Out with the old, in with the new pictures

Brandon and I finally had our new pictures done (see the new side bar pictures?). We did them just inside the apartment and some in the backyard. We took turns taking each other's picture, and it ended up that I took more photos of him than he did of me. We took these pictures because the ones that were on the side bar were very old. The photos have to keep up with the new blog look, haha! So now it's just Wyatt's picture that needs to be updated although he's too cute in the one that I'm currently using in the side bar that it doesn't necessarily needs to be replaced.

But me and Brandon taking pictures of each other, believe me, isn't a fun thing for us to do and for other people to watch. lol. These pictures pretty much explain why, and give you an idea what it's like when Brandon and I are having our little "photo shoot". :D

He hates taking pictures and 5 minutes after the first shot, he goes "Can we already finish this please? Let's go!"

And I'm a whiny, picky subject.

"Bes, you're too far. Get closer!" (but smiled anyway)

"Camera's too high, bes. Lower it a bit!" (but smiled anyway)

That's why our pictures aren't always updated. I wonder if there are other couples out there who when it comes to taking pictures.

To close this post, I'll leave you with a pic of me and of B looking so tight. Haha!

Can't get enough of my husband's cuteness? lol. More pictures of him here.

Holiday Cooking Failure Part 2

Originally posted on my Friendster blog, January 2, 2009 at 11:56 am

As you can read in my previous post, I failed to understand a direction in a recipe which resulted to additional 3 hours of baking the chicken in the oven. I guess that wasn't enough lesson for me to be careful next time because "ooops! I did it again" as Britney Spears says. But this time, it was a different case...and worse. You may call me dumb, stupid, careless, or whatever you please but I'll still blog about it anyway.

It's a Filipino tradition to eat dinner at 12 am of December 31, the very first hour of New Year. I didn't do it last year which was my first New Year in the US but decided to start doing it again beginning this year with my husband and will make it a family tradition when we have a kid/kids already. So at about 9 pm on December 31, I began cooking. Again, I made more than enough for 2 persons to eat because I wanted leftovers for the next couple of days. I made pineapple ham, teriyaki chicken, brownies, and pansit(an Asian noodle that is present in every Filipino household during special occasions because according to Filipino and Chinese superstition, it represents long life. Yea, I'm kinda superstitious.) I wanted to make a sweet potato casserole too but didn't have enough time, it was almost 12 am when I was done cooking the last recipe. Everything came out great except for the ham. I cooked it according to the recipe direction but didn't like the result. The meat wasn't very tender. I like my ham to almost fall apart when I slice it. That night neither I nor my hubby ate the ham though he tried a slice. I hate throwing food so I just let the ham sit in the fridge until I figured out later what to do with it.

Yesterday all other food I cooked for the New Year was almost gone. At night after dinner, I decided to slowcook the ham. I remembered that on Thanksgiving, I cooked my ham in the slowcooker at low temperature for 10 hours and the result was perfect that my husband devoured it. It was a fully-cooked ham and this one I got for New Year is smoked. I figured that maybe a smoked ham needs longer cooking time than a fully-cooked ham. So I set it to 15 hours at low. Calculating the time, it would be done in the morning the next day (which is today.) So, I woke up at 9 this morning and immediately checked the slowcooker on the counter. It still had 1 minute and 3o+ seconds left. But when I checked the ham, this is what greeted me:

That's why it's important to cook more than one recipe

Before I decided to cook it "better".

Lost in Translation on Christmas

Originally posted on my Friendster blog, December 25, 2008 at 11:26 pm

Today is Christmas, yay! I love Christmases. So I prepared some food for me and Brandon earlier today for our Christmas dinner. Since there's only 2 of us, I only made a cake, 2 loaves of bread, and roasted whole chicken. Actually this was even too much for us but I wanted to have some Christmas leftovers the next day. I wanted the chicken to be fresh from the oven by the time we start eating so I made the pineapple upside-down cake first at about 2 o'clock. The cake turned out really yummy, and it also looked pretty. After the cake was done in a little over an hour, I prepared the loaves of pumpkin bread. I haven't tasted them yet but Brandon has and he told me that they're really good. But the problem is, the center of both loaves collapsed haha. They probably weren't done yet when I decided to take them out of the oven but the sides were already very brown, I was worried about burning them. Maybe I'm just not lucky at making anything that has pumpkin because the same thing also happened to the pumpkin pies I made on Thanksgiving and Halloween. Anyways, after the bread, I put the 3-pound chicken in the oven for roasting after marinating it with some spices for 30 minutes. I set the baking time to 1 hour and 15 minutes because that's what the recipe says. After waiting that long, I checked the chicken to see if it was done or if it needed to be cooked a little longer. It was still very raw and didn't look like it had been in the oven for more than an hour. So I set the timer again, this time to 1 hour and 45 minutes. When the timer went off, the result was the same, the chicken was still not cooked. In fact, it was still white. I was wondering what was wrong. This wasn't my first time to bake, and I have cooked meat in the oven many times before. Even before I started cooking the chicken, my guts told me that I misunderstood a direction in the recipe but just ignored it. It was already 8 o'clock and both Brandon and I were already starving so I decided to show the recipe to my husband and read the directions to him.

Me: The first direction says, preheat the oven at 350 deg. F. Then the 3rd direction says bake the chicken to a minimum internal temperature of 180 deg. F. Which temperature should have I baked the chicken at? 350 degrees or 180 degrees?

Brandon: The 350 degrees is the baking temperature and the chicken is done if it's meat temperature is 180 degrees. Don't tell me you've been baking the chicken at 180. It's only a warming temperature.

