Certified Foodies Recipes Archives

Contadina Easy Spaghetti with Meatballs Recipe

In culinary school, we were taught that great food begins and ends with the ingredients. The dishes that you prepare will only be as good as the quality of the ingredients you put in them. Using fresh meat and produce is ideal in cooking excellent meals, but most of us simply do not have the time to do supermarket runs daily and cook from scratch. Thankfully, there are high-quality food products out there made with premium ingredients which can cut cooking time in half but do not jeopardize flavor and nutritional value. One prime example of that is Contadina.

Contadina came from the same makers of Del Monte, one of the most trusted brands for high-quality culinary products. Contadina is an Italian word which means â€œwoman of the fields.â€ It symbolizes the care and compassion that these women pour into making flavorful and authentic dishes. They adopt the Mediterranean philosophy of cooking meals with passion by using only the finest and freshest ingredients which are harvested from the worldâ€™s most abundant regions.

The new Contadina product line consists of basic Mediterranean cuisine essentials:

Olive Oil

Sourced from Andalucia, Spain, Contadinaâ€™s Olive Oils are extracted from freshly-pressed Hojiblanca olives, hand-picked from 100-year old trees cultivated under the Mediterranean sun.

Pasta

Their beautiful pastas are made from premium-grade 100% Durum Wheat Semolina, straight from the Western Prairie provinces of Canada. Firm and bouncy, each piece is a delectable bite worth savoring for a truly authentic Mediterranean pasta experience.

Pasta Sauces

Made in Italy, Contadinaâ€™s pasta sauces use fresh tomatoes, herbs, and authentic cheeses. Each pasta sauce is thoughtfully prepared, following a traditional recipe to reward you with authentic flavors that are undeniably Italian.

Tomatoes

Grown in California, their Roma Tomatoes are made with love and an abundant supply of sun and nutrient-rich soil resulting in firm cuts that aren’t lost after cooking and a delectable, fresh tomato flavor that enriches your recipes.

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Chicken Curry with Carnation Evap : A Creamy New Tradition

Since I moved out of our home in Malabon and started living alone, I always look forward to the days when I pack up my things and go back home to spend long weekends or the holidays with my nanay and bro. It’s not only because I miss spending time with them, but also because I long for my nanay’s cooking. In the past year, I actually found a way to satisfy my craving for her cooking â€” recreating her dishes in my own little kitchen. One of my all-time favorites is her Chicken Curry, which is one of the dishes she usually serves for Noche Buena.

My nanay uses fresh coconut milk to prepare her Chicken Curry. When I tried cooking this dish (with Ken’s help), I found out that Carnation Evap actually works well too! It gives my version of nanay’s Chicken Curry a rich yet unique taste and flavor, and I also noticed that Carnation Evap made the dish even creamier. I’m sharing the recipe below for you to try it yourself and taste the difference. My nanay already had a taste of this dish (she let me cook it this year for Noche Buena!), and she gave me a thumbs up. 🙂

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Clara Ole Baby Back Ribs with Beef Steak Rice and Caesar Salad Recipe

A few weeks ago, I reached a major milestone in my life – I have successfully survived a challenging year at my new office job and living independently in my Makati condo. When I moved in here, I promised myself to cook more and not resort to food delivery. In celebration of this important milestone, Ken decided to whip up a fancy meal for the two us despite the limited kitchen space and equipment at my place. With the help of Clara Ole products, he showed me you don’t have to spend a lot to come up with a restaurant-quality dish that you can make any time, starting with these mouth-watering Barbecue Baby Back Ribs. 🙂

If you’ve been following our blog, you know we are meat lovers. It was easy to decide which dish we want him to cook for this night. He made our meal extra special by also preparing Beef Steak Rice, with Caesar salad on the side. This recipe is easy to cook and budget-friendly, but the flavors and texture are on point; smoky, sweet with that subtle tangy taste. The meat? Falls off the bone. To fully enjoy the meal, we suggest you eat the ribs with your hands so you can lick off the sauce from your fingers afterwards. 😉

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Champorado and Bibingka with Toblerone & Cadbury – A Sweet Twist to Your Favorite Pinoy Merienda

Whenever the clock hits 3 o’clock in the afternoon, it’s like our bodies are programmed to want to have merienda. We grew up like this, and I still remember our nanay knocking on our doors at 3pm, announcing it’s merienda time. When we follow her to the kitchen, we’ll be delighted by the spread of different snacks she bought or prepared for us. You’d usually find pansit luglog or Pansit Malabon, lugaw with tokwa’t baboy, turon (we call it valencia), sopas, ginataan, ensaymada, bibingka and, my favorite, champorado.

