A Birthday Celebration in LP

LP played host again to another birthday this year, Tita Socky's. The family congregated for another glutton fest. Hubby and I conveniently "forgot" to eat breakfast to make room for the sumptuous lunch.

My pamankins presented Tita Socky with a Madagascar tablet that they painted themselves. Here they are posing with the very colorful tablet.




My mother, the most superb cook in our family, concocted everything. The family seems to favor crabs lately and for this special day, we had crabs the size of dinner plates. You can see the birthday celebrant here, Tita Socky, grabbing some for the camera.



There is no rhyme nor reason to the combination of food that we had. My mom just made whatever catches her fancy for that particular weekend.

For starters we had Pancit Molo. It's a soup made with ground pork and shrimp dumplings. A family favorite and always a crowd pleaser.



Next up, Lechon Paksiw. A dish made with leftover lechon simmered in vinegar, lechon sauce, garlic and some other secret ingredients.



Grilled pork and chicken in soy, garlic, calamansi, lemon lime soda marinade. Typical Pinoy grilled fare, made more special with the choicest cuts of meat (with taba of course).

Bibingka, another Pinoy kakanin or rice based dessert. This particular bibingka is made with sticky rice, sugar and coconut cream.



I made ice cream cake for dessert. The ice cream cake was made with home-baked butter cake and three layers of ice cream, mango, chocolate and manticado then generously sprinkled with slivered almonds on top.



Our little Ashley couldn't stop eating! She managed to steal the serving spoon for the rice and eat off it while we were talking amongst ourselves. Sneaky little devil.

Hubby's Romatic Birthday Dinner

Hubby celebrated a birthday last Saturday. I don't think he would appreciate me broadcasting how many candles he blew out this year :-)



With no definite plans, Hubby and I got ready for a dinner somewhere in Alabang. There are some new restaurants there that we wanted to try out. Right before leaving the house, we decided to take a little roadtrip to Tagaytay instead.

We finally settled to having dinner at Bag of Beans since both of us have never been there and my mom recommended it a few years back.

After about an hour and a half on the road, we finally reached our destination. Bag of Beans is a quaint little garden restaurant found along Aguinaldo Highway. They serve local coffee and English dishes. They serve shepherd's pie, freshly baked breads, coffee, pasta and steaks.

The place is divided into two major indoor dining areas and interspursed tables and chairs for those who prefer al fresco dining. We opted to dine indoors since there was a slight drizzle and it was foggy. Maybe wearing a bustier dress was a bit impractical for a cold foggy night :-)



Hubby and I ordered caesar's salad, lasagna, beef and mushroom pie, roast beef with mashed potatoes and panna cotta. We also took home a loaf of their famous cinnamon raisin bread. I'm not posting any photos because I take lousy food photos under subdued lighting :-)

Here's the lowdown on the food: the Caesar's salad was fresh, cool crisp and very good, made with a home made dressing.

The beef and mushroom pie, was good as well. I liked it, the crust was specially nice (although not as nice as my lola's). I finished the entire thing nonetheless.

The lasagna is very ordinary but not too bad. It could use more mozzarella and more sauce. I only took a bite and took it out.

The roast beef was slightly over cooked. Hubby preferred it medium rare. The sauce accompanying it was good, according to hubby.

The panna cotta's chocolate sauce was a bit rich. It over powered the gentle flavor of the custard.



Hubby and I particularly enjoyed the cool crisp foggy air that only Tagaytay can provide, south of Manila that is.

Happy birthday hubby!

Spaghetti Alfredo

I've seen a show on the food network about a simple recipe for this particular creamy pasta. I've never made this at home since it's not my usual preference but it seemed easy enough to do. So, I tried making some for myself (hubby isn't very fond of cream-based pasta sauces).

Per the recipe, I have to use equal parts cream and milk, some grated Parmesan cheese, salt, pepper and nutmeg. I added some mushrooms to mine to make it more interesting.



The pasta came out perfect. The sauce itself was creamy and cheesy but way to rich for my taste. So rich that I was compelled to rake my backyard to burn off some of the calories!!!

OK, maybe just half of my backyard :-)

Sophie's Garden in BF Homes

There's a new place here in BF, located along Aguirre Avenue that hubby and I have been meaning to try. The opportunity came the other night after hubby and I ran some errands and had decided to just eat out instead of dining at home.

