Filipino Spaghetti and Pan de Sal/Coco/Ube

Ingredients
Filipino Style Spaghetti
Spaghetti, Spaghetti Sauce, Banana Ketchup, Ground Beef, Hot Dogs, Onions, Garlic, Sugar, Laurel Leaves, Salt and Pepper, Cheese (for topping)

Pan de Sal/Pan de Coco/Pan de Ube
Flour, Baking Soda, Baking Powder, Salt, Sugar, Milk, Butter, Yeast
Pan De Coco Filling: Grated Coconut, White Sugar, Brown Sugar
Pan De Uber Filling: Ube Halaya

So I got creative this time with the side/dessert dish.  Instead of just making a lot of pan de sal rolls, I put fillings in some of them.  In four of them I put this sweet coconut filling that everyone at my mom's office really liked and in two of them I put this Ube (purple yam) sweet paste.  It didn't end up looking too much like pan de sal, but they were still delicious, so I'll keep working on them to perfect the bread recipe.

As I mentioned in my previous post, pan de sal is just the basic everyday bread that people eat in the Philippines. Apparently, some of the things we eat with pan de sal or that we do to it are seen as slightly abnormal, though I’ve always though it was pretty natural.

1) Filipinos in general love to dip pan de sal and other bread products in their coffee. I remember seeing my uncles and aunts doing it as a child – so they being my role models for what adults are supposed to do, just followed suit. Honestly, the bread does taste delicious after being soaked in some coffee, and I think the coffee tastes a lot better to.
2) The other thing that people find strange is that we put ice cream inside our pan de sal. This is something I clearly remember buying in the Philippines. Everywhere you go there are street vendors and some of them sell ice cream – everyone calls it dirty ice cream because we assume that the street vendors aren’t really abiding by any health codes and regulations…though to think of it, I’m sure a lot of restaurants in the Philippines in general don’t abide by health codes and regulations. Anyways, at these ‘dirty ice cream’ vendors, you can buy your ice cream inside pan de sal and it’s absolutely amazing! So simple, yet so good.
3) Maybe this one is actually a little weird. At least in my family, but I’ve corroborated this with my Filipino friends, we like to dip our pan de sal in sweetened condensed milk. I don’t know if anyone else did this, but my mom also liked to put peanut butter in the pan de sal before dipping it in condensed milk…and in addition to this list being a list of things we do to bread, it’s also a list of reasons why I’m fat! Jk

But seriously, Filipinos seem to have the biggest sweet tooth ever! I mean, even our spaghetti is made to be sweet. We use banana ketchup (look it up if you don’t know what I’m talking about), which is already inherently sweet and then add a bunch of sugar to make it even sweeter. Pretty much all of our dishes require some form of sugar, and if they don’t, apparently adding some sugar will make it better. If I’ve learned anything thus far from my aunt and mom about cooking Filipino food, it’s that sugar can never hurt! 

So yeah, if you guys do anything seemingly strange with your food/bread/meals, let me know! I want to know if any other culture is this obsessed with sugar and sweet things!

Tonight I’ll be making Sinigang na Baboy (Pork in a sort of sourish soup) and some Ube (Purple Yam) Shakes! Also, my Rosetta Stone for Mandarin arrived yesterday so I’ll be installing it and starting it tonight!!!! So excited!!!! That’s it for now! Till next time!

Other Summer Projects
Books Read: 0
Current Book(s): The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Memories of Philippine Kitchens
Progress with Mandarin: Rosetta Stone Delivered – Will Install and start today!
Weekdays Missed Jogging: 0