HOMEMADE GALORE!!!!

apple butter and apple sauce



filipino delicacy "SUMAN"




my daughter's oatmeal cookies



peanut butter

Another filipino treat "POLVORON"

brownies

Hey there! So this was just among a few of my chores over the weekend. Cooking, baking and housekeeping :).
Since school started, i have decide to make some homemade stuff for the kids. No, they are all mine. i only have one daughter and the rest of them are are her friends and school mates. They always hang out in our house, they love to eat Asian food..hahahahha... 

The first one was apple butter and apple sauce. They are both delicious and just about the right sweetness. Thats what i love about homemade, you can control the flavor!!! By the way, i found the apple butter recipe through a link on HIVENNs' blog but i just couldn't find the link anymore.

 Next is SUMAN, which is a traditional filipino delicacy wrapped in banana leaves. It is simply a mix of ground rice, mashed plantain banana, powdered milk, sugar and a bit of evaporated milk to keep it moist.

Next is oatmeal cookies, which my daughter baked. It was a hit to her friends.

 Then homemade peanut butter. i never like the peanut butter here in US, i constantly crave for the rich smooth and sweet taste peanut butter in our country. So, i google some peanut butter recipe and whala!!!! i made one!!!! Also my first time to make this recipe and it was a success!!!!!!!

Next is Polvoron, another delicacy in our country, and mind you this is really expensive at Goldilocks(filipino pastry shop and restaurant) And again, i google the recipe and made a few batch. It's a mix of powdered milk, sugar, butter and flour.

Lastly, the good old brownies. This one is from my hershey cookbook. I particulaly like this one, because it's not too sweet, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. YUM!!!!!

Hope you all had a wonderful week too!

beauty #9 TONIC LEMON ORANGE BATH

hello and good monday to all of you! Here is another tonic herbal bath from the book Secret of the Spas. This particular bath blend helps to treat lethargy and anxiety. Dried parsley helps stimulate our body and dried comfrey serves as a mild antiseptic. Again, always got to your local health food store if you are having trouble finding some of the ingredients. They always have a selection of dried herb.

RECIPE

1/4 cup grated lemon peel 

1/4 cup grated orange peel 

1 tablespoon dried parlsley

1 tablespoon dried comfrey

To avoid clogging your tub, use a muslin cloth or cheesecloth, fill with herb blend and tie. These can be attached directly to the faucet so that the running water goes through them, or just placed in the tub.

Enjoy and Relax......

cute stuff....

cutest pixie ever!

darling nightlight

cute little Annie

cutest potholder

All available at THE VINTAGE VILLAGE

CATFISH movie

hello everyone! Last night we had the oppurtunity to watch this movie/documentary while having dinner. I have heard about this before it came out while i was watching Regis and kelly. kelly talked briefly about it but she didn't gave much as to what it is all about since it has'nt came out yet. And i thought it was all about fish and fishermen. All she sid was, the Documentary was really good, and that we should watch it. So, i decided to rent it from netflix, and it came in the mail yesterday.

Kelly Rippa was absolutely right. This is a must see movie/documentary, especially for those of us who are very much living in this world wide web era. That is all i'm saying. I am not going to spoil the story for you. But really trust me on this one, this is a very good story and i guess we can all relate to it at some point or another. It is sad, at times exciting and at the same time creepy! But you can see the whole moral of the story. So, if you're not doing anything this weekend, do rent this movie.

Dont forget the popcorn!

Some 18 years ago

Hi there, i'm back again! Well, school had just started and i'm back on mom duty again :) i'm trying my best to write something on my blog at least once a week. But anyway, as i have mentioned on my previous blog, me and my husband celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary couple of weeks ago. Gosh! can you imagine?! it seems like it was just yesterday, and 18 years just goes by so fast. I have to tell you this....my husband and i got married 3 times!!! yes, that's very true. The first was a civil wedding, kinda like Vegas style, the second was, well it wasnt really a "wedding" but we went to the church and ask the priest to bless us( in our culture, the elders are not satisfied 'till a priest blessed you union) the third was a church wedding with the whole "shebang" and at that time i think our daughter was already a year old, almost two! hahahha....we just laugh when we reminisce of our past, though we don't feel like we've been together that long. Everyday, we always feel like we just got married yesterday. We always tell our daughter; that's how much we love each other, we got married three times and she'll just laugh at us :) And to give you an idea, i have found our wedding pictures, one of them was emailed to me by my sister...hahahahha...pls...to all of my fashionista followers, i'm sorry...pls. dont laugh.....i'm telling you i am not fashion savvy hahahhaha...so bear with me.....

