02.27.09
Posted in Uncategorized, cooking at 5:02 pm by Administrator
I have never considered myself a gourmet cook. I’ve been more of a “practical” cook, while my hubby has been more the gourmet cook around here. But he doesn’t cook Filipino food, so this is my recipe for Filipino chicken adobo. It’s a simple recipe, and since I realized that I didn’t have any pictures of it, I cooked it for the boys today. This is for Laura 
fresh off the stove.
Here’s the recipe:
~5 whole chicken legs with the legs and thighs cut apart (some people use white meat, but I prefer dark)
~1/4 cup water
~1/2 cup organic apple cider vinegar (or regular vinegar for those who don’t care about organics. Also if you like a more vinegary taste, of course add more vinegar)
~1/4 cup soy sauce (if you like things salty, you can add more soy sauce, if you care about organics, then I use organic Tamari)
~1/4 tsp pepper corns which I crush part of them (again, if you like more spice, add more)
~6 large garlic cloves coarsely crushed and chopped
~2 or 3 bay leaves
~1 scallion chopped for garnish
Cooking instructions:
In a skillet wide enough to accommodate all the chicken, deep enough to accommodate all the liquid, and with a cover place all the ingredients except the scallions. Bring it to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for about 40 minutes to an hour or until the chicken is fully cooked. Check occasionally to make sure the chicken is submerged in the sauce while cooking or baste the chicken with the sauces occasionally. When cooked scoop out the chicken onto a serving dish, pour the sauce over the chicken, and sprinkle the scallion garnish before serving. Viola! Serve with rice and any other veggie dish.
Now there are various ways to cook this as some adobo recipes use pork or fish or beef or even a combination of meats with chicken gizzards and livers. I usually like it with gizzards and liver, but my local Whole Foods didn’t have any organic chicken gizzards or livers today, wah. Some like to thicken up the sauce a bit, so a liver sauce can be made for that. Basically you cook up some liver and make a paste of it and add it towards the end of cooking the adobo. And then there are even those who fry up the chicken a little first with the garlic, and then add all the wet ingredients. I do it the easy way and just toss it all in and let it go.
Another comment is that chicken can have a lot of fat sometimes, so if the chicken fat bothers you, then just trim the fat before cooking and also remove the fat as it comes up during cooking.
Another fairly easy Filipino dish is lumpia shanghai. There are actually many different kinds of lumpia, which is basically a wrapper that is filled with ingredients of any kind. The amount of time and energy required would depend upon what you want to put into the wrappers. Some have lots of stir fried veggies, others have slivered palm hearts, and yet others like Korean style even have noodles in them. Not all lumpias are fried, either, as some are eaten raw. So some lumpias are time consuming to make while others not. However, I found a website that shows how to make lumpia shanghai pretty quickly and easily. Here’s the link. http://onefilipinodish.com/blog/2009/01/lumpia-shanghai/ He made a nice little video, and how much clearer can that be? This is what lumpia shanghai looks like when done. They are generally the smaller of all the different rolls.
Well, I thought those two Filipino dishes are amongst the easiest to start with. I’ll try to add more later like kare kare (an oxtail dish), and deela. Not sure I’m spelling that one right, but deela is aka lengua aka tongue. But I also like pancits, which are different kinds of noodle dishes with different kinds of noodles–i.e. rice noodles, egg noodles, wheat noodles, mung bean noodles, etc. I think I’m a bit out of practice cooking these things especially since they aren’t exactly considered the most healthful dishes being fried and all with lot of meats and fats, but hey, that’s part of me heritage. So I did grow up eating quite of bit of this stuff. . .
Okay, hope you like it!
Marlakins
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02.23.09
Posted in Uncategorized, knitting and crocheting at 7:30 pm by Administrator
Patti shared something with me recently that I really want to share with any of you yarn lovers out there. I love the idea of working with our hands and keeping a craft alive. So I like to put in a plug for fiber artists when I get a chance. Patti gave her okay to put up these pictures, so here’s the first one.
As you can see, these are crocheted doll dresses made by her just-turned-11 daughter! These were made completely without patterns, and Patti’s daughter, Grace, taught herself how to crochet starting about a year ago, IIRC. I think these are so cute! Great job Grace!
Here is our budding fiber artist on the right of the picture. She and her sister are wearing crocheted hats that I “think” Grace also made. . .
