A Haven for Cooks and Bakers

I love Cooks Exchange. It's one of my favorite places to commit sin.......lust. Their racks are filled with items that I covet. From their assortment of nuts, sprinkles, chocolates, cocoas to their covetable kitchen gadgets and utensils. Ilayo nyo po ako sa tukso!



I rarely go there though because it's quite far from where we live. Every time that I am in Makati, I always make it a point to drop by, an outing of sorts and purchase something. A favorite purchase is walnuts. They're cheaper than your neighborhood grocery store. They sell it for P76 for a small pack, enough for one batch of pastries or two batches of salad. So I make sure I stock up whenever I'm there. Walnuts are also great as a healthy snack. Be sure to stock them in the fridge or freezer to maintain their freshness. Just defrost or toast before use.

My happiest find was a small off-set spatula that I've searched high and low for (well, only in the south area). Even my husband was on the hunt with me. I've seen Martha Stewart use it countless times on her TV show. Since I bake also, I felt that it was a necessary tool in my kitchen. I squealed in delight when my husband found it.

Hubby said maybe we should buy a lot. Ok, there's no sense in over stocking on the thing. It's not like I'm going to eat it.

Kwentong May Bahay - The Woes of Ironing

I had to tell hubby prior to getting married that one of the things that I will never do when we get married is iron his clothes. As part of our verbal agreement, in no circumstances will I be forced to iron hubby's clothes. Hubby of course agreed. For the first year of our marriage, when we were both working, hubby would iron his own clothes (since we were practically destitute at that time and couldn't afford to have them ironed by a laundromat). Poor thing. Our clothes would always be laundered by the kilo and kanya-kanyang plantsa. Until such time that we took advantage of my mom's generosity to have our laundry done at her house as long as we pay the water and the laundry woman. This went on for a year or so. Pretty soon, the laundry woman would make extra by cleaning our house too. Long story short, we fired the laundry woman for stealing money.

The inevitable had presented itself. I was a stay at home wife (I prefer the term, executive wife) with no laundry woman. What to do, what to do. Hubby and I decided that we could live with clothes washed by a reliable washing machine instead and that the ironing could be done by the laundromat. Three problems with that. One, it's expensive. Two, it will entail driving (and parking) on my part. Lastly and most importantly, I would have to lug our mountain of laundry to and from the car. Not my idea of fun.

We purchased a new washing machine last year and I told hubby that I would rather do the ironing at home than lugging it all over the place. Most women have done ironing, why can't I? Ironing used to take me the whole afternoon and would often be filled with cursing and wrestling with hubby's humongous trousers and jeans. The khakis were absolute murder, I forbade hubby to use them. Until now, hubby always asks, "Can I wear khaki today?" Wawa naman.

Until lazy me, decided that I will immediately iron our clothes as soon as it comes out of the spin cycle. Lo and behold, my ironing time was cut from 4 hours to 1, for a full load of laundry. Woo hoo! No more waiting for the clothes to dry, no more spritzing, no more steaming. The wrinkles in our clothes straighten out immediately as soon as the hot iron touched them. Drying time is practically nil. If the clothes are still slightly damp after ironing, I simply place them on a hanger and let nature take its course. Ironing is not as unpleasant as it was before.

Ok....ok.... so I do it in an air-conditioned room. Who says you have to look like a wilted flower when you do the ironing anyway?

My First Cupcake Attempt-A Comedy of Errors

I've always been intimidated by cupcakes. They look so delicate and pretty and I assumed that they were quite complicated to bake. I chanced upon this recipe and it looks simple enough to do. I gathered all the ingredients from my pantry, jotted down the recipe and proceeded with baking.

The problem with jotting down recipes, is either you forget one essential ingredient or one essential procedure. The first batch that made was a complete disaster. I had forgotten to add the milk to the batter. I only realized that I had forgotten the milk when the cupcakes were already baking.

If that wasn't bad enough, my cupcake tins of 12 didn't fit my tiny oven. I had to remove the rack and place stainless steel bowls to prop up the muffin tins. Ayayay!

I ended up with vanilla cookies baked in muffin tins. They tasted great but they were hard as a rock. Best used for pamato for piko or to throw at burglars or something else other than eating them.

Undaunted and with sheer determination, I made another batch, this time carefully reading the instructions and carefully adding and measuring all the ingredients. This batch came out perfectly. It baked exactly 18 minutes and the batter puffed up to soft yet rich vanilla cupcakes. I was very pleased with how they turned out. This recipe yielded exactly 24 medium-sized vanilla cupcakes. I used a spring loaded ice cream scoop to measure out the batter in the individual muffin cups for uniformity.



Now, if I can just perfect the cream cheese frosting.

A Constant Quest for Restful Sleep

Hubby had in many occasions complained about our pillows. I've already bought some new ones but he still didn't like them. This time, he saw a "new age" type of pillow that follows the contour of your head with ultra fine Powder Beads TM encased in a titanium weave covering. It's called the double chamber MOGU Pillow.



