Entrepreneurship at home

We have one kasambahay now who does baking in her free hours here at home. We thought we would encourage her.

It has not escaped our notice that  a number of successful bakeries or restaurants were started by stay-at-home women, or even men. We have one kasambahay now who does baking in her free hours here at home. We thought we would encourage her. She has baked cookies and cupcakes which, we would say, pass the grade of being commercial, in due course.

She, Lauren, patiently goes through the many cookbooks in our culinary library and searches for the ideal recipes. She has come up with different variants. Actually, she uses her own money to buy the ingredients. We taught her how to price her baked goodies, factoring in not only the ingredients, but the cost of her labor, preparation, electric power and plus a modest mark-up, the latter recommended for a start. Her selection includes flavored items, ranging from peanut butter, vanilla and lately coffee. They are good, by our standard. She has started to sell, we being the initial buyers. We are labelling them as Cookies N’ Cupcakes by Lauren for The Private Kitchen. So, you see, enterpreneurship can start right at home.

Price Watch. Frozen squid rings, which are more practical to cook rather than to do one’s own cleaning, etc., can be found in supermarkets. They sell for more than P200 a kilo. Note that squid must be cooked quickly or they become hard.

At the Makati Supermarket, we found lapu-lapu at the cheaper cost of P350 a kilo compared to the price in other outlets. For our fabada, we always get the meat from Tenderbites, also at Makati Super. It has the smell and taste of fresh meat, its aroma pervades as it boils and cooks. We prefer using the original El Rey chorizo bilbao (more than P100 per) to the other canned brand, which has less flavor. Kwong Bee Chinese sausage is also our choice when we cook our pancit. We discovered this in Cebu years ago, but it is now available at P300-plus a kilo at Price Smart. Kikiam, another must for our noodles, comes from different manufacturers. We are missing the fresh ones which we used to get at Shopwise. 

There is a principle we have adopted since we started cooking: to use tried and tested ingredients. This is because consistent flavors are our main concern. Maybe this is not a very practical idea, since new products are introduced very often. Sometimes we get diverted, but sometimes, as well, we are disappointed. So far, we have been doing well with the “old” ones.

So, cook well with your favorites.

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