since i am a very incompetent cook, our kitchen is ill-equipped for preparing elaborate dishes. that’s why i love these two recipes from the pinoycook; they require ingredients so common that even a scantily-stocked kitchen such as mine can dish it out. where i lack, some sort of substitute can be made, approximating the original recipe, without sacrificing the taste.

for the fried chicken with basil, i used margarine, instead of butter because jan has milk allergy. and because i was too lazy to go buy fresh basil, i made do with a liberal helping of ground dried basil. it didn’t turn out looking the way it does on that photo, what with the tomatoes and onions making it somehow look like dried up sarciado, but it had the ketchupy-taste that makes fried chicken so yummy. it’s an unusual way of frying chicken, but it was a hit with jan and hubby!

i also loved sassy’s orange pork loin steaks primarily because they were so easy to do, even for someone as helpless in the kitchen as me. but because i didn’t have herbed salt (er, i don’t even know what that is), i used plain salt (with fluoride and folic acid, if it matters), plus italian seasoning and again, margarine for frying. instead of steak sauce, i used some zigeuner sauce leftover from a grill party last year (kidding!). the orange juice makes this dish a whole lot different to the ho-hum steaks i usually prepare. tastes a bit like piniñahan but well… different. main selling point is: it looks sophisticated, tastes sophisticated, but is suuuuuper easy to do!

i’m counting the days til i can make a repeat performance. meanwhile, on with the hunt for idiot-proof recipes….

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