Author: Abigail

Palitaw: Ube Coconut Rice Balls

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I’ve been reading friends status on how delicious mochi balls are. Which started my craving for some but couldn’t find any here. Take a look how Food Librarian made some mochi balls here. Yumyum!I think mochi balls are quite similar to a favorite Kakanin called Palitaw only shaped like a ball with some filling. I had some glutinous rice flour and ube haleya and decided to make some for our merienda (snack). WhenAdoboMetFeijoada made some using Sweet Purple Potato here. Palitaw: Ube Coconut Rice Balls 2 cups glutinous rice flour1 cup lukewarm water1 cup coconut flakesube haleyaBefore preparing rice balls, boil some water on a medium saucepan. Stir half cup of water on your glutinous rice flour adding a little bit more of water from the remaining half cup till dough comes together. Firm but pliable. Flatten a tablespoon of dough into a circle then fill with ube haleya. Gather sides and pinch to seal. Slowly roll between your palms to make a ball.Drop a few ball in our boiling water. After a minute or two rice balls …

Our Little Garden

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We are a family of farmer’s.  That is a reply I would always get whenever I ask my Lola about our family. One of the gifts that she treasured the most is plants. Lola would show off each tree we planted to guests along with some stories about us her apo’s (grandchildren). Oh how I miss her so much.  My mama also has a green thumb, she would change plants in our little garden almost every 3 months and neighbors would admire how she managed to grow beautiful flowers. Some friends would give her a sad orchid (no flowers) and somehow after a few months she would manage to make them grow happy blooming with colorful flowers.  And so secretly I’m hoping to have a farmer’s heart from my Papa’s side and a green thumb from my Mama. I started with a bunch of bamboo house plant which sadly only stayed with us for a year. My husband encouraged me to grow some herbs and bought me a pack of basil and chili seeds that …

a short trip to outerspace

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Went to MICC this afternoon to watch a sneak preview of Barney’s OuterSpace adventure show to be held this weekend here in Dubai. I’ve been joining competition to hopefully win us tickets and surprise little V.  We arrived around 5 in the afternoon and the floor was packed with moms and kids waiting for every little one’s purple friend. Luckily V and I found a good spot and took our place (sitting on the floor) singing along to familiar Barney songs. After 10 minutes V started asking where Barney is now and how long does he need to wait. 20 minutes…30 minutes…still no purple dinosaur in sight.  Some parents have been finding ways to squeeze their little one in the crowd, giving instructions (well more of shouting) to go walk till they reach the front. Which I think is just st***d! The little girl politely saying “excuse me” and looking back to her mom asking “it’s ok here?”, mom replies “Go to the front” (another mom beside me translated for us). Why would you ask …

FIA Recipes: Mango Japanese Cheesecake

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FIA (famished in Arabia) is a group of food bloggers, you can find links to their blogs by clicking on FIA tab. Visiting each site has become a morning ritual and it’s kinda good and bad for me – I end up hungry after each visit  and my list of recipes to try has piled up. With a whole lot of recipes to try it’ll be a waste if they only end up printed and not created at all. That’s why I decided to try at least 1 recipe a month from FIA. Summer = Mangoes! We went to Sharjah Market last weekend and bought a kilo of Mangoes from India and the guy insisted that “mangoes from India are the best madam” (I beg to disagree our Philippine Mango is the best!) I didn’t argue with the guy since I don’t have any Pinoy Mango with me for us to compare. I love mangoes be it green or yellow. It does not matter where it came from I just love them! I eat them as nature …

My first #BakeFestDXB

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Friday 11am with cupcake caddies on hand we headed to Wild Peeta at World Trade Center for  #BakeFestDXB organized by @theregos.  Our kitchen was able to produce three kinds of cup cake: Lemon Meringue, Ube Haleya (Purple Yam), and Coconut Pandan.  I was calm two weeks before the event after a few sleep it was the #BakeFestDXB week! Sleep was not my friend, I was overly excited and scared. It’s my first time to bake something to be displayed.  Half of Wild Peeta was filled with sweet goodies from a community of bakers who blogs and tweets as well.  Our day was filled with sweet goodness from talented bakers – cakes, cookies, truffles, cup cakes, and pies. It was not only us adults who enjoyed the day the kids too. Little V found a new friend in Wee Scotch (Ginger’s little one). He was so proud of himself telling his dad and I that he took good care of the baby and that wee scotch was his new friend.  I think selling our sweets was …

Baked Lechon

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When C got his job offer to Qatar one of the question was is pork sold there? Nope it’s not. And when we all move to Dubai that question pop up once again. Yes it is available in selected stores here.  I think one food/dish that’s included on the list of things we miss back home is Lechon (Suckling Pig). Did you know that the Philippines is #1 on Anthony Bourdain’s Hierarchy of Pork List? Imagine our hunger after watching the shows feature of our home country at 11pm. That led me to prepare our very own version of lechon away from home. Pork belly is boiled with different spices and then baked for 3 hours to achieve that crunch that sends us back home. Little V easily proclaims this crunchy as his favorite! I can put him on the table with a cup of steamed rice, Mang Tomas Lechon sauce and the crunchy pork skin happily praising me “this is yummy mommy. V’s favorite.” To prepare bake lechon: boil pork belly with 2 laurel …

Bye-bye Bottle Nanan

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In four months little V will start kindergarten. We have been slowly preparing him for the big day since he turned two years old. He was potty trained and completely weaned off breastfeeding before we celebrated his 2nd birthday. It was a full dreadful drama month with V (and me) crying whenever he pleaded to breastfeed and me about to lose my patience cleaning after every pee accident. All of those is a thing of the past and V would refer to those memories as “when I was a baby.”He’s a little boy now and it’s once again time to let go of something – toddler cup.  I would know that he’s tired and sleepy when he asks for a “bottle-nanan” this is also what he asks for upon waking up. “Nanan” by the way is breastmilk or bottle milk, it’s not a Filipino word but something we just came up with. V would wake me up at 3am and ask for a bottle nanan and some nights he would sleep without having one. C calls …

Delivered: Bag & Shoe Cake

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I accepted a cake challenge for a friends birthday with a red and black color theme. G had a particular cake design in mind-a red shoe and red bag with some black outline on top of a carrot cake. With two weeks to prepare I searched net and found lots of help watching youtube and blog tutorials on how to carve a bag cake and shape a shoe. PinkCakeBox tutorial on high-heel shoe and ChefGRFX bag tutorial helped me to complete the cake as well as the lovely cakers over at CakeCentral.  A week before my deadline I made some practice cake and shoe using a homemade fondant . First I had a hard time with my usual fondant recipe it just won’t hold it’s shape, after I cover the cake I see holes on the side of the bag it seem that the fondant was melting. As the deadline came closer and my warm hands and fondant wont just work together I decided to buy a ready rolled fondant and gumpaste mix at Tavola.  Another challenge was to keep …