how to deal with your pomodoro

Missed the recipe posts on this blog? Lucky you this time because I'm posting one. ☺

We had the chance to a free workshop on Cooking and Living Healthy by Ms. Margarita Fores of Cibo and Cibo di M Signature Caterer on Saturday, April 2, at the Eastwood Mall Atrium.

She taught us some recipes of the dishes in her restaurant and some basic Italian sauces.

I can't deny the fact that I am nearly-addicted to pesto, and there are a few ways to prepare pesto and I have yet to learn them. But really, the prime ingredient of pesto is the herb Basil. But Basil's not the point in this post. It's the Pomodoro aka Tomato aka Kamatis.

I often complain that I can never, ever get a kamatis as sour as that found abroad even in the most sosyal groceries. I know that if i wanted those kind of tomatoes, I would have to settle with the ones in jars - the brined ones. No and a bigger NO. A big and bold NO for more emphasis. I loved how those imported tomatoes taste like - sweet but sour. Here, the tomatoes are sour and nothing else. It only makes me want to put patis on it and eat rice with a viand.

Luckily, Chef Gaita mentioned this in as she was doing demos. She said the local kamatis could and would be good enough if it was so ripe already. I can't wait to try it. I am going to hide some kamatis (and hope I won't forget it) as soon as I finish this post.

Anyway, on to the recipe I'm gonna share.

I am not going to refer to the handout she gave out in the workshop, and what I'm gonna post is just purely my doing, or should I say, how I do it.

A few weeks ago, my youngest brother was craving for nachos. I told him to buy stuff/ingredients and I'll make it for him. In all honesty, I didn't know then what I was doing and was totally experimenting. All I know is how it looks like and how it should taste like. How to cook it, that's the part where I experimented. Lucky it came out good.

here are the ingredients:

a box/bag of nachos
500g ground pork (because I don't eat beef, but you can use beef if you like)
1 pack quickmelt (it's the easiest cheese to melt, and the easiest cheese to find in the grocery. but unless you have more budget, go for whatever cheese you want. just grate it so it will melt easily)
3 tomatoes (it's gonna be watery)
1 small onion (one small onion is really, really enough if not more than enough)
2 little cloves of garlic (you don't want garlic to become a little too overpowering all other taste, trust me.)
salt and pepper to taste
less than a cup of milk

I did a cheese dip, a salsa and the meat thing so it's like three different recipes. (I'm so not familiar with what the meat thing's called, sorry.)

So, here goes:

Salsa
Chop the tomatoes, onion and a little garlic. Just a little garlic. I repeat, just a little garlic. Done.

But seriously, it's gonna get watery, thanks to the tomatoes, so I suggest drain it a bit before you mix the onion and garlic. You can also pop them all in the blender if you don't mind a watery salsa.

The Meat Thing (sorry, I just have to call it that, I can't come up with a name and I'm too lazy to research for it)
Sautee the garlic and pork until golden brown. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Done. Easy, right?

Cheese dip
Get that less than a cup of milk and boil it with the cheese until it melts. It should get thick, but if it didn't, seek for the help of the good ol' flour (1 tablespoon flour dissolved in 4 tablespoons water). That should do the trick. Add some salt to bring out the cheese flavor. And most importantly, never stop stirring until the cheese has blended with the milk.

Put the three dips in a bowl and serve.

Hope you enjoy reading. I'm going to share Chef Gaita's recipe when I'm not so lazy. But it's gonna be soon. Thanks! ☺