Mother's Day international fun...

A few months ago, I started talking about pancit.  I don't know what got me thinking about it.  But evidently I talked about it alot, so when we went to the library last week Christian checked out 2 Filipino cookbooks... Filipino Cuisine and The Philippine Cookbook.  By the way, if anyone knows why Filipino is spelled with and "f" and only one "p" and Philippine is spelled with a "ph" and double "p", we would like to know.  So far we've made up all kinds of silly reasons, but it would be nice to know the reason.

What is pancit?  I thought you'd never ask.  It is a stir fried rice noodle dish from the Philippines. 

I read the pancit recipes in each cookbook and this pancit recipe and then kind of did my own thing.  Which, apparently is very common. 

On Saturday, I was serenaded by a local mariachi group.  It was such a fun surprise!  I don't speak much spanish, so I didn't understand what they were saying.  But I loved it.  It brought back a flood of memories of my dad and our trips with him and my stepmom to Mexico. 



Pancit Bihon (or my version of it):

In the spirit of trying to just use what I have, I used only chicken, no pork or shrimp. I used about 6 mushrooms, a small head of cabbage, a bag of shreaded carrots, 5 squash and 2 onions from our garden. I cooked the chicken in some water with 2 tbsp of fish sauce and 2 tbsp. of soy sauce. Then I sauted the onions, cabbage and carrots using some of the broth. I took that out of the pan and then sauted the squash and mushrooms with some of the broth. I took that out of the pan and then put in three 8oz packages of rice noodles (the really thin ones) and the rest of the broth and some more fish sauce and soy sauce. After about 3 or 4 minutes they were ready and I mixed the noodles in with the veggies. If you were doing a smaller amount, you could do it all in one pan.

We also tried lumpia - they didn't turn out so good. I think either I need to use a different wrapper or maybe the oil wasn't hot enough. They didn't really turn golden brown - they were still kind of clear and greasy.

If you have made lumpia and have any hints for me I'd love to have them!

This post is linked to Tasty Tuesday, Mouthwatering Monday and mmmMonday.