Baking 101 : Ooey Gooey Chocolatey Brownies

Hello there. :) I've made a couple of baked sweets posts with no how-to-do's. So, now I'll share with you this brownie recipe that no one, NO ONE will say no to. Ha ha. I call this the ooey gooey chocolatey brownies because it's so chewy and so chocolatey. :)

YUM!

 

Am I right or am I right about it? :P

I divided the original recipe into 2. So I made about 9 squares. 

Ingredients:
70.5 grams butter

140 grams sugar

41 grams cocoa

1 egg

33 grams all purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup walnut (optional)

Procedure:

I'm using a convection oven, so what I do is I preheat the oven at 175 degrees Celcius then I change the temperature to 150 degrees Celcius once I put in the pan.

1. Combine butter, sugar, cocoa, and salt in a microwave safe container and microwave for 1:30 minutes.

2. Remove and stir until the butter is melted and the mixture is smooth. Set aside until mixture is warm and not hot.

3. Stir in vanilla.

4. Add the egg and stir vigorously.

5. When batter looks thick, shiny, and well blended, add flour and stir until you cannot see it any longer then beat vigorously.

6. Stir in nuts if using.

7. Spread evenly in the lined pan. (4x4 : original recipe call for an 8x8 pan)

8. Bake until toothpick plunged in the center emerges slightly moist with batter around 25-30 minutes for regular oven and around 20-25 minutes for convection oven.

9. Let cool completely on a rack.

10. Once cooled, cut into squares.

11. Indulge! :)

This is really a go-to recipe when making brownies. Throw in just a couple of ingredients and there's no need for electric mixer - just use some of your elbow grease. :P

Here are some pictures of these chewiness heaven.

Baking 101: Chocolate Surprise Cupcake

Here again, trying my luck and skill in baking. :) Lol. So where do I start? Oven. So the oven that I used and will be using for the future baking and other cooking posts was the Imarflex 3in1 Convection oven. I bought it in Abenson for Php 3998.00 because right now, I can't afford the La Germania ovens. Then I bought my baking tools and ingredients in All About Baking. It's located in Kitanlad St., along Quezon Avenue, and its also near Welcome Rotonda. You can also check their facebook page -- All About Baking.

I found the recipe for this one in the web. I opted not to make frosting because well, it already looked yummy without it. And also because I still haven't got my electronic mixer which is a must for making frostings. Ha ha. So, since this is my first cupcake baking in a convection oven, I'm not really sure if the taste is the same when baked in the big oven. But Mom and Dad told me they're yummy (that what's parents do, right?). And it is yummy, don't you think so? :p I'll just give you a sneak peak of the finished mini cuppies then I'll be back to blog about this when I'm sure I did the right things in making these yummy babies. :)

Fresh from the oven.

These are Yummy!

Please follow freshlybakedbyjandk in instagram.
Thanks!

Baking 101 : Chocolate Oatmeal Bar

Yay! Another first for me. I thought it'll taste bitter because I lessened the sugar. But to my delight, it just tasted right. Hooray for me! :) My mommy had the first taste and she loved it! My hubby, however, found it just okay. And so, I'll make another blog about this, with all the ingredients and procedure, when I make it drooling perfect. :) And did I mention, this was a no bake chocolate oatmeal bar? Yes, no oven needed. :P

For now, indulge on these pictures.

YUMMY!

Cooking 101 : Chicken Pastel

I've never really loved cooking or baking...
Until now. :)

Today I've made my first ever Chicken Pastel. I found a recipe with great reviews and followed it. And a little tweak here and there. You can check out this link -- just a pinch.

So there. For the ingredients:

1 kg chicken
1 big carrot diced into cubes
1 big potato diced into cubes
3-4 small bell peppers sliced into strips
5 hotdogs sliced
1 big can evaporated milk
1 small pack cheese sliced into cubes
2 cups water
1 tbsp flour diluted with small amount of water
2 pieces knorr chicken cubes
8 tbsp melted butter
1 onion diced
garlic diced
salt and pepper

Chicken

Carrots, potatoes, and bell peppers

Hotdogs

Cheese

Butter

Flour with water

Garlic and onion

For the procedure:

1. Heat 4 tbsp of oil in a saucepan.
2. Fry the hotdogs, carrots, potatoes, and bell pepper together for about 1-2 minutes. Set aside.
3. Melt butter in a saucepan.
4. Saute garlic and onion when butter is melted.
5. Add chicken.
6. When the chicken is no longer pink in color, add water.
7. Add knorr chicken cubes and season with salt and pepper.
8. Simmer until the chicken becomes tender.
9. When chicken is done, add hotdogs, potatoes, carrots, and bell pepper.
10. Mix until well blended. Simmer.
11. When hotdogs, potatoes, carrots, and bell pepper are done, add evaporated milk and cheese. 
12. Mix thoroughly do not cover.
13. Add salt and pepper if needed.
14. Add the flour diluted with water.
15. Mix thoroughly, allow to simmer again.

