House Blessing – Nissa and Obet- September 30, 2023

Even before Mom left us, Nissa and Obet have already scheduled their house blessing. We were even thinking of bringing her to Cavite to see everyone but it was not to be. It took us two hours to reach the place. I took some shots, some were from Nissa’s phone when guests haven’t arrived yet.

The food was plenty and some of Nissa’s officemates and Obet’s too came to attend the celebration. It was nice to see Obet’s mom, sister, brothers and other relatives. One of Nissa’s classmates since kindergarten together with her hubby also came over. So glad to see Nate again. How he has grown.

I could not upload them all here since I am saving on space. Finally, the house was blessed. I just loved their altar and the all-around veranda upstairs where we took our meals. Look at the windblown white hair…haha! Their master’s bedroom was lovely. They have three bedrooms in all, two T& B, a family room where Nissa’s and Kev’s paintings were displayed, two pocket gardens and two-car garage.

Their neighbor has three robust dwarf papaya trees and he gave me two, both about to ripen. So blessed. I also gathered some Moringa leaves to go with our tinola. We brought home food. It was a lovely celebration.

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Dinnertime

Would you believe, I am drinking decaf coffee at the moment to go with the Japanese whole wheat bread I bought at the supermarket earlier. Made a sandwich of it since I still have home-made burger inside the ref. The bread is soft, big slices too. It’s my dinner tonight. Paired it with a small apple.

I was trying to catch the schedule of the gastroenterologist so I left the house early. Sad to say, he was not around so I’ll be back to The Medical City Clinic on Saturday. I waited instead for the nephrologist referred by my endocrinologist. She said there is nothing wrong with my kidneys when I showed her the result of my CT Stonogram. She suggested that I consult the gastroenterologist soon before coming back to my endo. There is a separate CT scan for my adrenal glands which the other doctor might suggest. Went home around 4pm. It was the longest wait I’ve done, I was able to buy toiletries in between. Canvassed some items that I could give as gifts but I didn’t buy anything. Christmas is still so far in the calendar.

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Rainy Wednesday

I woke up around 4am. I thought I could start trimming the carabao grass but it was wet. It rained last night and it is raining again now. There are pockets of rain water across the yard. This is the kind of rain that won’t stop at the spur of the moment.

Perfect time to read and drink salabat. Yes, I like that ginger brew which I’ve been drinking when I had Covid. Coffee tastes different now.

Since it is in season, I cooked guinataang santol yesterday. It is cooked in coconut cream and instead of using ground, I used tuna flakes. Yummy🌶🧅🥣

• 

Do you know that santol is called cotton fruit in English. The seeds inside look like cotton. It is commonly found in Southeast Asia. Bangkok santol is the best and guinataang santol is best paired with fried fish or pork chop.

Gosh, it’s cold and it is still raining outside.

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Simpol

This is my second try of recipes in the book Simpol by Tatung Sarthou.It is called Sweet and Sour Pork. It is pretty easy to follow his recipe. One thing though, I didn’t have carrots inside the ref so I substituted two medium-size potato, fried it after frying the pork. It tasted just as good as those I have tasted before. The pineapple chunks balanced the sweetness of the sauce. It’s flavor is just perfect. No garnishings yet, I took the photo direct from the steel wok.I am tempted to try another recipe, it’ll be chicken next time.

(This is crazy, I could see the photo here while I am on edit mode but it does not appear on the blog itself).

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Happy Weekend

Finally done gardening yesterday. A back-breaking job but it has to be done.

I bought five pieces solar garden lights but for the past two days we didn’t have enough sunlight to charge them fully. They need at least eight hours in full sun. Sayang! I am excited seeing the garden illuminated at night.

Jovy told me last night not to cook anymore for lunch because they ordered lechon pork belly. It’s the latest craze now here but we haven’t tried it yet. The belly is tied like a roll and cooked slowly in charcoal. They marinate it first before grilling.

It was only yesterday that we said goodbye to some food we had for New Year. I ordered dried fish online and milkfish from the vendor who passed by yesterday and made them into daing na bangus. Yummy dish paired with sliced tomatoes and boiled sweet potato leaves.

How was your New Year celebration? Do you still make New Year’ resolution. I don’t anymore but I promised myself to read another 100 books this year. Done with four.

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It’s Pancit Bihon

Second to rice, pancit is a Filipino noodle dish which is also a staple on our table. It uses rice sticks mixed with pork, shrimp, chicken and vegetables. We even mix it with sliced hot dogs and chicken liver.

