Pasta and Beef Recipes

Let me share four simple dishes I did just recently and a few months back- Sweet-style Spaghetti which I did 3 quarters ago, Crab and Shrimp Linguine with White Sauce over a month ago, Shrimp and Bacon Pasta just last weekend and Beef Asado in one of our dinners this week.

It's a holiday today so let me do this wholesale. :)))

I am making every Sunday our pasta day - Sunday Pasta or Pasta Sunday? Anyway, I started last Sunday with this Shrimp and Bacon Pasta.  I bought Yummy Everyday Pasta a few months back.  So far I have done two, the first two pastas I listed above.

The recipe for this Shrimp and Bacon Pasta, however, is not from Yummy.  I was browsing a magazine while I was at the salon having my nails polished when I chanced upon this very easy pasta recipe. I copied it, together with the instructions, using in my cell phone's Notes. :)

Sorry, I forgot the magazine but the recipe is sponsored by Nestle.

1/2 cup chopped bacon
2 tbsp minced garlic
2 tbsp minced onion
1/4 kilo shrimp
1 sachet, 8g, Maggi Magic Sarap Mix
1 cup of water
1 cup tomato sauce
1 pack Nestle all-purpose cream, 250 ml
400g spaghetti

Procedures:
1.  Fry bacon and set aside.  Leave bacon fat in pan to use for sauteing.
2.  Saute garlic and onion then add shrimp.
3.  Season with Maggi Magic Sarap and pepper.
4.  Pour water and bring to boil.
5. Add tomato sauce. Simmer for 10 minutes.
6. Add Nestle cream for another minute.
7.  Toss the cooked spaghetti noodles.
8.  Garnish with bacon.

I used wheat pasta and made it 500g so I added a few more grams to the rest of the ingredients.  Yummy it is! :)

Here's the recipe for Sweet-style Spaghetti.

1/2 tbsp corn or vegetable oil
1 tbsp butter
1/2 cup finely chopped onions
1/2 cup finely chopped carrots
1/2 cup finely chopped celery
1 tbsp minced garlic
250 g ground pork
250 g ground pork
2 bay leaves
7 pcs Vienna sausage, diced
2 cups sweet-style tomato sauce
1/2 cup water, chicken stock, or vegetable stock
1/2 tsp liquid seasoning or to taste
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
350 grams spaghetti noodles
1/2 cup grated quick melting cheese

Procedures:
1.  Heal oil and melt butter.  Add onions, carrots and celery, cook until veggies are tender.  Add garlic, saute until fragrant.
2.  Add ground pork, ground pork, and bay leaves. Brown the meat for about 10 minutes.  Add the Vienna sausage halfway through cooking.
3. Pour in tomato sauce and water or stock; mix. Let it simmer over low heat for 8 - 10 minutes.  Season with liquid seasoning, salt, and pepper.  Continue to cook for 1 - 2 minutes.
4. Toss pasta with meat sauce until well combined.  Top with grated cheese.

Take a look at Crab and Shrimp Linguine with White Sauce.

2 tbsp butter
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup diced red bell pepper
1/2 tbsp minced garlic
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups milk, warmed in a pan or in microwave
3/4 cup cooked and chopped shrimp meat
1/2 cup frozen green peas, thawed
juice from 1 lemon
salt, cayenne pepper, and liquid seasoning to taste
160 grams linguine
grated Parmesan cheese

I made 400 - 500 grams of linguine so I had to add portioning of all ingredients.

Procedures:
1.  Melt butter, saute onion until translucent.  Add red bell pepper and cook for 30 seconds.  Add garlic and saute until fragrant.
2.  Sprinkle flour, mix well; cook for 1 minute.  Whisk in warm milk, stir continuously until smooth and slightly thick, about 5 - 6 minutes.  Add cooked crab, shrimp, green peas.  Mix well.
3.  Add lemon juice and season to taste with salt, cayenne pepper, and liquid seasoning.  Mix well and cook for another minute.
4.  Mix in cooked linguine.  Transfer to a serving platter and sprinkle with grated cheese.

My beef asado! I learned how to cook this through my husband who is a better cook than I am. Finally, I got it right. :)

1.  3/4 kilo of sirloin
2.  4 medium sized tomatoes
3.  1 medium sized red onion
4.  4 tbsp soy sauce
5.  salt and pepper to taste
6.  water just enough to cover the beef

Procedures:
1.  In a casserole, put in beef and pour in water enough to cover the beef.  Let it boil.  Remove scum then add onion, tomatoes, and soy sauce.
2.  Let it stand in medium heat until the beef is tender.  (It took about 40 minutes when I did this.)
3.  Salt and pepper to taste.
4.  The end.

