Rainy day comfort food

It's been raining sporadically the past few days, and during this type of weather, It's really nice to eat something hot to warm yourself up.

My preferred rainy day food is a warm bowl of Goto, some Tokwa't Baboy in sweet and spicy vinegar, and crispy Lumpiang Gulay.

This trifecta really gives me comfort during gloomy cold weather.

I think these food comfort me during dark days because they trigger memories and feelings that made me feel better or brightened up my mood.

The goto makes me remember how my grandmother used to cook lugaw or goto for me when I had the colds and fever when I was younger.  It  brings back memories of how my lola took care of me when I was sick and how much better I felt after that.  Goto for me is like liquid love.

As for the cirspy lumpia and spicy tokwa't baboy , basically anything spicy and fried makes my tummy happy happy happy.

Lindt Love

I got really happy when mom brought these home today.

I just looooove Lindt chocolates.

I love how smooth the texture is.  The way they melt in your mouth, creamy velvety goodness.

I love the taste, sweet but not too sweet, and makes you want to eat more (which is good for the soul but would definitely add inches to your tummy.)

This is definitely one of my feel good foods that lift my spirits up.   :)

Happy happy love love!

Apple and Almond Bread/Cake???

I'm really enjoying doing R&D on pastries that can stand on their own, no icing, no topping, no nothing.  Simple pastries that are delicious on their own even without any embellishments.

This is basically the same recipe as the banana bread I made earlier, but I just used apples instead of bananas and used Almond extract instead of Vanilla.  I didn't use almond slivers because I'm too lazy to buy some from the grocery, maybe I'll use some the next time I bake this sprinkled on top. 

I also experimented on the cooking time, 350'F for 30 minutes, then another 30 minutes with the oven off to let it set.

But I'm kinda confused  on wether I'm going to call this a bread or a cake since it's basically similar to banana bread, but It looks and feels like a cake.

Again, I didn't  style it before taking it's photo because I want to show it's simplicity since I really want to ephasize on  it's taste and show focus on it being a pastry that can stand on it's own without any embellisments.  And of course it's missing a slice, for tasting purposes hehehe.  It tasted really really good!

So as of the moment, It's just Apple Almond Bread/Cake.  :)

I think that the name's not that important as of now because I'm still beaming because my experiment turned out pretty good.  It really tastes good and the texture is also good.

I think I'll be baking more often, I'm really rekindling my enthusiasm with patisserie. :)

Banana-Langka Bread

I love banana bread, soft and moist banana bread with a chewy crust.

Since we had a lot of over-ripe bananas in the kitchen ("a lot" = 3 piling ng saging), I decided to make it into banana bread lest they just rot and go to waste.

I've always wanted to find the perfect banana bread recipe, and I think that this time, I've found what I've been looking for.

I just googled "moist banana bread" and copied the recipe from the first link that I clicked.

Ingredients: butter, eggswhite,  sugar, vanilla extract, ripe mashed bananas, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, sour cream, sifted flour

I tweaked it a bit by substituting sour cream with all purpose cream since I didn't have any sour cream lying around the pantry and I didn't want to go to the grocery just to buy a single item.

What made this bread my own is that I decided to add preserved langka (jack fruit) to the recipe, lessen the flour measurement and add more bananas.

The tricky part was finding the right cooking temperature since our oven in the house is quite temperamental.  What I did was I baked it at 350 'F for 30 minutes at the top most rack, then after 30 minutes, I turned the oven off, transferred the bread at the middle rack and let the bread set.  I did this because I didn't want to end up with bread that has a burnt crust and a raw middle part.

And I'm super happy with the end product. 

It was chewy on the outside and super moist inside.

This picture doesn't give this bread much justice, but I didn't want to style this bread before taking this photo because I wanted to show how simple banana bread is.  It's the flavor that makes it exceptional in my book.

And believe me, it was really good!

Chillies

Let me put it on record that I don't just like chillies, I LOVE chillies.

I really enjoy eating dishes with different types of chilli peppers from the bigger and milder to the smaller and hotter varieties.

I use them a lot in my cooking as well as add them to my condiments when I eat to provide a little kick.