I prepared this for lunch today and followed Chef Tatung’s recipe by adding sliced squid balls to the pork. Veggies are half-cabbage, Baguio beans, carrot, celery and green onion for toppings.

You could eat this as substitute for rice. Yumyum🥢🍜🍷

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Simpol

I’ve alway been a fan of Chef Tatung Sarthou. I often see him on television with his regular segment in one program of ABS-CBN.

I occasionally catch him on his Facebook page showing those recipes that he cooks. They don’t need elaborate ingredients. They are simple recipes so easy to follow.

Last Sunday I decided to order his first published cookbook last November 2020. Delivery was fast, ordered it through Lazada.

He calls it Simpol which means simple in English. The book is thick, the pages are glossy with picture of every recipe featured in the book. I browsed it and it seems they are so easy to follow. He simplified those elaborate recipes and made the ingredients affordable. One of these days, I will try some of them.

This book is one more treasure to keep.

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Some Birthday Photos

Nissa sent me some photos which they took last night. I was so happy to see them happy too. So glad she enjoyed her birthday even without us around.

With Nate, the ever-loving son. We had a video chat last night.

 

The loving family. I think Obet is older by 8 years.

 

They ordered Samgyupsal, grilled pork with all those side dishes. It’s a Korean cuisine. Notice the grill pan in the middle.

 

And the birthday cake of course.

I really wished we were there if not for this pandemic….haha 🙂

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Cloudy Wednesday

This is fun. Twinings tea in all five flavors. Aside from the Wild Berry and Apple, Cinnamon & Raisin I ordered before, Jovy ordered three more boxes in flavors of Strawberry & Mango, Lemon & Ginger And Four Red Fruits. I’ve tasted Strawberry & Mango before and I loved it.

I thought I was the only tea drinker in the family but I was surprised that Jovy and Josef regularly drink it too lately. He said he is not giving up on coffee but he could drink tea in successive mugs. Ah, the influence of a mum, haha! He usually starts work at 4am until 1pm every day and he needs a morning fix. It is an acquired taste. I love lemon and ginger when I feel I have a sore throat. There is nothing better though than our good old kalamansi. I extracted almost a kilo of it, added sugar and put it in the ref. All you need is either hot or cold water.

This morning, one of our neighbors (she’s about six houses away from us but I don’t even know her name) passed by. I was at the garden uprooting weeds and she stopped outside and told me I must really love gardening. My plants are not so common and ordinary. I remember when we had it landscaped back in 2010, the landscaper asked me if I don’t mind having a green garden, meaning some of the plants he planted don’t actually bear flowers but they are all green. I said yes but over the years I added some in pots and some of them are flowering plants too. Back to my short conversation with our neighbor, she noticed that some of our kalamansi fruits at the top of the two trees have ripened. Yes, I could not reach them even if I use our small ladder but I gave her some fruits. She was so happy. When she saw one of my flowering plants, she again asked if it was easy to grow it. I was about to prune it. It was my Scarlet Bush. I only learned of its name too a couple of months ago. I gave her three stems. Haha, my social life is picking up.

Hmm… Shakey’s Angus Steakhouse Pizza for snack. These two (Jovy and Josef) are spoiling Mom and me. It is so costly for just an afternoon snack. I love it though because it is not oily and has crunchy potato strings and sliced mushrooms on top. Yum!

And the rain is about to fall. It is so dark outside. Happy midweek friends! Strawberry & Mango tea, anyone?

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Tasty Snacks

Been taking hot tea the whole day. It is a little cold here and you can hear the thunder in the distance. Before lunch, Jovy went out to buy ingredients for our afternoon snack. We were all craving for those traditional recipes like ginataang mais. (coconut milk rice pudding with sweet corn).

It’s the first time in years that I’ve tasted it again. We used malagkit (sticky rice), coconut cream in pouches, 2 cans of corn kernels and a little sugar to taste. I gave a tub to our neighbor and he said it was yummy. I agree.

I also ordered two boxes of our famous Hopia in two different flavors. Hopia is a Filipino-Chinese pastry with different fillings. It is known in Asia than anywhere else. Here, I took a shot too.

belVita has become a favorite. Perfect with a hot cup of tea. This time, it’s Wild berry. I love experimenting on different fruit tea flavors.

Gosh, I am ashamed. When you are on a lockdown, sometimes all you think is about food. We are again on modified enhanced community quarantine until August 18. So far we have the highest number of days of lockdown period but still, COVID positive individuals are still rising every day. So really sad.

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