Maja ala Rieaane's
Topic: Desserts
I named it Maja ala Rieaane's because I've been cooking this dish since I was 14 years old as a product of my experimentation before, until I made it exactly what I wanted it to be. When I perfected it, I prepared one during my graduation day in Arabic (8th grade)before and it was really "sold" out. Somebody asked me what was its name, I just simpy answered that it was Maja, they never recognized it, I don't know why. It's been a long time that I never cook it until last night and this is the first time that I will share its recipe.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup cornstarch
1 cup evaporated milk
2 cups coconut milk
1 cup buko juice
1/2 cup powdered milk
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup corn kernel, drained
1/2 cup shredded buko (young coconut)
1/2 cup red nata de coco, drained
1l2 cup green nata de coco, drained
1 tsp. vanilla
ground roasted peanuts for garnish

Directions:
1. Combine cornstarch, powdered and evaporated milk in a bowl, mix well until all the powder are dissolved.
2. In a pot, put coconut milk, buko juice, sugar and salt, heat and bring to a boil.
3. Reduce the heat, add the cornstarch mixture and the rest of the ingredients, stir constantly in one direction only until well blended.
4. Don's stop stirring until fully cooked, about 4-5 minutes.
5. Off the heat, transfer to a molder.
6. Chill for half an hour before serving. Garnish with the peanuts. (Garnish only when you are about to serve it to retain the crispiness of the peanuts)

Tips: Slice the nata de coco into half so that it will be easy to bite. If you can make it smaller than that then it would be much better.

See also:
Maja Maiz
Maja Ube

Choco & Oats Macaroon
Topic: Desserts
When it was already 22:00 pm while were watching TV at night, my hubby will start to asked what should we ate, is there some foods in the kitchen to eat? The other night he asked again, did the food cooked already? Actually no food was being cooked that time, that's his one way of requesting! Hehe, so I went to the kitchen to prepare this one, I saw this recipe once in a dessert website long time ago, I tried it the other night and well, I think it's okay but I still prefer Coconut Macaroons.

Ingredients:
3 tbsp. chocolate powder
3 tbsp. butter
1 1/2 cups oatmeal
11/2 cup desiccated coconut
1/3 cup fresh milk
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Directions:
1. Combine chocolate powder, butter, fresh milk and sugar in a pan, heat for 2 minutes. Add oatmeal and stir for 20-30 seconds.
2. Remove from heat and add vanilla.
3. Add coconut and mix well.
4. Drop 1 teaspon of the mixture onto wax paper, serve when cooled.

Buko Salad (Young Coconut)
Topic: Desserts
When we were in Philippines, we used to go to our coconut plantations once a month during summer season just to eat fresh buko and that was one of my unforgettable moments there.
Buko salad is one of my favorite dessert and probably the best dessert for me so far. I realy like buko (young coconut) and realy love it so so much, that's it. I bought frozen young coconut the other day from the Filipino supermarket here (oh, how I miss the fresh buko in our farm) with the other ingredients that I want to include like, red and green nata de coco, fruit cocktail and a bottle of halo-halo mixture. I made it yesterday and it was not enough, we craved for more. It is very easy and quick to prepare since all the ingredient were ready, just mixing it unless you will add some fresh fruits on it. When I made it yesterday, I included the buko juice because I want it to be a little bit juicy and since the nata de coco and the halo-halo mixture are too sweet already, I only add a little amount of condensed milk, I used powdered milk instead with lots of cream. I served it with a teaspoon of sweetened purple yum on top of each bowl and wow, YUMMY!

Jong's Kutsinta
Topic: Desserts
Kutsinta is very famous in the Philippines and it seems that majority of the Filipinos knows how to cook this food. It is made of rice flour, sugar, water and lye water, it is usually served with freshly grated coconut. Last Eid, my sister Jong decided to make Kutsinta since she saw the lye water that I bought from the Filipino supermarket few days ago. We don’t have fresh coconut so she used desiccated coconut as a topping combined with the sweetened roasted coconut (also made from desiccated).





When she was almost done, she decided to add some chocolate powder to the remaining mixture, she wanted to try how will Chocolate Kutsinta taste like, LOL! The result was satisfying, we had a traditional and chocolate Kutsinta for Eid!

Maja Ube (Purple Yam)
Topic: Desserts
In the Philippines, basically ube or purple yum is cooked with sugar and eaten as a sweetened dessert or jam called halaya ube which is a bright violet color. Gradually, it became an ingredient in many desserts like the fruity halo halo, cakes, cookies, candies,jams, ice cream, maja, etc. Here's my recipe for Maja Ube.

Ingredients:
2/3 cup sweetened and mashed purple yum (I used the bottled one)
1 cup cornstarch
1 cup coconut cream (thick)
2 cups thin coconut cream
1/2 cup milk powder
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
roasted coconut

Directions:
1. Dissolve the cornstarch and milk powder to the thick cream, add vanilla. Stir until all cornstarch are dissolved well.
2. In a pan, combine sugar and thin coconut cream. Add ube and cook over medium heat. Keep stirring while cooking.
3. When boiled, lower heat and add cornstarch mixture. Continue stirring until well blended. Cook until thick.
4. Pour in a wide serving dish, refrigerate for 30 minutes. Serve with toasted coconut on top.