The little beads were created in 2000 by Japanese businessman Yoshinobu Ishida, president of Ebisukasei Inc., a humanitarian and environmentally conscious manufacturing company in Osaka, Japan. The beads are created from recycled beads left over from making bike helmets.

The MOGU Pillow claims that the patented ultra fine Powder Beads offer a first-ever experience in super soft and supportive sleep technology.

Unlike traditional pillow fillings or foam, the MOGU pillow offers a fluid like support that alleviates pressure and stress to the neck and shoulders. The ideal sleeping posture is your standing posture, inverted horizontally. This pillow makes it possible to maintain the natural S-line of the neck from the standing position. The pillow reacts to your head movements during sleep, relieving the pressure from your neck and shoulders.

The actual titanium in the fabric's weave, distribute heat, resulting in a cool, restful night sleep. The pillows also come with their own terry cloth pillow case for added comfort and coolness.

My husband was already sold to the idea. I wasn't but I give in anyway. I would like to test its veracity for myself.

I was very pleased with the results. First, the beads really do adjust to natural curvature of your neck, shoulders and head. Second, the beads are very soft and pleasant and very nice to squish and punch. Thirdly, and most importantly, the neck and back pain that I normally get from sleeping have been somewhat alleviated (not completely yet). Hubby is very very pleased with it. His snores prove it.

The double chamber MOGU Pillow is available, buy one take one, for P3,200 at Sleepcare in Glorietta, near Home Zone.

Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite.

A Vietnamese Experience

It was my cousin Annie's birthday (whom we fondly call Buday). As a celebration and reunion of sorts, our former neighbor in LP, Gigie has joined us. It's a threesome of old friends reminiscing about our childhood.

Gigie, fortunately found us on Friendster and was able to communicate with us. Hence, the long awaited reunion. Don't you just love Friendster?

My cousin Buday had chosen the place. Pho Bac in Glorietta. I've never dined there before since I'm not very fond of Vietnamese cuisine. But I was game and would love to eat something different. We settled for the Cambodian and the Saigon noodles plus some spring rolls. I wasn't too impressed with the food. Both the Cambodian and the Saigon tasted the same except the Cambodian had salami and squid balls in their broth, that's it. We thought that all the noodle dishes were all cooked in the same broth and didn't have any distinct differences in them. If you happen to dine there, just get the cheapest noodle, they all taste the same anyway.







(Pictured from top: Cambodian, Spring Rolls, Saigon)

Despite the disappointment in the food. The three of us had a grand time talking about our lives and what has happened between the 15 or so years that we haven't seen Gigie. How time flies, I remember when we were just kids having merienda at lola's dining table, running around the village, climbing roofs and hating the village's resident bad boy who punctured our Barbie dolls' eyes. Now all of us are married, both of them have kids and we're all grown-ups! We now have responsibilities and bills to pay. None of us really changed much, we were all the same people but with more responsibilities. Beauty pa rin up to now. Well, at least that's what we would like to think :-)



(Gigie, Annie and Moi)

My, my, my it's nice to go back to the time where you had no care in the world, no bills to pay, no meals to plan. Oh, to be a kid again.

Girls, what do you say? Let's revisit our youth again soon?

A Humble Ulam

Tinola is a viand staple in any Pinoy household. It's delicious taste is a palate pleaser for everyone. It's salty yet spicy taste from the ginger and the finger pepper is perfect foil for the chicken that slowly cooks in its broth.

Growing up both my mom and my grandmother refused to put anything "artificial" in their dishes. I had learned growing up that doing shortcuts to dishes bastardizes it's true flavors. So for many years, I would never put any MSG or boullion cubes in my dishes. Well, MSG will forever be banned in my pantry.

When I was still working at an advertising agency (many years ago), we conducted a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) for an upcoming soup enhancer product. And our group consisted of housewives and the jolly jeep cooks and vendors. As most Makati urbanites know, but would not admit to, the jolly jeep dishes are quite good and probably the best traditional Pinoy food around. The flavors are simple yet rich and homey. As the discussion progressed, they admitted to using boullion cubes in their tinolas and nilagas.



Going against what mom and lola taught me, I had put that forbidden boullion cube in my tinola. When my tinola was cooked, it was heavenly richer and more flavorful and the aroma was more enticing than my previous tinolas. Hubby loves it and would often eat more than what he intended to every time I serve it on our dinner table.

The boullion cube, a wonder ingredient that no housewife would admit to using. Well, maybe only this one.

Tom Who?

Tomyao. It sounds like a basketballer's name or a cat's meow. But it's actually an edible weed of some sort. I found this curious weed from the salad department of my favorite grocery store. I felt curious of what it was and what it would taste like. The name alone caught my attention. I thought it would go well with tomatoes and kesong puti but I changed my mind at the last minute because hubby hates white cheeses like kesong puti and feta.



I instead added this curious weed into a salad mix of assorted lettuce, tomatoes and shaved carrots with a wasabi dressing (on the side). It tastes surprisingly like alfalfa but a little different in texture. It's a bit harder and it has a sweet tangy taste when you bite into it.

As we eat it, I know it would go well with Asian noodles in peanut sauce. Yum!