Yes, champorado. Some may think that it’s better enjoyed for breakfast, but I beg to disagree. 😀 I love champorado for merienda because it gives me a much-needed boost in the middle of the afternoon that’ll last until the end of the day. 🙂 I also love turon, ginataan, peachy-peachy, and, of course, Pansit Malabon.

Ken’s merienda favorites are lugaw, Pansit Malabon and bibingka. The latter, you’d think you can only find people selling them during the holidays, but in Malabon, it’s a regular snack choice because it’s readily available all year round (that’s why we LOVE our home town 😀 ).

If you’ve seen our past recipes, you already know how we enjoy adding our own twists to usual dishes. This time, Ken came up with 2 Pinoy merienda recipes with a sweet twist that we’re sure you’ll both love. He used products from Mondelez Philippines.

Mondelez Philippines, formerly named Kraft Foods, has been around for over 5 decades. They’re the authority when it comes to snacks. Don’t believe us? Under their belt, they have Oreo, Toblerone, Cadbury, and Tiger Enery Biscuits. Their Eden Cheese is a regular when we prepare spaghetti. We also add cheesiness to our ‘flying saucer’ sandwiches with Cheez Whiz. Merienda won’t be complete, especially for our nanay, without a pitcher of her favorite Tang.

Mondelez has been constantly innovating, coming up with new flavors that us Filipinos love. Have you tried their Oreo Coconut Delight? You must! How about the Tang Dalandan, Honey Lemon and Calamansi? 🙂

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Our #ClaraOlePotluck Fiesta, Boodle Fight Style!

We’re from Malabon, and if you know anyone from there or you’ve attended at least one fiesta or party hosted by someone who lives in our hometown, you know how festive ourÂ celebrations could be. And if you’ve been to one of our parties at home, you’ve seen how lavish we are when it comes to preparing food for our guests. We did just that when we hosted our own Clara Ole Potluck Fiesta party a couple of weeks ago.

The party took almost a month to prepare. The Clara Ole team gave us one task – to prepare a menu showcasing the wide variety of dishes you can make using their products, and how convenient and easy it is for anyone to serve delicious dishes, whatever level your cooking skills are and however small your kitchen is. We personally use Clara Ole products in my little kitchen in my Makati condo, and I tell you, everything I cook with their products come out perfect. 🙂 My favorites would be their pasta sauces and marinades.

Going back to our party, Ken and I thought of hosting a boodle fight, and we all agreed on the Pinoy Fiesta theme for our friends. Since it’ll be a boodle fight, Ken knew serving a couple of dishes won’t be enough. So, he came up with a menu composed of 14 dishes + the punch, which serves as my only contribution. 😀 All of the dishes were made using Clara Ole products, as listed below.

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Baon Ideas with Oreo and Tiger Energy Biscuits

I remember when we were still kids, our nanay wakes up really early in the morning to prepare our baon for school. Ken and I usually didn’t know what she prepared for us, and we’ll just be pleasantly surprised come recess time. I guess that’s why we always look forward to opening our lunchboxes during our breaks. She always makes sure we have something to eat that’s not just delicious, but will also energize us for the rest of our school day.

I’m sure many moms would agree that a good baon is vital during school days. I’m seeing a lot of moms getting creative with their kids’ baon nowadays. If you’re one of them, and you need a little inspiration, we’ve got a few ideas for you. We used 2 well-known products fromÂ Mondelez PhilippinesÂ for these recipes.

If this is your first time hearing about Mondelez (pronounced ‘mohn-dah-leez’, meaning ‘delicious world’), their company was formerly named Kraft Foods. The company has been around for decades and theyâ€™re behind familiar brands likeÂ Oreo cookies, Tiger Energy biscuits,Â Tang, Eden Cheese, Cheez Whiz, Cadbury, and Toblerone. If you check their website, you’ll find delightful recipes forÂ fun baon ideas for your kids.

