OR Minatamis na Saba at Sago with Gata...
I was too curious and eager to make this since I laid my eyes on its recipe page. I have been eating sweetened bananas with the usual evaporated milk or condensed milk or fresh milk, so why not try something new?
The original recipe and procedure can be found in Good Housekeeping's Easy Everyday Meals vol 6. Page 122.
For this version, I used:
8 ripe saba bananas - sliced horizontally as seen on the photo
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
more or less 3 cups water
1 cup Cooked Sago Pearls
2 stalks pandan leaves
1/2 cups fresh or canned gata (coconut milk)
First make the sweetened banana:
In a saucepan, combine sugar and water. Stir, add the bananas and stir well, bring to a boil, then lower the heat. Simmer until bananas are tender and the liquid is somewhat thick and syrupy.
Feel free to add sugar and/or water (little by little) to achieve your desired amount of sweetness and consistency.
Then add the sago pearls, and the pandan leaves, simmer for about 5 more minutes so the sago will also absorb a little sweetness from the syrup.
In case cooked sago pearls aren't available you can use:
1/2 cups small sago (the packed ones from the supermarket)
3 cups water
2 stalks pandan leaves
To cook the sago pearls:
Boil sago with pandan and water until cooked, this may run for more or less 30 minutes, depending on the size of your sago pearls. When done, wash sago and add them to the sweetened bananas, then same drill as above, simmer for about 5 more minutes so the sago will also absorb a little sweetness from the syrup.
***If you have access to the market, I'm sure there are stalls selling cooked Sago Pearls (together with other Halo halo ingredients). It's good to use the cooked ones to save time, effort and gas. Just wash them carefully with water and drain well before adding them to the bananas et al.
To serve, put bananas and sago pearl on a bowl, pour the syrup, some crushed ice (optional) and lastly, pour over the coconut milk.
This is one of the many versions of our good ol' saba con yelo that I love to make and eat (oo naman!). Indeed it's a great way to appreciate Gata (Coconut Cream) in your dessert!
Thanks to Good Housekeeping! :)
Happy banana festival! Happy weekend! :)
My blog has been appearing in my sleep, talking to me, saying how irresponsible I have become. No single entry for the past 4 weeks? How could you??!
How could I?
I felt like I left another baby in the middle of nowhere. Sorry bloggy. You see, I have been busy, but it doesn't mean I forgot about you. No, I think about you all the time! :)
I have been trying to write drafts in my notepad however I couldn't finish them just yet. I have been praying for second winds at night but they never came to me.
But anyway, I am here now! :)
And so the quest for the banana festival continues!
Banana Choco Nutella Cream Pie --- Long title? :) ChocNut is even supposed to be in there!
This version is inspired by Ross' recipe (whom I have been convincing to make her food blog as she loves to cook too!) and another version from Pauline. Thank you ladies!
Some time ago, Nestle All Purpose Cream came up with two flavors of their All Purpose Cream: Chocolate and Mixed Berries. Given this recipe, I grabbed the Chocolate All Purpose Cream (luckily, it was buy 1 take one then for only 50.00 Php) and made this cream pie.
As done here, it's best to make the cream filling first so that you can chill it. It's easier to assemble your cream pie if the filling is chilled.
For the filling:
6 ripe lacatan bananas - sliced (about 1/4 inch and will look like thick coins)
2 packs of Nestle Chocolate all purpose cream
about 3/4 cup of Nutella (or any other hazlenut spread available in the market)
4 tbsp of white sugar (you can put less, depending on your sugar level)
a small drop of vanilla essence
Beat cream, nutella, sugar and vanilla and if they are totally mixed well, fold in the sliced bananas and chill for about 1 to 2 hours.
For the crust and toppings, I used:
about 1 cup to 1 and a half cup of crushed MY San graham
about 2 to 3 tbsps white sugar (you can put less, depending on your sugar level)
a small pinch of salt
about half a teaspoon of cinnamon powder
about 3 to 4 tbsp melted butter (I used Magnolia's Baker's Best)
about 16 pieces crushed ChocNut (Pauline says to crush it with your fingers!)
