Orange Walnut Chex Snacks

This is an easy snack to prepare during the coming holidays.  It has a different flavor from the usual Chex Cereal snacks which are coated with peanut butter or chocolate and of course butter.

The original recipe my friend Milyssa gave me had butter as one of the ingredients which I skipped in this adapted recipe.  It also used frozen juice concentrate which I did not have so I opted for orange juice prepared from a concentrate which comes in those familiar orange juice bottles.  I am pretty sure the frozen concentrate would have been better. But I am happy with how this adapted snack mix came out.  I prepared it twice and you guessed it, I gobbled almost the whole thing in one day.  So good and addictive.

Orange Walnut Chex Snacks

• 4 cups Corn Chex Cereals (any flavor)
• 1 cup walnuts
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1/3 cup orange juice (better yet frozen juice concentrate, thawed}
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ginger powder

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Spray a 13 x 9 inch pan with cooking spray and set aside.

In a large bowl, place the cereals and walnuts.  In a separate small bowl mix the sugar, orange juice, cinnamon and ginger powder.  Add the orange juice mixture into the cereals and walnuts and mix them till the cereals and walnuts are coated with the orange juice mixture.

Place the coated cereals and nuts into the sprayed pan in a single layer.  Bake for 10 minutes.  You can add dried fruits if you want after baking.

Vida's Champoy (Prunes in Balsamic Vinegar)

When I was in grade school in the Philippines, we used to go to the so called annex of the school I was attending, St. James Academy in Malabon Rizal, for our recess.  After I ate my "baon" or food I brought from home, I would spend a few centavos to buy snacks from Mang Pilong's store.  One of my favorites was the so called "hostia" or red host like Chinese candy.  I love the resulting red lips I got from eating it. The other goodies I liked to buy was the champoy specifically the red dry salty sour ones shown in the picture below.  They came in small packets since you could only savor a few at a time for they were really sour.  It was easy to tell who was eating this champoy from the grimace in his or her face.

Champoy is one of the food that the Chinese in the Philippines have shared with us Filipinos. There are different varieties and the one shown below is one of the special ones you buy from Chinatown in the Philippines.  It is made of plums that had been further sweetened and preserved.  It has a slight sour taste but the sweetness predominates.  Each sweetened plum is individually wrapped.  It is pricey as compared to the red champoy I bought from Mang Pilong's store during recess.

In this blog post, I am sharing a recipe for a version of this special champoy.   I obtained it from my childhood friend, neighbor and classmate from St. James Academy, Vida Rivera Isip.  It is made from readily available dried prunes from a box from the grocery.  She shared this "Vida's Champoy" with some of her classmates from St. James Academy who are now residing in the United States during their mini reunion at her beautiful house in Los Angeles in 2008.  I have shown pictures below from that heartwarming reunion.  Beautiful memories!

When I asked Vida for the recipe of the Champoy, she emailed me the following:

Hi Ondes!
Maraming salamat talaga sa lahat!! Very simple and easy ang champoy made of regular prunes. Soak in balsamic vinegar, just enough, not too wet and put salt to taste. Magaagaw na ang sweet (from the natural sweetness of the prunes) and salty and soury taste. Bahala ka na sa amount ng saltiness na desire mo. Walahhh, tapos!
Take care and God bless!
Vida

When I had a hankering for champoy recently I searched for Vida's email and prepared it according to the simple instruction she gave.  As she said in her email the natural sweetness of the prunes and the sour taste of the balsamic vinegar had a give and take relationship (my loose translation of the Tagalog word "Magaagaw").  Do try this easy recipe and savor the delicious addictive sweet and sour taste of this popular snack.

Vida's Champoy

• Dried prunes from a box or plastic container from the grocery
• balsamic vinegar (enough to cover the prunes)
• salt according to taste

Place the prunes in any glass bottle you have and pour enough balsamic vinegar to cover the prunes.  Add salt according to your taste.  Place overnight in the fridge.  Enjoy.

Sweet Spicy Wasabi Popcorn

I brought this to a prayer meeting this morning and everyone loved it to my surprise since it is spicy.  The addition of brown sugar however balances off the heat of the wasabi and the result is this delightful sweet and spicy popcorn.  Delicious and unique.  Serve it for your next movie night.

I used two references, Kitchen Confidante and World of Wasabi.  I used the first reference for an idea of the sugar to wasabi ratio.  I increased the amount of brown sugar called for in Kitchen Confidante and it resulted in a better tasting popcorn.  I used the latter reference for the technique of working with wasabi paste in making the popcorn.  The Kitchen Confidante added wasabi powder to the popcorn while the World of Wasabi made a paste out of the powder by adding water.  In my case, I used wasabi paste straight from a tube I bought at the Asian store.

Sweet Spicy Wasabi Popcorn

• 8 cups popped popcorn, warm
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt 
• 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp wasabi paste
• 2 tbsp buttery spread (I used Earth Balance) or butter,  melted

In a small bowl mix the sugar, salt, cayenne pepper and wasabi paste.

Combine the spice sugar mixture with the melted buttery spread.

Place the warm popped popcorn in a large bowl. Drizzle the spice sugar buttery spread mixture over the popcorn and stir to distribute it over the popcorn.