A lot of things to be thankful

Hello everyone! Hope you’re all fine. We are in the middle of a great renovation so our house is a total mess at the moment. After 20 years, when everything in the kitchen seem to be falling apart, we’ve decided to have a new one. It’s when we cannot open and close the door of refrigerator without fear that it will fall on us, or that the exhaust vent produce this alarming noise and not sucking the air out and the work surface has burnt places and scratches. Time for a new one!

That’s the first thank you – thank you for the 20 years’ service of the old kitchen. We’ve spent a lot of times cooking, preparing, listening to radio, talking, arguing, baking, etc. When HRH the son was small, he loved helping me bake some brownies.

Talking of HRH the son, and his beautiful K, they celebrated their second wedding anniversary yesterday – congratulations and best wishes! They will be here to visit us next month so we are looking forward to seeing them again.

Thank you for giving us nice spring weather, our flowers are blooming and the tortoises are happy eating their lettuce and dandelions.

Because we still don’t have a new kitchen, we have been cooking with just one burner camping cooker and an electric kettle so we’ve been testing our creativity as well as our patience to produce some meals. Thanks for testing us.

Sometimes, we go out for a meal, too and here are some of the food we’ve had.

Thank you for the holidays, glad we’ve got two weeks’ off because of Pentecost and spring break, we have time to sort out the mess, or to be in this mess while things are being done in the kitchen.

Thanks for the cycling trips we have been doing.

Have a lovely week everyone!

For: #ThreeThingsThursday – What made me smile this week…, TToT – 5/25/18 ,  ALL SEASONS – BUSY CHAIRS,  Visiting Clarion Alley in San Francisco,  Tell Me Something Good #109

 

E is for Epulaeryu

The Epulaeryu poem is all about delicious food. It consists of seven lines with thirty-three (33) syllables. The first line has seven (7) syllables, the second line five (5), the third line seven (7), the fourth line five (5), the fifth line five (5), the sixth line three (3), and the seventh line has only one (1) syllable which ends with an exclamation mark. The form is 7/5/7/5/5/3/1. Each line has one thought which is about the main course. Therefore, this poetic form, the Epulaeryu, which has corresponding lines built around the main course and ending with an exclamation point, concludes with the ending line expressing the writer’s excitement and feelings about the poem. The poem may be rhymed or unrhymed. The Epulaeryu poem was developed by Joseph Spence, Sr. The name of the poetic form was selected as a result of experiencing the Mediterranean and Far East cultures, and enjoying many succulent and nourishing meals and food during those memorable travels.

LECHON
Entire pig is spit-roasted
Served with liver sauce
Over coals with crisp skin
Stomach is stuffed
Anise and laurel
Delicious
Yum!

SINIGANG
Stew of fish, prawns or pork
Soured by tamarind
With kangkong and string beans
Is eaten with rice
My favourite dish
So sour
Wow!

For: E Is For Everybody And Everything #atozchallenge,  fifth day of Na/GloPoWriMo

Filipino Dishes

Our national dish, adobo! Filipinos can cook it anywhere in the world, as long as we have the main ingredients: chicken or pork, vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, salt and pepper. Marinate all the ingredients, fry them with a little oil, then simmer them until cooked.

chicken adobo, rice and peas

Stir-frying is my favourite style of cooking – chop all ingredients in small sizes, like julienne. Fry garlic, ginger and onions, first, then add beef and the vegetables. Add oyster sauce, chilli sauce, soy sauce and voila – stir-fried beef!

stir-fried beef and vegetables

Preserved ampalaya and atsara – good accompaniment for any grilled or fried fish, chicken, pork or beef.

preserved ampalaya and atsara

Pancit palabok – is the first meal I ask when I come home to the Philippines because I don’t cook it here. It has some seafood like shrimps, dried fish or tinapa, boiled eggs, glass noodles, etc. Delicious!

pancit palabok

Siomai is dim sum, steamed bun with vegetables and meat inside.

siomai

Favourite breakfast – also known as tapsilog which is a short form of tapa, sinangag (fried rice) and itlog (eggs)

beef tapa, eggs and rice

Grilled squid – yummy! Stuffed with tomatoes, onions, garlic, some herbs, salt and pepper.

stuffed and grilled squid

Lovely soup – chicken, unriped papaya, ginger, onions. Good when one has a cold. Or when one is homesick.

chicken tinola soup

Our favourite dessert! My brother has got this super recipe and it’s to die for! 10 egg yolks, 1 can of condensed milk, 2 cans of evaporated milk, some rinds of lemon. The secret is to caramelise some sugar in a dish, sieve the mixture then steam it, or bain marie it.

leche flan

 

Seafood, tofu and beef

Hello everyone! Sharing with you three things we’ve been cooking lately.

First one: seafood and vegetables

Second dish: tofu and vegetables

Third dish: Him Indoors’ beef, smoked ham, mushrooms, red wine

Enjoy!

For: #ThreeThingsThursday – What made me smile this week…

Chicken Pancit

Hello everyone from a snowy Munich! Last night, we cooked chicken pancit.

Ingredients are simple – chicken breast, garlic, ginger, spring onions, carrots, celery, green beans, red pepper. Prepare ingredients, cut chicken in small pieces and the vegetables, too. Crush garlic and ginger in a mortar and pestle. Fry the chicken with a little rapeseed oil, take them out once brown. Fry the ginger and garlic, add the vegetables. Take them out of the pan. Fry the soaked noodles or pancit, add the chicken and vegetables.

It was delicious!

For: ALL SEASONS – BEGIN DECEMBER 2017,  #MySundayPhoto – My Friend Robin , They Still Need Help Putting the Star on the Tree

 

#ThreeThingsThursday – What made me smile this week…

Hello everyone! I was able to buy some vegetables so I made “pinakbet” which was stir fried vegetables with bagoong or soy sauce. It was delicious!

Using my new paraffin hand treatment machine…

Last night’s dinner – chicken and pork adobo with green beans, rice and salad.

Have a great week everyone!

For: #ThreeThingsThursday – What made me smile this week…, Tell Me Something Good #84

B’S POETRY CHALLENGE #36 – Challenging

Trying street food in the Philippines is fun but challenging
Emerge yourself by tasting some weird food like balut and kwek-kwek
But also be prepared to have some belly ache afterwards

Street food in Manila is cheap but you can’t be sure
It’s very popular but you also have to be careful
You never know where they come from and might not suit your system

street food
challenging enough
delicious
cheap and fun
you can get them anytime
tell me what you think*

(c) ladyleemanila 2017

* How to Write a Sijo

* There are three lines which average 14-16 syllables. The final count is 44-46 syllables;

* Line one introduces the theme;
* Line two elaborates on the theme;
* Line three introduces a counter-theme and concludes with a “twist”;

* Each line has a pause – or caesura – roughly in the middle (commas are great for this);
* Each half line is 6-9 syllables long;

* There is no end rhyme;
* There is no title;
* Western sijo are often printed in six lines, breaking lines at the pause.
…This is because a 16-syllable line is quite long – spilling beyond the space allotted to one printed line.

For: B’S POETRY CHALLENGE #36