KWENTONG KUSINA by Jennifer Vicente

RAINY DAY YELLOW CAKE

Kids Cooking Skills: Use this recipe to teach your kids how to cream butter and sugar, measure ingredients, and decorate a cake using a pastry bag.

Ingredients:
4 large eggs, separated
3/4 cup room temperature butter
2 cups granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
Frosting

Procedure:
Heat the oven at 350°F. Prepare a 9x13 inch pan by greasing it and dusting it with flour. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until stiff but not dry. Set aside.

In a separate mixing bowl, cream the butter for 1 to 2 minutes. Add sugar and cream and mix for another 2 minutes. Add the egg yolks all at once and beat for another minute or until mixture appears light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla extract.

Measure the flour using a dry measuring cup and pour it into another mixing bowl. Measure the baking powder, baking soda, and salt, carefully leveling each with a bread knife. Stir them into the flour. Measure the buttermilk in a liquid measuring cup.

Add about a third of the flour mixture to the butter-sugar mixture and mix well. Then, mixing (but not over beating) after each new addition, add half of the buttermilk, followed by another third of the flour, then the remaining buttermilk, and finally the last of the flour. Beat egg whites until they are stiff and fold the stiff egg whites into the batter with a rubber spatula.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Set on a rack to cool.

Ice the cooled cake with any of the frosting of your choice. Prepare a batch of decorator's frosting, which is slightly stiffer than the others. Divide it into four small bowls and mix in food coloring. Spoon the desired color into a pastry bag (place the coupler base into the bag first, then roll the bag down so the frosting goes into the bottom). Attach the desired tip by screwing on the coupler ring.

To create a rainy day scene, use a drawing tip to outline clouds, raindrops, grass and simple figure holding an umbrella. For best results, wash out the tip each time you switch colors. To make flowers, use a star tip for the petals and a leaf tip for the leaves. With the tip of your choice, pipe a border around the whole scene, if desired.

CREAMY VEGAN HOT COCOA

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons canned coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons white sugar
4 1/2 teaspoons cocoa powder
1 dash ground cinnamon
1 cup boiling water

Procedure:
Stir together coconut milk, vanilla extract, sugar, cocoa powder and cinnamon in a large mug. Add boiling water and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Serve immediately.

LENTIL SOUP FOR MISERABLE RAINY DAYS

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups green or brown lentils
2 small/medium carrots, diced
2 cups sliced mushrooms
3 stalks celery, diced
1 medium onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, pressed
3 cups vegetable stock
1/4 cup tiny pasta (optional)
1 cup Italian sausage, diced (optional)
2-3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar (or red wine)
2-3 tablespoons butter
Fresh basil, to garnish (optional)
Parmesan cheese, to garnish (optional)

Procedure:
Identify a miserable rainy day (often on Monday). Decide to make soup and then leave office at exactly 5 o'clock in the afternoon it at all humanly possible. Go to the store and buy the ingredients unless you are so incredible that you shopped in advance for this meal.

Upon arriving home, go straight to the kitchen and begin preparations. Do not change. Check the news, read mail, empty dishwasher, etc. This soup needs to get on the stove pronto so it has time to stew and simmer. You can do all those other things during the simmer stage (see *). If you man/woman/dinner guest(s) arrives late, all the more time for the soup to absorb all the yummy flavors.

Hopefully you have a mini food chopper/processor as this will help tremendously (save slow chopping for the weekend). If not, you should really invest in one! Cheap and very useful. Anyhow, chop the onion into large chunks and then process it so that the pieces are pretty small. Throw this into a large sauce/soup pot with a chunk of butter and let it sauté for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, put the lentils into a smaller pot and cover with cold water. Heat it on the stove on high and let it boil for 10 minutes. Drain and set aside.

While lentils are cooking, add 2 cloves of pressed garlic (or chopped if you lack a press) to the onions so that they have a minute to cook. Start your chopping: carrots, mushrooms and celery. Carrots especially need chopped very small so that they will cook faster. Turn the heat off from the onions if they are cooked before your chopping is done.

When lentils are done, use the same pot and cook the baby pasta, then set aside when cooked.

Once chopping is done, throw those veggies in with the onions. Add tomato paste, vegetable stock, lentils and sausage. Cover the soup and let it simmer for about an hour. Check it periodically to see that the vegetables become tender and that they don't overboil. Add salt and pepper as desired.

*Now you can change clothes, open mail, light candles, etc.

When it is close to serving time, you can add the vinegar/wine. Do this slowly and taste to see how much you like. Gives it a nice kick.

When the soup is ready or your dinning guest(s) cannot wait anymore, serve it into bowls, mixing in a tiny bit of baby pasta and topping with chopped basil and grated parmesan. You can leave the parmesan at the table if one of your diners is a cheese addict.

Note: The pasta is always added into the serving bowls with soup, not the soup itself over the pasta because it otherwise sucks up too much of the broth.

It is best served with a hot bread of your choice. A salad is probably not necessary since this heavy soup is very filling. Bask in the praise of your culinary skills.

Note: When refrigerating leftover soup, keep the cooked pasta separate from the soup or it will suck up all the broth.

BUTTERFLIED TEA-SMOKED CHICKEN

Ingredients:
3 1/2 to 4 pound whole chicken
3 tablespoons Kosher salt
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon Chinese five-spice powder
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup black tea leaves (or lose tea from 16 to 20 bags)

Procedure:
Using a heavy knife, cut the backbone from the chicken. Discard. Open the chicken and place on a large cutting board, skin-side up. Flatten with the heel of your hand. Rub the salt, chili powder and five-spice powder all over the chicken. Cover and refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight.

Preheat a gas grill to high. Reduce heat to medium after 15 minutes. If cooking over charcoal, allow the coals to burn until they are covered with gray ash. Remove the frilling grate.

Combine the brown sugar and tea in an aluminum pie plate and place directly on the lava rocks of the grill (or coals). Replace the grate and put the chicken on it, skin-side up. Immediately cover the grill and cook 50 minutes without opening it. Flip the chicken and cook about 10 minutes, until the skin is crisp or an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh registers 170°F.

Rainy-Day Method: Roast the chicken in a 400°F over for 40 minutes or until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh registers 170°F.

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