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Food break.
As I usually did in my journals, back in my writing days, metaphors were my allies. I reserve details to keep vultures from picking on the obvious. I am quite hesitant to post this. And if you have come to reading this far, please do not forget the footnote after this.

From my side of the world, exploring jungles are inevitable. So far, what I learned were these. It was like a battle of survival for some, and paradise for another. Some would rather live in the adventure of the woods, while others prefer the calmness of a river. Some would hunt to preserve themselves during hibernation, and others prefer to live every morning sunshine. The difference seems irrelevant, yet somehow the relationship is linked by known streams which make them connect with each other.

I don’t want to make this long. So I will be straight to the point metaphorically. How ironic.

My dearest, it is not all about how you survive the wilderness, its knowing that you are still human and the roles you have to play to stay human. The stock you mustered does not amuse me, neither does your tales of incompetence. Do not dig a beaver’s dam unless you heard the sound of the running water the way it did. If the vastness of the dam amazes you, keep it, you wouldn’t know the benefits by horribly blowing your trumpets. Bliss silenced the juvenile. Domestic harmony is not shaped in the clouds to peruse all life forms. It is written in the wind and recognized by the blinds. The constellations are not made for lies. We do not own our lives hence it is bound to be shared. Share your bounty and misery, one cannot have too much of the other. I do not bear the wisdom that you seek, nor the ammunitions for your hunting. I may let you get in my nest, but I urge you not to trust me.

**the writings may translate to fair number of interpretations. Coincidences are not intended by the author.
**batobato sa langit ang tamaan wag magagalit
**stone stone in heaven, when you’re hit, don’t get angry!

Kyaraben contenders

As posted below *turo sa baba* there were only two of us who braved the challenge *lol* and here were our entrees
Hers was Currypanman, Anpaman, Shokupanman kyaraben.


guess who won

what surprised me with this was that jap parents didnt just judged it according to how kawaii or complicated the product was.. they actually judged the contents and said something about "balance of protein and carbs". If this was an anime popularity contest, i wouldn't know who would've won.

this is Raqx hibernating.

I didn't realize its been a month since my last post. I think my body and mind is currently undergoing an unconscious hibernation. Our metal sliding doors and windows are now shut, effectively shielding us from the cold and simultaneously blocking the light. So even at a broad daylight which is already short as it is, my house appears to be at night time when it is best to be lazy...sleep..and.. eat. yah yah! I can paint the mountain of unburned calories in my head alright. So i tried.. not to be a bum. Last weekend was way beyond unsuccessful since I only got up from sofa to go to coin dryer. But weeks before that..i think I made a pretty good job. :)

here's why





I made KYARABEN for the first time! and it was my entree to our friendly competition with my work partner. Actually there were only two of us..for fun. But there were more judges than we thought. Kids' moms did the informal judging. Plus some more of our co-workers too. My work-partner really did a neat job I'll post her entry later.

I agreed, or we actually mutually challenged each other to take our bento-making into the next level- the Kyaraben. I've never done this but always wanted to. Without any idea what to make, I surf and surf for vector images until I found none (thats easy enough to interest me anyways). Luckily, the day before the "judgement day" I was on my way to Tokyo when I texted a friend and asked for directions going to a filipino store, thats when I noticed my totoro bling hanging tightly on my cellphone..and there flowed ideas.

I opted to make a "grinning totoro" with makkurokurosuke and chibi-totoro. I always wanted to go to ghibli museum and if you have no idea who totoro and other characters are... you can check this site

Save yourself from asking...it took me 2 hours to make all these. I cooked everything from scratch including the rice so I can have a good gauge of the prep time :)

Random 8's since I've been a wife

Got this from april. I just found out that I already did this couple of months back, so I'll make a tiny change by making this as "random 8's since i became a wife"

First, the Rules:

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

My 8 random facts

1. My sporadic OC mood was reversed! I now have a sporadic "tamad" times and my being OC has become endemic. Note the terms.. I still regard being OC as an abnormality. Not being able to sleep because of an undone chore isn't a bit fun :(

2. When I got married it became a highly difficult task to go on a diet, hence, my narcissistic photography was dramatically changed to a "photography without me".

3. My alcohol tolerance became low, and the last time I tried to puff some nicotine, I coughed.

4. I have a "kimochi blanket" (feels soft and good)thats intended for winter use. I bought it from US and I never want to depart from it even in sweltering heat. I only have that kind of relationship before with my pillows :P

5. I don't put make-up as much. But that doesn't excuse me from buying my mac ;)

6. I still haven't memorized the basic japanese characters (katakana and hiragana..dami eh :P) but I think I can somehow survive living in japan.

