California Salad

Here’s one of my favourite salad recipe, this is easy to prepare and you can find the ingredients easily in the store.  I got this recipe from the  Compliments flyers delivered at home.  This time the flyers are not all junked LOL for I dig a beneficial recipe for heart health. It features avocado which contain monounsaturated fats that’s good for our heart!

I made this salad when Vincy’s family came over for dinner and they loved it, especially my Mom-in-law who loves avocado.  Then I made this again when Vincy's friends came over and  during our Christmas get-together at Joyce place.   I love this salad because this an alternative way for me to make California roll, I don’t know how to roll the maki tightly.  This recipe doesn’t include sushi rice, but you can have the sushi rice as a partner for this California salad.

 Ingredients:

2 pkgs. (454 g) Flake Style crab flavoured Alaskan Pollock

2 tbsp. pesto sauce

1 tbsp. lemon juice, divided

1 Avocado, halved & peeled, you can sliced in any way you like

2 vine-ripened tomatoes, you can sliced in any way you like

1 English cucumber, peeled, you can sliced in any way you like

3 tbsp (45 ml) Sun-dried Tomato California dressing

Directions:

1. Chopped the crab meat.  Add pesto and 2 tsp lemon juice; mixed it until evenly coated...I made it where I can taste the sourness of the lemon..

2. Slice each avocado half..slice it.  Arrange on a platter.  Brush with remaining lemon juice.  Arrange tomato and cucumber slices on platter.  Mound crab salad in centre of  the platter.  You can drizzle the dressing on top of the salad or you can put it other container.

I cut some lemons, in case some peps likes to squeezed some lemons on the salad. I peeled the cucumber and run a fork on the side to create a design when I sliced it.

You can arrange the tomato and cucumber creatively in any kind of platter.  In the picture above I forgot to include some lemons.  I substituted President Choice brand in my California dressing and Molisana pesto sauce since I can't find the Compliments brand in the store..I'm just being  resourceful Chef lol...we don't have anymore time to look for it in another store.

Oh here it is....you can view here their California Salad presentation.

Yummy "Puto"!!!

Puto was my "painit" in the morning every time I went to Cebu for my summer vacation, this must be my fondest memories with my Lola (the survivor).  "Painit" is a Cebuano term of snacks before the real breakfast, paired with "sikwate" Visayan term of fresh hot choco, made of cocoa power (from Cacao), and a ripe mango.. I'm around  4 to 7 years old that time.  I used to wake up my Lola  and asked for money from her extended morning sleep (because of her asthma attacked every 4am).  Yup wake her up for MONEY..LOL!!!..I should be in the "tindahan" (store) before 6:00am. or else I  can't have my puto :( ......It's always a sold out before 6:30am!!! I really have to be quick and fast to arrived in the store before the other customers....hmm if I remembered it right, it's 1.25pesos/each that time... The puto  is wrap with banana leaves (made it smells good), with the kinugay on top. "Kinugay" is like a brown sugar but it's very fine and dark (it's like a crystallized molasses)...  I can't find it here in Toronto. This kind of "puto" is not that sweet which I like it better than the biko....It usually made of white malagkit rice but I used the purple malagkit rice which my cousin gave me when we went home to the Philippines last year...It's really yummy!..

Ingredients:

5 cups (ricecooker cups) of malagkit rice
3 cans (big) coconut milk (much better if you use a real coconut milk)
4 slices of ginger (skinned & crushed), 1 inch or so..whatever you like
1 cup of sugar
2 tablespoon of salt

Directions:

1. Soak the malagkit rice overnight...rinse it 3 times.
2. In the separate pot, mixed the coconut milk, ginger, and sugar, salt. Let it boil until the sugar and salt melted. Don't let it stay too long on fire. Adjust according to your taste by adding more sugar or salt.
3.  In the rice cooker, combined step 1 and 2.

Cooked it like how you cook rice..but stir it every other minute after it boils to distribute the coconut sauce evenly.