Cooking Mama

We have a cook at home so I don't have to worry about cooking. If I do cook, it's because I want to and my husband is asking for a dish. Today, however, we were faced with the decision whether to order dinner or I cook. I opted for the latter just because.

We went to Festival Mall earlier today so my husband can buy me my Christmas gift -- a computer chair (yes, quite romantic). We decided to shop for groceries after lunch. While waiting for our order of pizza and chicken at Don Henrico's, I browsed through my recipes which I brought with me on what stuff I should buy. I opted for a chicken burrito for dinner and some chocolate chip cookies for Basti.

cooking outfit

Upon getting home, I started to prepare for my afternoon in the kitchen, I made sure to dress comfortably-- Shorts, shirt, my Starbucks apron and a bandana. I always wear an apron while I cook as ingredients tend to get on my clothes (like flour for one) and the bandana is for the sweat as I do a lot of that while in the kitchen. When I posted this picture in Facebook, some of my friends thought I was on my way to the Operating Room.

I decided to do the baking first. I rummaged around the kitchen for my supplies and found a mixer. I was surprised as it was not used. I asked my mother-in-law about it and apparently, it was mine! I must've bought it sometime ago and as usual, forgot all about it. I checked my ingredients and was relieved when I found baking powder at the pantry. The grocery stores were out of baking powder and soda. Lots of people must have baked a lot of stuff for Christmas.

some of my chocolate christmas gifts

However, I underestimated the chocolate chips that will be used for my cookies. Instead of buying 2 12 oz packs which the recipe required, I only bought one. I scoured through our refrigerator hoping that I still have some form of chocolate left which I can use as substitute. I remembered  my Royce chocolate hoard that one of my colleagues gave me for Christmas. I resolved to only eat and savor only one piece a day but desperate times called for desperate measures. I broke the remaining pieces and dumped them in the cookie batter praying that the chocolate will cook well.

As our oven thermostat is undependable, I  had to turn the kitchen upside down to look for my oven thermometer (our cook was on vacation and the other maid is with my in-laws in Tagaytay. The one who was left behind is barely a month in the job so she does not know what I'm talking about. Fortunately, I found it beside the oven). I also could not find my cookie sheets so I had to improvise. After all the grinding, mixing and molding, we tried putting one batch inside the oven and after 10 minutes, the kitchen smelled heavenly. I quickly pulled the cooked batch from the oven and without waiting for it to cool, took a bite out of it. My experiment paid off!

sunshine's chocolate chip cookies

The chips were so gooey and tasted oh so good. I'm happy to say that I haven't lost my touch. I used to cook batches of these in the past. Maybe I should seriously go back to baking. It's a good stress reliever and my son apparently loves whatever I bake (as long as it's chocolate).

hubby enjoying the tortillas

By 5PM, I quickly started on dinner. I marinated chicken breasts in a taco mix that I bought earlier. I then placed them in a pyrex container and baked them (I took out the cookies first as I don't want my cookies smelling like tacos) for 5-10 minutes. I was not exactly sure as I kept on testing the meat to see whether it was cooked. The recipe called for it to be grilled but I was too lazy to go out and light some coals. Anyway, my gamble paid off (again) as the meat turned out really soft and juicy. I also put together the salsa mix -- tomatoes, onions and cilantro. As I was not able to buy lemon, I used calamansi for the citrus taste. It tasted absolutely wonderful! I placed the tortillas between paper towels and microwaved them for 10 seconds. Putting everything together was easy -- rice, chicken, salsa, grated cheese and sour cream on top of the tortilla and wrapped it up. It also tasted  amazing! The tortillas were halfway gone before I remembered to take a picture!

After dinner, I'm glad I did not have to do the dishes as I was so exhausted from standing and running around for 2 1/2 hours. I just plopped down and relaxed after discussing with the helper on what will be cooked for breakfast. I'm sure I'll be awake already to supervise the cooking. But then, I'm the only one who eats breakfast. Hubby just eats cereals and my son eats whatever's served (or sometimes the cereals that his dad eats). I still have two dishes to be cooked tomorrow. I can't wait to try them out. Hopefully, they'll be a success as well.