Very cute! Now there is another thing that makes me feel a sort of kinship with Grace is that her mom explained how she always likes to have a project on hand and knits or crochets whenever she has the opportunity to. Well, lo and behold, I’m like that, too! Wherever I go, there’s usually yarn with me. And even during our recent vacation to the Philippines, I made sure that I had yarn to play with. After all, I knew there would be plenty of stolen moments to add a few stitches in. I made sure I took my current mascot, Petunia with us. Here she is drinking with me on one of Philippine Airlines’ 747.
Here she is again with me as I start another knitted sock while taking in the tropical atmosphere in Bohol.
She even hangs out with me, while I knit on the lounge chairs by the pool. Luckily, my toes don’t seem to bother her.
Aaron caught me knitting one evening, too. . .
Eh, not the most flattering angle or lighting, but hey, who cares when there’s yarn to play with? There’s more to life than food and shopping, right? Eh maybe this is one of the “real” reasons why I haven’t been working on getting rid of me love handles? Oh besides, oftentimes there is a nice little reward after picking up all those stitches. Here’s a pair of socks I finished for Aaron during our trip.
I’ve still got the blue socks on the needles, but once I get things back in order here (which is slowly happening), I should complete those to share on the blog, too.
I’m so glad to know that Grace has started knitting so young. I wish I were that young when I started, but better late than never!
I believe Patti mentioned that Grace is interested in knitting up socks soon, so thought I might mention that there are several different ways to knit up socks and even crochet socks, for that matter. My first pair of socks was done using a pattern I found on the net for basic men’s socks and those were knit from the cuff down to the toes. Then I learned how to knit from the toes up using Janet Rehfeldt’s book Toe~Up Techniques. I highly recommend her book. The instructions are easy to follow and work. Then I learned how to knit with two circulars for socks from Cat Bordi’s book, Soaring on Two Circulars. If Grace is still having fun crocheting, I do know there are crocheted sock patterns out there, too.
Just one final word, which is really a “warning.” Sock making can be addicting. SOCK MAKING CAN BECOME ADDICITNG. Well, technically those are “words,” but don’t say you haven’t been warned. . .
Oh boy, oh boy, wait til you get a hold of “sock yarn!” Woo hoo!
Better be off to finish my blue socks!
Marlakins 
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02.20.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 6:22 pm by Administrator
Since Kim mentioned that she was looking forward to “food” pictures, heheh, I decided to make this next post on some Filipino food. Since we all eat every day, obviously there was lots of food to be had. But one of my aunts made a special meal just for us, so this meal meant a lot to me. She’s a great cook, and boy did she make a feast just for us. I’m touched, and so I want to share her cooking first. Here’s a picture of us in her dining room, which is my mom’s old house where she grew up. This aunt is my mom’s brother’s wife, and she’s kneeling down in the front, center of the photograph.
My mom’t brother (my uncle) is standing wearing the orange shirt with dark collar in the back left of the picture. Course, I’m in the back with the long black hair with my middle son, Matty, sitting next to me. Aaron is on the far right. This house used to belong to my grandfather, so you might say this is an ancestrial house, so it has special meaning to me, and of course, to my mom also who is always so happy when she visits there (as evidenced by the smile on her face and how she rushes up the steps to get in, heheh–she’s seated in red on the left of the photo). My mom was a young girl during WWII. This house survived the war as well as a few other houses nearby which belong to our relatives. The house my dad’s family moved into was a few doors down across the street, so I took a picture of it, too, but will share that another time. Unfortunately, it is a bit run down, but I could see how it must have been very nice back in the 30s and 40s. My dad said it was one of the nicest house on the block.
I tried to take pictures of each dish. Here’s one of my boys’ favorites called relleno bangus (fish).
This is a very time consuming dish to prepare because the insides of the fish have to be hollowed out, the de-boned meat is then mixed with other ingredients like grated carrots, raisins, and other vegetables, then carefully stuffed back into the fish skin and then grilled. I “think” it’s wrapped in bananas leaves during grilling to keep the flesh intact. If done properly, the skins are intact and the meat nice and moist inside. Hers was done just right, and tasted wonderful.
This other picture is of her crab dish with her fried shrimp in the dish behind.
This next dish is called lumpia ubod, which is a rice wrapper filled with banana shoots, cabbage, carrots and lettuce topped with a sweet sauce and crushed peanuts.
This can also be another time consuming dish because of all the chopping up of veggies.
And here is her lechon (baked pig).
Now I love pork, and man is the Philippines the right place to be for a pork lover! She also had a sweet sauce that is poured over this. This was all served with white rice. Seeing these pictures I realize I forgot to also take a picture of her fish soup. If I recall correctly, it was catfish with veggies.
