TBK cooks the last three dishes for our 2023 on line recipe book

          One of our final trio of Lemon Desserts for our 2023 On Line recipe book

When I first came up with the concept of our on-line recipe book in September 2022 my plan was to prepare the first 3 months of recipes (18) by the end of December, the next 3 months by the end of March and so on, finishing the project in September 2023. Then Chester ( the hooman) could just create  the flipbooks each month and upload them to our Blogspot.

          The recipe format that Chester created and then we had to amend 

So I was extremely proud ( and exhausted) to complete the project 8 months early in January 2023.  As usual, with all our projects, it grew as the months went by so now we have short reel type videos each month at the top of our BlogSpot. By coincidence the first one I did was one of the recipes we shared in January, so then we decided to repeat the process for the following months. Some of the dishes already had Vlogs on You Tube but these are too long for Blogspot so had to be re edited and shortened, and other months we had none so these had to be created - like the cold Potage soup for February- which meant making the dish again.

 The Potage a Mme Sainsbury recipe that my brother Andrew gave me in 1976

It's ironic that this soup was in my 1976 handwritten recipe book, a gift from my mother in 1976 ( pictured behind the soup) and then we typed it for our 2014 Recipe book , and finally its in our 2023 recipe book and now has a vlog!

I actually produced 4 recipe books in total. 1976, 2014, the recipe calendar in 2017 which became an recipe flip book in 2018 (https://thebritishkabayan.blogspot.com/p/recipe-flipbooks.html) and now our 2023 online recipe book. The very observant will also notice the picture of me on the front cover of the 2023 Recipe book was taken some years back in my kitchen in Awali , Bahrain. Thanks to everyone who complimented me on how young looking I was!

I have already written one blog about writing this recipe book ( https://thebritishkabayan.blogspot.com/2022/11/tbk-cooks-and-cooks-and-cooks-making.html ) so I will not repeat myself here. However , since I wrote that blog we have had further problems with getting ingredients. Mr G came up with 17 recipes to complete the 72 which was great but sadly we could not find honeycomb for the honeycomb ice cream, golden syrup for the toffee apples or black treacle for the Sticky toffee pudding. However I was making some other dished from a recipe book Kuya Coco gave me for my 52nd birthday in Bahrain (2012) and realised they had some yumee desserts and all the ingredients were available here in Palawan. It was only after I had prepared them all I realised that the last three recipes were all lemon based! We also have a lovely lemon sorbet that Phil suggested- so my apologies for the Lemon overload.

                                My classic lemon Tart- a little burnt around the edges!

Chester uploaded the first set of recipes on 15 th January while I was filming in Nacpan, Barutaan and El Nido and decided to add a link to our Google drive where we keep all the recipes ( as I am in Palawan and he is in Marikina ( Luzon). Mr G would be very impressed with Chester's organisation as he has three drives for this project - one for the videos, one for the recipes for people to download and one for the recipes I have sent him ( including those from our guest chefs) and our master schedule which is updated weekly so we both know where we are up to.

*To access the recipe page and downloadable recipes, click the "2023 Recipe Book" at the top menu and scroll down the flipbooks with downloadable links below.

*From the Google drive, just right click on the recipe pdf to download.

 

Not only has the recipe book kept me off the streets and kept me from being bored in my retirement but I have also learnt new skills from the likes of Mama Jam ( Yogurt and Banana bread!), gained some new china ( ramekin dishes - see the top of the blog) which we used in two recipes, and some new utensils ( a plastic brush from the cupboard project ) and parchment paper. My kitchen has become even more packed with all the new ingredients, herbs, spices, 5 types of sugar ( white, brown, Caster, confectioners, muscovado- which I got in El Nido) , 5 types of oil ( Vegetable, Olive, Sunflower, Coconut and Sesame!) and so on.

                       Thank goodness I have a big fridge and freezer

As usual my special thanks to Jhoanna for getting all my shopping each week from the Market (Palengke), NCC, Drugman etc and delivering it to my house ( she is the best on line shopping service in Palawan!) .Also to the Sari Sari store for the fresh Pineapple, apples, bananas etc, and to the specialist stores for all the imported stuff ( Puerto Deli, Deli Mart and More, Bruno's and the Cupboard Project). Finally thanks to my Chef Advisors Chef Poochie and Chef Arnel and in Marikina to Chester the Hooman for making the templates, putting it all together, resizing the pictures, correcting the fonts and converting it into the flipbooks. Here in Palawan Luis has been coaching me on my photography, videos, lighting, and editing into reels and vlogs. Frythy, Noel and Joven have done a great job at tasting everything, and giving their feedback and had the hardest job of all- washing up!

Noel and Frythy who wash up on Monday and Wednesday evening, after school

                           Joven, my food taster and weekend wash up!

I hope I did not miss anyone. It's been a lot of fun and I enjoyed working with all our guest chefs. To those I have trained you can create the next recipe book for Tatay's 65th Birthday in 2025!