Bento Less Days

I have been craving for bento for weeks but don't have energy to whip one. Not even the simplest lunch. Here are the bentos that I have totally forgotten to post here:

pork bento with egg. on the backgrund is a miso soup

I had this bento last February when we celebrated our eight anniversary. We are not the organized couple who would book somewhere for a date. We usually spend our anniversary the same way we celebrate our monthsary (yes, you read that right! we celebrate monthly) by going to the mall and randomly select a restaurant or a fast food. This year we ate at a  japanese restaurant, Teriyaki Boy. We got two mugs for free. I will post  about it in the future.

Below is a bento that I prepared for work last February. I had a strawberry sandwich and a crabstick/carrots/lettuce with asian dressing salad that was topped with parmesan cheese. great lunch,right?

February Bento Lunch: egg with olives as eyes, lettuce, asian dressing, strawberry sandwich, parmesan cheese, crabstick and carrots (L-R)

Lip Balm, Strawberries and Laughing Cow

I promised myself at least a monthly update on this blog but with so much work waiting everyday at the office and the new baby keeping us on our toes, blogging is still on the backseat. But just to keep myself on the move, here are the inprocess in our home:

1. I realized that transferring lot ownership here in the Philippines is expensive and requires a lot of waiting. Red tape is always present in our government offices here. Even if we pay thousand of pesos, we still get our time wasted because a simple signature of who-ever-the head of their department can't make it on the deadline (even if we waited two days or more, they are not able to give us the receipt that we need.) I hope someone from the Bureau of Internal Revenues get to read this. Hello, your Red Tape in the office cost us our 1000/day salary!

2. It is still summer here. An officemate gave us strawberries from Bagiuo and ube halaya:

 3. I am still preparing bento for G. But I have been skipping the photo sessions because I am too tired to take them. Preparing bento, although I am faster now and less panicky still requires time in the morning. Here is our new bento hero: The Laughing Cow. It saved me from the picky palate lately because according to G, "it is not salty nor sweet. Just creamy and cheesy".

 4. I have few addictions: blog hopping , bento, lip care like lipbalm, lipgloss, and the likes and movie marathons

5. I am now finding time to read my ebooks using my tab. But I was disappointed with the 50 Shades of Grey. I have issues with the grammar and the trying-hard to be romantic dialogues. I did not get past the 4th Chapter. To each his own I guess. Not just my type. I am still looking for new books to read. I think its time to reread Ender's Game. It was a nice sci-fi book.

Japanese Curry In Few Minutes

This is not my first time to cook Japanese Curry. I have been a fan of this curry since I found the recipe at my favorite local bento blogger, kaoko . And I am such a bad blogger that I forgot to take a photo of my cooked pork curry. But I did not forgot the ingredients:

The star of the post. What you see in the box is how the cooked curry will look.

S&B Golden Curry No.3

You will need at least a half kilo of pork (not pictured), potatoes, carrots and onion. I used three potatoes although the recipe calls for one potato only, one carrots and one small onion. Diced the three ingredients.
Saute the onion and add the pork until brown. Add the potatoes and carrots and six cups of water. Make sure that everything is covered by the liquid. Let simmer until pork and vegetables are cooked.

potatoes, carrots and onion

 Add one pack of curry. You can dissolve the curry first by adding some liquid from the pot in a bowl and mixing the curry to avoid undissolved curry. Simmer until it thickens.

another photo of potatoes, carrots and onion together with one pack of S&B golden curry

Serve with rice or put in a bento box with rice and fruit (i prefer banana) and you are on your way.

Lock & Lock Bento: Leftover Bento Madness

Entering my third trimester, with workload still as difficult as before I have to resort to food for some energy. I have been bringing bento to work than ever. They are not as pretty as the previous one, more on the practical side. I have encountered some bento safety issues lately and manages to find solution through google and other bloggers.

I have been using G's Lock&Lock because its available and most of my bento boxes are small (or so i think!).


Pink Salmon and Scrambled Egg Bento

This bento is a speedy bento. The Pink Salmon is a canned-store bought one which I nuked for few minutes while the egg is a easy-peasy scrambled egg. I added a tiny ripe tomato for my vegetable and a dash color on a blue penguin food pick.It goes well with my bento staple: rice. 

 

Tuna Soboro with ginger - ground pork with potatoes -cucumber - rice bento:

The tuna soboro is an experiment (found the recipe from justbento) and still quite tasty after being stocked in the refrigerator for two days. It's a little bit too tasty for my pregnant-affected taste buds though so I might adjust the seasoning next time. The ground pork is a sauted port with potato and a dinner leftover. The cute ms. monkey container (she used to be mrs. monkey but the hubs lost her partner, mr. monkey few years ago.sad ) have mayonnaise for my cucumber. It was a delicious lunch and I think its a hearty lunch. Too big actually for me and the little one in my belly.

