Cream of Mushroom Soup

Enjoy!

Plated Homemade Pizza with Quick Tomato Sauce

These are 2 of my favorite foreign dish, pasta and pizza, so I don’t need to say that I love it!

Today we used 2 of the stocks that we prepared yesterday, the chicken stock for Vegetable Chowder, Velouté Sauce and Chicken in White Sauce plus the brown sauce (beef) for the Pepper Sauce.

Vegetable Chowder


Chicken in White Sauce

No photos for the Velouté and Pepper Sauce since it was not use in any of the dish which makes it look boring, at least for me.

The we prepared 2 sauces, Béchamel and Hollandaise, two sauces that demands continuous whisking, Béchamel being a roux base sauce with milk needs to constant whisking to prevent the milk from curdling and Hollandaise is made of egg and butter mixture must be whisked briskly for the mixture to emulsify.

The session ended around 12NN which gives me enough time to travel and catch up with today’s biggest event in Philippine Politics, the first SoNA of President Noynoy Aquino. A few days ago, the palace hinted that the President’s SoNa will be a bomb that will shock the whole nation. I believe that this has tickled the curiosity of the citizenry and awaited for whatever bomb the president is about to explode.

So I watched the president’s State of the Nation Address speech, which was delivered in Filipino, he started by telling the people on how the previous almost emptied the budget for the fiscal year 2010 and how the calamity fund (for 2010) was diverted to benefit former President (and now Pampanga 2nd District Congresswoman) Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo constituents in Pampanga.

These among other findings of anomalous transactions dominated the first half of the president’s speech, nothing was shocking at least for me, these have been told before, even during GMA’s reign in power. But I would admit that it was a good prelude to what the president wants his speech to be remembered. He’s not like GMA.

In his plans of action, he certified several legislative agenda, (1) the Fiscal Prosperity Bill, (2) the passing of National Land Use Bill, (3) [amending] National Defense Act, (4) enacting the Whistleblower’s Bill, (5) strengthening the Witness Protection Program, and (5) re-codification of the laws to ensure that no law is contradicting with another.

In his speech, the president mentioned about the constructing an expressway from Manila that would pass the provinces of Bulacan, Neva Ecija, Nueva Vizcaya and Cagayan Valley, the pushing through with the rehabilitation of the railway system and the building of grain terminals, refrigeration facilities, road networks and post-harvest facilities, all would be under private – public partnership.

The private – public partnership looks vague to me, how is it differs to the BOT (Build Operate and Transfer) scheme that past administrations entered into that made more harm than help, take for example the north and south Luzon toll ways that increased it’s toll fees by more than 300% after being taken over by a private firm.

I’m looking for a concrete plans of action, not the additional 2 years of basic education but making sure that our public school would be a conducive place for our children to learn more even only having 10 years of basic education. That jobs will be created (and not just recycled) in this country to cater our graduates and assure them of their security of tenure. That Filipinos would take overseas job as their last resort and not because it’s the only way for them to support the needs of his/her family.

We don’t only need post-harvest support but more so, the government needs to assure that the land that these farmers are tending to will be their own.

And if the president is serious about his election slogan “kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap” he could have certified the Freedom of Information Bill as a part of the priority legislation.

It’s quite disappointing, or maybe I was expecting this administration to fulfill the promises that they made during the election.

Anyways, today’s task was a set of (still) Asian cuisine, a Thai dish called Thai Chicken and Basil, the famous Indonesian Pork Satay (Satay Dishes are also famous in Malaysia) and a Malaysian dish called Rempah-Rempah (Prawn and Bean Sprout Fritters) a close replica of our native Okoy.

Thai Chicken and Basil


Pork Satay

Rempah-Rempah

It was my first time to work alone, we use to work in tandem but since 2 students has already completed their six months course, my partner was asked to work with another student. It was hard working alone but with proper planning and scheduling, I was able to hurdle the challenge.

Pork Liempo with Oriental Flavor

There will be no cooking for us tomorrow, we will be sitting on a classroom to hear a lecture on food and kitchen safety.

Today was a make-up class for the suspended class last Wednesday, we prepared an Indonesian dish Nasi Goreng (Fried Rice) and two Indian dishes Sambal Babi (Pork and Hot Spices Cooked in Coconut Milk) and Murgh Salar Jung (Chicken in Cashew and Coconut Sauce).

Nasi Goreng (Fried Rice)


Sambal Babi (Pork and Hot Spices Cooked in Coconut Milk)

Murgh Salar Jung (Chicken in Cashew and Coconut Sauce)

Today was one of the tiring school day for me, the dishes involves a lot of preparation and cooking time, but as I always say, it’s all worth it.

I woke up Wednesday morning (around 3AM) when my electric fan stopped running (yeah, brown out!) and with the loud whirling sound. That ended my good night sleep.

By 5AM, my cellphone alerted me, it’s time to prepare for another day in school, with no electricity and low water pressure in the faucet, I took bath got ready. The weather was not pleasant, although the wind had mellowed but I can still feel it hitting me hard, as I walked towards the public transport terminal, this scene welcomed me.

I counted at least 10 Acacia trees lying on the ground, even the playground was not spared by the wrath of Basyang.

When I reached the terminal, the shuttle service was suspended and no tricycle was on sight, so there’s no other logical thing to do but to return home. Upon reaching home, I saw my sister’s car backing out of the garage, she needs to report to work early to check the damage caused by the typhoon in their warehouse, so I hitched.

It’s another jeepney ride before I reach the school, on the way, I saw some areas have been flooded, thanks but no thanks to the newly constructed drainage (what a waste of public money!).

While on the jeep, I see people wet and waiting for their ride, it was then that I received a text message from the school admin that, yeah you guess it right, class is suspended! Sucks hard! I’m almost there buddy!

What else can I do but to hit home, but that was easier said than done, buses and jeepneys were full and I’m soaking wet, at least my shoes. It took me another hour to finally get a ride home.

The electricity and water in our subdivision were back Thursday afternoon, I missed my Thursday class since no water available for bathing. The phone (and internet) service came back just before dinner time today, that’s after almost 24 hours of me calling the PLDT customer support.

According the the news report, at least 38 persons died and more than 80 others are missing. The typhoon also caused two oil spills, Petron’s submarine pipeline in Rosario, Cavite was damaged by the oil tanker’s anchor, the oil spill was estimated to have reached at least 1 kilometer of coastline. The second oil spill happened in Bataan, an oil barge submerge causing the spill, several other barges hit the breakwater damaging it and several fishing boats.

I haven’t heard of the estimated damage caused by this recent typhoon, looking at the reports, it looks like that the remaining 600 million (out of 2 billion) pesos calamity fund for this year would not be sufficient. I wonder where the Arroyo government spent the 1.4 billion calamity fund when Basyang was the first typhoon that caused a great amount of devastation this year.

Masala Murgh (Grilled Masala Chicken)

This is one spicy day for us. Yes, you read it right, it’s Hunan and not human so no need to be alarmed. Hunan is a Chinese region and they prepare their ribs spicy yet delicious.

Kurma (Sweet Fried Dough Coated in a Sugar Syrup)

As we all know, Indian cuisine are rich in spices and uses coconut milk to add creaminess to their dishes. I’ve tasted the Tandoori Chicken while I was still working in Saudi Arabia and this is one Indian dish that I enjoyed. Since the school on have the conventional oven and not Tandoor, I was missing the clay oven cooking taste of the Chicken Tandoori, although it still have that spicy taste of Indian cooking.