Holy Week ruminations

My daughter Ripley's pc artwork titled "butterfly" -- a perfect image to post here for this holy week while reflecting on Christ's death and resurrection.

We have been cooped up in the house since Wednesday and this being Black Saturday, nothing has changed. Holy Week is a time for prayer and reflection for us Catholics, and I've been doing a bit of both while spending quality time with the kids. I've done a lot of cooking in spite of the fact that we should be fasting, this being Holy Week and all. My excuse is that I have kids and I can't feed them boiled eggs till Easter, right? So my apologies, but I had to make that garlic and lemon chicken with avocado and orange salad yesterday. Aside from cooking, I did a lot of cleaning as well, a tradition that I've been doing since college. Tomorrow, I guess I'm ready to get out of hibernation, have a nice Easter lunch somewhere or go to the beach.

In the meantime, I'm signing off. I'll be listing this day as one of those ho-hum days. But hey, who's complaining?

Karma bit me in the arse

In 2010, when I was in Wales, after like close to a month of not seeing my husband and/or males under the age of 50, I got super excited (hey, I'm just human after all, a weak female...) when my Welsh host, Robert Lloyd told me that I will be the special guest of the Llanelli All-Male Voice Choir during one of their rehearsals.

When something seems too good to be true, it probably is. This was the sight that greeted me when I walked in the rehearsal room:






There were like more than 50 guys there, but they were also above 50. Hahaha! But I had a wonderful time and thoroughly enjoyed listening to them sing. But if I were an insect, all secreted pheromones would have gone pfffft.

First Post for the Year 2012

Happiness + Prosperity in 2012!
This was my new year's greeting to everyone via FB, Twitter and SMS, my way of spreading holiday cheer and what have you.

I checked out my fate for the year 2012 and according to some Chinese wise men (i.e. Feng Shui experts), those born in the year of the rat will have good fortune in the year of the Dragon. Whupak! Haters back off, I shall own this and believe that this year will be fabulous for me.

I actually spent most of New Year's eve cooking in my parent's house. I made 2 kinds of pasta (one with pesto and another with meat sauce), baked 2 kinds of cake, made cream cheese icing, and made one dish for my Dad (Creamy Dory Parmesan Fillets). I don't have a picture of the food as we forgot the memory card of my hi-tech camera at home. So all we had to show for our exciting new year's eve celebration was a phone video footage where the only thing I could see was the lame flame coming from my bummed out sparklers. Nice.

The next day, I had the chance of taking a photo of the left-over chocolate cake. So here goes:


My daughter Ripley helped me with the icing, and although the cake doesn't look like a million bucks, believe me, it was delicious.

Here are also a few dishes I've whipped up since the new year that I wanted to document for future reference. My son calls some of my dishes "one-hit wonders" because I can't duplicate them after I've cooked them. I cook from the heart and whatever is in the refrigerator, and being a busy working mom, I don't have all day to write down recipes. At least, with these dishes holding residence in this blog, I can finally duplicate them by sight. Yahoo!


This is actually what I made as a side dish to my Parmesan Chicken with Coriander. It's good old eggplant and red bell pepper sauteed in olive oil and sprinkled with chili flakes. I dribbled some balsamic vinegar with olive oil to it and voila!


Here's my Parm Chicken. I pounded a few slices of chicken breasts, roughly sliced some coriander and mixed it with bread crumbs and parmesan cheese. Then I slathered the chicken slices with flour, dipped them in my egg mixture (1 beaten egg with a teaspoon of water), and dunked them in the bread crumb mixture. Of course, the next step is frying them in vegetable oil. Yum!

Tonight, we had Pork Sisig for dinner. It's made of pork cutlets, chili flakes, fresh sili (native chili pepper), green bell pepper, green beans, egg, and my secret sisig mixture. I then squeezed some lemon before serving. Sinful!


Yes, I had to double the dose of my hypertensive meds for this!

Hmm... this blog is turning out to be a food blog. But it's not. It's just that these days I'm obsessed with food. And losing weight.

Till next post! Happy eating!

Radioactive Chili Project

I am convinced. Chili will never come out appetizing in photos. The other day, I made chili for the very first time and with my hi-tech 5 mega pixel camera (I'm trying to be sarcastic here because clearly, my camera stinks), I took a shot.

I have no idea why this photo is sideways, but it's not my fault. Wake up Blogger.com. Going back to the chili, I call it my "Radioactive Chili Project." My greatest fan, my 12-year old son Zach absolutely loved it. He loved it so much that he wanted to swim in it. But of course, with the small bowl, that's not possible -- and I'm being silly.

It was actually pretty easy making the chili. I have like a secret ingredient that I won't divulge, just because I'm a selfish, self-centered cook, but if you have ground beef, onions, fresh tomatoes, tomato paste, garlic, cumin, paprika, chili powder, fresh chili (whatever you have in the house), beef stock, salt and pepper to taste, and gorgeous red beans -- you're good to go. All you have to do is cook the beans first, bring to boil, maybe 1 1/2 hours of cooking will do until tender. Saute the ground beef with the onions, garlic, and spices and add to the cooked beans. Add the tomato paste, stock, a bit of water, and season. Voila, radioactive chili is ready to serve.

I don't know about you folks, but cooking for me is not really all about the measurements and how anal you are about how much of this and that you have to put in the dish you're cooking. Aside from the basic techniques that you should master as a cook, it's also about your taste buds telling you that you either suck or rock. I've been cooking for a few years now and the first years were the most challenging. Now, I'm pretty comfortable in the kitchen and can whip up dishes in a jiffy based on what's in the ref or my cupboard.

Now, here's my question: can you call yourself a chef or, say, put up a culinary business just because you claim to have studied in some obscure culinary school after being "inspired" by cooking shows on TV?

Are cooks or chefs made (overnight after an epiphany while watching Mr. Ramsay say, "This looks like what's in my grandpa's colostomy bag!") or are they born with that innate talent to cook? Of course, when I say "born with it," I don't mean that you should come out of your mom's stomach with a spatula and a toque. What I mean is, you don't have to have a fancy degree in culinary arts. You should, however, maybe from a young age, have that genuine interest in cooking (I made my first muffin at the age of 8) along with that effortless something that allows you to create delicious dishes. "Effortless" being the operative word.

Some cook from the heart, and to me, they're the ones who really succeed in the culinary industry. In the same way that writers, to me, are born, not made. Case closed.

tours and detours

Rhondda Valley, South Wales

The tricky streets of London

Biking is better than smoking pot in Amsterdam

My Parisian ride

So much has happened these past years. After I plunged into oblivion in 2009 and allowed this blog to slowly decompose in www's purgatory, I have somehow managed to put up a business, closed a business, and opened another one. In the later part of 2010, I lived in Wales, UK for a month (this story will be retold here soon), got lost in Paris, attempted to smoke pot in Amsterdam (and this one too), and almost got hit by a car in London. This year, I published my own magazine, a major achievement and a lifelong dream that I've managed to pull off with a little help from an old friend.

Every six months, my life changes. If I had a reality TV show, I'd put the Kardashians out of work. There's always something exciting happening. I've moved a total of 3 times since 2009; renovated part of my husband's house, and gained an infuriating cat for a pet.

What remains constant? Why, motherhood of course! I am still a hands-on Mom. I cook dinner for my family. I help with my kids' homework and I still remind them to cut their nails. My son is now taller than me. I can no longer buy his shoes using my own feet as a guide and my daughter, who turned six a few months ago, now have the power to decide on what outfit to wear every time we leave the house.

Soon, it'll be 2012. What's in store for me then? Someone said that the best way to predict the future is to invent it. So I might do just that.

You can't call yourself a Pinoy if...

... you haven't made a "parol" or Christmas lantern in your life. I had to pop my hypertensive meds soon after I glued the last bit of paper on the darn thing, which just goes to show that one parol could, quite possibly, kill you.

My son Zach had to submit his parol project for school and being the good mother that I am, I helped him out not knowing the stress involved in making that teeny tiny harmless looking project.

If you want to try making one, make your life easier by buying a pre-fab frame. Zach and I wanted a Green lantern. So we cut up some pages from old magazines. For added pizzazz, we added silver tinsel boas (or whatever you call them). You can recycle your Christmas decors from previous years and stick 'em on your lantern if you want to be environment-friendly.

To share my stress, here's a video on how to make a Christmas lantern.

Good luck. Keep your Catapres on hand. Have a Merry Christmas!!

WTF?

I tried to change how this blog looks like and attempted to add more widgets like the FB like button, google+, and Twitter icon. I guess I failed. For a moment I thought I was successful only to realize that I should leave the programming to programmers. I also managed to change the whole look of the blog but somehow the new face came out... er, kinda lame. Good thing I was able to revert back to the original... I think. Well, we'll see after I "view blog" -- and here goes.