Yogurt-Dill Sauce



The perfect garnish for my Fiesta Chicken Tortilla Wrap is a trial sauce I made from basic ingredients available from home. This Dill-Yogurt Sauce is a great base to accompany every flavor wrapped in my dish. Very basic, probably the simplest sauce recipe I made but gorgeously pact with flavor to harmonize festive flavors in my recipe. 

I mean, it’s tangy and full of bright and fragrant fresh dill. This recipe uses a small amount of lemon to add a great depth of flavor, with mayonnaise to offset the tartness of the yogurt and lemon, and salt and pepper to slightly balance the sauce.




Ingredients
1 cup Naarmann Profi-Joghurt
1/2 cup Lady's Choice mayonnaise
1 tbsp. lemon juice
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions
Combine everything in a bowl and serve as base of the wrap or drizzle on top before rolling it up.





Extra Special Mother’s Day at Home with The Manila Hotel



Mother’s Day is a yearly reminder to cherish our relationship with our moms. Given this year’s unique circumstances, many of us will be celebrating this special day at home or even away from the special women in our lives—mom, grandmas, and aunts. Still, even when fancy dinners are impossible, Mother’s Day doesn’t have to be canceled. With some creativity and preparation, you can still give the most special woman in your life the Mother’s Day she deserves.

The Manila Hotel pulls all the stops for you to still be able to give her a memorable Mother’s Day. This home celebration will have a five-star hotel feel and The Manila Hotel will make sure it gets close to a real feast. 

The Manila Hotel’s Mother’s Day Surprise gives you discounts when you choose to order the food-and-cake bundle and pay online on or before May 8, 2020 (Friday). You may choose items from the A La Carte Menu or Home Buffet sets (Filipino, Italian, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese favorites, as well as Certified Halal items) and get a 20% discount on your food bill, and a 10% discount on the cake of your choice. 

Because mothers deserve the only the best, you can choose from our awesome selection: our decadent Opera Cake; Ohaina Chocolate Gateau, a Lifestyle Inquirer Best Dessert Winner; the mouthwatering Trio of Chocolate Mousse, and our amazing Mango Cheesecake. 

To order or for more information, please call 8527 0011 or message 0998-9501912. 

Press Release: This means that this material is fully and directly from the company issuing the press release. This also means that this website is not the author of the statement being read. Lakandiwa is simply providing the information for readers who may be interested.

Fiesta Chicken Wrap




Experimenting in the kitchen during isolation is so much fun. Discovering and learning new dishes is more than satisfying but liberating to prepare. I can't complain being lock-down here in El Nido town where access to produce and basic food has been under control since the quarantine started. I am very thankful to the joint forces of private business sector and local government.

Closed establishments and restaurants started to re-open and slowly going back to business since ECQ was changed to GQ by selling take aways and offering deliveries via different social media platforms. Bored in the house, I thought of taking the avenue of Mexican cuisine with tortilla wraps I bought from Sausage with Benefits Restaurant at Php 130 - 10 pcs.




It’s my first time to make a wrap so I research online and surprised with huge collection of wraps around the world. It's like blank canvass where you can paint anything you want, I decided to make my own by filling it in with ingredients available from our kitchen and local market. It's colorful and bursting with different flavors and textures. 

It tasted like festive celebration of senses in every bite, I felt joy. With sauce dripping down my arms I thought of calling this dish “Fiesta Wrap" because: 1) in celebration of my town's Fiesta which was yesterday 2) It looks like banderitas and 3) It's a melting pot of different tastes. It is “fiesta” in tortilla wrap form.




Ingredients
5 pcs Tortilla Wraps
1 medium cucumber, cut lengthwise
1 medium size mango, sliced
1 medium avocado, sliced
3 ripe tomatoes, sliced
2 Starfruit or balimbing, sliced
165 grams Eden Cheese, grated
100 grams lettuce
100 grams arugula

Sauce
Yogurt-Dill sauce (will share on my next post)

Chicken Cajun: 
500 grams chicken breast fillet
1 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. Cajun seasoning
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 small onion, sliced
Sesame seeds to garnish




Directions
1)Add butter in a heated pan and sauté onion and garlic.
2)Add chicken and cook for about 10 minutes.
3)Season with salt, pepper and Cajun seasoning and cook for another 5 minutes.
4)Put in a bowl and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Assemble
Heat Tortilla wrap in a pan for about 3 to 5 minutes each side.
Take and assemble everything you like from all of the ingredients
Roll it up and it’s a wrap!

Happy Eating!




Fiesta Buko Salad Eleganza Extravaganza



Today is my hometown’s Fiesta and no one can stop me to celebrate while in quarantine because I’m going to live it up with the best food of every fiesta brings: Fiesta Buko Salad! 

This salad is the diva version of Pinoy dessert and one of my favorites to make.  It’s very easy and fun because you don't need to cook, you just need to mix everything, freeze, and voila! …serve! The important factor that matters most to make it extra special is the selection of ingredients.