7. I have an almost 10 kilos worth (or more) of beads and accessories in pinas, now I only have 2 big drawers full of scrapbooking materials (and still remained unused up to this time).

8. My first domestic plane ride was 2005 going to Davao. My first international flight was 2006 going to Japan..and then I got hooked after that :D

I dont have much to tag.. I'd like to know your random 8's too Bill and Saj.

Raqx Project 365

I just posted the 1 of 365. This hopefully will be completed as my Project 365. I've been wanting to make this kind of project before but I cant decide if its gonna be a bento box or a recipe or just a journal. I guess photos are easier to share since its already clogging my hard drive. I chose friendster because thats where my network of friends from the Philippines are. Try finding them in facebook or something alike and you'll only get a handful. And even though the features are far from being dynamic and close to being a d-u-h and the word that fits according to my friend is b-o-r-i-n-g, thats the closest site to home.

I know those tiny snippets captured in lens would translate to how me and my friends usually spend hours and hours talking or texting about everything under the sun. *Sigh* i miss my friends back home.. and i love them as much..this project is dedicated entirely for them.

15 minutes bento

Setting laziness aside, its nice to take advantage of ready-made eats that lined grocery stores. It sure cut my bento prep more than half.

for honey romar


for raqx

Salmon onigiri needs about 3 minutes for the salmon to cook inside a microwave. Simply put the salmon, some garlic powder and pepper and its good to go. No need to put salt coz salmon meat are already a bit salty. Once the fish is ready, mash till the desired texture and mold using rice ball shapers and wrap with nori or sea weed paper. It takes about 5 minutes for the entire rice ball to finish (dont count the cooking time of rice syempre) I found really cute nori cut to different animal shapes. While waiting for the fish to cook start chopping the cucumber.

Usually rice balls have fillings inside. For the sake of color I put it on top. It wasnt messy to eat so I guess it was okay. Feel free to experiment with how to put your fillings.

Heat sausage and the fish fry for 1 minute or according to package directions if you are using frozen foods. At the same time warm the bread pocket in the toaster. Then assemble sausage pita, cut up some cherry tomatoes, spread mayonnaise, season with salt and pepper and add lettuce and onion if desired. This will take another 3 minutes.

Assemble all in bento boxes then add the vegetable roll. Ang bilis!

My new bento box

...is actually three months old.

And I filled it with these

a garden salad, fruits and salmon for me and egg and jam sandwich with salmon sushi for honey.

This is a what-you-see-is-what-you-get post. Lets just let the pictures speak for themselves this time. :)

Sabado fried chicken nights + cooking tip

You know those lazy Saturdays where you just want to curl in the sofa and watch one thing after another in your tv or in our case from our pc monitor? (uhm, while waiting for the laundry- realistically speaking). I have this simple recipe to top these times with smothering calories! lol.

I made these chickens during one of our Saturday nights movie and alcohol marathon which turned out to be just a movie and chicken marathon.

All you need are

Chicken wings or any part you like

Oil for frying

For coating:

I used 1:1/4 ratio of flour and cornstarch

Iodized salt

Freshly ground black pepper

White pepper

Garlic powder

Dashi

100 ml water. Amount varies on how thick you want your batter. I don’t want it to be runny so I used around this much.

Super simple. I didn’t even marinate the chicken. Just put all coating ingredients in a bowl and dip your chicken with it before frying. Here’s a frying tip though. We found it best to use a pressure cooker to cook fried chicken! Just put enough oil to cover the bottom of the pressure cooker or if you have lots of oil about 1 cm from the bottom, bring it to heat, and when its ready put your chicken and cover, set in low fire for 1-2 minutes, then turn off the fire. The pressure is high inside, it will make your chicken soft to the bones without burning the skin and coating. Open only when safety valve -the thing that pops up and down (that small thing that indicates if pressure is still high so don’t force open or you’ll regret it..I guess you know what im talking about) is released. Do this again for the next side. But if you do this using a lot of oil to deep fry your chicken you only need to do this once.

Time for ... cool change..

At least a bit. I changed the template and crop a photo of a japanese maple leaf (momiji) to fit in the banner. I took this photo last year when my EOS baby was a shiny new toy. We've come a long way surviving Japan life for another autumn season. Indeed its fall and the cool wind is seeking the warmth of my faithful sweater. Change clearly is inevitable and the more I think about it, the older I feel. Yet I have to suck it up, brave a smile and greet each morning..we've got a long way to go.

July 6, Kitchen experiment

I remember we were on the course of Heroes marathon when I made these. We wanted something to munch while we were bumming around. Now that Heroes had just aired its season premier, I have to wait in vain for my download to finish. So I guess blogging is a good way to fill the unbearable waiting hours.