What's in your lunch box? I have been reading a 9 year old blogger's account of her daily school  lunch lately and I wish we have lunch like that here in the office. 

Office Snacks

Our summer turned into a rainy season with all the rain showers lately. Although some find that annoying (especially those who are beach lovers), we welcome rain in our weekend. It made our days and nights cooler. Summer here in the PI meas intense heat that you will probably be dehydrated if you do not bring with you a water bottle to cool off.

As I get bigger (my belly), my food fatigue wore off. I can now eat the things that I used to love except coffee.
Okay, I have to admit that there are days that I sneak in some decaf but that's all.

This is the best snack for me at this time of deprivation:

krispy kreme (glazed) and brewed coffee 

 This snack cost me almost nothing. I have a great friend who would visit us at the house and brings us a dozen of this donuts and the coffee is a gift from friend.

local brewed coffee (or kapeng barako) and bibingka

This combo cost 50 pesos. You can buy it on the go or dine-in.

 As a precaution (I am freaking out on the what-nots of being pregnant, even when it comes to food), I have been bringing my own lunch in the office. I am still lazy.

I know that brewed coffee is off-limits for me. That's why this bibingka will do for now. I will pretend that my Anmum choco drink is as good as my home brewed coffee when it comes to taste.

bibingka from Bibingkinitan

What's in your snack bag?

Another Easy Bento Rice-Based and Favorite Snacks

My energy is coming back! Being pregnant is not a walk in the park but you it is a great experience knowing that you have another life living inside you. One of my DH's colleague lost her baby last Saturday and we are saddened with the news. It reminds me of being extra careful for the next five months so that this kiddo inside my belly will grow stronger each day, safe and sound.

For the brighter issues, here is another bento that I have not posted yet. It was easy and tasty! Next time though I will be adding some vegetables and fruits for a more balance meal:

bacon, meatloaf and rice. 

I used my daiso-bought rice mold and small butterfly cutter + flower food picks and panda&tiger.

On breakfast, I missed my favorite "taho". It is a soya yogurt that is served with brown sugar and sago pearls.

yummy taho!

Our weekend is fun except for an incident with the househelp that leads us to the decision of finding a new one. Do you have any househelp issues?

Joining linky party:

Motivate Me Monday at Keeping It Simple
Making Monday Marvelous at C.R.A.F.T.

Fish Fillet and Hashbrown Bento

I am still here. Our wifi connection had some technical issues and I cannot upload any pictures, that is my excuse for not blogging. But really, pregnancy makes me not so eager to blog and even read blogs! But I am on my second trimester of pregnancy now (we were on 3 months and 2 weeks, so that means I am already on my 2nd trimester right?) so most of my former self is back. I have more energy to stay long in front of the computer.

There are so many photos that I haven't posted yet so expect more photos to come!

Here are my creativity on the move:

Fish Bento:

Lunch Bento: Fish Fillet, Banana and Rice (house-topped container has store-bought sweet&sour sauce for the fish)

Hashbrown Bento:  

Snack Bento: strawberry and peanut butter rolled sandwich on white bread, store-bought hashbrown. yellow container have some ketchup on them.

For the fish fillet recipe, you can find it here.

I did some bento-shopping and here's the new addition to my growing collection:

sweets food picks, small cutters

Food at the office cafeteria taste awful, so expect more bento and recipe posts soon.

I am joining the fun at:

Whipperberry's
Happy Hour Projects

Decorating with Green and Red Theme for Christmas

It's already past midnight here, I know. I have been busy catching up with the workload. Whoever claims that working in the government is the easiest, they are either the lazy ones or they never worked for any government agency at all. I have worked for two government agencies and even here at my new office where there are just 200 employees, I am overloaded (and underpaid? well, compared to what the private counterpart of my position). That's why I am still up, preparing for my trip tomorrow.

I have lots of photos for you, especially the DIYs that we have done so far for the christmas season and recipes but don't have much time to transfer photos from my camera's memory. When I get back, blogging will be on the top of my list.

For now, here are my favorite desserts (two flavors, of course):

yogurt with strawberry syrup

yogurt with choco syrup

We live in a small town and having access to this kind of sweet treat is a big deal already ( because yogurt is not an organic in this country. ice cream and ice candy, yes but yogurt is still a bit new to the general population so its a store for this one is something that you don't see much in small, rural area)

For DIY inspirations, here are some ideas from the web:

1. tree planters for small christmas tree: you can buy a $1 worth tree planter from the garden store + spray paint.

via

2. garland for the christmas tree(not the venetian star topper) : if you will look closely, they used buttons (white ones) instead of the usual ribbon/garland type on the tree. The venetian star can be DIYed as well (but that is another story)

via

or you can go for a green and red books display for this season. That way, you can design using books that you already have. or anything green and red design that you have will do. You can display them around.

