Chicken Adobo, Apple Sharlotka, and "Adobomelette"

On the plate:  Chicken adobo, Linda's mushroom dish, apple sharlotka, and "adobomelette"

Soundtrack to cook to:  I tried to resist, I really did, but Gloria Estefan was right...the rhythm DID eventually get me!  Gloria Estefan's Greatest Hits 


While we were in Las Vegas, my family and I went to this awesome little hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Baby Stacks.  They made the most AMAZING pancakes - red velvet pancakes with a cream cheese syrup *pause to wipe drool from my mouth* and made a phenomenal chicken adobo omelette.  I was blown away by this Filipino flavor explosion that I was so inspired to make chicken adobo at home, have it for dinner, and then make it into an omelette on the weekend.  Plus, chicken adobo is a comfort food for me.  It reminds me of sitting in my aunt's kitchen and watching my grandmother make my favorite Filipino dish.  It was one of the first dishes that I ever learned to make and I was very excited to share this with Alexander, now that he can actually eat these kinds of foods.

Hey Alexander!  Do you want to help mommy
make some rice for tonight's dinner?  "Yeshy!" said Alexander.

Alexander helped pour the rice into the rice cooker pot.

He enjoyed placing the measuring cup back into the rice.

He poured cup number two as well.

Yes my friends, chicken adobo DOES require you to use THIS MUCH
garlic.  You can chop it finely, squeeze it through a garlic press,
or fine grate the garlic into the pot.  

I cut up two pounds of boneless skinless chicken breast, 1/3 cup of soy sauce,
1/3 cup of apple cider vinegar, 1/2 cup of water, 1-2 bay leaves, and fresh
ground pepper.
My Mama Domy's recipe has you using whole peppercorns,
but I'm not a huge fan of biting into a whole peppercorn.  Let the chicken sit
in the marinade for ~30 minutes.  Typically this is an all day cooking affair;
however, I don't have the patience, and so I cook it on medium/low heat until
the chicken is cooked through.

In order to prepare the chicken for the omelette on the weekend,
I chopped the chicken into little pieces.  However, normally,
you can just serve the chicken over a bed of brown rice.  

Hard boil 6 eggs, and place them in the broth.  After the hard boiled
eggs have soaked up the broth (~10 minutes), throw the chopped
chicken back into the broth along with the eggs and let the chopped
chicken soak up the broth as well.

Mix the rice, and chicken together and have the eggs as garnish.
Top it with a little bit of parsley for some color.  I hope I did my
Mama Domy proud!

Another dish that I was inspired by over the vacation was my
mother-in-law's mushroom dish.  I absolutely LOVE mushrooms
and enjoy finding ways to incorporate them into our diet.   She
gave me this black fungus (it's actually really great) and it fit
in the little box above.  I found it absolutely amazing that after soaking
the fungus in chicken broth (you can use water, but I found that
the chicken broth gave the fungus extra flavor), it yielded that many
mushrooms!  They're really neat mushrooms that are paper thin
and have a really interesting texture. 

I stir fried the fungus with four other types of mushrooms and
various vegetables.  I then served this dish with the adobo and it
made for the perfect meal!  Alexander approved of everything
served that night and completely cleaned his plate!

Alexander is a pretty amazing kid and when he shows interest in something, we try our best to give him as many experiences with his interests as possible.  We read to Alexander on a daily basis and he has favorite books that he likes to read over and over and over again.  Around Thanksgiving time, Alexander was really into the book Dr. Seuss' ABCs.  After reading the book, I started putting an emphasis on identifying the letters.  Then, whenever we would go places, we would point out letters, etc.  During the holidays, Alexander got a few alphabet themed toys and has really attached himself to them.  Now, I can proudly say that Alexander knows his letters and can identify them!  We're so proud of this little guy, but really, he showed interest in it, so we just followed his cues....now if only he'd show an interest in potty training, but I guess that will come when he's ready. :)

Alexander playing with one of his alphabet toys.

One of my favorite blogs Smitten Kitchen showcased an apple sharlotka.  I was beyond thrilled to find that it included no oil or butter and the main ingredient was fresh cut apples.  After all of the heavy holiday eating, I still wanted sweets, but preferably something that wasn't so rich.

Core and peel 5-6 apples (I used Honey Crisp because that's what
we had and they're my favorite).  They're pretty sweet, so next
time I make this dessert, I'm going to use 1/2 or 3/4 cup of sugar
instead of 1 cup.  You should also be careful not to cut too many apples,
otherwise there will be too many apples and not enough cake mix
and it will fall apart.

Cut the apples into little pieces and put it into a spring form pan.

Mix the cake mixture - I added 1 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice
to this cake because I like my apple cakes to have a little spice to them.

Pour the cake mixture over the apples and bake.

Voila!  This was just what I was looking for!  It was light, sweet,
and hit the spot!  If you like apple cakes, then you'll like this one
because there are a ton of apples in each bite with not a lot of cake.
It's even nice for breakfast with a cup of coffee. :)

Now onto the weekend!  I couldn't wait for Saturday morning because that meant it was time to try out my "adobomelette."  Yes, that's a little word that we just made up, but we're a pretty quirky family, so it fits us just fine.

I mixed 2 egg whites and 2 eggs with 3 tbsp of skim milk to
make the omelette portion.  I heated up the chicken adobo with rice
and placed it on one side of the omelette and flipped the other
side over.

Garnish with a little bit of parsley and you've got your adobomelette!

It was absolutely delicious and truly hit the spot!  It was so great to get back into the kitchen and back into our schedule!  Until next time...

Love and kisses,

Nikki