Ken and I love putting a twist on our favorite dishes, and we did exactly that with the recipes belowÂ usingÂ Tiger Energy Biscuits and Oreo cookies, which are already good baon as is, but we thought of other creative treats you can make with them. These snacks / baon bites will surely give you a boost of energy, so it’s not just great for kids, but also fun snacks to take with you to the office or as merienda at home. Let us know once you’ve tried these recipes, okay? Enjoy! 🙂

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Highlands Gold Corned Beef: Premium Taste of Steak and Angus Beef in a Can!

Corned beef has always been our go-to alternative when weâ€™re too lazy to cook dinner or when weâ€™re just looking for a quick bite. It may not be the most delicious food out there, but it does the job in satiating our sudden pangs of hunger. But all that has changed when we discovered Highlands Gold Corned Beef.

Highlands Gold Corned Beef puts the luxurious taste of steak and Angus beef in a can. Itâ€™s quite affordable, too. A 320-gram can is priced at Php 150.00 (SRP), and you can prepare multiple dishes with all its meaty contents.

When youâ€™re not in the mood to cook, you can just eat it right out of the can. Simply serve it with some steamed rice and that makes for a very satisfying dinner already. Trust me; Iâ€™ve done it a couple of times. 🙂

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Microwave Mango Buttercream Cake Recipe

After two grueling move-ins, we were finally successful in bringing my baking equipment and ingredients to Makati. Sadly, my beloved oven was left behind in Malabon since gas ovens and ranges are not allowed in the building that we’re staying at. Most baking addicts will lose their minds over not having an oven and go into baking withdrawal. Luckily for me, I found this unfortunate circumstance more of a challenge to be resourceful than anything else. Who says I need a gas oven to bake a decent cake? It’s time you meet the underrated baking power ofÂ the Microwave Oven! 😀

Now that it’s settled that we’ll be baking using the microwave oven, another dilemma has presented itself — I have no idea what to bake! So I scoured our pantry and realized I have all the basic ingredients to make a plain vanilla cake. But who wants that, right? Then I remembered we still have a kilo of mangoes, slowly rotting in the refrigerator, that my Nanay has brought us when she visited last week. Now we’re all ready to make my favorite Microwave Mango Buttercream Cake.

The first thing we need to do is the cake. We’ll be using the microwave, so our cake ingredients require some adjustment. To be honest, it’s not the best cake, texture-wise, but it can do the job if you want a quick, no-sweat dessert for lunch or dinner.

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Japanese Chicken Yakitori (Barbecue) Recipe

Ever since I started eating healthy and hitting the gym, my mind has been overly preoccupied with food. And even in my sleep, all I see is food, just like this one recurring dream I have of me binging on Japanese fare like sushi, katsudon, or yakitori. 😀 I always wake up disoriented, salivating, and craving for anything Japanese. This torture has to stop! And I have always believed that the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. Needless to say, I gave in. So one afternoon, I decided to prepare Japanese Chicken Yakitori for dinner.

I used to have an obsessive addiction with Tokyo Tokyoâ€™s Chicken Yakitori, until they decided to take it off their menu and replace it with Chicken Karaage, which I did NOT find hard to love as well. But it was truly overwhelming when I came across my long lost love, the Chicken Yakitori, once again at my previous work. They had a mean recipe for yakitori, so I made sure I learn it any way I could. So with that recipe at hand, I charged at our kitchen, only to be disappointed to find out that weâ€™re missing most of the ingredients I need. But like any good chef, one must learn how to improvise and be resourceful.

The original recipe calls for mirin (Japanese rice wine) and rice wine vinegar. I boldly substituted the mirin with red wine, and the rice wine vinegar with the regular distilled vinegar. But I suggest that if you plan to substitute the mirin, use white wine instead, since itâ€™s milder and sweeter.

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Beef Pochero Recipe

As you might already know, our nanay is an excellent cook that’s why we’ve been eating very well at home since we were little kids because she can whip up a delicious meal even with a meager budget during the time when she was the only breadwinner in our family (which was almost 20 years of my life, that’s why we love her so much 🙂 ). Her specialties are too many to mention, but there are some dishes that really stand out for me. Two of which are her Kare-Kare (we already shared the recipe here!) and Beef Pochero.

Since Ken and I have been helping her with finances at home, we can now request for a repeat of some of her dishes as long as we provide the budget. 😀 Most of the time, though, she’ll just do it because she enjoys seeing us devouring (yes, that’s the appropriate word) her dishes. Now, she has another reason to cook her wonderful dishes – she loves sharing her recipes here on our food blog! Yay for all of us! 😀

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