Tasty Meatballs

Here’s a lunch quick fix – meatballs. This dish is so simple and so versatile that you can choose to cook as is or with delicious Italian pasta sauce. Hubby and I are still in the process of moving to a new apartment and with a very busy schedule that coincided with our packing activities, we had to resort to quick “brown bag” fixes for the time being.

Ingredients:

Eggs, ground beef/pork, finely chopped onion, garlic, dried basil leaves, dried oregano leaves, chopped celery, salt, pepper, chopped carrots (optional), flour.

Mixing Procedure:

Mix all ingredients together until blended. Shape into meatballs.

Choices of cooking procedure:

a) Deep fry until golden brown (see picture below)

b) Bake for 25 minutes at 450 degrees.

Random Carbonara Treat

One of the things I learned as I attempt to master the art of cooking variations of pasta dishes is that you never use garlic when making carbonara. Garlic gives off a slightly bitter aftertaste which sort of creates disharmony and disunity to the cadence of sauce, herbs and pasta.

Here is my own home-made version of Spaghetti Alla Carbonara, this one is made of available ingredients from the fridge and shelves so you might not find the usual stuff you know the real one is made up of. It was one of those successful experiments I like to make in my kitchen on random days.

The Making of Santino’s Menu

One of the very first things hubby and I poured so much time on for Santino’s is the menu, which is the main highlight of any food business, in my opinion.

I had to practically put everything else I was doing on hold to fully concentrate on what we would want Santino’s to be known for. What would be our specialty? What would be our trademark? We decided on offering the best pasta, but how?

Of course, this comes with hours and hours of extensive researching via the internet. I have spent back-breaking days looking for the best recipe and not to mention the seemingly endless quest for stores that sell the ingredients. There were some recipes I stumbled upon that I just knew would be hits, but with so much regret I had to drop them because of the lack of resources available in the area. This is one of the painful realities we have to deal with, offering Italian cuisine in a non-Italian country can be a challenge when it comes to the availability of ingredients. There are some supermarkets that sell some of the things I am looking for but they are priced rather unreasonably.

Welcome to Santino’s!

We, hubby and I, welcomed 2009 without much expectations.  We were not up to setting any goals for the year other than him finishing his pastorate studies and finding a church he would pastor or our current church hiring him to pastor a daughter church or something…  Anyway, I digress… What I am trying to say is, we didn’t expect that Santino’s will be born along with the coming of the new year.

Santino’s is going to be  small restorante that would be serving the best Italian menu in town. As of the moment, it is still pretty much in conception and initial set up plans will be put into motion in the next two weeks or so.

This blog will chronicle the pains and gains of putting up a small resto from nothing except the passion for cooking, eating and living a decent life by earning a decent income. While being a restaurateur can be lots and lots of fun, we believe that it can also be a huge pain in the arse what with all the accounting, auditing, marketing and managing that one must learn to embrace along the way.

Join me as I perfect the art of cooking Italian pasta, which will be the main offering of Santino’s, and as I venture into the world of the unknown. Laugh at my mishaps and occasional stupidities and just be a big shoulder for me to vent and cry my eyes out.

Welcome to Santino’s!