Cooking and Eating with Coca Cola

Coca-Cola has been a family favorite for ages. My mother is fiercely loyal to Coke; it has always been her soft drink of choice, and she won't drink anything else, not even Diet Coke. As a small child, I was never allowed to drink Coke because my parents didn't want the caffeine in it to keep me awake. I remember the happiness and pride I felt when they finally allowed me to start drinking it (around the age of 8 or 9); I was all grown up, I could drink Coke! We didn't have it every single day, but Coke was always a part of our family celebrations, especially at my grandmother's house. We'd eat lunch there every Saturday and on most holidays, and Coca Cola was a big part of that tradition. Filipino-Spanish food tends to be pretty rich, so Coke is the perfect drink; we always said it was the best to wash away all that grease!

Here is a family recipe that would always be on my grandmother's table. It doesn't have Coke in it, but there's no better accompanying drink than a nice, tall, ice-cold glass of Coca Cola.


Nelly's Fettuccini
1/2 kilo chicken breast, boiled and finely chopped
1 can Spam, mashed with fork
1 pack Fettuccini noodles, boiled
1 can tomato sauce
1/2 bar Anchor butter
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup shredded queso de bola (Edam cheese)
2 cups fresh milk
pepper, onion, garlic

Saute onions and garlic, add chicken, spam, tomato paste. Season with pepper only (I think this is white pepper so as not to dot the food with black). Cool the mixture. Brush inside of pyrex with white sauce so that the mixture do not stick to the pyrex. Mix cooled chicken mixture with white sauce and noodles, put in pyrex. Top with white sauce then sprinkle with shredded queso de bola. Bake (heat should be on top only) just to brown the queso de bola. (Mozzarella cheese maybe better instead of queso de bola if you want melted cheese. Queso de bola hardly melts but maybe tastes better).

White Sauce
2 cans Campbells Cream of Mushroom soup
1/2 olive oil
2 cups fresh milk
1/2 queso de bola, shredded
Boil cream of mushroom soup, olive oil, milk until thick. Put off fire and mix shredded queso de bola. Taste and set aside.

Brush inside of pyrex with white sauce to prevent the mixture from sticking to the pyrex. Set aside a portion of the white sauce for topping. Mix the rest with other ingredients.



And what better dessert to have with such a rich main dish than a decadent Coke float? I always hated drinking milk, but I loved the creamy taste of the vanilla ice cream mixed in with the caramelly zing and sparkling, bubbly "bite" of the Coke. Every time I have this dessert it brings back wonderful childhood memories of Saturday lunches at my grandmother's house.

Coke Float
1 cup Classic Coca Cola
1 cup vanilla ice cream

Scoop vanilla ice cream into a tall glass. Pour Coca Cola over the ice cream. Sip from a straw and enjoy!

Disclosure: I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Coca-Cola® blogging program. If I am one of the first 100 blogs received by SocialsMoms, I will receive a $25 gift card. For more information on the program, click here. The views and opinions expressed here are my own.