Something i noticed

One thing I noticed about vegetarians is that vegetarians are in trouble when it comes to eating out. Big trouble. As in, way more than I ever thought.

Think about this.

Is your vegetarian meal really vegetarian?
I've eaten at plenty of restaurants, from fast food to fine dining, and when I look for the vegetarian entree, I assume I am getting a vegetarian meal.

After all, how difficult is it to keep meat and other animal products out of a meal?

Very difficult, it turns out.

Those hidden animal ingredients
From gelatin to rennet, animal byproducts sneak into all sorts of products and dishes, from the cheese plate to the dessert tray.

And, while you and I know about these meat-based ingredients, an awful lot of people do not.

Which means your vegetarian meal, alas, may very well not be.

But it gets worse.

Those pesky tongs
Restaurant kitchens run so fast and so hard that it isn't difficult for a cook to grab a vegetarian entree with the same tongs, for example, that were used to, say, cook a meat-based entree.

It's not like they have a separate station that does nothing but vegetarian foods. They don't have the space. And they certainly don't have the time, personnel, and equipment to have a dedicated vegetarian station.

So what is a vegetarian to do?
My best advices is to eat at a vegetarian restaurant. That way, there is no room for mistakes.

And, hey, it certainly can't hurt to be supporting the vegetarian community. After all, if enough money goes to vegetarian restaurants, then, certainly, more are bound to open. And that's good for all of us!

The best things in life..

One of the wonderful attributes of chocolate, and I mean good chocolate, is that it has the ability to be absolutely perfect for just about any of life’s occasions. Whether it acts as a salve after crazy-hectic weeks at work, or the exclamation point to mark life’s wonderful celebrations, or just the last essential piece to a gloomy-day-in puzzle...or even as a earnest offering for having been away from this blog for a while!

And if it acts as all four? Why then, use four times the chocolate!
I bookmarked this famous (infamous) recipe by the Domestic Goddess herself a while back when spied it over here. There is nothing really more to say than I saw all the chocolate, and I was smitten. I’ve read the good (glorious!) reviews and I’ve also read the bad (doesn’t cling-film melt?) reviews. But so far, Nigella has not let me down. And this cake was no different.

Quadruple Chocolate Loaf Cake
(From Nigella Lawson. See here for original recipe.)

For the cake:

200 grams all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

50 grams cocoa powder

275 grams caster sugar

175 grams unsalted butter, softened

2 eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

80 ml sour cream

125 ml boiling water

175 grams dark chocolate chips

For the syrup:

1 teaspoon cocoa powder

125 ml water

100 grams caster sugar

25 grams milk or dark chocolate (I used a 30 gram Lindt milk chocolate bar)

- Bring all ingredients to room temperature.
- Pre-heat your oven to 170C and stick a baking sheet in. Grease a loaf tin (21 x 11cm and 7.5cm deep) and line it with parchment paper. Leave a little bit of parchment to extend beyond the tin so that you will have something with which you can easily lift the cake out of the tin later on.
- Put the flour, baking soda, cocoa, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla, and sour cream in a processor and blitz until it is smooth and satiny. Scrape down with a rubber spatula and process again while pouring the hot water down the funnel. Switch it off, remove the lid and the blades, and then fold in the chocolate chips.
- Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake in your pre-heated oven for 1 hour or until a cake tester comes out pretty clean...there may be stickiness as this is a damp cake and that is totally fine.
- When you still have about 10-15 minutes left of baking time on your cake, get started with the syrup. Put the cocoa, water, and sugar in a saucepan and boil for 5 minutes or so. You want a reduced, syrupy liquid that is still pourable.
- When the cake is done, place the tin on a rack and pierce the cake here and there with a skewer. Pour the syrup as evenly as you can over the cake.
- Once the cake is completely cooled, take it out of its tin (just pull it out with the parchment overhang you so carefully crafted), peel off the parchment, and place it on a serving platter. Now take your bar of chocolate and cut it into flakes and splinters and scatter all over the top of the cake. I used milk chocolate for the topping because the cake was already dark chocolate all throughout and I was taking this to a friend who is more a fan of milk than dark. You can also try topping with chocolate before the cake cools down so the chocolate shards melt a bit...MMM!

Let me take a moment here to just say: I really prefer weighing ingredients over fiddling with measuring cups! Weighing your ingredients is not only more precise, it is a whole lot easier! Especially if you have to do the washing up. Imagine a world where you never have to wash those darn measuring cups. That is the world of the scales my friend.

Jay Leno on fries

OMG I heard this line on Jay leno's show last night and I can't stop laughing!

He said,

I went into a McDonald's yesterday and said, 'I'd like some fries.' The girl at the counter said, 'Would you like some fries with that?'

LOL.

Health food is only good for the conscience

"Health food may be good for the conscience but Oreos taste a hell of a lot better."

I believe in this line. I tried to avoid coke awhile ago because it would ruin my diet but I was eating pizza. And pizza goes well with a nice glass of coke.

I can't help it.

Enjoy the peace and tranquility, get away from the busy city life!

During my free time, I would always go to Harbor View especially at times when I just feel like chilling around. At Harbor View, you get a sensation that you are on a cruise on Manila Bay, but the restaurant actually sits on a jetty. You enjoy a marvelous view of the bay and Roxas Boulevard. The deep fried shrimps there are delectable and the crispy pata is to die for! Live fish or crab from an aquarium is yummy too. And you get to choose it cooked in any way you like. As a matter of fact, I'm actually heading to Harbor View in a few minutes! I have a drinking session there ha, ha, beers are available! Let's go!=)

Chef tara, NOT!

Okay I just found out that one of my friends is transferring to another school, a culinary school! at Enderun college. I was really envious of her because I wanna study there too. The thing is that, I feel that it's impractical and the tuition there is so high. My friend said she's transferring there because her mom wants her to become a chef. And she doesn't even want to become a chef. *sigh* I wish we could just switch places.

Free donut+coffee = great morning!

I love Krispy Kreme.

Way before the Krispy Kreme fever came here in the Philippines, I always make it a point to ask my relatives who visits from the US to bring a box or two for pasalubong. Even day-old Krispy Kreme doughnuts from states tasted helluva lot better than fresh ones offered locally. A local competitor was making great raves during that time and for most people, that was the next best thing.

Fast forward a few years, several Krispy Kreme stores started popping out, sharing to the Filipinos their own take on what doughnuts is all about, and we're greatly thankful for that. The local competitor is still there yet personnaly, either their doughnuts doesn't taste as good as before when they're just starting out or it taste just the same as before and we have simply compared it to something new.

The thing is with Krispy Kreme, whenever their store signage light is on, they always give out free donuts. Ha, ha, love it! So what I usually do is I line up, get my free donut, and then the moment I get to the counter, I just go buy myself a cup of coffee.

My morning is now great. Weee:)