Thursday, April 26, 2012

Another trip!

So finally after almost two years, I get to go out of this huge Texas state! The last time I went to Vegas, without knowing, I was pregnant. I was probably 2 weeks pregnant that time. It was September, 2010. So that would make it a year and a half. Wow. I have been in my little small corner for a year and a half and I survived! Yey me! Haha!

So tonight! We are leaving for vega and this time around, our darling daughter will be tagging along. This should he fun as I have no other intention but to eat and eat and eat. Lol! Don't even remind me of insanity! Ahaha!

So if y'all have any cool suggestions on places to eat and whatever to do or go. Please do comment.

For sure, for sure I will definitely have to visit Max Brenner!!! Because I just have a massive sweet tooth. And of course, our vegas trip would never be complete without a brunch in Jollibee and stopping by at Red Ribbon to take home a yummy cake!!!

To any of you who don't know what Jollibee is. Its a fastfood in the Philippines that is equivalent to McDonalds. The menu consist of hotdog in a bun, couple kinds of burger, fried chicken with rice, breakfast food, ice cream sundae and other filipino food. Its just so good. You have to try it. Too bad they don't have it in Texas.

Anyway, will update y'all soon on any dainty news I'll have to share!!!!

Babush!!!!

Last night's festivities

Sorry folks! I didn't get a chance to take a picture of the finished lechon last night. My hands were too oily. Plus, I was too preoccupied in eating & eating & eating!!! Hey, I can justify my eating habits because I exercise. So I deserved it! Ha!

The lechon was sooooo good. To any of you who doesn't know what a lechon is. It is a kind of delicacy that we have in the Philippines thats always been stapled in any event or dinner party.

The Homemade Lechon was so delicious. The sauce that was used to brush it was just the perfect balance of flavor. The stuffing used to flavor it complemented the meat. And it was so drenched in good flavor that the meat sucked it in. So with every bite, you have this juicy and tender meat that seems to melt in your mouth. I didn't even use pinakurat (a kind of yummy sauce!) to eat it with. It was that good. It was beyond words! Too bad I didn't get to capture that moment. Then you pair it with white steamed rice and a glass of ice cold cola and you are in food heaven! Of course, I didn't indulge in the cola part because I am just trying to avoid that. Lol.

Then dessert, we had a slice of this tres leches cake with a creamy & milky, not too sweet filling. The icing was just the right amount of sweetness. The cake itself was just so soft and moist. Even the fondant tasted great.

We had ourselves a good yummilicious dinner!

Of course, whats a party without booze ey! So the guys had their drink. Well, only 3 of them shared a bottle of french liquor. And they almost finished it! Good thing my Aunt took it away. Lol! They were hammered which made the night even more fun because they were just blabbering their hearts out. Lol.

By the way, shout out to my mother in law. Its her birthday today! Happy Birthday Mommy! May God pour his favor on you as you have with us!

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Lechon!!! Roasted Pig!

My uncle & brother in law are always full of good ideas specially when it comes to food. And since it was my mom in law's birthday, what better time to have another good idea. Well they have been at it for a long time and finally they're acting on it. They decided to barbeque their own pig. Lol Roast would be a better word.

They're actually still cooking it right now. I'll take another picture later when its cooked and I'll let you guys know how good it tastes. Heheh!

Another birthday!!!

Tomorrow is my mother in law's birthday! And tomorrow my husband and I together with our daughter, my brother in law, our nephew, and my mother in law will be heading to vegas baby, yet again! I don't know why, well I do know why. But our vacays and trips always takes us to vegas. For one I married into a family who likes casino! And I myself, a food lover! So vegas is always a good choice, since it is full of great casino's for them, good food for me, and great shows for the kiddo's!!!

Since were leaving tomorrow, they decided to have a little dinner tonight to celebrate our dear Mommy's birthday!! And you know me, I just love dinner's and parties and plus I would take any excuse to pick up a cake. I just love selecting a design for cakes and have them made.

So I went ahead and ordered yesterday at a local bakery called CC's sweets & tweets. Sadly they require you to call ahead 48 hours in advance. Good thing I always go there every friday to buy a cupcake called "the rocher" that they only sell on fridays and by the way I have never tasted it because they always ran out by the time I get there LoL!!! So Roberta, the owner was so nice and said that for me she could make it happen! Yay! I love her and that place and everything they make. So I was so excited to see the cake! And now I have it and I just can't wait to show it to you guys.

Its a tres leche flavored 6 inch cake. I will let you know how good it is after I take a bite at it later. Lol!

Fried Tuesday continuation

Have you ever been so sleepy that things you were holding just slip out your hands or whatever you were writing became just lines and scribbles? Well, last night my eyes were half open. Like literally! You have no idea how many times I erased whatever I wrote because I couldn't even understand what it was. Lol.

Anywho. So I was saying last night we worked out like crazy and so did we today. Well, back to my point! After shedding out lots of sweat yesterday, a little light went on my head and I decided to fry the chicken and the salmon that I put out few hours back to defrost. I mean, we deserved it after a month and a half of working out.
PLUS, I used olive oil to fry it. Hahah!

