Anchor Home Chef: Recipes Re-imagined

When Dada & I were newly married and living abroad, I was constantly searching for new recipes. Most of the time, I would make things from scratch, tweaking the recipe here and there to our liking. Admittedly, there were times I was forced to be creative, trying to make do with whatever ingredients I had on hand.

Whether I had to go out of my way to look for a crucial ingredient, or I had to make use of something before its “best by” date, the goal was to come up with a great dish that Dada would savor with each bite. The thing is though, it is not that easy to come up with dishes that the whole family will love day in and day out. 

Dairy brand Anchor recognizes that “home chefs” are faced with the daily challenge of coming up with recipes that will please. Back in February, it launched The Anchor Home Chef campaign, which aims “to bring out the chef in every home cook; proving that, with Anchor, anyone can cook like a pro and make even the ordinary absolutely delicious!” 

From March 15 to April 15, Anchor invited home chefs from all over Facebook to submit recipes of their re-imagined dishes using any one or all of Anchor’s butter, cream and cheese products. Six of the best and most unique recipes were chosen as winners, and Chef Jonas Ng of Mango Tree personally visited each of the six winners’ homes to see for himself how those winning dishes were brought to life. 

The culminating activity aka The Final Course happened last Friday, May 31 at Café Ysabel.

I was lucky enough to be invited to watch the winning home chefs in action. Apart from learning new recipes, watching cooking demos and getting a taste of the top 6 home chefs prize winning concoctions, I along with the other guests also got to witness the awarding of the grand prize winner of the first circle of Anchor Home Chef winners. 

But before that, let me share with you the top 6 winning recipes re-imagined:

HAM & CHEESE ROLL by Montecielo Guevara 

BREAKFAST SPRING ROLL by Neneth Tiongkiao 

CREAMY BINAGOONGANG EGGPLANT by Maridel Pacleb 

CHICKEN CRAB COMBO IN COCO MILK by Gene Cruz 

PINOY PANNA COTTA by Dang Yee 

CARAMEL MACCHIATO ICE CREAM by Michiko Halili 

Of these six, my personal faves were the Creamy Binagoongang Eggplant and the Caramel Macchiato Ice Cream. 

The judges seemed to have agreed with me on Michiko Halili’s genius Caramel Macchiato Ice Cream creation. 

Made with three Anchor ingredients, and with no eggs, or use of an ice cream maker whatsoever, it seemed as if Michiko was able to pull out the richest, creamiest, best tasting coffee ice cream I have ever had in my entire life. 

Even the judges were amazed with what she was able to do with 6 simple, readily available ingredients. I for one cannot wait to replicate Michiko’s recipe at home. And judging by this first circle of Anchor Home Chef winners and their recipes, I am already looking forward to the recipes that Anchor Home Chef Circle 2 will bring to the table! 

The Anchor brand stands for pure and natural dairy goodnes. Over the years, it has provided homemakers consistent premium quality products that enables them to create their best dishes. 

For more re-imagined recipes and helpful tips and trivia, visit Anchor Home Chef on Facebook.

Berry Bakes + 30 Weeks!

I know, I should be past the craving stage, but I was craving for an honest to goodness chocolate chip cookie and I didn't want any of the commercial chocolate chip cookies found in grocery stores. I didn't even want patisserie cookies, although a chocolate mousse cake from Financier would have been good too, heehee.

So Berry and I decided to bake some cookies, and the Valrhona bar in the pantry that I bought a month or two ago sure came in handy, especially since we had to use that before it's best by date. We asked my SIL Leslie for her chocolate chip cookie recipe and our initial test was such a success!



We made the chocolate chunks from scratch!


See?


Here's our masterpiece...It was sooooo good! Chewy in the middle and a bit crunchy on the sides! We ate 5 cookies in five minutes! Heehee!


Here's Leslie's Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe:

1 cup butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 egg
2 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Heat oven to 350F. In large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar. Add vanilla and eggs. In separate bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and salt gradually then add to butter mixture. Stir in chocolate chip and nuts. Drop rounded teaspoonful into greased cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 mins or until lightly brown.

(In our case, we baked it a little longer, about 12-15 minutes to get that bit of crunchiness to it! We also did not fold in the chocolate chunks and instead added it on top of the cookie dough prior to baking. My SIL Lorr, who is the best in baking, suggests chilling the dough first overnight to make the caramel flavor of the cookie settle in. We only chilled this batch for a couple of hours because we wanted to eat the cookies right away, but it seems using chilled cookie dough instead of freshly mixed cookie dough does work wonders! Enjoy!)

We've been eating so much lately, no wonder Berry/belly has become this BIG! At 30 weeks!




Tunic: Topshop Maternity
Necklaces: La Elegancia, Marc by Marc Jacobs
Belt: Abaco
Zipper Trim Leggings: Topshop
Ballet Flats: French Sole London (For Kelly: I sent an email to them for their HK stockists, so I will update this when I hear from them, but in the meantime, you can check out Lane Crawford as they sell Repettos and they probably have French Sole as well!)

It's so funny actually, because 2 weeks ago, when we had our ultrasound, Berry weighed in at 2.7 lbs when babies her age should be 2.25 lbs. At this stage, she should be weighing 3 lbs., but I have a feeling she's much heavier than that now! Oops!