grilled goodness for lunch today

Grilled chicken and veggies (asparagus and red & green bell peppers -- '-ber' na! lapit na ang Christmas!) using a recipe from Dinner: A Love Story. Yum. Never thought yogurt could be used as a marinade.

In other news, this is my first-grade cousin's activity sheet. My view is that his answer is correct and should have been accepted by his teacher. What do you think?

And here's a link to cool chlorophyll prints by a cool guy named Binh Danh.

Lastly, a couple of Garfield strips to end this post. Love them; these remind me so much of my husband. :D

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Happy September!

Happy Birthday, Lola Cecile! :)
Happy Birthday, Steph! :)

other August food

This is a photo-heavy post.

Onigiri from the supermarket. Didn't know what the filling was when we bought it. I picked this over the others just because orange appealed to me that time.

The filling was tuna. Next time I'll try a different one.

Beef picadillo (my mother-in-law's yummy recipe), 2 ways:

as a soup

mixed with rice

Chicken, bean sprouts, carrots, cabbage and enoki stir-fry (this is similar to the pork stir-fry I made last month except that now I used chicken)

Italian chicken adobo (chicken adobo with tomatoes)

Quick lunch: pasta, canned tuna, carrots, mushrooms and parmesan

HLC sandwich (ham, lettuce and cheese)

Banana pancakes for breakfast. Just popped in some banana bits while the pancakes were cooking on the first side.

Instant ramen

McDonald's Shaka Shaka Chicken

Blanched broccoli

IKEA hotdogs with fried egg

top is mine (I don't like my yolk runny); bottom is Ronjie's

Homemade garlic bread with sausages

Fried chicken with Japanese mayo and blanched carrots & asparagus

Ampalaya with egg (based on this recipe from homecookingrocks.com, now casaveneracion.com, except I used ground pork instead of dried shrimps)

Mustard-tandoori chicken nuggets (recipe here - site is in French; use Google Translate)

They were good! We used mayonnaise as a dipping sauce.

Chinese dumplings and noodle soup. Bought some pork & cabbage dumplings from the Chinese grocery downtown. Boiled them then added them to a soup I made by with some garlic, onions and chicken chunks. Added some noodles which I had leftover from when I cooked almondigas.

package of dumplings and the noodles I used (misua sana kaso wala akong mahanap dito)

Taco salad made with beef (with powdered taco mix) lettuce, tomatoes, cheese cubes (we don't have a good grater) and Doritos

IKEA meatballs with fritessaus (which Ronjie brought home from McDonald's Amsterdam)

Stir-fried bean sprouts, spinach and enoki mushrooms

Chicken breast adobo with broccoli

Chicken, spring garlic and eryngii mushrooms stir-fry (recipe here, but I substituted gochujang for hot chili soy paste)

Ending this with some Garfield :D

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cooking with instant spice mixes

They make cooking so much easier! And now I can cook semi-"exotic" dishes. :)

(Mom, don't worry, we use them only once in a while. I cook fresh and from scratch most of the time.)

Ronjie came home from the supermarket with these packets of instant spices, ¥98 each!

This is our herb-grilled salmon which I paired with ginger-marinated cucumbers:

Then we made paella in our rice cooker! How wonderful is that?! It's just rice, chicken which I boiled then fried a bit, some small chorizo-like wieners and red & green bell peppers. The paella was good. Not restaurant-grade, but good enough for us to want to make it again. Will try other "fillings" next time... maybe seafood?

And tandoori chicken! Which I burnt. :D I used this same tandoori powder for the mustard-tandoori chicken nuggets which I made for lunch on another day. (Will share photos & the recipe in the next blog post.)

(Served the tandoori chicken with cream cheese, by the way. Masarap naman.)

August snacks & desserts

Nestle Nuts which Ronjie brought home from Amsterdam - tasted like Snickers

Reese's ♥

Doritos with cream cheese and salsa :D

some type of sesame cracker, which I had with cream cheese

soft-serve vanilla ice cream cone at IKEA

IKEA hotdog sandwich (looking at the pickle relish is making my mouth water all over again)

coconut jelly with nata de coco, orange wedges and peach bits

fresh fruit cup
(pomelo, kiwi, grapes and pineapple)

fruitcake baked by H-san

avocado and watermelon
(I used the avocado when we grilled some burgers for lunch :D)

dot dot dot

The past week was filled with news, especially in the United States.

- First there was that strong earthquake in the East Coast, which caused a 4-inch crack near the pyramid tip of the Washington Monument.
- Then Steve Jobs announces his resignation as CEO of Apple.
- Then Hurricane Irene. (Did you know? Hurricanes and typhoons are both tropical cyclones. Difference is if it's located in the Atlantic, it's called a hurricane; if the cyclone is located in the Pacific, it's a typhoon.) Hurricane Irene was eventually downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm.
- Then Beyonce announces she's pregnant.

Over here in Japan, there's a new Prime Minister.

Anyway, can't think of any connecting theme for the recent news which I can use to write a paragraph or two on, so this ends here. Leaving you with a link to tips on how to disinfect and deodorize kitchen sponges and cutting boards (click here) and Steve Jobs' famous Stanford speech. I liked what he said about connecting dots: "...you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever..." And just like that, it seems I have my theme: trusting that the dots will somehow connect in the future. :D (Pero biglang tinatamad na ako magsulat.)

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Good night :)

Mr. Owl (August)

August 7

August 14

August 21

August 28