EASY COOKING

Most of the time likes any working mom; house mom is always on the go. This is a typical day for me; it’s my regular visit in our condo in Greenhills where my two kids are staying/living on their own (Isabella, 4th year high school OB MONTESSORI and Benjo, 1st year h.s. La Salle Greenhills). The kitchen here is very small so I have to maximize everything and do some EASY COOKING.

For easy cooking, it means few ingredients, and a little time to cook for a complete meal.

Beef with buttered vegetable and mash potato

I marinated the beef for one hour with calamansi juice, oyster sauce and seasoned it with salt and cayenne pepper*. Tossed the vegetable for a few minutes in hot oil with butter, set aside then fry bottom mushroom in can, next is the beef tenderloin. For the sauce of the beef, I always have available A1 steak sauce if there is a limited time to cook for a sauce.

*CAYENNE PEPPER

Cayenne pepper powder comes from red hot chilli peppers that are not only good to eat but are great for your health. Where does cayenne come from? The fruit or body of the peppers are dried then ground down, pulped and baked into cakes, which are then sifted to make the spice known as cayenne pepper. In case you may be slightly confused, red hot chilli peppers are sometimes referred to as "cayenne peppers" as well.

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT - sinabawang Upo w/ Salted fish

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

The food we eat affect the outcome of our day- work, our mood and how we deal with others. So what should we eat? Like most experts say – The key to proper nutrition is really moderate, variety and balance.

Here’s my first MAIN DISH for

this blog.

SINABAWANG UPO WITH SALTED FISH

Upo is a vegetable grown locally. It is consider a comfort food.

INGREDIENTS:

2 tbsp cooking oil

1 thumb ginger, sliced

1 tbsp crushed garlic

¼ cup sliced onion

2 cup shredded salted fish (wholed salted fish, soaked in water for 2 hours then shredded)

3 cup cubed, seeded UPO

1 litre water

1 11g Maggi Chicken broth cube

2 cup malunggay leaves

1.      Heat oil. Sautee ginger, garlic and onion until limp fragrant.

2.      Stir in salted fish and cook for 2 minutes. Add in upo and cook for another 30 seconds.

3.      Pour in water and bring to a boil. Add magi chicken cube, simmer for another 5 minutes. Stir in malunggay leaves. Serve hot.

All ingredients are available in a market (palengke) and supermarket. And by the way, it is my future plan to grow vegetable in my own backyard. The malunggay I used on this recipe is from the malunggay tree in my backyard.

I spent 20minutes for the preparation of the ingredients plus the 2 hours soaking time for the salted fish. My cooking time is only 15 minutes.

A one-dish meal with fish and vegetables is a practical way of providing good nutrition for the family.

The fish is a good source of protein while the upo is a natural source of iron, calcium and B vitamins.

A BREAK FROM REALITY

My entry post to this blog was January 6, a day after I have watched JULIE & JULIA,a movie based on two true stories of Julie Powell, a then officeworker turned writer and Julia Child, a world-renowned cookbook author.

Both women loves to cook, both woman wanted to do something for themselves aside from office work and being a housewife, in short cooking was a break from their reality. 

This movie and their stories moved me, inspired me.

After more than 3 years of being a fulltime housewife depression started to come, I drink once in a while to uplift my emotion. My daily routine -wake up early, cook the breakfast, assist the kids and husband for their daily needs. Once your alone in the house, while everybody tended to their personal activities- school for the kids, business/work for the husband, I start cleaning the house and then after a few hours, start preparing/cooking the food for dinner.

I was so excited at first when I took a break and became a full-time housewife, I have been a working mom for quite a long time and being a house wife is quite the opposite of the daily routine back when I was a working mom. Like working in an office I start organizing things, arranging/cleaning things the way I wanted to. I have a small notebook, a corkboard, a whiteboard to list down everything that I have done, going to do and other future plan for the house.

Two years passed I realized suddenly that I have too many house helps. Currently, I’m now at home doing a lot of things in the house so I decided before end of 2010 to just maintain the house help doing the laundry. I decided to start 2011 by helping my husband in our house budget although I am not contributing any income in the family which are by cutting some expenses and divert the extra house allowance to more important things that the family needs.

After three years I was able to establish a SYSTEM in our household chores. I included my kids in helping me fulfilling all the house chores. IT WORKS, my KIDS learned to be more independent and responsible and I am very proud of them. Living in a condo on their own a year ago had been their training ground, and from that it was now so easy to practice it at home. They do not depend anymore with our house help. Everyone have their own responsibility and chores in the house, including fixing their personal things.

And now I have more time for myself. Then I asked myself WHAT WILL I DO? Came the movie JULIE & JULIA. I love to cook, I love to read although I am not a writer, and I could say I am not very good with English language but I am not dumb either, so, why not try to do a blog?  With the initial blog I posted, I receive a lot of encouragement and advice; I received personal calls from friends who really encouraged me on doing it. Most of all my daughter, who’s been so active in fashion blog, also supported me all the way.

Again this blog was created because of my love for food, my love for cooking, and my love for sharing/talking to my friends. Despite of long distance and busy schedule is impossible for us to see each other regularly; this blog will become a tool of sharing with you my life.

This is a way of giving myself a little “ME TIME”, to be recharged and to be refreshed.

"ME"- time

January 6 is my 18th year wedding anniversary. Iam a working mom for 15years and a full time housewife now for 3 years and going. It hard at first because my daily habit have sudden change, but lately I am enjoying it tremendously. Late 2010 two house help was gone -  my choice, I just retain the one who do the laundry on a weekly basis. Aside from my daily routine at home - cleaning, cooking, organizing  I am starting this year with a blog of my own to share my "FOODIE LIFESTYLE" a way to  give myself a little "ME- TIME"