So yea, I was just warming the chicken the entire time. I haven't in my entire life used a cooking thermometer so I didn't know that 180 degrees was for the meat temperature. Of all the recipes I've used, this is the only one I misunderstood (well, by far haha). The cooking directions in most recipes say "bake at ___ (temperature follows)", so I figured 180 was the baking temperature. I baked the chicken again for another hour, this time at the right temperature :D. This is the longest time I've cooked something in the oven...4 hours total man! We planned to eat dinner at 6 but we ended up doing it at 9:15. Well, at least it's still not too late. Good thing I started preparing for dinner very early. But the chicken came out very juicy and tasty, so I guess it was worth the long wait.

The chicken that took 4 hours to cook, LOL

num-num!

Merry Christmas!

Are You One of Us?

Note: Originally posted on Multiply Site

One day I stumbled on someone's myspace profile and found an interesting post. I couldn't stop grinning while I read one by one the contents of the post. I even read some of 'em loud to my hubby whose comment was either "yea, true" or "hahaha". I made some editing like numbering and a few vocabulary translations.

.

You know you're Filipino when...

1. Your middle name is your mother's maiden name.
2. Your parents call each other "Mommy" and "Daddy."
3. You have uncles and aunts named "Boy," "Girlie," or "Baby."
4. You have relatives whose nicknames consist of repeated syllables like "Jun-Jun," "Ling-Ling," and "Mon-Mon." Mine by the way is "Dan-dan".
5. You call the parents of your friends and your own parents' friends "Tito" and "Tita".
6. You have four or five names.
7. You greet your elders by touching their hands to your forehead.
8. You always kiss your relatives on the cheek whenever you enter or leave the room.
9. You follow your parents' house rules even if you are over 18.
10. You live with your parents until and at times even after you're married.
11. You decorate your dining room wall with a picture of the "Last Supper".
12. You keep your furniture wrapped in plastic or covered with blankets.
13. You have a Sto. Nino shrine in your living room.
14. You have a piano that no one plays.
15. You keep a "tabo" (water scoop) in your bathroom.
16. You use Vicks Vapor rub as an insect repellant.
17. You eat with your hands.
18. You eat more than three times a day.
19. You think a meal is not a meal without rice.
20. You think sandwiches are snacks, not meals.
21. Your dining table has a merry-go-round (lazy Susan) in the middle.
22. You bring baon to work everyday.
23. Your pantry is never without Spam, Vienna sausage, corned beef, and sardines.
24. You love to eat daing or tuyo.
25. You prop up one knee while eating.
26. You eat your meal with patis (fish sauce),toyo (soy sauce), suka (vinegar), banana catsup, or bagoong (fish paste).
27. Your tablecloths are stained with toyo circles.
28. You love sticky desserts and salty snacks.
29. You eat fried Spam and hot dogs with rice.
30. You eat mangoes with rice--with great GUSTO!
31. You love "dirty" ice cream.
32. You love to eat, yet often manage to stay slim.
33. You put hot dogs in your spaghetti.
34. Everything you eat is sauted in garlic, onion, and tomatoes.
35. You order a "soft drink" instead of soda.
36. You hang a rosary on your car's rear view mirror.
37. You get together with family at a cemetery on All Saint's Day to eat, drink, and tell stories by your loved ones' graves.
38. You play cards or mahjong and drink beer at funeral wakes.
39. You think Christmas season begins in October and ends in January.
40. Your second piece of luggage is a balikbayan/pasalubong box.
41. You've mastered the art of packing a suitcase to double capacity.
42. You collect items from airlines, hotels, and restaurants as "souvenirs."
43. You feel obligated to give pasalubong (bring-home) to all your friends and relatives each time you return from a trip.
44. You use paper foot outlines when buying shoes for friends and relatives.
45. You're a fashion victim.
46. You can convey 30 messages with your facial expression.
47. You hold your palms together in front of you and say "excuse, excuse" when you pass in between people or in front of the TV.
48. You ask for the bill at a restaurant by making a rectangle in the air.
49. You cover your mouth when you laugh.
50. You respond to a "Hoy!" or a "Pssst!" in a crowd.
51. You'll answer "Malapit lang!" (just near from here)--no matter the distance--when asked how far away a place is located.
52. Goldilocks is more than a fairy tale character to you.
53. You refer to power interruptions as "brownouts".
54. You love to use the following acronyms: CR for comfort room, DI for dance instructor, DOM for dirty old man, TNT for tago nang tago, KJ for kill joy, KSP for kulang sa pansin, OA for over-acting, TL for true love, BF for boyfriend and GF for girlfriend.
55. You say "rubber shoes" instead of sneakers, "ball pen" instead of pen, "stockings" instead of pantyhose, "pampers" instead of diapers, "ref" or "prijider"(from the company Frigidaire) instead of refrigerator, "Colgate" instead of toothpaste, "canteen" instead of cafeteria, and "open" or "close" instead of turn on or turn off (as in the lights).
56. You use an umbrella for shade on hot summer days.
57. You like everything imported or "state-side."
58. You love ballroom dancing, bowling, pusoy, mah jong, billiards, and karaoke.
59. You have a relative who is a nurse.
60. When you're in a restaurant, you wipe your plate and utensils before using them.
61. You can squeeze 15 passengers into your five seater car without a second thought.
62. You wave a pom-pom on a stick around the food to keep the flies away.
63. You always ring a doorbell twice, assuming that the first ring was not heard.
64. You let the phone ring twice before answering, lest you appear overly eager.
65. You use a rock to scrub yourself in the bath or shower.
66. You're proud to be Filipino - and you pass these jokes on to all your Filipino friends!♥