My Doña Elena® Turkish Cuisine Food Adventure!

Yesterday I went with my younger sister and her friend to a Doña Elena® food event. I was looking forward to it since the day I learned about it. They’re holding a cooking lesson every month introducing different cuisines. I heard that they’ve already featured the Moroccan and Greek cuisines, which I sadly missed. This month they introduced the Turkish cuisine and featured three Turkish dishes: Shish Kebabs, Turkish Couscous Salad, Eggplant Moussaka. They handed us a copy of each recipe. I must say that each dish is very, very, VERY delicious! Tasting Turkish Cuisine makes me want to go to Turkey. I’ll surely do that!

I took a photo of each dish so that I can show them to you. By the way, Doña Elena® is a brand name and they’re selling their products at the event, so you can buy any of their products there, or at any supermarket near you, actually.

Okay, now let me show you how the event went! ;)

At the entrance the very first things that will greet your eyes are an array of different kinds of cooking ingredients from canned red pimientos to fresh fruit juices.

They have olive oils made in Turkey, both for cooking and for salad. The one with a green packaging is for cooking and the red one is for salad.

Canned tomatoes; available in diced and whole. Made in Italy.

Canned red pimientos made in Spain.

Handmade pasta (handmade pasta is better than machine-made because it easily absorbs all the flavorings).

Spanish Sardines.

Fresh milk.

Fresh and pure fruit juice of apple and orange (they gave us a free taste of each one, you can really taste its pureness. It’s very refreshing!). Apologies for the photos. I thought I already took a photo of the Jolly Fresh® box but, oh well. Next time. =P

They’re serving some refreshments to the audience. It’s a sample of their Jolly Fresh® fruit juice. I got a taste of each flavor; the orange and the apple. It’s very good, and you know that you’re drinking healthy.

They gave us a copy of the recipe of each of the Turkish Cuisine they’re going to feature, so you can follow as they demonstrate (and if you like, you can try at home).

The Doña Elena's® resident chef is preparing all the ingredients.

They have a monitor where you can watch the procedures. They have a volunteer from the audience to help out. They also have a question and answer portion and the prices are the Doña Elena® products. Sadly, I didn’t win anything. =(

They prepared the Turkish Couscous Salad, first. This is just a sample, so the serving is really very small. Couscous is granulated pasta. It may be served in ways similar to rice. They put Doña Elena® diced canned tomatoes in it, some parsley, garlic, a little bit of bird eye chili, some grilled bell pepper, red wine vinegar and some salt and pepper. It is salad, so it feels refreshing.

Next, they prepared kebabs. Kebabs consisted of beef tenderloin, cherry tomatoes, onion, grilled bell pepper, marinated in lemon. You can also use lamb, which I prefer. You may also serve kebabs with yogurt, plain or seasoned, or true Mediterranean taste.

Lastly, is the Eggplant Moussaka. Although the three dishes are equally delicious, I liked the Moussaka best. The milk, cinnamon, nutmeg and tomatoes compliment each other, it's heavenly. I prefer a tad less cinnamon than was used in this recipe but it was still delicious!

They distributed small portions of each dish, just to give us a taste. It made us want to go home and make some more... ... ... that’s exactly what I’m going to do, soon.

This event was fun and I enjoyed it very much! There's going to be another cooking lesson next month. I wonder what cuisine they're going to feature next? Hmmm... I guess we'll soon find out. =)

At the end of the event, I bought two of their products. One is their canned diced tomatoes and the other is their red pimiento.

I'm going to use these in my next recipe, so stay tuned!

Food Experience: From a Birthday Party

Parties and celebrations are always the best time to try new foods.  Lots of people gathered to celebrate the 19th birthday of our neighbor’s daughter. It’s the most recent birthday party I have attended. It was very simple, yet fun. I enjoyed tasting different kinds of food.

Now, as promised, let's start tasting them again, one by one! 

First, let me introduce the birthday cake. It’s made by Goldilocks®.
This cake is very sweet with a hint of lemon. I ate most of the icing candy that’s there. They’re very sweet!!! Overall, the cake just tastes sweet, very sweet in fact, that your mouth ends up sticky. You need to make sure you have water with you when you eat this cake. I must admit, though, that the decoration is nice.

The main courses:

This is the fish I cooked with sumac. It’s a little bit salty and sweet. It was finished before the day ended.

Boiled veggies paired with tomatoes, mixed with sweet shrimp paste. The natural taste of these vegetables; okra, eggplant and string beans, a taste of tomatoes and sweet shrimp paste makes it very interesting. It’s delicious with rice.

