i.cook(food);

I should try this recipe sometime. Looks really good and easy to do. Also, having a household menu around seems nice. :D

Because remember, not knowing how to cook, is like not knowing how to fuck.

Yeah, cheese is alive, and you need to let it breathe when storing it.

Usual logic when storing food is to wrap it in plastic. Well, for cheese it’s different. It’s best to wrap it in cheese paper. If not, parchment paper or wax paper will do. Then, loosely wrap it in plastic wrap or a plastic bag.

• Place the parchment or waxed paper flat on your counter with the wedge on top, and then bring the edges of the paper up and around the cheese, creasing as you go to make neat, clean folds. You can use tape to secure if you’d like.
• Label the paper with the cheese variety and date.
• A loose plastic wrap or a plastic bag over the paper generally keeps things tight (and keeps out fridge odors).
• Keep your cheese in the warmest part of the refrigerator, like in your cheese or vegetable drawer. An even better method is to designate a large tupperware container as your cheese home, where all of your cheese pieces can live.
• But don’t forget about your cheese once it’s in your fridge! Ideally, you should buy as much cheese as you think you’ll consume in one to two sittings. Try bringing home small quantities more often so that so that you don’t have to store it, since home refrigeration preys on those uneaten, forgotten wedges.

Thanks to Nora Singley at The Kitchn for the tip! She also put up this wonderful list on storing cheese:

The top ten rules of storage and shelf life:

1. There’s good bad-smelling cheese and bad bad-smelling cheese. Smell your cheese when you purchase it (which is actually a key factor in enjoying the taste of your cheese, as well) and evaluate whether the current scent is just slightly more offensive or if it sends shivers of disgust down your spine. Trust your sensory instincts.
2. Taste it. If you can’t figure it out by the smell, try a bite. If it doesn’t taste bad, it hasn’t gone bad.
3. Fresh, soft cheeses have a shorter shelf life than aged, hard cheeses. Young cheeses like ricotta, mozzarella, and fresh goat normally have a shelf life of 7-10 days, depending on when you purchased them. Generally speaking, the viability of this family of cheese is the easiest to decipher. If the specimen has a taste or scent reminiscent of that milk in the back of your fridge, your best bet is to toss it. Along with the milk.
4. Bloomy rinded cheeses like brie and camembert will last longer than a fresh cheese but still have a high enough moisture content to spoil. Again, depending on the age of the cheese at date of purchase, this cheese style will generally last from three to six weeks. If the rind starts to develop a slimy, pinkish-reddish mold, consider it toast. Don’t necessarily be afraid of ammonia-like smells. Ammonia is a natural by-product of cheese aging. Try taste testing in this case.
5. Washed rind cheeses like taleggio, limburger, and epoisses are best eaten straight from the cheese shop. These are the smelly cheeses, and the stink will only proliferate in the small confines of your refrigerator. Their rinds (and, in turn, the inner paste) will dry out and crack, which is nothing short of a death sentence for the bacteria living on the rind that makes this style of cheese distinctive. Washed-rinds will last two to four weeks, but try not to see them past their first week home.
6. Lightly aged, natural rinded goat cheeses, often individual in format and French in origin like aged crottin, chevrot, or chabichou du poitou are virtually indestructible. The nature of the cheese will change: it’ll dry out and harden with age and the flavor will become assertive, but they won’t turn. Try shaving an old dried up drum over a salad for an alternative to the ubiquitous sheet of parm or pecorino.
7. Aged cheeses like cheddar, gruyere, gouda, Parmigiano Reggiano, and fontina have been aged to an extent that ensures their durability. With such low moisture content, there’s not much need to worry about these guys. In some cases, age can actually heighten the experience of these cheeses; more often the flavor will wan with exposure to air. If greenish-blue mold develops like in the picture at the beginning of this post, not to worry, just scrape it off.
8. Blue cheeses become more and more biting with age. You’ll know by tasting whether or not it’s become too strong for your taste. An old blue cheese will never hurt your health, only your taste buds. Blues with an especially high moisture content will go downhill more quickly. Wrap blues in tin foil to lock in their moisture.
9. The best way to store cheese is with cheese paper, which has an outer paper layer and an inner waxy layer. The next best thing is to wrap your cheese in parchment with a layer of plastic wrap over that. This way the cheese won’t dry out and you’ll create a protective layer of humidity in the area between the plastic wrap and parchment. NEVER wrap your cheese in plastic wrap alone! Plastic wrap has a definite flavor and your cheese will taste of it.
10. Store your cheese in the warmest part of your refrigerator. In most cases, this would be the vegetable, cheese, or butter compartment. Even better, store all of your cheese together in a sizable Tupperware container. As mentioned before, cheese is alive, and cold temperatures limit important bacterial activity.

Thanks again! Now where’s that gruyere….

A few days ago, my aunt brought home some Bicol Express from, well, Bicol. It was gata-licious and very spicy! I was very much satisfied and loved it unlike the Bicol Express found in restaurants around Manila aren’t that spicy and as delicious.

I recently learned about “urabang” and that’s what’s possibly missing or different from non-Bicol versions of the dish. What is urabang? It’s “the Bicol version of bagoong alamang where the shrimps are a little bigger.”* Other differences may also be that: 1) the chili is “washed less,” retaining more of its spicy flavor. 2) more chili is actually used and 3) No oil is used. Instead, they are cooked in coconut oil.

Well, just my guess, but I think that’s pretty much it.

(*From a comment by ‘camilo’ at PinoyCook.net)

Here’s a simple recipe that I got while watching one of my favorite celebrity chefs, Giada De Laurentiis (not sure if it was Everyday Italian or another show). The recipe I’m posting may not be exactly what was shown as I am writing this from memory with some improvisation (since didn’t watch the start). This interested me since it was easy to prepare and is almost impossible to screw up.

Anyway, I tried it and can’t help but share it. I believe you won’t regret trying it yourself :)

 Ingredients:

• Julianned Red & Yellow Capsicums
• Sliced Onions
• Sliced Zucchini
• Olive oil
• Parmesan Cheese
• and of course, Farfalle!

The dish

Pre-heat your oven to 150 °C. Lay the veggies in a baking tray & sprinkle with olive oil. Place the veggies in the oven for 10-15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper once done. Mix the farfalle & veggies into a serving bowl. Add some grated parmesan cheese and you’re done!

A few notes:

• Veggies shrink when cooked so prepare more veggies than you think you need.
• It’s best to serve mix the veggies & pasta when they’re both warm.
• The combination of veggies here gives this dish a sweet taste. You could experiment with other combinations - and share them! 
• Enjoy!

I just bumped into this mouth watering recipe for Broccoli-Ricotta Pizza at OpenSourceFood and noticed EVOO as one of the base ingredients.

WTF is EVOO?!?

Well, one quick search at DuckDuckGo returned “Olive Oil” = Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Doh!