New Recipe Fridays - Pandesal

Pandesal is a breakfast staple in the Philippines.  It's so versatile, you can eat it with anything:  eggs, spam, corned beef, hotdog, and the list becomes endless.  We like to eat ours with Cheeze Whizz.  It's so good when it's fresh and hot from the bakery or from one of the tinderos/tinderas who ride around in their bicycles yelling, "pandesaaaalllll"!! early morning or even during mid afternoon for merienda.  Ahh yes, I have fond memories of my birthland.  :) I actually haven't had a fresh batch of pandesal even from our recent trips to the Philippines.  There's just so much selection from all the bakeries at every corner that pandesal gets brushed off to the side these days.  Sometimes nothing beats a good old basic roll that reminds me of my first home.  

I chose the following recipe based on the blogger's comment about it being the best she's ever tried, at least comparable to the real thing.  It was definitely delicious!  Lana and Ethan devoured them.  I found the temperature too high though.  I baked them at 380F like the recipe said but it browned the bottom of the bread a little too much for me.  I think I will try 350F next time.  I also like a little crunch on the top but a toaster can fix that.  :)

Here's my batch:

I say it looks like the real thing. ;)

New Recipe Fridays - Clean Granola

Way to start off my New Recipe Fridays; a day late!  Lol well only a day late so that's good in my book.  ;) 

We try to follow a clean eating lifestyle on the weekdays and treat ourselves for cheat meals on the weekends.  We haven't always eaten this way until last year and I'm so glad that we took the step to change.  We feel healthier, lighter, and overall better.  We love breakfast: Tocino and rice (Filipino breakfast food), eggs, bacon, and pancakes.  It sucks that we don't get to eat those as often anymore but it's nice that we get to treat ourselves every now and then.  During the week, we usually only have two choices for breakfast: oatmeal or yogurt.  They are the easiest to pack for Chris to take to work and they're actually really delicious.  I'll share my oatmeal recipe next week but this week I found this clean granola recipe on Pinterest.  It was really good.  I use it to top my yogurt and even great for snacking.  I think the recipe is versatile but I didn't use all the 3 cups oats that it called for.  I substituted some coconut flakes and a chia/hemp/barley cereal mix I purchased from Costco.  I also substituted the applesauce for coconut oil as it had suggested.  Yum!  I'm actually out so I will be making them for next week's breakfast menu.  

New Recipe Fridays

I love good food!  Who doesn't?  I tend to lean towards Asian cuisine but I love just about everything. I read A LOT of recipes.  Books, Pinterest, Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.  It's just so awesome that you can practically search any food and get a recipe for it.  There's just no reason to say you can't cook because all the resources are available, it just depends on your determination to learn.  Lol  I know it's not easy but like anything, it's a work in progress.  I like to compare recipes and/or combine the ideas and put my own twist to it.  Actually, in most cases I get so impatient following recipes that I tend to just do whatever.  Sometimes it turns out good but other times not.  Lol When people ask me for the recipe for something I've made, I always emphasize that I don't have an exact measurement.  I used to cook without tasting my food and quickly realized that was wrong.  Haha!  So now, I season and taste as I cook.  With all these delicious looking recipes easily available, I want to keep track of what I try and document my reviews every Friday - New Recipe Fridays.  At some point, I will be searching for these recipes again and who knows how many there will be after a year or so.  ;)