Jay-Jay's 4th Birthday

My nephew JJ celebrated his fourth birthday last week. The family was treated to a simple luncheon and birthday cake blowing last Sunday.

My mom of course was in charge of the cooking. She made her famous Beef Kare-Kare, it's beef or tripe stewed in peanut butter and anatto. Vegetables, ground peanuts and toasted rice granules are also added. It is always served with bagoong alamang (shrimp paste). My mom always makes the best. I have yet to learn to make this one. She tells me that this is super easy to make. We'll see. I'll keep you posted.

Another dish that my mom made was her famous Embutido. Which is essentially a meatloaf with chorizos, pickles, eggs, cheese and other secret ingredients that my mom told me yesterday but were too many to remember. She doesn't measure anything either so it's gonna be tricky getting the proportions from her. I'll try to post some of her recipes too.

My husband Eric told me not to divulge all the family recipes. Otherwise, people will make money off of it. I already had two friends use my baked mac recipe for business. Oh well.

We also had salad, palabok, tibuk-tibuk (it's like Maja Blanca but made with carabao milk), mazapan (a gooey butter-scotch type balls with nuts), leche flan (milk custard), chocolates and of course the birthday cake. Yummy! Sugar rush to the max.

Anyway, back to the party. My nephew Jay-Jay was having so much fun playing with his cousins and Rama and there was one moment that he went off to another room on his own for a few seconds, when he came out, he managed to get a bukol and wouldn't tell us where he got the bump. He was fine and kinda went to a corner but the grown ups made such a fuss, he started crying and wouldn't allow any of us to put ice on it. There were three of us holding him down so that we can apply the ice pack to get the swelling down. Whew! That little kid is strong as an ox and he's only four!

Finally, we were able to calm Jay-Jay down and he was ready to blow the cake. Here he is with bukol and everything. He even managed to say "cheese!"