Finally, here’s a shot of her coconut drink. This is another thing I miss when I leave the Philippines is the coconuts. This drink is the water from a young coconut with the shavings of the meat added to the coconut water and then refrigerated. I find it to be very light and refreshing. Not too sweet, but just enough hint of sweet to make me want some more.
How can I “not” be touched when I see and know how much work my auntie put into cooking this special meal for us? It felt like a Christmas feast, and I didn’t even take pictures of the fruits and desserts she brought out for us which consisted of watermelon, papaya, mangos, bananas, and bibinka (a sticky rice dessert). I have pictures of those items from other places so will share those later.
I will say, too, that this was just the beginning of the food that was lavished on us. It’s an odd thought for me to see so much of the slums and shantees in the Philippines, but yet also see so much food all over the place! There is food to be had everywhere, it seemed. And I’m pleased to say that my relatives sure know how to cook and feast! Oh, yeah. . .
Now I’m hungry again, so better start working on dinner. . .
Marlakins
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02.19.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:29 am by Administrator
Before my computer hard drive crashed, I had seemingly endless space for pictures. So it came as a big surprise when trying to download my pictures from our recent trip that my computer was giving me grief. Turns out the hard drive Brian installed for me is ity bity. I see why he told me that it was only “temporary. . . “ Turns out I’ve practically filled up all my disk space, already! Yikes! So since my pictures are scattered over 4 chips mixed in with my previous vacation, ha!, a lot of my pictures are out of order. So I guess I’ll just start anywhere. . .
During this trip to the Philippines, we were able to take a trip to Bohol. Bohol is one of the Philippine islands south of Manila in the Visayan region. The plane ride is about an hour long from Manila to Tagbilarn in Bohol. Their airport is tiny, and so I’ll have to share a little about that one later, heheheh. . . Anyway, one of the sites to see in Bohol is the Chocolate Hills. Now this isn’t the right time of year to see the “chocolate” because the growth on the hills are green at this time of year. It’s later in the year when the greenry dies that the hills get their “chocolate” look from the dead plants. Basically these hills are made up of coral deposits and the action of rainwater and erosion, and so only short vegetation grows on them, no large trees or big bushes. So this time of year, I guess you can say these are “mossy” hills, heheh. According to the placcard, these hills are scattered throughout the towns of Carmen, Batuan, and Sagbayan and consists of 1,268 mounds of the same general shape. Here’s what part of the road looked like driving up to the hills.
Here’s what some of the countryside looks like on the way up.
Since the Chocolate Hills covers such a large area, a lookout platform high enough to get a good view of the hills was erected so tourists could get a nice view of them. This is what the entrance to the lookout platform looks like.
And this is the view of the walkway up to the top of the platform. The top of this view is actually “not” at the top of the platform, yet. It goes on a few more tiers.
Our driver and guide had the good foresight to take us to this spot early because he knew that it was likely to rain in the afternoon. Sure enough as we started to drive down the mountain, it started to pour down on us. Not sure how safe it would have been to climb up all these steps with the pouring rain. Especially with my parents so move slow motion already without rain.
Once at the top, this is one of the views.
I’m sure there were better views to take, but there were quite a lot of people up there, and so it was hard to get a shot without someone in the way.
Here’s a shot with Aaron and some hills behind him.
And me with some hills behind me.
It was a really nice view from up there, and I do have more panoramic shots. But I’ve noticed somehow that my pictures don’t do it justice. I’ve noticed this with other pictures I’ve taken that some depth is lost.
Another thing Bohol is known for is the tarsier monkey. Some say that they are only found in Bohol, Philippines, while others say there are some in Indonesia, too. They are considered endangered, so people aren’t allowed to keep them as pets. These cute little monkeys look more like a cross between a bat and a monkey to me. Check it out.
Aside from them being so cute, what’s so special about these monkeys, you might ask? Well, they are “tiny,” only about 3 inches in height not counting their tails. Yeah, and you thought only the people in the Philippines were small. . . Here’s a picture of a man touching one to help give a size comparison. Eh, never mind that the sign clearly read, “Please do not touch the tarsiers.” Hmmm. Oh, and no, that’s not my Brian, but some other guy.
Can you see the little guy? He looks like a clip-on koala, but trust me, these little guys are real and actually jump from tree to tree.
And finally, the monkey in me comes out at times when I see those cut-out forms where you can poke your head through. When my mom told Aaron and me to stick our faces inside, I was all there, but Aaron was not so gung-ho.
I know that when this picture was taken, Aaron was not amused. However, when I downloaded the picture and showed him a closeup of his face here, he did get a good laugh out of it. He’s usually not such a sad boy!
