Recipe: Shrimp and Ruote Pasta In Pesto-Marinara Sauce

Prep time: 20mins

Cooking time: 20 mins

Pasta is popular in our household. Partly because, I can cook them effortlessly and fast given a few ingredients. This is usually my go-to recipe on lazy weekends or days when the fridge goes empty and none of us are willing to do the groceries. So I usually just stock up on different types of pasta and lots of tomatoes for days like that. Even our little girl is used to eating all types of pastas and sauces. On good days, she would even volunteer to help me cook. 

What I used for this recipe:

about 400g of ruote pasta, cooked al-dente per package instructions 

1/4 cup pasta water

3 pcs large plum tomatoes, blanched, peeled and diced (for the marinara sauce)

1 med red onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped finely

1 pack Clara Ole Three-cheese spaghetti sauce

4 tbsps tomato paste

100g fresh shrimps, peeled, deveined and quartered

1 knob butter

olive oil

salt and pepper

fresh herbs (i used italian oregano and basil), chopped finely

chopped parsley and grated cheese for garnish

How I did it:

1. Saute onion, garlic in olive oil and butter till fragrant. 

2. add in tomatoes and pasta water and simmer for about 10 minutes or until the mix has a thick, soupy consistency.

3. pour in the spaghetti sauce, tomato paste and fresh herbs. Whisk till tomato paste is evenly incorporated unto the sauce.

4. add in the shrimp, stir until they change color.

5. toss in the cooked pasta. garnish generously with grated cheese and chopped parsley.

6. enjoy!!!!

This recipe can feed about 4-5 hungry stomachs. (and still save enough for meryenda)

How To Cook Juicy Hotdogs Sans The Scary Oil

I know I have been sharing in my previous posts how I've been trying to get my family to eat healthier this year. We've successfully cut down our meat (basically just pork and chicken since we've long given up red meat anyways) consumption from 4x a week to just 2-3x a week (the rest of the week is mostly just fish and veggies). On weekends however, we allow our daughter to indulge on 'bad' food - hotdogs, fastfood treats, some nuggets maybe. We've never really prohibited her to eat hotdogs anyways (especially during birthday parties) but it was only last year (during the holidays actually) that she developed a likeness for it. Since then, she would occasionally request that I get her hotdogs when I shop for our weekly groceries.

I myself was never fond of eating hotdogs. It was probably because the hotdogs that were served to me as a child were always wrinkly and a oily (they would soak up the paper towels when drained). And they never looked appetizing. My folks had always cooked hotdogs by frying them in oil. But I thought there must be a better way of doing it. So I experimented and eventually got the perfect juicy hotdog even with just a pan as my cooking tool [I was of course comparing it to perfectly done hotdogs in Purefoods'stalls where a hotdog griller (is that even the correct term?) is used]. So how did I do it?

Simple. I used water (about 1/4 cup poured it directly unto the pan with semi-frozen hotdogs already in it) to cook the hotdogs instead of oil. And to lock in (talaga!) the juiciness, I'd add in a teeny tiny bit of butter (like about 1/8 of a teaspoon for 6 hotdogs) when the water is about to fully evaporate and this is what I get.

my point and shoot just wouldn't cooperate with me so i apologize for the blurry shot but see? no wrinkles!

What are you having for breakfast today?

Something For The Homebody: Gardening

Gardening is one of Tibs's favorite hobbies (he's only got 2 anyways - the gadgets and that - lolz). Our neighbors would always compliment our landscaping and would express their awe when told that Tibs did it (with minimal help from the village gardeners) himself. 

Getting Down and Dirty

When we're anticipating our favorite lazy weekends, he would make sure to squeeze in some garden time. Kitchen time (and of late i'm also starting to enjoy Crafts time) is my therapy, his would be this. He would look forward to dropping by the garden shop and would never come home empty handed. Most of the flowers and plants in our garden though were either given to us by friendly neighbors, by the village gardeners or brought home by us from a visit to Angeles or Antique. Come to think of it, most of the garden expenses were for the soil, fertilizer and grass. The garden just came to be this beautiful because of all the effort (read: hardwork) that Tibs's painstakingly put into it. Now, this part of our home has become our favorite corner. Maia and I would usually hold our arts and crafts sessions here. On lazy afternoons, we would just plop on the grass and munch on meryenda. When my parents come over to visit, they would come out and prefer to have their morning coffee here. 

everyone else is down on the ground except me hehe

Watching Tibs work in the garden has somehow inspired me to challenge my planting skills. And when I saw a Maqui's herb garden, that got me inspired even more to pursue Tibs' suggestion of me taking up a corner of the garden and turning it into my own herb garden. We've already have some sweet basil, tarragon, oregano and peppermint growing in there but I'm hoping to add more herbs and prettify this corner. I already have this set this in my summer goals. Hopefully before the rainy season kicks in, my plants will all be thriving already and could already withstand the rains.  

Italian Oregano and flowering Tarragon

I know this is me dreaming big again but I'm hoping that with me doing this, we will be able to encourage Maia to be more conscious of her environment, to learn to care for it and to raise her to be a nature lover. Model what you intend your child to be, right? I could only hope we're doing the right thing here.

this basil plant is now all over our garden. it was surprisingly easy to grow and i didn't even have to intervene with it's propagation (hahaha)