The Covert Housewife

I got a bunch of tomatoes from my dad. He's been obsessing over buying veggies and fruit from Tanay since he's been traveling there a few times a week. Since the tomatoes were so cheap (20php per kilo) he buys a ton. So instead of leaving these babies to rot (they likely won't eat all of them anyway), I decided to take some of them home for my meal prep. Making the sauce was super easy. I was actually in the middle of prepping for a class I was going to teach the next day when I decided to start on the sauce.  I started with about 1- 1.5 kilos of tomatoes. Put them in a deep pot with water and waited for it to boil. In hindsight and upon reading recipes after (yes I know it was too late for research) I should have blanched them instead.  Anyway, it worked out pretty well cause I didn't overlook the tomatoes. I took them off the heat when the skin started to go wrinkly and put them in an ice bath to stop the cooking process and also to make them...

Mayonnaise is a common condiment made by emulsifying an egg (typically egg yolks) with oil and vinegar or lemon juice.  Emulsifying basically means mixing 2 liquids with varying qualities together to make 1 mixture (like when mixing medicine or mixing oil and water). I never really liked commercial mayo.  Ever since I was a kid, I hated the way mayo smelled.  It leaves a weird smell on your fingers after eating a sandwich and its particularly greasy and slimy.  Just recently I was kinda forced (well I was being practical and felt had to use my last 2 packets of light mayo) to use store bought mayo and regretted it.  It tasted like plastic and it left an after taste and after smell that I really didn't like. So, I consulted my trusty GF cookbook -  the Gluten-free kitchen  and used her One Egg Mayo recipe as a reference. I only tweaked it a little bit.  Feel free to adjust the recipe to your taste. Ingredients: 1 whole egg (yes 1 egg, not...

A lot has happened in the last months (or should I say year and some months) that I haven't updated this blog.  I've moved apartments twice (so expect a few DIY projects) and I discovered last year that I'm actually allergic to gluten (ergo more healthy GF dishes to come). So if anyone out there has requests on GF recipes and clean versions of all time favorites and not so healthy dishes, send me an email and I'll put it up for you :) Post soon!

Nothing beats a refreshing salad.  The best thing about making it at home is you know what goes into it and you can adjust the flavors as you wish! Fresh Salad Variety of salad greens tomatoes sliced cubed roast chicken meat (S&R) balsamic vinaigrette cubed cheddar cheese (or grated parmasean cheese) Balsamic Vinaigrette Quarter cup of Extra Virgin Olive Oil 4-5 Tbsp of balsamic vinegar (you can add more if as you wish) Rosemary Freshly crushed pepper Dash of salt Mix all ingredients in a small bowl.  Best to use a hand mixer or a blender for this but I don't mind just beating the mixture with a fork. Mix salad ingredients in a bowl, sprinkle with balsamic vinaigrette. Serve and enjoy! :)

Here's another very easy tofu recipe.  I served the tofu steaks with truffled mashed potatos and caramelized onions and mushrooms. Tofu Steak 2 blocks of tofu Salt Pepper Oil Paper Towels Squeeze out all the water from both tofu blocks with the paper towels.  Make sure that most of the water is squeezed out.  Best to wrap the tofu in paper towels and with a weighted object on top for about 30 mins.  If you don't have the luxury of time, just make sure to squeeze out most of the liquid. Season with salt and pepper and fry over medium heat. For this particular dish, I had used a used frying pan after Mr. Man cooked his version of real meaty steak. :) Truffled Mashed Potato Boil 2 medium sized potatoes and mash.  Add sour cream, a bit of butter, parsley, salt and pepper.  Sprinkle slivers of truffles or just add truffle oil and serve. Caramelized Onions and Mushrooms Saute onion rings and mushrooms in a frying pan over medium heat unt...

This easy soft tortilla recipe can be customized depending on what you have in your fridge.  I used a hot plate for this recipe (cause my stove broke) but you can easily use any griddle or fry pan for yours if you don't have a hot plate. Super Easy Soft Tortilla 1 medium sized eggplant, thinly sliced roast chicken meat shredded cheese mix (this time I used cheddar, cheswick jack) wheat flour tortilla rosemary, thyme, salt, pepper, olive oil Season sliced eggplant with herbs, salt and pepper and olive oil.  Make sure that all slices are coated with oil.  Put seasoned eggplant slices on the hot plate and cook.  Make sure both sides are nice and roasted. Cooked Eggplant Slices Take wheat flour tortilla.  Feel free to use regular tortilla if you can't find wheat ones.  I bought these at Rustan's Heat one side of the tortilla on the hot plate for at least 30-45 seconds depending on how hot your hot plate is.  Leave on hot...

I've been experimenting with tofu the past few months since I've been eating healthy.  This is a fast, easy and healthy breakfast for someone on the go.  I accidentally created this when I was rushing to a meeting and didn't know what I wanted for breakfast.  At that time I was getting tired of eating a banana and peanut butter sandwich for brekkie.  The ingredients in this dish were put together since these were the only vegetables I had in my fridge at that time but I think this will work with other veggies you usually put in scrambled eggs or even in omelettes.  If you're watching your calorie intake, this will only set you back 230 calories (without the toast = 58 cal) :)  Remember, a good and healthy breakfast sets your appetite for the rest of the day so best to always have a full and healthy breakfast! Easy Healthy Tofu Breakfast 1 medium egg 1 tofu 2-3 mozarella slices, cut into cubes 1 medium tomato half a medium white onion 2 p...