Simple Everyday Foods

Christmas season has started on this side of the world. The shops are now full of decors that one can choose from, cheap to expensive stuff. Our tree is decorated and I will be posting a photo one of these days.

On the other hand, our experience on our domestic life continues. I have a househelp who do the cleaning/unclettering everyday, sometimes cook dishes (but we are hoping she learns to cook them well), do the laundry and ironing and stay at home housesitting all day long. Most of the time (even when we are at home) she stays on her cellphone chatting over with her friends and boyfriend. Lately, this is getitng on my nerves because she seems to be forever on it and would get into a shouting match with whoever is on the other line.

I am now in the process of creating a procedure manual for her (aka schedule of cleaning and other how tos) to follow because she seems to be forgetting most of the things that should be done. Simultaneously, I have been on the hunt for recipes that we can actually use with minimal supervision on my part. My househelp's idea of vegetable dish is mixing all the vegetables available in the refrigerator into one single dish (imagine potato + squash+ eggplant+beans, all in one dish). I am glad to finally found another local blogger who is into cooking. Here are the his dishes that I am hoping to make:

1. Stir-fried chicken and vegetables

 recipe via

2. Pork Giniling

photo and recipe via

3. Pork Menudo

photo and recipe via

4. homemade no-bake macaroni and cheese

photo and recipe via

So far I have tried cooking japanese curry, fish fillet, pork and chicken adobo with a twist, and chicken adobo. I will be posting them here soon.

Easy to Cook Fish Fillet

This is my first time to cook for the family. And I am carefully choosing my first dish (?!). Here's the easy to cook fish fillet:

fish fillet with store-bought sweet and sour sauce

It was an easy task and the family loved the crispy outside,very soft inside texture.

Here's how to do it, amateur-style:

You will need:

1 pack of fish fillet (approx. 500g, store bought fillet)
1/2 slice lemon
3 tbs soy sauce (i used kikkoman soy sauce, that's how i roll.)
3 cups japanese breadcrumbs
1 egg
oil for frying

1. cut the fish on your desired size.
2. mix the lemon juice and soy sauce in a bowl. marinate the fish for 10 minutes. set aside.
3. prepare your fyring pan. heat the oil.
4. Here's a trick that will require your attention. *just kidding. but i read somewhere that there is a tendency of getting a hard crust not the light and crisp that you like if you roll the fish on the crumbs and set it aside for frying. You must do the dip in egg followed by roll on crumb method then fry on the pan to get the right texture.

5. Fry until lightly golden brown. Serve with rice.

The serve with rice is optional.  G ate it after lunch without rice. But since we eat rice on every mealtime, I recommend you eat the fish with rice. That's hiow we do it here. 

linking to: Shabby Nest , Whipperberry

How Do You Spend Your Weekend?

One of my blog hopping agenda is looking at how people from other places spend their days particularly on the food that they enjoy. Based on the blog comments from my favorite sites, there are lot of us who are interested on everyday, ordinary people's way of living. For those people out there wondering how we spend our ordinary day here in the Philippines, here's mine:

Yes, you are looking at an arcade machine. We spend our Sunday (after church) at an arcade playing games. And this is my favorite game because I always win tokens:

This is not the ordinary day things. I had this baby back ribs while vacationing in Cebu City, visiting my best friend working there.

Another food while on Cebu vacation. We ate at the famous AA's Barbeque :

One of my ordinary day activities, playing play-doh with kids. Yes, I did that, dressed the gecko toy with clay, a summer outfit. or maybe it's a spa for mr. gecko.

And this is part of my weekly grocery shopping list. They vary of course but you can already imagine how my grocery bag contents look like.

and this is an authentic Filipino sweet from one of the cafe near a tourist destination in our town, Sampaloc Lake. This delicacy is called suman for those living in the metro. I don't know what its called here {my bad}.Its a sweet sticky rice with sweet coconut syrup.

I wanted to show off the house that we purchased but its too soon to do that because we are having some issues with the financing. What are the things on your everyday, ordinary life?

Vice Ganda Concert: An Hour Late and Other Weekend Specials

I watched Vice Ganda's concert at the Araneta Coliseum, Friday night.

S/He is more than an hour late. 

I was pissed when the show have started and told my best-friend that even if Vice makes me happy and rolling with laughter the whole show, I will blog about the tardiness. 

She was late. 

But I laughed non-stop till one o'clock in the morning.

While waiting, we had our fill of Jamaican Pattie. It is one of the hubs favorite.

my favorite, Beef Pinatubo. This is the spicy one.