Mix crushed graham, sugar, salt, cinnamon in a bowl then create a well in the center, add the melted butter. make sure the butter is evenly distributed and as much as possible try to achieve a kind of "slightly wet and sandy" kind of crust.
Put half of the crumbs on the bottom of a rectangular container and press it down and set aside or put it in the fridge. Set aside the other half but do not put it in the fridge. The butter will harden and it will not be easy to loosen the crumbs for your topping.
After 1 to 2 hours, pour the chilled filling onto the crusted container and smooth the top with your spoon or with a spatula. Top it with the remaining crumbs and the crushed ChocNut and chill it one more time for at least an hour before serving.
Note: Nestle Chocolate all purpose cream is not available anymore in the market (unless they bring it back, that will be great!) So in this case, you can use the regular all purpose cream about 1 and a half pack and mix it with 1 cup of melted chocolate.
I like to add more ChocNut on top however, my body says DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT. Heeheehee! Hope you'll enjoy this!
Ooops, it's almost time to go now!
It's nice to be back!
Until the next KusinaSerye and banana festival entry! :)
After Ondoy, a Pepeng scare, after a week of stomach flu and fever --- who does not deserve a new haircut, a hair color, a pedicure, a little shopping spree and lots of delicious home made cookies?
Ok, I will not go into details about my ka-artehan. But thanks to hubby for all the pampering and spoiling! I enjoyed! :)
The making of these cookies is inspired by Chichajo's Lemon Butter Cookies / Sablés Au Citron entry that I can very much relate to - most especially because of the typhoon that hit our area.
My cookies however are tinier than the original version. And my little cookies also reminded me of Eggnog cookies. How cute is that?! To this date I have already made 3 batches, all gone and will make some more by next week. A lovely lady wanted to order some of them - I said I am glad she liked it and I will just make some for her and no need for any payment whatsoever! ;) Friendship ito!
Here's the recipe of Lemon Butter cookies (original recipe and post can be found here):
1 cup + 2 tbsp All purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar (I used Peotraco Caster Sugar)
1 tsp Fleur de Sel
1 tbsp fresh lemon zest, finely chopped
7 tbsp of butter, chilled and diced
1 egg yolk
- Mix altogether the first 4 ingredients, add the butter and rub it into the flour mixture until they look like coarse breadcrumbs, then add the egg yolk, blend it very well (with your hands or with a fork) with the mixture, knead lightly and form into a dough ball.
- Halve the dough and roll each half into a log about 1-inch in diameter. Wrap each log in cling wrap and tuck in the freezer for about 30-minutes.
* Unwrap the logs and slice into 1/4-inch rounds using a serrated knife
(roll the dough a quarter-turn after each slice so the log stays round)
**OR if the cookie is not as round as you wanted them to be, just get about a teaspoon full, roll it into a small ball and flatten it a bit in between your palms.
***OR on a very clean table use a rolling pin - spread out the dough and cut the cookies using your cookie cutter.
(I have done all these three ways in the 3 batches I have made!)
- Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment and pop it into the oven for 12 minutes or until done (I had mine in 18 minutes).
Transfer to a rack and let the cookies cool completely before adding the lemon-sugar glaze.
For the Lemon Sugar glaze:
1 and 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup powdered sugar
- Put ingredients in a bowl, whisk until syrupy. You may want to add more sugar little by little if you want to add more sweetness.
A few ways to glaze the cookie:
- Use a pastry brush or the back of a teaspoon...
- As for Chichajo's: Place glaze in a ziplock bag or parchment paper cone and pipe onto cookie in any design you wish!
- What I did here is I just dipped the cookies (top part) onto the glaze, set them aside and allowed the glaze to dry for about 10 minutes and repeated the process for that double glaze effect!
(Since I was able to produce about 44 baby cookies and got very addicted to the glaze, I decided to DOUBLE glaze them.)
Some photos below:
Fleur de Sel is not available in my pantry, so I used Iodized salt instead. The slight saltiness complements the buttery feel and the lemony kick! I heart it! :)
These cookies brought back our energy and took away stress from all the sad memories of Ondoy. Indeed, this is the perfect "happy cookie"! :)
A great weekend to all! :)
OR Minatamis na Saba at Sago with Gata...
