Today's Comic Strip: Maple Glazed Sweet Potatoes

Another Cheap Thrills comic strip. :)

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Chocolate Peanut Butter Squares

One of my favorite chocolate candies is Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I started liking it when I was in high school. Reese's was not available in groceries and supermarkets, so I'd ask a favor to anyone who goes to the US to buy me some. :)

So I made some, and... here's the final product! :)

After attending the Ultimate Chocolate Treats I class from Shermay's Cooking School and learned how to make Chocolate Peanut Butter Squares, I was excited! I wanted to make some chocolate peanut butter squares! But there were a lot of factors that stopped me...

• The main reason is that I don't want to buy lots of stuffs/ingredients when I'm doing it the first time.
• I only have Hershey's chocolate chips. I told myself that if I'll use Chef Joycelyn's recipe then I must use Valrhona.
• I have butter at home and it's not unsalted butter.
• The recipe uses the Metric system (in grams). I have a weighing scale, but it's not accurate & reliable.
• I have creamy peanut butter, but it's sweet & creamy, so the taste would definitely be sweeter than expected.

So I searched for a different recipe, and I found one by Nigella Lawson. The recipe is in her book How to Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking. I also found another recipe shared by Nigella Lawson in Good Morning America. It's the same as the one in the book, the difference is the measurements used are in US system of measurement. :)

Since this is just my first try, I don't want my ingredients to go to waste so I only made half (plus I don't have that much chocolate chips hihihi). I used a 5.5in x 5in plastic container with the inside wrapped with foil.

My plastic container

I left the whole thing in the fridge overnight (just to make sure). But seriously... that night, I can't sleep because I was so excited to open it and see if it turned out OK. When I opened the container... perfect!



As you can see, I placed some peanuts on one half, and none on the other, just to try out the difference of plain vs. crunchy and also to have a variation of having that extra peanut taste.

cut in half

Lloyd's not a fan of the combination of chocolate & peanut butter, but he tried some (the ones without nuts. He hates crunchy!), and he said it was good. :)

If you love the combination of peanut butter and chocolate, then you should definitely try this out. Next time, I'll buy some Valrhona and make these using Chef Joycelyn's recipe. :D

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Adobong Sitaw

Here's another recipe to share with you... Adobong Sitaw.


Adobo is a famous Filipino food. It's usually meat (or vegetable) stewed in vinegar and soy sauce.

There are different Adobo recipes... Pork Adobo, Chicken Adobo, Squid Adobo, there's even Adobong Kang Kong (although I haven't tried this one).

Adobong Sitaw normally is cooked with ground pork or sliced pork belly. The way I cook it... all veggie. :)


Adobong Sitaw

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon cooking oil
• 1 clove garlic, crushed and chopped
• 1/4 cup diced onion
• 500 grams long beans
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 3/4 cup vinegar
• pepper to taste

Directions

1. Heat oil and fry the garlic until slightly brown.
2. Add the onion and stir fry until the onion is translucent.
3. Add the long beans and saute until it's half-cooked.
4. Add the soy sauce and vinegar. Season with pepper.
5. Let it simmer, stirring occasionally, until the long beans are cooked.

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Chocolate Overload!

My first cooking class... Heaven! Why? Because it's the Ultimate Chocolate Treats course!

Ultimate Chocolate Treats I

I love chocolate! Our house never runs out of chocolates... May they be chocolate drinks, chocolate ice cream, or chocolate candies (most of the time, all of the above). So when I saw the opportunity to attend a demo class with chocolate as their main ingredients, I told myself I had to enroll no matter what!

Outside Shermay's Cooking School

Sign on the way up

The class was at 3pm, but we were advised to arrive early so we can pick our seats and have some drinks/refreshments before the class starts. Choice of drinks were ice cold water, brewed coffee, hot water, and iced tea. I only had the iced tea and I love it. It was Gryphon Tea Company's Lemon Ginger Mint tea... very refreshing!

So anyway, since I want to get a nice seat, and not seat at the back of the room, I left early,around 1:15. I arrived just in time, 2:45 and I got a seat on the third row.

Chef Joycelyn Shu started 3pm sharp. Chef Shermay Lee, the owner of Shermay's Cooking School was also there.

The recipes she demonstrated were: Creme Chocolat, Ultra Fudgy Brownies, Heirloom Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies, Chocolate Peanut Butter Squares (with samples passed around...yummy!!!), and last was Black Forest Trifle (using the Creme Chocolat made).

While the class was ongoing, they passed around Chocolate Peanut Butter Squares for the class to try. Omygosh! speechless! It has that perfect sweetness, perfect texture, perfect flavor! They also passed around Black Forest Trifle.... heaven!!! It has just the right amount of alcohol and cherry flavor... not overpowering the chocolate.

Other than the chocolate peanut butter squares and black forest trifles given during the class, each student also took home a chocolate chip cookie and a chocolate brownie. The chocolate chip was so chewy and yummy, one piece was not enough! The chocolate brownie was so soft and chocolatey... perfect!

Ultra Fudgy Brownies

Heirloom Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies & Chocolate Peanut Butter Squares

Black Forest Trifle

That's not all they gave away... We also were given a pack of all-purpose flour and a pack of cake flour! Thanks to Prima for that! (damn! wrong time to not have an oven!) :)

The chocolates used for all the recipes were Valrhona. For the brownies, creme chocolat and the chocolate peanut butter squares, Chef Joycelyn used Valrhona Equatoriale Noire 55% Dark Chocolate. For the cookies, Valrhona Perles were used.

The Ultimate Chocolate Treats course is divided into two series. The second one, Ultimate Chocolate Treats II will start in April.

Visit Shermay's Cooking School website for more info about Shermay's Cooking School.
Visit Chef Joycelyn's blog for more info about the demo class.

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Today's Comic Strip

Starting today, I'll post comic strips in my blog (as often as I can remember them hihihi).



Here's a little something about Cheap Thrills:

Tasty recipes in comic-strip form that are easy enough for the novice cook, but delicious enough to please the more experienced chef.

Cheap Thrills Cuisine offers recipes, whipped up by Chef Peppi, the alter-ego of chef Bill Lombardo and cartoonist Thach Bui.

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