Garden Chef's Needle and Pen

"...What’s in a name? that which we call a rose  By any other name would smell as sweet…" By William Shakespeare    Hello, I'm very proud to show you the very first rose I have crocheted ever. I must confess that I haven't ever crocheted anything like this before, yet I have always wanted to. It's just that I didn't have any pattern at hand...until   I saw these rosebuds and roses as luggage blossoms in Fiber Flux . I like the idea of rose blossoms for luggage. When I was a young student, my mother used to tie folded or crumpled thin colored plastic bags on the handle of my luggage. The idea is for me to see my luggage sliding down the conveyor from a distance. What a very nice and unique luggage identifier eh? Photos from Fiber Flux Unfortunately, the pattern featured was for knitting. So I had to search for crochet patterns for roses. The search led me to the following blog sites: Free Craft Project   Photos from Fre...

Happy Sunday to all!   With another carpentry job to supervise at home, I wasn't able to attend the Sunday Service today. :( So,   what do you expect?   More time in the kitchen, yes, and another experiment! I bought a piece of white banana heart from the market yesterday, with a grandiose plan of cooking Tuna Sisig for lunch today, but without the fresh tuna, I realized there wasn't much choice for me but to make another stint of trial and error in my culinary arts laboratory. Here it is--- the recipe for my very own Corned Tuna - Banana Blossom Sisig, one of my husband's likes among my usual menus.  Ingredients: 1 pc (1/2 kg.) banana heart, cut into chunks, hard middle portion removed 3 cloves garlic , minced 1 medium onion, chopped thinly 1 tbsp ginger strips 1 medium tomato, sliced 200 grams Del Monte Tomato Sauce 1 can San Marino corned tuna (substituted to fresh tuna chunks) 1 pc green finger chili pepper (siling haba) Pinch of...

"Though winds are wild, And the gale unleashed, My trusting heart still sings: I know that they mean No harm to me, He rideth on their wings." This post was inspired by the torrential rains that brought my country once more to the headlines last August 6, 2012. I woke up to hear the TV newscaster announcing the suspension of work among government offices due to the unceasing downpour of heavy rains. Many areas were already flooded! There was no news of typhoon but the rains just came pouring so hard like there was no chance for it to stop at all! Not very long after I came back from the nearest grocery store to buy candles, the lights went off. Whew! And it didn't take long also before my PC's battery went off. So aside from cooking the day's meal, there wasn't anything left for me to do but grab my crochet needle to start a new project--- my first shrug ever. I was so enamored by the Lover's Knot Shrug pattern by Microgirl .   ...

Hello everyone! Been quite busy with office works the past few weeks and that has kept me from posting my articles. I have several unfinished in my files. My last post was about the Gisinggising recipe I posted in Just-a-Pinch Recipe Club (click here to view post).  I just couldn't let this day (errr...night) or week pass without posting anything. So I suddenly decided to share that Garden Chef has been added in Petitchef.com .    More than a week ago, my Gisinggising blog post got a comment saying:  "We bumped into your blog and we really liked it - great recipes YUM YUM. We would like to add it to the Petitchef.com. We would be delighted if you could add your blog to Petitchef so that our users can, as us, enjoy your recipes." Petichef is a French-based cooking recipes portal where several hundred blogs are already members.    Well, who wouldn't be elated to get such an invitation? A newbie blogger like me wouldn't pass up t...

  I discovered this dish recently from our hospital's cafeteria. I was so intrigued at the name, Gisinggising, so I searched for it and found this recipe from Foodipino . I like the recipe, it's very simple and easy to follow. As usual, I made some modifications from the original recipe. I cooked my version without the meat and instead of just using water spinach or water cabbage (kangkong), I added string beans (sitaw) and winged beans (sigarillas). I also cut on the amount of coconut milk. Here's my own version which I posted in Just-a-Pinch Recipe Club . Click here to view recipe. . Actually, if you take a closer look at the pictures, you will notice that I added some left-over dried shrimps from my stocks to enhance the "shrimpy" flavor.  I also tried another version using baguio beans instead of water spinach (kangkong), but my friends like the combination of kangkong and sigarillas better. So there, y...

In my first post this month of September, I featured Vegetable Pastel , a Del Monte Kitchenomics recipe. In that post I mentioned that I experimented on another menu called Strata. I got the recipe from my new recipe book, " The Old Farmer's Everyday Cookbook Almanac ," given to me by my eldest daughter, Ayana Grace. I remember mentioning this cookbook in my June 30, 2012 post entitled, " A Legacy from my Mother-in-Law " (click here to view post). Photo taken from Amazon.com  Last Sunday, I gave the recipe, Strata, a try. I promised to feature it in another post so here… Photo of Strata taken from The Old Farmers Everyday Cookbook Almanac I was intrigued seeing the picture of Strata featured in one whole page of the cookbook. I must confess that the first thing that came to my mind was "stratum = the singular of strata". So I turned to page 13 where the recipe could be found. There, Strata is described as a dish made with ...

Hello, it's Sunday once again! It's a custom in our church for the Pastor to call all the birthday and anniversary celebrators for the week to stand in front for the congregation to greet and pray for. Last week, my husband and I were called because it was our wedding anniversary day. Today, I was called to stand in front again and as I listened to the brethren singing the Birthday Song, I couldn't help but thank and praise God for every blessing He has showered me with all these 52 years of my life. Oh yes, I will be celebrating my birthday on Tuesday, September 11. Does the date sound familiar? I believe so. If you are an American, I'm sure you would remember one significant event! If you are an Ilocano born in decada 60 , what could it be you are thinking of? To stay in tune with the song, " Count your Blessings " (written by Johnson Oatman, Jr and composed by Edwin Othello Excell), I would do so right now. "Count your blessings, name them one by on...