Beef asado is so easy to cook but I have to check it like every 5 minutes and mix. The end product was good. :)

More food at Food Friday and Food Trip Friday.

Figaro with Friends

This is actually a belated birthday treat by Cess.  Finally we managed to pull off a date last Monday when all of us are available.  The five of us met very early at Figaro for our breakfast date.  As always, I am happy to see the girls.  We usually send each other messages in our Facebook group but of course, face to face conversation is different. It's more animated, it's more active, everybody gets to participate at the moment. No late replies. Haha.

It was a happy morning. Figaro is very conducive to meet-ups like this, at least in this branch at Congressional Avenue.  It's a bit cold because it was only the five of us inside the restaurant but that's fine.  I just like the ambiance of this particular Figaro.  It's so quiet. It's so clean.

With the girls, Chats, Julie, Cess, that's me in blue, and Cookie.  Dont' we all look really fresh very early in the morning? :)

My breakfast for the day, honey-glazed bacon with sunny side up on toasted bread. Just bacon and eggs but the presentation is really nice. The girls said they should have ordered this. It's around P200 with refillable coffee. All our breakfast come with refillable coffee.

Funny because the three girls ordered for this, fresh mushroom omelette. Again it's around P200. Expensive, right? Good thing we are all coffee lovers. The refill compensates for the pricey breakfast.

Julie had her very Pinoy breakfast of bangus belly with garlic rice and egg. It's around P185 I think.

Our dessert consisted of butterscotch and chocolate muffin.  It's funny because it was really early and yet these are just the desserts available.  The staff said their delivery will still be on Wednesday.  Oh, sayang ang sales n'yo.

I have always been a fan of Figaro. I like the ambiance, especially this branch, I love the food. My daughter loves their milk shake, I love their arrabiata.

We spend the whole morning together which is very rare as we are always busy. We savor the time together and we have already planned for our Xmas dinner sometime middle of December. :)

Our Saturday in Pictures

We slept later than usual since it was a Saturday.  We are looking forward to this day because it was our date for a movie, yes, The Twilight Saga:  Breaking Dawn 2.  My daughter and I trooped to a mall near our place and secured tickets for a mid-afternoon showing.  There were still long lines but manageable.

Still got a few minutes to kill so we did what we usually do.  Jeje time for mother and daughter. Strike a pose beside the movie's standee and in front of the huge mirror in one of the walls of the mall's tenant. :)

Taters popcorn and chips are our usual companion inside the theater.  I opt for barbecue flavor while my daughter goes for cheese flavored chips. We prefer iced tea and bottled water for our drinks. All set to see our movie once we have these little perks.

Above, my daughter lining up at Taters and posing at the mall's Xmas picture corner.

After watching the movie, we availed of the cinema's tie-up with Gelatissimo.  This tie-up has been on-going like forever. Haha. But I am not complaining.  I love Gelatissimo especially the belgian chocolate flavor. It's actually "buy one scoop and get one scoop". But come to think of it, that is not quite right. Coz I bought three scoops for my daughter, two scoops of chocolate mint and a scoop of belgian chocolate but the free is only one scoop of my choice of flavor.  But well, that's a hundred bucks I got for free if I am not mistaken. I will definitely clear this up when we get back. 

We dropped by Fully Booked to check if the last book from the Pretty Little Liars series is available.  Lucky daughter, the bookstore has stock.  She is on her 9th book now, Twisted, but one of the books seemed to be misplaced in another shelf, Flawless.

My daughter wanted a smaller bag which she can use on some days when there are only a few things she needs to bring to school. It was a pleasant surprise to know that the department store's bags section is on 50% off! We bought her a new cute bag. Next time I'll buy us both satchel bags. :)

Last stop was Classic Savory.  Since my daughter and I were still full from the day's lunch, popcorn/chips, gelato, I just decided to order pancit bihon guisado to go at Savory.  I wanted pasta but since it will be a Sunday  Pasta for me, I skipped that. I had a sudden craving for pancit bihon. My husband is not fond of pancit from Savory but I am. One order costs P195.00 and it's good for two to three persons already.  :)

Till next bonding time. :)

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn 2

After nine days my daughter and I finally watched Breaking Dawn 2.  We are both not die-hard fans of The Twilight Saga but we like them.  My daughter likes Taylor Lautner.  I like the story of Edward and Bella and the rest of the Cullens and the human Charlie and the kids in the first movie, Twilight.