Enjoy the pictures! By the way if you ever are curios, I just put a little salt & pepper then just fried it. Simple! Oh and the other food was hard boiled eggs, corned beef (filipino style) & of course white rice! Voila! Dinner served!

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Fried Tuesday!!

My husband and I had another Insanity workout session today. Let me tell you, just when you think its gonna get easy, it just gets harder and harder!!! I don't get it. Isn't it suppose to be easier after a few tries and repeats? Right? Right! Well then how come every session just seems to be harder amd harder and harder. We sweat more. Eat more. Work at it more. Now that I think about it, we do more as time goes by. I guess that's the reason why it never becomes easy. Its maybe because when your body becomes comfortable, insanity forces you to push yourself a few more steps every single day.

And now! I am very tired, very sore. And I don't normally sleep before midnight, but I think tonight I will
make an exception.

Anyway, before I forget to tell you the reason why I blogged tonight, I'm just going to blurt it out, because believe it or not, I am having a hard time keeping my eyes open.

You know what? Just forget it. I will post about whatever was on my mind tomorrow. For now I will have my long sleep. Good night!!!!

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Sweet Creamy Lasagna (filipino style)

I'm a pasta person. I have been craving for lasagna for as far as I can remember. The last time I made one was about almost more than a year ago. I'm not so crazy in cooking them just because I'm gonna have to use a couple of pans. Lol.

Anyway, due to a severe thunderstorm watch yesterday and a 15-minute hail during the afternoon, we didn't get to go to a birthday party where I was quite sure had lasagna.

So finally this afternoon, I finally pushed myself to cook lasagna. But this is a bit different. You see, I like my lasagna sweet and creamy and cheesy. Kinda like the lasagna I tasted way back when in a food chain called Greenwich in the Philippines.
So here goes the recipe!! By the way, I didn't use any extra cheese to top it off because its already too cheesy & creamy.

Sweet Creamy Lasagna
Ingredients:
Lasagna noodles. (I prefer the no boil one. If using boiling-required-noodles, just follow the instructions in the box.)

Sweet Red Sauce
1 clove garlic finely chopped
1/2 onion finely chopped
Carrots finely chopped
^^^just add as much or as little as you like
1 container of spaghetti sauce (I used ragu)
1/4 cup of sugar
Half a box of cream cheese
1/4 of a box of cheese (I prefer velveeta)
Ground beef
Hotdog (I used sausage because I ran out of hotdogs)
1 can of mushroom (I ran out)
1 tbsp of olive oil

White Sauce
1 clove garlic
1 container of alfredo sauce
1 can cream of mushroom
1/2 cup of milk
Half a box of cream cheese
1/4 of a box of cheese (use velveeta)

Heat oil in a deep pan/skillet. Sautee garlic, onions, carrots for 2 minutes. Then mix in the ground beef. Let stand for 6 minutes. Add in spaghetti/tomato sauce and let boil. Then add in the hotdog. Keep on stirring. Then add in the cheese and cream cheese. Make sure its chopped so it will be more easier to melt. Keep on stirring until everything is well blended. Go ahead and add the sugar. Let it simmer for another 5 more minutes in low mediym heat. Then set aside.

Get another deep skillet or pan. Heat oil. Sautee garlic. Add alfredo sauce, cream of mushroom & milk. Keep stirring until well blended. Then add cheese and cream cheeseKeep on stirring until well blended and bring to a boil. You can then add mushroom and let simmer for 5 minutes more in low medium heat. If the sauce is not thick enough for you, you can always add a little bit of flour. Just a teaspoon or so. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a rectangular pan, put enough creamy sauce to cover the bottom. Lay 3 (or can be more, depends on how wide the container is) lasagna noodles on top. Then put a layer of red sauce on top of the noodles. Now normally, you would put another layer of cheese on top of that, but I wouldn't recommend that for this particular recipe because the sauce itself is already rich. Then just repeat until you fill the pan up. So remember, cream sauce first, then noodles, then red sauce, then cheese(optional). Then repeat again.

Bake it in a 350 degree oven for 35-40 minutes.

And voila!!

Samantha Who?

So I was going to make some lasagna. Well, I should be cooking one right now. Infact, I am standing in the middle of the kitchen right beside the lasagna box, but the sound at the TV is so enticing. Grrr!

I can't do any work around here because my husband keeps putting on Samantha Who?

Hahaha! I love that show. We just started watching it around 3 days ago in netflix! Now we can't stop. Its so funny!

Haii. Ok I gotta go now. I am starving! Hopefully I can fight off the temptation next door. Lol!!!

Thank heavens for Annie in Netflix!!!

I was in a very deep sleep when I felt my entire sleeping world shaking. I wake up to find my daughter's smiling face right infront of me while she was trying to wake me up in her own way. It was 9:30 am already, but I had a long night. You see, Hayli, my baby, decided to take a four hour nap last night. So when she woke up @ 11 pm, she was bouncing off the walls. Haha! She didn't settle down until around 1:30ish am. I think I fell asleep at 2 am. I don't know. I was to groggy to keep watch of the time.