the first wedding, with my late dad(left side)



the second wedding/blessing




and the third (how do you like my outfit?!) :)

And here's the anniversary.....it wasn't a lavish celebration, we always celebrate our special day with the fruit of our love, our daughter.  I have prepared some of my husbands favorite food.  This time it was all Filipino food, while last year was so French, i was inspired after watching Julie and Julia hahahahah.....

It was all so memorable to us, despite our fashion faux pas....heheheheh..whats more important  is that our love has been blessed so much! So there, hence the title some 18 years ago, now looking forward to our new adventures together. To all of you, who are celebrating your anniversaries....happy day to you and keep the flame burning!



i love you sweety.....

  

beauty #8 Revitalizing Ginger, Lemon & Parsley Bath Combination

hello everyone! Finally, i found some time to blog my next beauty tips from the book Secret of the Spas. I have been busy lately with family, my daughter had started band camp, and school starts in a couple of weeks, also my husband and I with our daughter just celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary !!!!! Anyway, I am back with a new herbal bath blend for you try. Have fun!

 RECIPE

1/4 minced ginger root for promoting circulation

1/4 cup dried parsley, an herb valued by the ancient Romans as a tonic for the skin

1/2 cup lemon peel(grated) for cleansing and aromatic effect

2 Tablespoons oatmeal to soften the water

To make an herbal bath you can do any of the following:

 toss a tea bag directly into the bath water

 OR

use a piece of muslin cloth which are filled with herbs and tied. These can be attached to the faucet so that the running water goes through them

OR

placed in the tub.

*   *   *   *  *  *  *

tip from my grandma: to lighten a dark underarm, scrub them with lemons everytime you shower

adorable potholder!

darling little doll face potholder! isn't she cute??? Buy it HERE

out & about part two

ok, this is part two of our family getaway. Gosh, it was really hot that day, but it didn't stop us from our trip. i think it was a triple digit temp! Oh, who cares :) the whole gang are having a lot of fun. At first, we went to stop by the isabela lake, we didn't stay long since it was so hot and not enough shade to rest. we just took a few photos and drove up to kernville. kernville is such a nice place to go. You can do a lot of fun stuff with the family. People got there to camp, boating, fishing, canoeing, white water rafting and not to mention the museum and antique shops. Although it's quite pricey, since it is a tourist destination. i love the feel of old town in kernville, especially the mom n pop's store set up of their shops. we set up lunch at one of their park, which was right next to the river. Ahhhh..what a lovely view, high mountains and the beautiful flowing water. though it was hot and humid, you can almost feel refreshed by the sound of the flowing river. And even though my sis-in-law and i love to thrift, sad to say we didn't bought any. it was too much for our standard definition of thrift hahahahhaha........We had great day anyway, my adventure ends here, but my in-laws' is not over yet.  They Drove to Texas the following day to visit some relatives. I wish we could go, but we need to go back to work and my daughter's band camp is within a couple of days. Like i said, there is always a next time!

out & about

hello guys! here we are, our tribe : ) for those of you who were asking me about the camping trip, it was a whole lot of fun!!!! here are the photos taken from our family getaway. took me a while to post, i just got lazy heheheheh... as always, we went to our favorite camping place, Frazier park, CA. we personally like the place because it is so primitive. My husbands sister was there along with her family. We had a great time spending just a night and one day in the mountains. We went up to the summit, where the atronomers and stargazers are camping out. We were surprised to see a lot of people up there. Some hikers, bikers, quite a lot of astronomers, seems like they were expecting something big that night, and a bunch of tourist, looks like they were students on a trip. Sad, to say we didn't came back up later that night to see the stars, we got so entertained by our niece, passing time doing charades. We had a lot of food of course, our family loves food. In fact, i postpone our detox this year, which we try to do evry year just to cleanse our system. it wouldn't be so fun, if we were on detox, and missing out and drooling on all the good food that my family prepare. :) There's always a next year for that......
 I will be posting more pics next time as we continue our family getaway at lake isabela and kernville in california. see u nxt post!