Buko Salad is the main attraction, always present on the main stage of every special occasion in Pinoy household. In fact, a well-known brand labelled their fruit cocktail product, a key ingredient to Buko Salad “Fiesta” because fiesta is the best representation of Filipino’s time of joyful celebration. Fiesta is when we cook traditional, hearty food, throw open doors to visitors, elaborate multi-day festivals, parades, and themed street dance to keep our community roots alive. Each Family around the country has their own version of this Pinoy favorite dessert, I tasted some with raisins, calamansi juice, jelly, kaong, gelatin, and fresh local fruits. All were tasted well. Who wouldn't like the sweet and creamy dessert whatever in it? No one. 




I'd love to doll-up my food, experiment, upgrade, and glamorize them. I'm a constant rule breaker. If there's drag race about food, I’m a sure winner baby, because I don't play extra lol! Cooking and making food are another ways of dealing with stress and boredom during this corona pandemic so here I am, adding colors, texture and flavor in our classic Pinoy dessert. To elevate whether its Buko salad or Fruit Salad, here's how my family make them.

I normally use the "imported" version of Del Monte fruit cocktail which have peaches and grapes in it. Yes, just between us squirrel friends, there are 2 kinds of Del Monte Fruit Cocktail on the grocery shelves. If you pay attention, it’s normally the expensive one with a picture of peach on the label. I can’t find it here in El Nido so I bought a can of peaches in syrup separately to cut and add to the local version of Del Monte fruit cocktail. I also love to add fresh grapes in my salad to add more texture, no harm intended, lol! It’s better if you peel the grapes, but in this case, I’m kinda lazy so I just wash, dry and add them.




Ingredients

1000 grams shredded young coconut
825 grams Del Monte Fiesta Fruit Cocktail
825 grams canned Peach, cut into bite sizes
300 grams fresh crimson grapes
600 ml all-purpose cream
165 grams Eden cheese, cut into cubes

Directions

In a large bowl, mix everything together put in a freezer for at least 1 hour.

Serve with cherry on top. Happy Eating!




Mango-Avocado Salsa



Someone asked from Facebook what was the side dish of my Chicken Adobo Flakes from yesterday's blog post. So here it is, my homemade, restaurant-style salsa: Mango-Avocado Salsa, one of my most frequently made recipes!

This is perfectly served with tortilla chips or as topping or bed for any grilled or fried fish, pork, and chicken, or simply as side-dish to accompany any meat for a tropical vibe palate. It is colorful, a combination of tangy and sweet flavor, very tropical, summery and irresistible!

Mangoes are in-season during summer and very sweet, I used the nearly ripe mango so I could achieve a little bit of sourness to balance the taste to accompany the main Adobo Flakes dish. I swapped some essential ingredients of what I already have in my fridge like lemon for lime and basil for cilantro and tasted just perfect.




Ingredients
1 medium avocado, peeled, pitted, and diced
1 medium mango, peeled, seeded, and diced
2 medium ripe tomatoes, diced
1 small red onion, sliced
3 tbsp. chopped fresh basil or cilantro
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp. lemon juice or lime juice
Optional: habanero pepper, cucumber 

Directions:
Mix avocado, mango, red onion, tomato, and chopped basil in a bowl, add lemon juice salt and pepper to taste and serve by the side of your main dish. 

Happy Eating!



Leftover Makeover || Chicken Adobo Flakes



Good morning, ka-diwa! I've seen a lot of chicken dishes on my timeline today and I'm very excited to share mine. Thank you for the Ayuda of the local government, poultry has become the saving food for the whole community as whole chicken has been distributed per family. 

Dressed chicken has been very affordable too since the pandemic. I hope you were able to stock plenty, make Adobo if you don't have freezer and store in a cool, dry place to last for days. I love chicken and will probably stock more should the cost keeps going down, hopefully. 

Currently, there is an oversupply of poultry around the country and according to the mainstream media it’s because the COVID-19 pandemic slashed demand from restaurants. I can’t believe that farm gate prices will fall to as low as P30 from P70 per kilo as quoted in the article. However, the price is still high at Php 150 to Php 180 per kilo here in El Nido, why?! On a side note: I once read from Bill Gates Blog, raising chickens would solve a huge problem and the ultimate solution to poverty. I understand why when I read his points and if in case I survive this pandemic, I'm planning to raise chickens too as alternative source of income and to stay alive.

Going back to our chicken supply, many of us made Adobo out of it, the easiest and tastiest recipe for us, Filipinos, Ikr? And if you're tired of Adobo, here's a creative idea on how to turn leftover chicken Adobo into new meal.




Ingredients
500g leftover chicken Adobo
1 cup oil

Directions
Shred chicken Adobo along the grain.
Heat a frying pan and add the oil.
Once oil becomes hot, fry the shredded chicken Adobo in medium heat until becomes crisp and golden brown.
Turn-off heat and transfer fried Adobo in a separate plate lined with paper towel to absorb the oil.
Serve with fried rice, eggs, and mango-avocado salsa by the side (I will share how to make it tomorrow).
Happy Eating!