Josie's Kitchen

We’re a  family that love spicy food especially my hubby. That’s why we never run out of chili sauce in the house. He even had a small chili tree planted in a pot so every time he cook or eat, he will just take a piece or two of chili  to be included in the menu. Our favorite chili sauce that’s why it is always included on our grocery list. We already tried putting it in my Cheese and Sausage Macaroni meal. It was cooked like a regular spaghetti recipe, instead of spaghetti pasta I used macaroni and I replaced ground beef with chopped sausage as meat for the sauce.

• I chopped and sauteed sausage with garlic, onion and bell pepper in butter
• then I add spaghetti sauce
• simmer it and seasoned with salt and pepper.
• I cooked the pasta as per instruction on the package.
• I layered the pasta in a baking pan
• put the sauce on top and added the shredded cheese
• and baked it in a 300 degree in the oven
• When the cheese melted , I sprinkled it with the red chili sauce.

It was not only spicy but brought out the flavor of my baked cheese and sausage macaroni.

When we ordered our pizza, we don’t use the chili sauce included in the package but our own  sauce. Now that Super Bowl season is almost here, we are planning to watch it all together with the whole family here at our home, if not available in cable we will view the live streaming of the game in the internet while gobbling our favorite Philly Cheese Steak Overload Pizza.

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Walgreens. All opinions are 100% mine.

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Ajinomoto has been part of our kitchen as cooking condiment as far as I can remember. My lola used it, so as my mom, my aunts, and so do I. Because we had proven that it can enhanced the flavor of any food we cook when sprinkled even a little bit of Ajinomoto. Now I know the secret why, it’s the Umami all along that gave the food a more distinct taste. From mere ‘masarap’ (delicious) it became more ‘malasa‘ (flavorful).

To showcase the Filipino culinary talents, AJINOMOTO PHILIPPINES CORP. has started culinary competition on 2009 and had invited aspiring chefs all over the country to join and challenge their creativeness in this field.  And because of the success of the previous challenges, they are here again to present the more grandeur 3rd Umami Culinary Challenge.

Now on its 3rd season:

AJINOMOTO PHILIPPINES CORPORATION is set to welcome 2012 with a culinary competition to showcase the creativeness, innovativeness, culinary skill and mastery of over 300 aspiring Filipino chefs. The event is dubbed as the Ajinomoto 3^rd Umami Culinary Challenge (3^rd UCC): The Battle for the Umami Bowl and will be held on January 20, 2012 at the SMX Convention Center. “Ajinomoto is very excited because on its 3^rd year, UCC has more schools competing from Metro Manila and nearby provinces.” says Chef Russell Bautista, Project Head of the 3^rd UCC.

The much-awaited culinary competition is the first of its kind, interschool, multi-category that focuses on umami, the 5^th Basic Taste. The 3^rd UCC will feature participants from 29 Universities and colleges that offered HRM and Nutrition courses and from five (5) prestigious culinary schools.

To allow participants to show off more of their repertoire of skills, this year’s challenge is even bigger and features new and exciting culinary and non-culinary categories. For the benefit of those who are eager to expand their horizons, seminars will be held on new trends and techniques that can complement one’s cooking abilities.

An impressive line up of judges from various fields related to food will pick out the best of the best. These renowned culinary luminaries include: Sandy Daza (Inquirer columnist and TV show host), Chef Babes Austria  (Executive Chef of Taal Vista Hotel  and former Executive Chef of Malacañang Palace),Chef James Antolin (Vice President of Pastry Alliance of the Philippines), Chef Day Salonga and Chef Mon Acosta (Chef Consultants for opening new restaurants), Nina Daza-Puyat (Editor in Chief, Appetite Magazine), Chef Seiji Kamura (Executive Chef and owner of Mogu Japanese Restaurant), Vicky Alejandrino, (Head of Quality Assurance and Commissary for the Pancake House Group), Chef Colin McKay (Executive Chef and owner of Sala Restaurant Group) and Tetta Arroyo (Travel and Food Writer) among others.

The Ajinomoto 3^rd Umami Culinary Challenge is a collaboration of organizations which strongly support the development of the Philippine culinary scene, among them are Glutamate Association of the Philippines (GAP), Elba, Whirlpool/Fujidenzo, Masflex, PR Gaz, Meat and Livestock Australia, and Anvil Publishing and media partners GMA 7, Appetite Magazine, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Inquirer Libre and PR Moms Network.

Here are some of the highlights of the 2nd Culinary Challenge:

And as a member of the PR Moms Network, we are very proud to be a partner on the AJINOMOTO’s 3rd Umami Culinary Challenge.