My mother asked me what to cook for lunch. If it’s just me and her sunny side up egg and tuyo on a lazy day is enough. She said, “How bout kare-kare?” I answered, “I’m too lazy to cook that today, it takes soo long to make the beef tripe tender.” So we thought of sinigang na baboy.

I don’t eat red meat usually, maybe just twice a year, only when I’m caught in a situation wherein I don’t have any choice but to eat that or starve. But in instances like this when we have guests who come to visit, we do cook red meat dishes because we know that Filipinos are mostly carnivorous, so we can not go wrong with this. Aside from that, because of the weather, we are craving for sabaw.

As for me, I’m ok with the vegetables and soup. As long as there’s gabi, I’ll be fine.

Sinigang na Baboy

3/4 kilo pork belly cut into cubes
3 pcs. ripe tomatoes quartered
2 pcs. onion, cut in slices
8 pcs. sitaw or string beans cut into 2″
1 pc. labanos or radish cut thinly slanted
3 pcs. gabi or taro cut into 4 or quartered
5 pcs. okra, cut in half
6 pcs. sigarilyas, or winged bean, cut in half
2 pcs. siling haba or finger chili
1 bundle kangkong or swamp cabbage, just the tips or young part of stem
1 sachet sinigang mix
salt, fish sauce to taste

Be sure to get young pork so it’s easier to make it tender. Clean the pork belly and put in a casserole. Add water just enough to cover the pork. Add the tomatoes and onion. Turn on heat in low setting. Low setting of heat makes it easier to make the pork meat tender. It makes the meat proteins not fight the cooking process. It took me around 15-20 minutes until I got the tenderness I wanted. How I knew it’s the perfect tenderness of meat? I pinched it. And if you don’t want to pinch it, you can get a piece of meat and look at the meat if the strands of the meat flesh is still tight or not. If not, then it is tender enough.

Increase your heat to medium heat. Once you get the right tenderness, add in the vegetables that take the longest to cook which is sitaw. I also add in together with sitaw is the radish because I want it fully cooked as it is a little bitter when half-cooked. Do not cover. Let it boil.

Once boiling, add in gabi, okra and sigarilyas. You might be asking why I only put the gabi now, it’s because I do not want it too soft or me ending up looking for my gabi and they’re gone. Wait until it boils again then add the rest of your ingredients including the finger chili. I add in the finger chili because I prefer it cooked to make the soup slightly spicy.

Add in the sinigang mix once all the vegetables are half cooked, then season to taste with salt and fish sauce.

The guests obviously enjoyed our sinigang as evidenced by the empty casserole and the praises we received and I had my smile stretched from ear to ear. Enjoy!

p.s. perfect partner for me is fish sauce with chili! love it, love it!

Ok, dont curl your brows. We don’t have to be Martha Stewarts. That’s the goodness of being in our own kitchen hehe.. If we fail, it’s not that embarassing.

To begin with, here’s my very simple recipe of gourmet sandwich.. like what hotels and subway serve but more tasty!

CHICKEN HOTDOG SANDWICH

Ingredients:

2 slices whole wheat loaf bread (you can use Gardenia)
1 pc cut into 4  chicken hotdog
1 tbsp. mayonnaise (I use light)
1 pc ripe tomato cut into thin slices
cheese
optional:
lettuce (romaine is good)
cucumber
ketchup

Directions:

1.    Spread the mayo. Then assemble the hotdog, tomato and cheese. Cover with the other piece of bread.

2.   Put in sandwich toaster the one where it gets cut in half.

Assemble in a nice plate with cucumber.

In my case because we have a nonstick grill with cover to become a panini maker, I used that, reason why I have this gorgeous grill marks!

This is a healthy sandwich but is not boring at all as you have the crunch and its very delicious! try it at home!

Send me your comments and ideas…

Later!