Yoji and the Foodies

Give me chicken, pork, or fish and I won’t have any problem turning it into something delectable.

Give me beef and I would ask somebody else to cook it. I am a complete failure when it comes to cooking beef. At one point, I have completely ruined a steak dinner. Steak is expensive and I understand completely. It takes a certain level of expertise to make it work. I, admittedly, do not have that expertise.

I have watched Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver cook steak in less than 10 minutes. They make it look easy, but that doesn’t help me.  The good thing is that I never stopped trying.

I found an inexpensive “mini steak” cut. I figured it’s best for beef strips or for tapsilog.

With salt, pepper, garlic, olive oil, and butter, this is the first “decent” steak that I cooked.

It goes well with rice, but I really like the lumpy “mashed” potato.  I want it sooo lumpy that I just boiled the potatoes, cut them in quarters, and mash them up. I added salt and pepper to taste and then slather with butter or margarine.

There’s hope yet.

Most TV chefs consider it a sin to serve lumpy mashed potatoes. There’s no mashed potato police that I know of, but if there is, then I’d probably be mashed potato enemy #1. I don’t know why but the velvety smooth mashed potato just doesn’t do it for me. So when I make mashed potato, I make sure there’s lumps everywhere, kinda like potato salad…but mashed. You get the idea, I hope. I just like to chew something solid instead of eating  a savory 7-11 slurpee.

My lumpy mashed potato is so simple it only takes 2 minutes to prepare. It takes longer to eat them (now, how’s that for a change?)

Lumpy Mashed Potato

ingredients

4 medium sized potatoes (boiled)
100g butter (melted or softened)
salt
ground pepper

(optional: milk)

STEPS

Mash the potato by hand, using fork. Don’t use food processor or blender. Remember, it should be lumpy.

Add the butter

Add lots of pepper

Add salt to taste

Mix until the desired consistency and lumpiness are achieved

Serves 3 people

Note: The butter I used is already creamy that there is really no need to add milk. If you prefer more creaminess, by all means, add milk. It’s your lumpy mashed potato after all. If you want to get fancy, add chopped parsley.

This goes well with roast chicken, fried chicken and grilled pork chops.

I love french fries – all shapes and sizes. Soggy, crunchy, burnt, crispy, frozen, baked…you name it! My favorite among all these lovely and blessed fries are the Twister fries. The only time I get to enjoy them is during their seasonal run at McDonald’s. They only offer it a couple of months a year. Other than that, I would be happy with the regular fries served in fastfood joints.  The thing is, they have become rather expensive. One large fries can sometimes be equal to one full rice meal. Given that equivalence, I limit my fries consumption to say twice a month, or much less if the Twister fries are not in season.

A friend of mine, who is also a french fries junkie, gave me a tip, saying that there’s a french fries heaven in all branches of SM supermarket and hypermarket. It didn’t take too long for me to see this french fries nirvana. Lo and behold…

Thank you french fries gods for sending these lovely fries our way. Spudtacular!