Serve hot.

Fry hotdogs, carrots, potatoes, and bell pepper.

Saute garlic and onion on butter.

Add chicken until slightly cooked.

Add chicken cubes and water, then simmer.

Add hotdogs and veggies. Simmer.

Add milk, cheese, and flour diluted with water.

This dish tastes great on just-cooked rice. Yummy and creamy!

I'm really proud of myself for this dish. Ha ha. And I'm really hoping on making more dishes and pastries. :)

Puerto Princesa Part Three

Puerto Princesa -- The City of the Living God

27-29 April 2014

After our looooong day by the beach, the van from our tour brought us back to our hotel. We took a bath and had a nap. It was tiring alright! We woke up at 630pm and decided to buy a some pasalubong for our family and friends. We took the tricycle which was waiting in front of the hotel and Kuya driver took us to the pasalubong area. I'm sorry, I forgot the name of the pasalubong area but they have everything in there -- shirts, sweets, pearls, key chains and a whole lot more. You just have to haggle to maximize you money. The tricycle waited for us and after that we went to Balinsasayaw for our dinner. :)

 

Balinsasayaw, as I know, is a kind of bird. But I'm not sure. Ha ha. The resto isn't air conditioned. It only has fans. It's really not that comfy for us, specially since we have a baby with us. So anyway, the cool thing about this resto was that the resto have small bahay-kubo's where customers have their meal, and these bahay-kubo's were elevated. Really nice and homey!

Since we didn't have pm snacks, we were again super hungry so, we ordered right away! We ordered grilled pork, grilled chicken, pork sisig, buko juice, and green mango shake. The good thing about this resto was it's unlimited rice. Happy tummy once again! :) The food was great as well. Dada ate the grilled pork and was convinced that that was not pork but fish because it was so tender. Lol. The price was okay too. The pricing was the same with Gerry's grill. Not bad.

Yeah, it's a bird.

Busy with my phone, huh?

Surf. Sunshine. Beach. :*

See, it's elevated.

"Yummy! I'm starving!" -- Erinn

Family Picture again.

   After stuffing ourselves with good food, we went back to Casa Mila to hibernate. :) Dada has work at 11pm the following day, so we decided to sleep early and catch the 2nd earliest flight of Cebu Pacific to Manila which was around 10am.

We woke up at around 6am and ate the same breakfast. :) After that, we prepared, packed our stuff, took some pictures in the hotel, then we're off to the airport! We took the tricycle instead of the van (service) of the hotel, because the driver of the service is still taking his breakfast and we need to go already. Oh, by the way, Casa Mila has free round trip airport transfer. :)

Happy baby!

Ho ho. Still sleepy?

Me and Dada's only selfie together.

Inside the tricycle going to the airport.

   When we arrived at the airport, we still need to wait for the check-in counters to close before we can be accommodated on the flight. That's the sad part of seat-availability only ticket holder. :( The booking was full but fortunately, not all passengers took the flight so there are seats available for us! Yipee!!!

Hi Ceb!

Family selfie before boarding the aircraft.

Waiting for take-off.

Had some shut-eye because of the air traffic congestion and the Obama plane. :)

  We departed on time, but because of the air traffic congestion and because of the Air Force One, it took us another 30-45 before we can finally land. Whew! But we are safe, thank you Lord!

Using the walkalator.

And the escalator.

 

Erinn kissing the airplane goodbye! Ha ha.

This family trip was a blast. It was tiring but fulfilling. And I love Puerto Princesa. I love how homey and cozy the city feels, and of course the beaches! Will definitely go back when Erinn's a bit bigger. Need to see the Underground River!! :)

Toodles!

Puerto Princesa Part Two

Puerto Princesa -- The City of the Living God

27-29 April 2014

On to our Day 2 here in PPS. Our little Erinn was just 18 months during this time. So we decided to pass up the Underground River tour and just go with the Honda Bay tour. Beach Baby!  We just booked the tour in our hotel. And paid Php 2,400 for me and Dada. Erinn was free! Yay! We woke up very early, like 5am because the van will pick us up at 630am. We prepared, ate our breakfast and boarded the van. Yahoo! The van picked up 4 more groups of tourists before heading to Honda Bay. We also stopped by at the swimming gear shop where we can rent footwear, swimwear, and snorkeling gear for our sun, sea, and sand adventure!