The other part of our tour took us on a floating luncheon down the Loboc River. We also got to see the largest python in captivity and then got to do some shopping! Yee!
Will share those later, tho.
Marlakins
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02.16.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:57 pm by Administrator
Well, I’m back in chilly and wet Los Angeles. Yes, I realize that many other parts of the country are wetter and colder, but after being in the warm Philippines for a month, this feels rather cold, brrrrr. I’ve been told that we’ve been getting quite a bit of rain here in Los Angeles, which is a bit unusual for us. But interestingly, we also got a bit of rain in the Philippines, which is also unusual for them there at this time of year. While it did rain quite a bit there for the season, it was still nice and warm. No need to bundle up there (just wait in between the down pours to get to the next destination). Not sure what is causing the climate changes in both parts of the world, but what I know for here is that California is being placed on water rations. Or it’s being proposed. . . We are told that we need to cut down on our water consumption 15 or 20% from last year otherwise we will have stiff penalties. I still need to get the details on that one, but with that news I’m glad that we are getting lots of rain for now. No need to water the lawn, which with the new requirements we are only allowed to water our lawns on Mondays and Thursdays. Hmmm. So if we were being conservative last year, then it seems we are penalized more than those who were not conserving water last year since everyone is required to reduce their water consumption from last year. Ah, such is life. . . Perhaps all this rain will help to lift us out of this drought? Wishful thinking? Probably, but I’m trying to think on the bright side of it.
I’ve still got a few things to tie up here (you know laundry, groceries, and mail sort of thing), so will try to do a proper blog post later and share some of our experiences from the Pines this year. Amidst all these airplane mishaps on the news, I’m happy to say that we arrived safe and sound. Although I will say that this flight home was the most turbulent-filled flight I’ve ever had! The flight was about 12 hours non-stop from Manila to Los Angeles. We had literally “hours” of turbulence on the flight home, which for a time actually felt like we were riding on a bumpy dirt road somewhere in the country, ha! I kid you not. And it went like that for hours. Upon landing, we were all told to stay put as a medical team was boarding for some reason. Not sure if all that turbulence got someone in need of medical attention, but I wouldn’t be surprised since there was a good number of people in wheel chairs on that flight. Perhaps it was because it was such a large plane, but then again I don’t remember seeing that many wheelchairs for one flight before on similar sized planes. Nevertheless, I hope that person is okay now.
Okay, back to getting things back in order here in the Marlakins household. Also want to get back to what’s been going on here in the news. I got a little bit of news while in the Pines, which interestingly seemed to have quite a bit of news regarding the U.S. I did ask around as to what the consensus was regarding Obama, and it appears pretty clear that overall the Filipinos favored Obama and are glad that he was elected President of the U.S. They do seem cautious now, tho, and feel that now we “wait” to see what he will do. I did take a couple pics of some of the news there, so will see if I can post those later.
Toodles for now! Stay warm and wet! Oh, while checking my emails, I got a list from Patti regarding “Profound statements.” Heheheh. Some were quite humorous, but so far I think my favorite was #8 which read:
Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor
people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
– Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University
Ha! Now isn’t that the truth!
Marlakins
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02.03.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:29 pm by Administrator
Well, I finally have a moment to add an update on my bloggy-do. Hope everyone out there is doing well. Brian and Matty have left us and are now safely back in Los Angeles as their two and a half weeks here is now over. Aaron and I are still hanging out here in the Philippines. I’ve got a lot of pictures to share (especially of food, heheh), and although I brought my USB cord with me, I realized that I don’t know how to shrink the pics here at the internet cafe to fit on the blog properly. So, pics will follow when we return after Feb 15. We’ve hit quite a few tourist spots along with a couple sentimental spots such as the family plots, but today we are just chillin’.
During last years’ trip here to the Philippines, Andrew and I got to visit WWII sites. This year, in addition to WWII history, I’m getting brushed up on Philippine history prior to WWII. Apparently, there is so much that I don’t even know about my own heritage. I am a bit surprised, and a bit more appreciative of my heritage (although a lot of it seems to take second stage here). There’s actually a bit more to us little Filipinos than I had known. My, we are lovely after all, ha ha! I just hope that we don’t get completely swallowed up in modern technology or westernization. Certainly there is good and bad in every culture, but I hope we can hold on to some of the good ole’ ways.
That’s all for now! Aaron and I are going to do a little shopping today and hopefully we’ll have a nice lunch, too.
Toodles!
Marlakins
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