One good "find" in this saga is Anna Kendrick.  I like her as Jessica in Twilight, Bella's frenemy.  I love her as Natalie Keener in George Clooney's Up in the Air.  She's so good.


Save for the fight of the Cullens and their vampire allies against the Volturis, this last installment of Breaking Dawn I consider light compared to previous movies, Eclipse and New Moon specifically.

I don't gush about the books/movies but there's nothing in The Twilight Saga that I don't like.  I take each book as it is, a fictional tale of a mortal and a vampire who fell in love with each other along with the complications that go with it.  Nothing profound. It just wants to entertain. And yes, I was entertained.

I felt sad the saga has ended.  I could just imagine the super fans of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan.

What I like about Breaking Dawn 2:
1.  It's humor.
2.  The new characters.
3.  The cinematography.
4.  I find the child, Renesmee,  mysterious and beautiful but a little creepy at some point.
5.  The great fight between the Cullens/Vampire Allies and the Volturis.

I downloaded all Twilight books from the site of a famous radio and television personality a few years ago. I enjoyed reading them all.  Eclipse is my favorite up to now.  But I did not finish Breaking Dawn, the book. I was disgusted on the first few chapters taking up the intimacy between Bella and Edward. No, it has nothing to do with "morality" issues as they were already married here. Just that the book took too much space for this. I just wanted to move on, haha.  I stopped reading.

Watching Breaking Dawn the movie, part 1, was a lot better. At least the movie gave each scene more creativity and yes, the cinematography was still breathtaking.  As in all books turned movies, it just choose highlights and let go of too many unimportant details that's why I appreciated the movie this time more than the book, at least for Breaking Dawn.

Comes now Breaking Dawn part 2.  I enjoyed watching it with my daughter.

I also like the OST (official soundtrack) of the movie.  I think this is the first time that I took notice of what's playing on the background.  Even Bella's Lullaby in Twilight did not make me swoon, haha.

I like Christina Perri's A Thousand Years. It just suits the scenes very well. :)


I told my daughter it's sad that the saga has ended.  A few minutes later she said, "I started being a tween during the Twilight years...Twilight was part of my tween years." It was like she was recalling how it was when she started liking Taylor Lautner during her late tween years.  She was already a big Nickelodeon fan - Hannah Montana, The Suite Life of Zac and Cody, Raven, etc - and of course, Justin Bieber, even before Taylor Lautner came into the picture.

My daughter is fourteen, officially a teenager since a year ago.  Nostalgic. So Twilight is like the end of an era for some.  Oh but that's forcing it, haha. Let me settle with the end of their being tweens. :)

What Customer Service - PLDT and Destiny Cable

I don't know why on earth are the customer service hotlines get so busy.  "Hotline" - misnomer.

Try calling PLDT's 171 and it will take you forever.

Now, I am calling Destiny Cable, 418-0000,  but it's just busy.  Their call center starts at 7AM.  You mean to tell me there is a surge of calls at exactly 7AM? Or they lack the manpower to accommodate the calls they are getting. Or they are blocking calls because they are having technical problems.  I checked the television at around 5:30 AM for my usual tv fares at this time but all channels were not working.

So much time is wasted just calling them.  The sad state of customer service in the Philippines.  Let me edit that out.  It's wrong to generalize.  For one,  Bayantel's customer service is good, not perfect because I've once encountered a rude customer service agent and before,  it also takes forever to answer a call, but they have improved a lot.  Prompt answering of calls and customer service agents are efficient.

It's not just customer service that is an issue but also PLDT's technical service (well, this is also customer service).  We have been in our place since 1994.  Since then our PLDT landline goes dead during brownouts.  Long hours of brownout especially in the night and during storm - these are times when communication is very important but PLDT landline in our area is inaccessible. Yes, there are cell phones but see, the batteries get drained after a few hours if they will be the only means of communication.

I have emailed PLDT several times but they cannot fix the problem.  Of course I also called their 171 about this concern.  They did check but well, still no resolution. Their technical said the battery somewhere in the cable is being stolen.  Huh?  Is that crazy or what? Then find a way for it not to be stolen.  I just gave up sending them this complain.  1994 - 2012, 18 years. Will soon switch to Bayantel.

During the first two weeks of October, our PLDT landline was down for no apparent reason.  PLDT said it was a system error but they cannot provide specifics.  The customer service agents promised me thrice they will give me a call as soon as they get to know from their technical what was wrong. But no return call happened. There was nothing to do but wait.

