Quesong Puti Meatball Lasagna

This recipe was inspired by Patsy’s meatball lasagna recipe which was featured on the Today's Show. Of course, I had to make do with the ingredients readily available.

Ingredients
Meatballs
1 kilo ground round
salt and pepper to taste
half a head of garlic, minced
2 eggs
oil for frying

Procedure
1. Mix all ingredients together
2. Form into small balls
3. Fry until brown
4. Set aside

Lasagna
1 Package of lasagna noodles
Marinara Sauce - home-cooked or store bought
5 packs of quesong puti - this is the local variety. Each pack has 2 slices.
1/2 cup of sour cream
1 cup fresh basil, coarsely chopped
1 cup of fresh spinach, coarsely chopped. Alugbati is a good substitute
5 leaves of fresh oregano
1/4 cup queso de bola, grated
1/2 cup grated quick melt cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Procedure
1. Cook lasagna noodles - follow instructions on the packaging
2. In a separate bowl, mix quesong puti, sour cream, basil, spinach, oregano with some salt and pepper.
3. Layer as follows, starting from the bottom
- meat balls with marinara sauce and some grated quick melt cheese
- quesong puti mixture
- meat balls with marinara sauce and some grated quick melt cheese
- quesong puti mixture
4. Cover the 4th layer and top with the remaining grated quick melt cheese and queso de bola and a few meatballs.

NuWave Oven Baking Instructions
1. Cover the top with foil so as not to burn the cheeses.
2. Cook for 10 minutes under P50
3. Cook for another 10 minutes under PH1
4. Remove foil and cook for another 3 minutes under PH1, just to melt and brown the cheeses
5. Serve hot.

Herb and Meat Sauce

Refreshing. That would be how I can describe this recipe. It was one of the dishes I prepared for Media Noche.

Ingredients
Olive oil
1/2 kg bacon, sliced into small pieces
Leftover Nacho Beef
Onion, chopped
Garlic, minced
Fresh tomatoes, chopped. Use as many or less as you want
Fresh basil, roughly chopped
Fresh sage
Fresh oregano, roughly chopped
Fresh spinach (you can also use young alugbati leaves)
2 cups broth - chicken or beef
salt and pepper

Procedure
1. Heat olive oil and saute onions and garlic
2. Add bacon and saute for 5 minutes
3. Add leftover nacho beef
4. Add tomatoes, cook for 3 minutes
5. Add all herbs except the spinach, stir and make sure the herbs are incorporated with the meat
6. Add broth and simmer for 3 minutes
7. Season with salt and pepper
8. Add spinach and turn of the heat.

Top sauce to pasta of your choice. Serve immediately.

The sauce will not look like your usually creamy or heavy pasta sauce but very tasty and full of character.

Enjoy!

Pasta with Chicken in Tarragon Cream and Alugbati

Tarragon is so easy to grow. With so much in the garden, I am forced to harvest so often and of course use them. One Saturday afternoon of September (yes, that’s two months ago already and I’m just posting it now!), I just had to be more creative with tarragon.
After an hour of surfing the net, I learned that tarragon is mostly used in cream-based chicken recipes. So, I came up with my own. Here it is.

Ingredients

Pasta, cooked according to package directions – I only had spaghetti then. Most of the recipes I encountered made use of flat noodles such as fettuccini and tagliatelle.

Chicken, cut into small pieces – breast is the more popular part, I guess because you don’t have to be bothered with the bones. I had in my freezer chicken intended for Tinola. I used around 1/3 of a chicken here. I marinated the chicken with salt and pepper.

½ cup fresh tarragon leaves – chopped

1 pack/can heavy cream

1 cup Alugbati – there were around three similar recipes I encountered that used spinach. I have spinach in the garden but not enough for the recipe. So I harvested some Alugbati instead. Alugbati, for those who do not know, is a wild/native green leafy vegetable which my mom introduced to me as the Pinoy spinach.

Roasted garlic – I roasted a few heads of garlic the previous day for a pesto recipe. I used one whole head for this recipe. Although, minced fresh garlic will work just fine.

Olive oil and butter for sautéing

Water or chicken broth or pasta water

Salt and pepper, to taste

Procedure

1. Put olive oil and butter in a heated pan

2. Sauté (roasted) garlic

3. Sauté marinated chicken until cooked.

4. Put water, to deglaze the pan. Water should be enough to cover the chicken. Simmer for 5 minutes.

5. Add cream, tarragon and alugbati

6. Season with salt and pepper

7. Simmer for 10 minutes in low fire

8. If you find the sauce too thick, add more water or chicken broth. You can also use the water where the pasta was cooked.

9. Add cooked pasta and serve hot