With my little sweety.

Booties!

Upon arriving at Honda bay, Kuya Nelson, our tour guide, asked us for Php 40 each. It's a fee for something related to Honda bay. He'll be the one to pay in the cashier and after that we'll wait for our boat or bangka. We stayed in the lobby as what they call it. There are also lots of groups of tourists in there waiting for their tour guide and turn on the boats.While waiting for him, Erinn changed to her rash guard outfit. So cute indeed! After like 10 minutes, Kuya Nelson arrived and he led us near the dock. We boarded out bangka. We were also asked to wear life vests. They even have life vest for little Erinn. It was their protocol, I think, that all should wear life vests or else when caught not wearing it, the agency for the tour has to pay. So, life vest it is!

Excited to swim baby?

Let's do this! :)

Erinn and Dada talking about fishes. Lol!

 We are off to the first island -- Luli Island. The trip from Honda bay to Luli island is around 20 minutes. The view going there is exhilarating! Superb water!

WOW!

 Luli Island is short for Lulubog-Lilitaw Island. You'll see this place only when it's low tide and it will disappear during high tide. Wicked! Luli island has white sands and very very pretty view. Since the island depends on high tide or low tide, the seashore isn't definite but they have swimming area and they have diving area as well. Dada did dive but I wasn't able to take a photo of him 'cause I was looking after my little mermaid. :p The island, well all 3 islands, has huts for people to eat or if they just want to lounge around. Rest rooms and shower area for boys and girls are also available. They use salt water in there. So all you can do is just a little wash up. :) We did enjoy here in Luli island, even though all I did was take pictures and look after Erinn, Ha ha. Can't help it! The view was really amazing. And I want to freeze Erinn's time here. We stayed here for about an hour and we were herded back to our bangka to go see the Starfish Island and have lunch there.

 

Family Picture! :)

Yahoo!!!

Of course! I should have a selfie! :P

Erinn is enjoying this water adventure in the rest room more that swimming in the beach. Ho ho.

Welcome!

My turn...

Dada, your face??? Ha ha. Erinn helping Dada blow up her floater. Aaaaw!

Starfish Dada doing some snorkeling.

" What happened to your face Dada?" -- Erinn

My Little Mermaid can swim on her own. :p

O.O

Starfish Island. They say starfishes are abundant here. Hence, the name. But whether or not that's true, I am still about to find out because we didn't swim here. The sun was scorchingly hot. Even the sand can burn you and that's an understatement. We were scheduled to have lunch here. The lunch was included in the tour so yay!  for my tummy! We had inihaw na liempo (grilled pork belly), inihaw na isda (grilled fish), inihaw na pusit (grilled squid). There's eggplant and mangga with yummy bagoong and banana. It's like a buffet. So Dada and I were in for a long munching. Ha ha. We ate a lot, I mean A LOT! The mangga with bagoong was so yummy! Two thumbs up for the food! Again, no time to take pictures of the foods -- tummy was angry! :) As for Erinn, she's happy with her milk. :p During lunch we got to talk with our table mates. One couple was Filipina with her Japanese boyfriend and the other was a Filipina, as well, with white African husband. Both couples were nice. They seem fond of Erinn because she was singing Hi5 songs all throughout lunch. Bravo baby girl! After lunch, we just lounged around. Dada and I tried to make Erinn fall sleep because she was throwing fits of tantrums from waking up so early. But no luck. She just had her small nap when we were in our bangka and on our way to Cowrie Island.

Dada's poging pogi look.

Pretty baby.

One of the tour guides took this shot. Thank you!

Go to sleep my sweet little baby.

:)

 

 

Last stop -- Cowrie Island. I know nothing about this Island and why they call it that. Wasn't able to ask Kuya Nelson. But hey, there's the beach! :) Erinn was still getting some Z's when we got off the bangka. Good thing we found a cottage right away. When Erinn woke up, Dada bought us halo-halo. A heat reliever! Then we're off to our swimming escapade. Again, I didn't swim a lot. Just happy taking shots my life. :) This island is a bit crowded maybe because it's quite big. Lots of foreign tourists too. We went back to Honda bay at maybe around 3 or 4pm. Then we were brought back to our hotel.

Sunblock galore!

Erinn kissing minnie mouse on Dada's back.

Halo-Halo.

 

 

Just Wow!

Swimming with Mommy.

No removing of cover-ups! or you'll see my flabs. Ha ha.

The camera got something on the lens that's why the middle part of some of photos were blurred.

Little sexy baby. :*

 

Jump shot!

Ha ha. This is funny. :D

Father and daughter moment.

Cowrie Island.

Bye! See you!

 See the Part 3 of our PPS adventure!