Did I mention, my husband and I was doing the Insanity workout Max Interval
Circuit? So I was definitely beat!!

Well anyway, I had been experimentig with different shows for babies & kids alike. Cartoons, non cartoons, anything you can imagine, I had tried to show my 11 month old daughter. None of them could hold her attention. Up until I stumbled upon Annie!

Yes! Good old Annie. Who knew Hayli would be very much fascinated by that show? It makes perfect sense. She loves children & music. Annie's a bunch of children singing and dancing all the time.

Ever since Hayli saw Annie it has been on repeat everyday. I can memorize some of the lines already! But thats ok! At least, I can calm her down for a little bit.

So anyway, as I was saying. I was still then too sleepy when she woke up. So I put her back to her crib, turned on the TV, turned on Netflix in our PS3, and played Annie. Voila! I can now go back to sleep! Haha!

Well, I was going to go back to sleep, but as you can tell, I can't since I'm blogging my sleep away.

Nifty little invention though. Netflix, I mean. Thanks to them, I can play Annie any day any time. On the tv thru PS3 or XBox, thru the laptop, ipad and even iphone. Why, even since we had netflix, we barely turn the cable on. My husband only watches NBA on cable. The rest of the shows we watch in netflix. Did I mention its only $8.99/ month? Pretty cheap!

Anyway. That's my tale! Im so hungry! Gotta go eat! Babush!!!

Friday, April 20, 2012

Christening of Meryiella Hayli

Just wanted to share my daughter's christening pictures. It was on March of this year. I was in over my head looking for an appropriate theme for that particular event when suddenly it dawned on me. ANGELS!!!!

What a perfect theme for such an occasion. With the help of my husband, sisters, close friends, other family members, and most especially my mother. We were able to pull the event off. We did everything, from the centerpieces to the welcome banners blowing up the balloons and etc. it was all DIY. I got most of materials at the local craft store in the downtown area, Michael's and of course Hobby Lobby. Oh and I got some of my templates at etsy.com.

It was a lot of work, but it was totally worth it. And I did get a lot of help. We got the food catered by our dear friends, Vergel De dios catering. Too bad they aren't doing it on full time due to busy schedules. Their food was great & awesome and yummy!!! We got the cake from a local bakery called Jessica's cupcakes. It was delish. And the rest of the desserts were from Sam's club. Omg. I never thought they had such a good and yummy selection of sweets.

And what is a party without any minor complications. Lol! We ran out of food because one of the main course from another caterer did not show up due to time concers.

But the party must go on. So party we did!

And at the end of the night, good friends stayed to help clean up!!! Thank heavens for them angels!! :)

It was definitely a moment to remember.

Insanity Fever!!

So about a month ago, my husband and I kept on badgering each other about how much weight we have put in.

Technically, because of my always-hungry- milk-sucking daughter (Btw, I'm still bf) I was back to my normal weight which was 107 lbs and I am very much happy with that weight. But due to my inactiveness during my "preggo" months I still have flabs that needed to be tightened here and there. And at that point, I was fairly convinced that only surgery could put an end to that flabbiness.

My husband on the other hand, during those times, couldn't wear a buttoned shirt without a button opening up, take note, opening and not popping.
Now before you have that image in your head. My husband is not a big guy and never was (he might find this blog). Lol. That button popping chuvaness was due to the fact that almost all his shirts are tight and none of them literally leaves any room for excess baggage!

Yes! He was that skinny. Ok not skinny. Let's just say he was fit.

Now during my preggo months my hankering for food was stronger than ever. And my passion for cooking was off the charts. So everyday I would be baking and cooking and what not. And of course, naturally who gets to eat all of those goody food? My husband of course. It didn't help that our condo at that time was kind of isolated from everybody else. So it was really just me and my husband eating our days away.

So that my friends are my excuses for putting on those extra flabs. Haha

Anyway, 1 year and a half later he decided to take control and purchase the Insanity DVD. He purchased it HERE!!

And let me tell you. It really works! We are barely finishing the 1st week of the 2nd month and it is crazy insane. And I am not just saying this just because. I don't get paid for this. I'm throwing this out to you guys because it has worked for my husband and I.

As usual, guys tend to lose weight faster than women. My husband went from 140 to 134 lbs in a month's time and we weren't even digging deeper. It might not seem a lot but you can see the difference in the body, especially around the waist area. He can now proudly wear all his old shirts without a bump. Of course the shoulder and the back are a little tight due to the muscles popping out.

I, on the other hand maintained my weight. I went from 107 to 104. Did I mention that they have a formula in which you can calculate your daily calorie intake? We, of course chose to maintain our weight, therefore we get to eat more everyday just to have enough energy and maintain that weight.

We weren't into slimming down. We bought it to tone up.

Don't worry. I will keep you guys posted about this Insanity craze workout. And by the end of the program, I will definitely put up pictures of my husband and I, with or without his consent. Hahaha!!!