Since it was a spur of the moment thing, we didn't have our camera. I'll just describe the place to you guys. The place is divided into two sections. The first section is an air conditioned bar with a glass waterfall. Music videos are projected onto the waterfall, so it's an interesting concept. The second section is the garden section where tables are lined up under huge green umbrellas. There are some cabanas in the area for diners who want to have more privacy. The garden also has a waterfall and some other water features. The place certainly is charming and cool since there is a fan blowing to cool off the diners. There weren't many people dining there that night, hubby and I wondered about that. The place offers a variety of Filipino, Japanese, Italian and Swiss dishes. The place certainly looked promising.

We got our answer when we ordered. First, the staff is not properly trained on the menu. Second, they're quite pricey and they don't accept credit cards. Third, the food isn't actually stellar. Fourth, it takes forever for your orders to arrive(despite only having 3 small groups dining there) and even longer to get the check.

For this adventurous night, hubby and I settled ordering "safe" dishes. Caesar's salad, spaghetti with porcine mushrooms in cream sauce and spaghetti bolognese.

The Caesar's salad is by far the worst that I've tasted in my entire life. The dressing was missing major ingredients- no anchovies, no lemon juice, no garlic, no Worcestershire sauce and no Parmesan! It tasted like warm beaten egg yolks with mayo. The bottled dressing tastes way better than their "home made" version. The salad greens were at room temperature. Ugh, absolutely awful.



The Spaghetti with Porcine wasn't bad but it hardly had any porcine mushrooms in it.



The Bolognese, according to hubby wasn't bad as well.



Despite the passable taste in the pasta and the charming ambiance, we definitely WON'T be dining there again.

Sophie's garden is too overpriced for its mediocre food.

Pan de Sal Bruschetta

I had two pieces of pan de sal leftover from last weekend. Pan de Sal literally means salted bread. It's the Filipino version of dinner rolls, except that we traditionally eat it for breakfast. The dough is made with flour, sugar, eggs, yeast, lard and salt. After the dough has been worked and has risen, it is then rolled in breadcrumbs prior to baking. This bread is very similar to the English muffins but instead of shaping them into discs and rolling them in cornmeal, the pan de sal is shaped into oblongs and rolled in breadcrumbs.

Anyway, back to my story. I was hungry and the two sorry looking, almost stale pan de sals were crying out to be consumed. Instead of slathering the things with just peanut butter, I decided to make an impromptu bruschetta made from tomatoes found in my crisper, a few slices of emmental cheese and some basil leaves plucked from my garden.



Pan de Sal Bruschetta
2 Pan de Sal, sliced in half
1 Clove of garlic, smashed
2 Tomatoes, diced
2-3 Basil leaves, sliced in ribbons
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste
A few slices of emmental or mozzarella cheese

1. Toast pan de sal until slightly brown.
2. Rub pan de sal with garlic.
3. Top toasts with emmental cheese.
4. In a separate bowl, mix tomatoes, basil, olive oil, salt and pepper. Mix to combine. Pour about a tablespoon on each pan de sal.
5. Toast for a few minutes to melt the cheese and wilt the tomato mixture.

Voila! An Italian twist to a Pinoy dinner roll.

I'm an M&M!

I've just been M&Mnd!



This is so fun. Try it at www.becomeanmm.com

Oatmeal Cookies with Walnuts and Raisins

I can't believe I haven't baked in almost two weeks! I was itching to bake something. I chose to bake some oatmeal cookies for hubby to bring to work and because it's my favorite cookie in the whole wide world ;-). I adapted the recipe from epicurious.com

I didn't have any dates so I just added more walnuts and rainins to compensate. My comments are in italics. Here's the original recipe:



2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 cup solid vegetable shortening, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup raisins (I used 1 1/2 cups)
1 cup chopped pitted dates (I didn't have any in my pantry so I omitted this from the recipe)
1 cup chopped walnuts (I used 1 1/2 cups)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 2 baking sheets with foil; butter foil (I used baking paper instead so that I don't have to butter). Blend first 5 ingredients in medium bowl.
Using electric mixer, beat butter, vegetable shortening, and both sugars in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in honey, eggs, and vanilla. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in oats, raisins, dates, and walnuts. Drop batter by tablespoonfuls (or use a medium spring loaded ice cream scoop for uniformity) onto prepared sheets, spacing mounds 2 inches apart. Flatten cookies slightly.

Bake cookies until golden brown, about 10 minutes. Cool completely on sheets. (Can be made 2 days ahead. Store airtight at room temperature.)

Makes about 4 dozen. (Mine yielded 52 cookies)

I got a very excited call from hubby telling me that the cookies he brought to work didn't even last five minutes!

Oh, how I love baking.