Cheesy Pasta con San Marino Corned Tuna

Our family can’t live without “merienda.” Some say that the English term for “merienda” is snack. Snack refers to a small portion of food.  But for many of us Pinoys,  “merienda” is not just eating a small amount of food, we eat until we are full. I always have to stock bread or biscuits and bread spread so that every time we want to eat “merienda” we can easily grab some to fill our hunger. But I also make it a point to serve cooked dish for “merienda.” My pantry always have pasta noodles, San Marino corned tuna, canned mushrooms, pineapple tidbits, and cheddar cheese. I tried to make a pasta dish using San Marino corned tuna. I am not an endorser of this product (hehehe) but I find it very tasty and a real value for your money. I don’t know if this recipe was already featured in “Sarap at Home” (a cooking show using San Marino products from QTV 11 hosted by Ms. Sam Oh) because as of this writing I haven’t watched an episode featuring this recipe, maybe I missed it or I don’t really know. Anyway, here’s my invented recipe.

Ingredients:

2 canned SM corned tuna

400 gms. of spaghetti noodles (cooked as directed)

Crushed garlic

Diced onion

Olive oil

Grated cheese (cheddar)

Salt and pepper to taste

Procedures:

-          Saute garlic, onion, and SM corned tuna, add ¼ cup of water then simmer. Season with a dash of salt and pepper.

-          Add the noodles, stir to mix.

-          Serve hot, top with grated cheese.

My mom-in-law's Pochero

Before I got married I have this wrong notion that a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law have no chance to live peacefully and harmoniously in one roof. I proved this really wrong. I have a very pleasant relationship with my husband’s mother.  Early on in our marriage, we lived in my in-law’s house for 6 months and I really learned a lot from her. She is very generous enough to share with me all her knowledge in managing a household and even some of her personal secrets. She also shared with me some of her recipes, those food that my husband loves to eat.  I know that my mother-in-law only wants the best for her son, the man I vowed to love till the end. 

I didn’t grow up eating pochero. It wasn’t in the list of my mom’s recipes.  My mother-in-law taught me how to cook pochero.  Her pochero is a very simple everyday dish and she didn’t follow those Spanish-style pochero recipes. I would say that it is more of a Pinoy viand. The taste is very Filipino with saba and camote as some of the ingredients. The additional gingery taste makes it more flavorful. I usually choose beef sirloin for pochero with some visible fats (yum). I also tried chicken but I prefer beef for pochero.

Ingredients:

Beef sirloin (cubed)

Garlic (crushed)

Onion (diced)

Ginger  (diced)

1 pouch tomato sauce

Pechay tagalog or bokchoy

Saba bananas (about 5 pcs. , cut cross-wised)

Sweet potatoes or camote (cubed)

 Potatoes  (cubed )

Fish sauce  and  pepper to taste
cooking oil

Procedures:

1.       In a pot, boil beef, reduce heat to simmer until beef is tender.

2.       In a pan, sauté ginger, garlic, and onions. Add beef (without the stock) and stir frequently until the beef absorb the flavor of the spices.

3.       Add the beef stock  and tomato sauce and let it simmer.

4.       Add potatoes and sweet potatoes.

5.       After 8 minutes add the saba bananas.

6.       Season with fish sauce and pepper.

7.       After 5 minutes, add the pechay or bokchoy.

8.        Serve hot.