Philippines is rich in natural resources. Aside from breath-taking sceneries and highly entertaining and relaxing white sand beaches, Philippines do offer good foods that only Filipinos can perfectly make. Filipinos specialize in cooking different kind of recipes, may it be chicken, pork, meat or vegetable recipes.

Vegetable menus and recipes is where Filipino recipes, dishes and delicacy excels the most. The very common Filipino vegetable recipes I love the most are listed below in no particular order.

Pinakbet
Pinakbet or pakbet is a popular Ilocano dish of the Philippines. Pinakbet is the contracted form of the Ilocano word pinakebbet, meaning “shrunk” or “shriveled”. The basic vegetables used in this dish include native bitter melon, eggplant, tomato, ginger, okra, string beans, lima beans, chili peppers , parda and winged beans. A Tagalog version usually includes calabaza.

Chopsuey
Chopsuey is a very popular vegetable dish. Filipinos have come up with their own individual variation that suits individual taste and the availability of ingredients. There are no exact measurements of ingredients. You could always adjust the ingredients base on what ever available or base on your preference.

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I don’t know how to call this kind of a cake in English but it’s called Smörgåstårta (smörgås = sandwich, tårta=cake). It’s a typical Swedish cake that’s basically made with sliced bread in layers and garnished with shrimps, eggs, salmon, tomato, cucumber. The ingredients, however, have been enhanced these days. As you can see in my picture, it’s decorated with salad, cheese and grapes. Take your piece and have a feast!

It was a long time ago when I first ate smörgåstårta and I didn’t like it. Perhaps the ingredients didn’t suit my taste then. Sometimes it depends on how creamy it is. For me, the creamier the better. I had my chance to try this smörgåstårta (sandwich cake) at a birthday party a few days ago and gladly, I liked it. Hubby was surprised I ate a portion of it. But to him, the cake wasn’t that tasteful. He has eaten many different smörgåstårtor so he can tell which of them tastes the best. I can’t, though I would love to try a smörgåstårta with different ingredients.

I’m trying so hard not to forget leftovers but I think I’m not good at it. Everytime I keep food in the refrigerator hubby tells me that I’m keeping it just to throw later. He knows very well what will happen to leftovers I save. But I’m still trying to do something about it. Though I must say I don’t like to eat leftovers. And believe me, my conscience bothers me whenever I throw food, to think that there are some people in all corners of the world who don’t have anything or have very little to eat.

This is what happened to the Lasagna (Lasagne) leftover I kept aside for later. Instead, it produced molds and ready to be disposed of. Hubby baked this because I requested him to. We both like Lasagna but this time we couldn’t eat it up and forgot it until it got molds. Too bad!

~ Mellow Yellow ~