I was told that this is Pork Adobo. It tastes good but it doesn't taste like Adobo to me. The Adobo I know is rich in flavor, dry, with lots of peppercorn, lots of soy sauce and vinegar and a hint of sweetness. This one is bland with a little bit of soy sauce and vinegar, salt and no peppercorn, and that’s it. I’m not criticizing the food negatively, or being ungrateful of some sort. I just promised to make a review so I did. When it comes to food, I try to be as honest in my description as possible so that my readers will experience the same food experience I had.

This is Tilapia in coconut milk. It’s cooked with pechay (pak choi), ginger, onion and a bit of salt to taste. I prefer this with a bit of vinegar.

This is called Adobong Kangkong (River Spinach). It’s a dish made of Kangkong (River Spinach) vegetable cooked in soy sauce and vinegar just like pork adobo. It’s a very famous dish in the Philippines.

This is bitter gourd sautéed with small shrimps, tomatoes, garlic and onion. It has a hint of bitterness, just enough salt and a little bit of sourness from the tomato. It’s also very good with rice. 

This is bihon, it’s one of the Chinese noodles mixed with assorted vegetables, like chayote, green beans, cabbage, lots of shrimps, and abundantly sprinkled with cheddar cheeeeeeese! I loved this.  This is sometimes eaten with kalamansi (calamondin). All you need to do is squeeze one or two kalamansi (calamondin) on it and you’re ready to eat it.

This is dish is called Palabok. It is one of the variations of noodles that were introduced by the Chinese. It’s mixed with salt eggs (the ones with red-dyed shells). It was also served with lots of cheese, crumbs of chicharon (dried and fried pork fats, or skins). It’s also eaten the same way as Bihon. You can also squeeze some kalamansi (calamondin).

This dish is called Lumpia (loom-pya). You can stuff it with anything but this one is stuffed with mongo sprouts with a little bit of sweet potatoes. Cooking mongo sprouts is a bit tricky because it overcooks very easily. When you cook it, make sure to remove it from the stove as soon as its own juices boil and remove it from the stove, cover it with a lid to let its own steam to cook it thoroughly. Otherwise it will overcook. I think that’s what happened with this lumpia. It’s overcooked. Lumpia is best served with vinegar with a hint of sweet. The vinegar can be spicy but it depends on your taste.  

Now this is what I have been talking about, the kalamansi, or calamondin in English. You can squeeze it on any kind of noodles and everything will taste interesting.

Side dish:

Peeled cucumber salad with onion and vinegar, a bit of sugar and dashed with ground peppercorn.

Hotdogs and marshmallows on a stick for kids!

Now, let’s go to desserts!

This one is called Biko. It’s made of glutinous rice cooked in coconut milk and brown sugar, dashed with anis. I loved this!!!

This cake came last. It’s from Red Ribbon®. It’s a chocolate cake covered with mocha icing, sprinkled with chocolate chips and decorated with chocolate-covered marshmallows.

Okay! Those are the foods that I have tasted. I hope you enjoy! 

Next, I will be sharing with you my My Doña ElenaTurkish Cuisine cooking class adventure, so stay tuned! :)

Creamy/Eggy Beef Sauté

Hello, my fellow food enthusiasts, here's another beef recipe for you as we wait for the upcoming cooking event this week featuring Turkish Cuisine. For now, here's my Creamy/Eggy Beef  Sauté.

Ingredients:

1 kilo foreshank beef, sliced thinly

¼ stick butter

2 tomatoes, sliced

1 green bell pepper, diced

5 cloves of garlic, minced

1 red onion, chopped

200g can of Jolly® mushrooms, thinly sliced, drained 

2 eggs, beaten

1 cup evaporated milk

Sprinkle of black pepper, ground

Salt to taste

To cook:

In a bowl, sprinkle salt on the beef then mix them together. Set aside.

Heat the pan to medium heat.

Melt the butter in the pan.

Sauté the following, in this order: garlic, tomatoes, onion, bell pepper and mushrooms.

Add the beef into the pan.

Fold the beef into the ingredients until the beef waters.

Raise the temperature a little to bring the water to a boil.

Lower the temperature.

Let it simmer until the juices thicken.

Add the evaporated milk, slowly.

Stir a little until blended.

Short Interval

I'm having a very short interval since I'm preparing for a very exciting upcoming food event this Saturday. I hope I can make it (crosses fingers). It's a cooking lesson and the theme for this month is Turkish cuisine, so watch out for that! Last week I attended a birthday celebration of our neighbor's daughter and will be posting that menu here soon. I cooked one dish to help out. I tried to make fried fish a little bit interesting by putting a bit of different kinds of spices and people loved it! It was a very quick recipe, that I made on the spot. I took photos of each of the foods and will be posting them here soon and will describe how each dish tasted, so stay tuned! :)