[NYE fare]

Our New Year's Eve family get-together has always been in our house since we have a fantastic view overlooking  the metro. We don't even buy pyrotechnics as we have our own spectacle to watch for free from our neighbors. ;)

We decided to skip the anticipated NYD mass & just attend the next morning. My mom, sister & her brood came early for dinner. I was almost done with my cooking by the time the fireworks started at 10 pm. 

My mom brought pancit molo & puto/cuchinta. Ours were the tortilla soup, margherita quesadilla & banoffee refrigerator cake. It was a merry mix of Filipino-Mexican food that night. ;)

I love the tortilla soup of Army Navy & the chicken quesadilla of Soya Bar, so I thought of making my versions of these.

Ingredients for the tortilla soup:

garlic, onion, canned diced tomatoes,
dried chili flakes, curry powder,
squash, corn kernels, straw & button mushrooms,
medium-sized shrimps

*Saute the minced garlic, sliced onions & diced tomatoes in 2 tbsps olive oil.

*Add the peeled, deveined & chopped-up shrimps. 

*In a separate pot, boil the chunks of squash until soft enough to be slightly mashed. 

*Add the squash, corn kernels & 2 kinds of mushrooms to the tomato concoction.

*Add the chili flakes & curry powder. The amount you put in will depend on how spicy you want it.

*Add 8-10 cups of water, stir.

*Season with salt & pepper

I can't find tortilla chips so I settled for the taco variety.

taco chips 

*Crumble 3-5 handfuls & add to the simmering soup.

*Serve hot.

Ingredients for the margherita quesadilla :

drizzle of olive oil, minced garlic,
sliced tomatoes, mozzarella, basil leaves,
whole wheat tortilla wraps

*The cooking procedure is similar to what I did to my spinach-mozzarella sandwich. Only this time, fresh basil leaves were used in place of spinach & minced garlic cloves were put in for added flavor. Hubby also pan-grilled the tortilla wraps instead of using the sandwich maker. 

I also came up with a banoffee refrigerator cake. I tweaked the mango version of it. ;)

The ingredients for this dessert :

all-purpose cream, graham crackers,
banana slices, butter, 3-in-1 coffee mix

*In a heated sauce pan, melt 1 small tub of butter (as shown, approximately a tablespoon).

*Add the all-purpose cream, a sachet of 3-in-1 coffee mix & the chunks of 2-3 bananas. If still needed, sweeten it with condensed milk to adjust to your preferred sweetness level. Mix them up & remove from the stove. Do not overcook, just heat it through.

*In a rectangular glass dish, pour the cream sauce first, amount enough to cover the bottom of the dish. This is to keep the graham crackers in place. 

*Layer the crackers next, then the sauce again.

*Continue the layering until you fill up the dish 3/4 high. 

*Top it with crushed grahams.

*Serve chilled.

The finished products: