My Favorite Month with Our Favorite Food

Here are some yummy goodness on our table for the month of January. Some oldies but goodies and a few experiments along the way.

First dish is Beef Mechado, it is simply beef stew cooked in tomato sauce. In my case, I used canned tomatoes, bay leaf, soy sauce, lemon juice and one secret ingredient :)

Mechado

Next is pork hocks cooked in vinegar and soy sauce. To make it kinda melt in your mouth, I transferred it to the slow cooker after an hour of boiling in the pot. Yummy with fish sauce of course!

Paksiw na Pata

Good thing I saw a bag of dried taro leaves at the Asian supermarket. I have been craving for Laing (taro leaves cooked in coconut milk) and fried fish. Absolutely yummy!

Laing

fried galunggong

It was Lance's 8th birthday on the 15th. I decided to make marble cupcakes for my boy to bring to school. I didn't get to taste them but he said they are more delicious than the cupcakes his classmate brought the next day haha!

Lance's birthday cupcakes

My hubby was pestering me the other day to taste the bleu cheese. I couldn't since I couldn't get past the smell. I don't think he liked it that much so he asked me to find another use for the cheese so I googled recipes. Found one, tweaked the recipe and it turned out soooo GOOD!

chicken breast wrapped in bacon stuffed with bleu cheese and bacon bits

Lastly, I tried this Baked Sweet & Sour Chicken recipe. This is my surprise for hubby since he did put up a lot this weekend. I hope he likes it, it really looks good and it smells divine as well.

baked sweet and sour chicken

Hopefully I will feel a lot better in the next days or so. I can't wait to start cooking both new and old recipes again! :D

♪♫♪ Happy Birthday to Me ♪♫♪

thanks dad and kids for my birthday breakfast :)

My 34th birthday came and went. Unfortunately, I was too sick to enjoy it. The moment I woke up I knew I had to go to the emergency room. I couldn't deal with the pain and swelling anymore and I just want some antibiotics ASAP. Of course a trip to the ER is far from being a wonderful experience, the waiting part is always terrible but I got my antibiotics anyway.

I have never cared how I celebrate my birthday, with or without a celebration is no big deal to me. To be honest, I feel like it is just any normal day. A sign I think, that my youth has drifted away. Gone are the days that I look forward to this special day. Wow, I feel OLD!

Thank goodness for the kids' birthdays though. I share their excitement which helps me feel YOUNG again! I am only 34, too young for midlife crisis, right? I feel like I'm going through something haha! I blame my illness, the CULPRIT! I don't get sick often, so to be sick at this time of the year really really set me off.

Thanks to hubby for putting up with my crankiness and for making it special. Thank you kids for the birthday cheer. Thank you friends and family who remembered ♥♥♥

Hello 2013!

We had a simple New Year celebration, I only cooked three different viands and yet, they lasted for several days. I cooked three of our favorites (boiled beef/pork/chicken soup, fall off the bone ribs and shrimps) while doing the laundry. We were out of town during Christmas and my chores have piled up before the New Year's. Good thing hubby was working that day and so I had 8 hours to prepare the food while doing a little of this and that. We also did some last minute grocery shopping hours before hubby went to work. No matter how much I prepare for an occasion, my organizational skills tend to back fire or maybe I'm not organized at all (ouch!)

shrimps in pineapple juice

boiled beef/pork/chicken soup

fall off the bone ribs

Come to think of it, we didn't have any plans except go to Calgary and spend Christmas with family. It saved me from stressing too much about menus, etc. We also attended  a party the day before New Year's eve and it escaped my mind that I have to at least put something on the table as per tradition. All year long, I obsess about food and not knowing what to serve on a special day? UGH! Unforgivable!

Kids are back in school and I'm slowly getting back to the swing of things. I think I had too much late nights during the holidays, too much laziness to be honest. Here are some food we had while the kids were on vacation.

meatballs cooked in bbq sauce

leftover lechon transformed into sisig

chicharon bituka

Caldereta with olives and mushrooms

The following posts are mostly the kids' food and when hubby and I are in the mood to eat bread instead of rice.

bologna and cheesy egg

hubby made this :-*

hubby's bfast: Kellogg's morning sandwich and Kashi cereal

Lance's bfast: cheesy egg sandwich

Lance's supper: soup, grillems and graham crackers

Leila's school snack: cheese, ham, graham crackers

kids' all time fave snack: CHEESE

bread cup with scrambled egg and ham

It would probably take me several weeks before I can post again. FYI JANUARY is my favorite month. Two birthdays plus our 9th wedding anniversary. So excited to stress yet again. I can't wait to celebrate :D

A Year of Smart Shopping

Of course, I feel the need to share some of my shopping deals lately. The best one was when we redeemed our Optimum points worth $420 and paid only less than $10 out of pocket. We spent close to 4 hours between two stores. Lesson learned: next time, shop alone!

FREE!!!

I spent several hours arranging all these stuff in the kitchen, I am so impressed with my shopping and grateful for those points. Lately, the points event suck for me so I don't know if I'll be able to do this again next year.

Paid $4.54
Total Saved $190

Paid .44

A year into couponing and I am still in awe. I still can't believe how much stuff I have gotten for free, we have toiletries to last us a lifetime enabling me to focus more on food during my weekly grocery trips. I gave up counting how much I saved for the whole year but I'm pretty sure it's more than $5,000 because I stopped at $3,000 around the first quarter of this year :P

Thank you to all those who have helped me. You know who you are ♥

Our Pre-Holiday Food Adventures

Cheers!

Wow, it's been more than a month since my last post. I have been too busy yet again obviously. So before I babble about my not so boring life, here are some of the food we have been eating lately. This is going to be one long post again :D

Let me start with some BEEF dishes. Well, mostly meatball dishes. We bought a huge bag in Costco and I had fun throwing them into several dishes. Believe it or not, the bag still had tons left. I love beef because they are easy to cook and flavorful. They taste great in almost everything, soups, stir fry, etc. Here goes my experiments!

beef with mixed veggies and sour cream

our favorite Pho with meatballs

stir fry beef with oyster sauce, vinegar and bell pepper

meatballs cooked in mushroom soup with mixed veggies

meatballs, canned tomatoes and vermicelli

ground beef sauteed in garlic, onion, cherry tomatoes, bell pepper and egg

We have been cutting down on meat mostly PORK which makes me sad, really really sad. Hubby has been craving for Lechon Paksiw for the longest time. And when he craves, he bugs me no end. I made several attempts using porkloin, pig's head and pork belly.

porkloin

roasted pig's head

oven broiled pork belly

Finally found the squid we like and cooked it in vinegar plus I made bagoong rice as well. Not much Filipino cooking lately except for the Lechon Paksiw.

Adobong Pusit

Bagoong rice

We haven't eaten as much rice and meat in the last few weeks. In other words, I'm dying haha! I told hubby time and time again, we have to eat more healthy food, more fresh veggies, etc. and we really are trying to. The kids are loving the variety of food we are having lately except Leila maybe, who loves to eat rice and pork every single day. Here are some of the food we eat aside from our usual rice and meat.

sushi night

egg potato salad

roasted veggies with feta cheese

hubby's creation: canned tuna with curry

soup, salad, sandwich night

Greek salad

hubby's :)

mine :)

Leila's snack in school--prosciutto salad

kids' snack and lunch in school

cheese wrapped in prosciutto

Leila enjoying s'mores and strawberry banana pudding

monster pancakes

Leila making her own salad

kids enjoying their soup and crackers

grilled soft taco with shredded cheese

cheesy french toast

Since the holidays are coming, eating salad won't work for me unless it's fruit salad. Maybe after the holidays we will go back to eating it again or maybe not. My family loves food period.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!