I also emailed their so-called customer care about it but I only got an automated response that they will get back to me blah blah blah.  But of course, no one got back to me.

I remember when I complained this dead-landline-during-brownouts a year or so ago.  Someone from their customer service called the house and asked me what exactly was my complain. Huh? I just have to repeat what my concern was about.   He asked me to call them back because he will be coordinating with their technical about my concern.   If my memory serves me right, it was because I will be out of the house so if I want to know their update, I should call them.  Huh, again. Anyway, the mere act of asking your irate customer to call you back is just not proper.  This concern is more than a decade old and I have been asked to call back if I want to know the update.  Hello, customer service 101?  I know when an employee is new and he is definitely new and arrogant the way he asked me to call back, like I owe them a lot.  But being new is not an excuse.  There are trainings before one goes on board especially if the job requires customer interaction.  Anyway, he could very well do the effort of calling me through my cell phone. And yes, no one called me back.  Customer service disaster.

Just two days ago our PLDT landline was not functioning.  Nakakadala talaga. My parents call us through our landline almost every night.  They are not techie to use Skype or Viber.  They still choose to use the landline.

How can a big company like PLDT serve their customers like this?

And now, it's Destiny Cable. I know they are already being managed by Sky Cable.  I wish for a better customer service.  If their cable is down and they don't want to be inundated by calls, they can just leave a recorded message apologizing for any inconvenience because their system is down and they are working on it.  Gad! That is better than getting a busy tone - at the start of their office at 7 AM and after endless tries.

Customer service of what I have just posted here - a misnomer.

Happy Birthday, Hubs!

It was the husband's birthday a few days back.  We decided to spend it by going to church first and attend our worship service.  Give thanks to the Almighty for the year that was in my husband's life and another year (bound to be fruitful) He has given to him.  :)

We dropped by the salon before heading out to have our dinner.  It was supposed to be me and daughter that will have our hair regimen but the hubs decided to have a haircut too eventually lured by the salon staff to have his hair dyed. Haha. My husband's hair has always been light brown especially when he was younger.  White hair are all over in different parts of his hair now.  This was his first time to have a hair color.  The result was actually good.  He looks his age, as a matter of fact, even younger.

My daughter and I were finished ahead of the husband's hair dye so while waiting, we did our usual photo opp. 

Since it's halloween, the salon's staff were dressed up and made up to be monsters from the dark. Haha. The fun part was the customers' participation of picking the top 3 scariest.

The salon staff gamely posed as we picked the top three scariest. 

The renovated salon has a frap bar, what do you know.  The husband and the daughter bought theirs but I know we will be eating out so I declined.  I had a sip from my daughter's cookies and cream frappuccino and yes, it tastes good just like how it is in other coffee bars.

We stopped by Tous les Jours to buy the husband his birthday cake.  I've been wanting to buy here and now is the perfect occasion. A few days back my daughter and I have already checked what we will buy. Wow, it's delicious! I like it because it's not too sweet but the icing is so creamy and the belgian chocolate, just divine.

Dark Glaze Chocolate from Tous les Jours, the husband's happy birthday cake. :) 

Eating time finally.  I was starving! We had our dinner buffet at Yakimix.  Good thing there was not much people. There were some vacant tables when we arrived.

We enjoyed the buffet at Yakimix especially the Korean bbq we cooked. :) 

I was not able to get a picture of the buffet table and our food because we were all busy eating. We were full if I must say that after just a plate or two of the different kinds of food we availed.

Just  a few notes about Yakimix, SM North EDSA:
1.  Food:  Good. The buffet for dinner is at P620 without drinks. Additional P75 per head for iced tea.
2.  Customer Service:  Fine. Nothing note worthy but staff were efficient.
3.  Cleanliness:  This is where the restaurant should improve. The wash room's cleanliness can do a lot of improvement considering the restaurant was not full at the time we were there.  There was also no tissue available.  The back area going to the kitchen, where their buss window is located needs a lot of sprucing up.  Makes me wonder how is it inside the kitchen.

*I was searching for the official web page of Yakimix but there seems none so I settled for the link I had above.

Will I go back with my family and friends? Well, this is my second time and there will be a next time and a next and a next....  I just hope they do better in cleanliness.

Anyway, it was a whole afternoon till night time that we spent out.  We were tired but happy, of course. :)

Happy birthday again to the hubs! :)))