(photos from their fb page.)

Sleepless from the show, I have to proceed to our family date (I missed the seminar at work because it will be impossible to get back to the metro on time, i feel sort of guilty). 

mozzarella sticks

banana split worth 25 pesos with edible bowl

banana split (again!) with textured ice cream

pizza, Hawaiian and bacon&ham

I had a great week although the rest of the Sunday was spent sleeping almost the entire day, thus we were not able to attend the Sunday service. 

I hope you had a great weekend too.

Rain and Storms on Summer Days

We only have two months of summer here in the PI and there is only two weeks left and rainy days will be here. 

But this post is not about summer and rainy days. Just something to keep readers visiting.

 like photos of food for you to crave (like I did):

Soft-serve Ice Cream of 7-11. Cost: P15

crepe with strawberry, ,mango and creme. {we ate at a crowded store selling crepes while in SM Cebu}

I think the crepe cost around P100 and it's a favorite,though expensive. But it is the company I was with that made the crepe more tasty,{ imagine talking with your friend that you haven't seen since she relocated in Cebu ten years ago}.

 and here is the inspiration for my kitchen/dining area that is so small it will probably accommodate only four person during dinner time. I prefer white walls. or any color except this one.

image credit: apartment therapy

and my excuse for not blogging: I have a new job! a real job. When I say a real job, it is something that gives you benefits and does not have any "no employee-employer" relationship in the contract.

The sad thing about is is that I was not assigned at the technology transfer unit (my area of expertise, or so i think). 

But rather, I would be forging international relationship and making economic studies, etc. 

The hard stuff that I would really avoid if I have the chance. 

But I cannot say no to a challenge. 

And they made me feel really welcome. Specially the top management. and i hope to be part of the top management or at least rise from my entry level (which is a senior position, anyway. not an ordinary feat for my age. when working for the government, i mean) before I reached the 24th month of my stay there. 

I owe my former boss a lot. 

for the training and the network and perhaps even the confidence.

and of course, for allowing me to grab the opportunity.

I hope we all have a blessed and productive week ahead.

Thinking of Homemade Halo-Halo

There will be some changes on my workload soon. I will probably be starting to work on the new company before the summer is over. There are three offers that I received but recently, I turned down the consultancy job because I realized that working on a Saturday means we have to squeeze in all the activities like shopping, spending quality time together and visiting friends/family in one day. Working on a Saturday is not for me. 

I hope that it will be easier to choose between the two offers but choosing the higher position
is easier if only they keep you away from the guessing game for too long. I just want to have a more focus type of work. To earn, to show them what I have to help the company. Anything else aside from that, I would ditch because I am a very private person.

♥○♥○♥○♥○♥○♥

Now, on the food stuff. I love halo-halo.

image from here

It is a sweet concoction that is available year round on some local fast food and restaurant here in the country. Although it is available yea round, the best time to have them is during summer. And the best place to buy them is from the neighborhood temporary halo-halo stand. If you are familiar with lemonade stands, then this is the lemonade stand version here. You only get to see them in your neighborhood during summer and this is the venue to see old friends and new people living in the community because no one at least once in the summertime, can resist buying a glass of halo-halo. It usually cost around Php 20 (too expensive, actually for that price). If you prefer the quality controlled ones like ChowKing's halo-halo, you will shell out around 50pesos.

If you prefer less textured type of cold sweets and cheaper, you can opt for the ice candy. 

image from here

My favorite flavors are mango and chocolate. 

or 

the all time favorite of my age {and above}, the 

Ice Scrambles

 

you can buy them on the streets, usually on small makeshift stands near grade schools. The good thing about innovation is that there are business-minded people who finds the opportunity to sell them up-scaled. You can now buy them at the malls costing around 8-10 pesos for the plain one. 

What is your favorite summer food/sweets?

 

Homemade Eye Candy

Its going to be a cold summer here in the PI and I love choco + marshmallow combo! I found this homemade recipe today and will probably make one over the weekend:

HOMEMADE MARSHMALLOW

image and recipe from  here.

recipe inventory checklist:

3 packs unflavored gelatin - will buy

granulated sugar - check

light corn syrup - will buy

kosher salt - will buy

vanilla extract - check

confectioners sugar - check

I am a fan of Apartment Therapy. I have been waiting for their small/cool contest this year. Here are some of the early entries at the moment {my favorites so far}.
 
SMALL/COOL 2011

i ♥ white and black motif

 

i ♥ white kitchen with a dash of color 

sans the huge sofas, I ♥ the built-ins.

Special Note:

These past few weeks has been a very busy for me, with job hunting and such. We are looking forward to finishing our payment for the house so that we can start moving in. For the meantime, be inspired by my internet finds.