We just got back from Bohol and since my parents are from there, I knew what to get for pasalubong.  I want to feature some of the yummy products that I bought and will use some of the items I bought for a few recipes in the future. Bohol Bee Farm - I had to stop myself from getting all of the items from the store. These goodies are great, healthy and cost efficient!     Yummy Pesto Spread, wonderful on toast or crackers!   This Honey Spread wasn't so bad. You don't really get the same taste as when you put butter and honey on toast. It tasted more like sweetened margarine to me.    This is one of their best sellers - locally produced honey.  There are a variety of honey that's available so you need to check with the sales lady as to what kind are the sweeter vs. more bland ones.   As a kid, I would eat half a bag of Bohol Broas everytime we had them at home.  I had always wondered why the ...

We recently moved out of our place to move to a temp condo.  As we'll only be staying at the temp place for 6 months I really don't plan on getting huge and/or permanent items. We have a smaller space in the current place so I had to be creative with organizing my stuff.  Unlike our old place, this new one doesn't have a shoe cabinet.  So what I did was to convert the linen closet to a shoe closet (it was the most convenient location).  The only problem I had was the shelves have so much space in between each other making my shoe space limited.  So what I did was to search for a shoe rack that would serve as an "extension" of the current space. I checked Ace hardware but didn't find anything.  Luckily, my instincts told me to go to Japan Home - you know that place that sells everything for only 88 pesos?  And guess what? I found what I needed! They actually had a shoe stack but it only fit a pair so I bought the generic space expander and ...

This is a super fast and easy to do pasta recipe.  Another good thing about this is that you can do it in advance and store in the fridge. My stored bottle only lasts about 1 week but I reckon it will last up to 2 weeks in the fridge.  You just have to watch out for the basil leaves and make sure they're not too wilted. Sun Dried Tomato Pesto Ingredients: 300 grms of Sun Dried Tomatoes - I just use any brand that's available 1 pack of sweet basil leaves - I just buy the pre packed ones at the grocery, the more basil leaves the more flavorful 1/2-1 cup of grated parmasean cheese - better to use fresh but the dried bottle ones work too 1/2 cup of Extra Virgin Olive Oil - can be adjusted depending on how much basil leaves you use Salt & Pepper to taste Angel hair pasta (or any kind of pasta) Procedure: Grind sun dried tomatoes (with oil) and basil in a food processor, put in EVOO if mixture gets too dry.  Put mixture in a bow...

I bought crushed graham crackers from Rustan's the other day and thought of trying out the no bake recipe on the package. It seemed pretty easy enough so I decided to just make revisions to the recipe as I went along.  Besides I didn't want to keep left over crushed graham crackers so I did 2 batches and modified with whatever ingredients I could find at home.  The receipe is below with my modifications in magenta. :) ps. Mr. Man enjoyed these - as usual he ate them with ice cream :) MY San Graham Brownies (CovertHousewife version) Ingredients: 1 Cup (10 crackers) M.Y. San Graham Honey, crushed (1 pack 200g Crushed Graham Crackers) ¼ cup peanuts, toasted, chopped (1/2 cup crushed cashews) 2 TBSP Confectioner’s sugar (none – didn’t have any) 1 TBSP Peanut butter (2 TBSP Peanut Butter) 1 TBSP Condensed Milk (4 TBSP Condensed Milk) 2 TBSP White sugar (2 TBSP Caster sugar) 3 TBSP Cocoa Powder (6 TBSP Cocoa Powder) ¼ cup butter or margarine, melted (1/2 c...

Years ago, I did a bit of research on how to make healthy lasagne.  Since then, I can say after several experiments that I finally got it :)  This dish is a staple in our household and is often made when people are "dieting". :) I don't like measuring stuff when I cook (non dessert dishes) so it was a bit of a challenge to approximate this recipe.  In any case I did my best and I think the recipe is pretty accurate.  Just a warning though, I couldn't find my camera the time I made this dish so all the photos were taken with my webcam.  I often just use an entire pack of Spag Sauce just cause I don't like storing left over unused sauce in the fridge.  I forget about those pretty easily so my solution is to just cook all of it. You can also use fresh Spinach if you prefer. I've used fresh Spinach before but I find it too tedious to clean them.  I don't have a stay home helper so it's really more convenient for me to just buy th...

I came across Fuji Mama's Blog Site over the holidays whilst looking for a new Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe.  I was so intruiged cause she made a side by side comparison of the differenct cookie recipes she experimented with. Apparently less butter makes for softer 'chewier' cookies! Who knew, right? So inspired by her experiment, I made some tweaks on the final recipe Fuji Mama ended up with by changing and addingsome of the chocolate and changing the flour.  Since I had some wheat flour, I decided to use that for the cookies (I was kinda worried that they were going to get rock hard but I crossed my fingers and it worked)! Click on the link to Fuji Mama's blog at the top of this post for the full review on the Nestle Toll House Cookie Recipe.    The original recipe is found below with my tweaks in pink font. @nestlefoodie’s Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe from Chris Garboski , adapted from the Original Nestle Toll House Chocol...