in the pan)
-oil (for greasing the pan before putting the bread mixture)
-tomato sauce or pizza sauce
-your favorite toppings

Tools needed:
-large bowl where the bread will be mashed
-stove
-pan with lid

Instructions:
1. Break the bread to pieces



2. Pour in the milk and water. Do this gradually while mashing the bread. You know you got it right when you have a mashed potato consistency.



3. Grease the pan and press the bread mixture to it. It will slide around at first because of the oil but once you fill the whole pan, it will stay still.

4. Brush the top with tomato sauce and place your favorite toppings (splurge time. Haha)

5. Cover and pan and cook in low heat for 5 minutes or until the cheese melts.

6. Once done, scrape the sides of the pan and slowly lift the pizza off. Don't worry if the underside is a little burnt. I think it's because of the milk so it will still taste fine.


Sorry I dived right in without taking a picture of the whole thing first. Haha.


As you can see, I like my crust thin. It is very soft but not sogging with oil. It tasted great. I'll be sure to experiment with other toppings soon.