Fantastic Filipino Food

On Monday, my mom and I had a great treat. The pastor and his wife at our church are filipino and Marian, along with her friend, Guata, taught us to make a few filipino dishes. Pancit has always been one of my favorite dishes and an ex-boyfriend's mom taught me how to make it once, but I had since forgotten. Here are the recipes.

Pancit
Carrot
Cabbage (Greener the better)
Onion
Bell pepper
Celery
Garlic
Lemon
Oil
Soy sauce
Chicken broth
Meat of choice – pork, chicken, shrimp
Noodles (many types of rice noodles can be used, but we used “Rice Stick Special Bihon”)

Cooking for pancit can be done in a frying pan, but a wok is preferable.
First, cook meat with a little water. This part probably takes the longest because the meat has to be cooked slowly enough to become more flavorful. While meat is cooking, cut vegetables. Vegetables should be cut diagonally. About halfway through cutting the meat, add oil. After meat is brown, add garlic. Add onions. Add soy sauce. Add the rest of the veggies, peppers last. Once veggies are cooked, but still crispy, take everything out of the pan except for the liquid and some pieces of meat. In a separate pan, boil water. Add the boiling water to the main pan, along with the can of chicken broth, more soy sauce, and salt and pepper to taste. Add noodles to the mixture after about 10 minutes. Once noodles are cooked, mix everything back together. Squeeze lemon juice over the pancit before eating.

Banana Lumpias*
Golden Saba – Whole steamed saba bananas (these come in a bag in the freezer section. I asked if regular bananas could be used instead and was told yes, but they probably wouldn’t be as good)
Lumpia wrappers (we used Sinex – individually separated sheets)
Brown sugar
Oil

Defrost the bananas. Cut the bananas in half. Roll them in brown sugar and then roll one half in each lumpia wrapper. Heat oil in small frying pan. When oil is hot, lightly fry each lumpia. Frying these doesn’t take very long – we only fried each for about 2 minutes.

*Granny smith apples and cinnamon and sugar can also be substituted for the bananas and brown sugar.

Buchi (Rice cakes)
Coconut milk
1 package Mochiko sweet rice flour
Cornstarch for your hands
Small package of coconut syrup (Ma Capuno brand)
Flour plate
Oil

Combine all ingredients together. Wait five minutes. Roll mixture into small balls. Roll balls in flour (I’m assuming this part is optional). Heat oil in frying pan. You can cook many of the balls at once. Cook them slowly until golden brown. After cooling, eat the buchi either plain or with honey or syrup.

In other news, I hiked up to Beaver Lake with a friend on Saturday. We finally had some decent weather.

Tuesday I wasn't called in to sub, so I hiked up Indian River to the Indian River waterfall. If the sky would be a color that is not white or gray, I could probably get some better pictures! The weather really hasn't been very good lately!

I'm going to be getting as much hiking in as possible in the next few weeks because I found out yesterday I have to have another knee surgery. It is pretty minor as far as knee surgeries go, but I will still be on crutches for a few days afterwards. No fun. My next project of the day is to schedule that surgery, so I'd better get on that! Miss you all!