my gift to myself

In lieu of a celebration, I instead donated to CARA and made myself a member.

It’s the best gift I’ve ever given and gotten at the same time.

four out of six

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to make a baby look at the camera? Even harder is to make a baby smile at the camera.

And god, do you have any idea how difficult it is to make one dog behave and look at the camera? Highly difficult! Multiply it by three and it’s nearly impossible.

So if you have a baby and throw in three dogs, what you’ll get is a very chaotic attempt to get a decent picture taken.

Well, four out of six ain’t so bad.

guess who's not watching Transformers today

Me.

Booooooo.

cook me 50: lemon mint teaz ala kozui

I love Kozui! I love anmitsu! And hubby and I enjoy the Lemon Teaz (or was it Mint Teaz?) there as well.

But I have this thing with drinks... I really dislike paying a hundred bucks for a glass of anything. Seriously! I don't mind paying for food. But there's something about paying for drinks that I just can't stand (yeah, the expensive-ness of it :P).

So, like anything I don't want to pay for, I decided to make it at home ;)

What you will need:

• 2 t (or 4g) sencha green tea - you can buy this per pack at the grocery or at Japanese marts. A 100g bag costs around 200 bucks. And it can make you 20-25 glasses!
  
• 2 t chopped mint leaves - I really want to buy my own mint plants. I haven't found time to go to the seedling bank yet, so I bought a pack of mint leaves from the grocery. At Ph200/kilo, one huge styro pack of leaves cost a measly 15 bucks. You will actually only need the leaves from 2-3 stems.
  
• 1/2 lemon - again, from the grocery. I think it was Php 12 per piece. You can cut a thin slice of lemon from the half that you're gonna use for your presentation later on.
  
• 1 TB sugar (or sugar syrup) - readily available in any home.
  

Place your tea and mint leaves in a mug of tea pot. Pour in a half cup of hot water and let seep for about 5 minutes. Strain into your serving glass and in add half cup of cold water, the juice from your half lemon, and sugar. Mix. Add ice and the slice of lemon into your glass. Serve and enjoy!

It's extremely easy to make, you don't get stuck in traffic, no problems with parking space, you avoid the crowd that are possible carriers of H1N1, and at a tiny fraction of the cost (about Ph15 a glass!) you get to enjoy a cool, refreshing drink in the comforts of your home ;)

cook me 49: beef teppan

Sometimes (well, most of the time these days), the yummiest food produces the worst pics.



Beef teppan swimming in lots and lots and lots of sauce. Just the way I like it. Yum!

just the regular old flu

I'm stuck at home for the second day now, and I have about a million things I want to do but can't. My head feels likes it's about to fall off, and my throat feels like a cat's scratching post. I can't even go down to see Aiden just to make sure she doesn't catch what I have. [I so do NOT believe that breastmilk's antibodies make babies immune to mommy's sickness]. And I don't have the energy to play with the dogs.

Being sick absolutely sucks.

one and one

Happy happy 11th birthday Dee!!!



Ice cream for all doggies tonight! :D

cook me 48: fave fried chicken

I have such a huge backlog of cook me's to post! So without further ado, here's one of many.


We all have our favorite fried chickens. I have chicken moods, and would sometimes get my fried chicken fix from Max's or an instant fry mix. But my absolute absolute favorite fried chicken is what my old yaya would cook. I made sure to get her recipe before she retired a couple of years ago, but like any old cook, she did everything by tancha. I've cooked this a couple of times, but never really got the taste I so loved. Until finally, one day, ta-dah!

Ingredients: chicken, soysauce, garlic, salt, cornstarch. I actually never noted the ingredients proportion, so the next time I cook I probably will get it wrong again, but yay to fried chicken!