Bruschetta

I tried making a different one to see which one is the best. All were baked in the oven 200 C until cheese bubbled.

Combo 1. baguette French bread slice, freshly sliced tomato, olive oil (brushed on top of the bread), mozzarella cheese, dried parsley

Combo 2. baguette French bread slice, freshly sliced tomato, pizza sauce+olive oil (brushed on top of the bread), mozzarella cheese, dried parsley

Combo 3. baguette French bread slice, halved cherry tomato, olive oil (brushed on top of the bread), mozzarella cheese, dried parsley

Combo 4. baguette French bread slice, cherry tomato, pizza sauce+olive oil (brushed on top of the bread), mozzarella cheese, dried parsley

Combo 5. baguette French bread slice, olive oil (brushed on top of the bread), mozzarella cheese, dried parsley

Combo 6-10: repeat all, minus the parsley. Use dried basil instead.

Top pick for Romar: combo 2. although its more pizza-ish than bruschetta

Top pick for Raqx: Combo 1 or 5.

Note: Sliced tomatoes are way better than cherry tomatoes. Parsley enhance the flavor more than basil.

Baked white fish

I needed something that will go well with bruschetta. With limited foodstuff in my fridge I made this.

All you need are:

White fish meat

Olive oil

Dried parsley

Mayonnaise

Cheese (any cheese as long as it melts. Combination of cheeses are also good)

Black and white pepper

Simply lay all fish meat in the dish and top with mayonnaise. Salt is optional because cheese are already very rich in flavor. Put the rest of the ingredients and bake in 200 C until the top turn golden brown.

Stuffed chops, oriental style

I called it oriental because the “usual” stuffing would be mashed potato, but I used rice, and rolls usually are chicken breast yet I used pork. It may seem nakakasawa or nakakaumay but tiny bites, tapas (Spanish) style did the trick.

For this I simply reuse some of the ingredients that were already laid at my kitchen counter plus some addition.

Pork chops sliced thinly (thin porkchops are everywhere in japan)

Cooked rice

Mayonnaise

Parsley and basil

Olive oil

Freshly ground black pepper

Put mayonnaise in the rice, amount varies on the thickness you want to achieve. I put about 2 spoonfull just to make the rice stick together. Put the rest of ingredients and stuff it in porkchop. Secure with a toothpick. Brush the roll with olive oil and bake for 190 C until the porkchop is cooked and gives a golden color. Cut into round portions.

TOP 3..

things that caught my attention this weekend.


Since my last visit to a Kawachi, a store that sells mostly dry goods, from food to cosmetics to toiletries to bento stuff… I knew there are some goodies begging for me to take home. And I just can’t help but imagine having all these things on our walk back to our house. To cut the chase and imaginings I asked my hubby what he’ll get me for Christmas! And I think he knew where I was heading…so when we got home I browsed and found these online. I can’t wait!

After the cuteness encounter, we went to kathy’s house for her despedida. We were greeted with lush green scenery with mount Tsukuba and perfect blue sky as backdrop. Right on 8th floor, I knew there was something good inside. Food was great, conversations were interesting and the cherry to the cake was Wii.
I never really liked gaming because I had this past where I would ditch everything else to play pc games (Sims City, Battle Realms) the whole day. Thing is, carpal tunnel syndrome plus my eye problem and minimal burning of calories weren't actually ideal for me nor for anybody. So i guess a Wii would fit in lazy winter weekends and good for bonding too!

Last that caught my attention doesn’t need a funding campaign. I always have this trouble of setting the language of blogspot from Japanese back to English. No matter how I save the settings it just keeps getting back at a kanji galore page. This morning is beyond any of those days because I leisurely scroll on other languages apart from English and I found FILIPINO! So I set it up to this.

I know it will probably be changed back to jap again…but I can always find comfort in scrolling and choosing the language knowing that it can, in its tiny ways, lead me back home.

i wanna..

change my outline AGAIN. i dunno why i feel distracted with the swirls and paint blots i cant seem to find the words to write anything. *me so blah* even though i already mapped everything in my head, my fingers refused to type along! lol. weird. so i want a change of layout. ill stick to blogspot anyways even if wordpress has really nice templates. aesthetics matters a lot to me *shrug*. guess ill have to blog a little sensible later! lol. have to run and make lunch and be early at work. its friday hooorraaayyy!!!

Hisashiburi!

Long time no see!! whew! never knew I set this blog aside for a very long time! I really need to update my links..

Anyways, you probably know how tough it is to write when there is so much to write about! so let me write back to my darling blog with a tickle.

The joys and pains of freelance english tutoring in Japan. The student is instructed to listen to a song and write down the lyrics.

The student's rendition of Everything I Own by Bread



This post does not mean to offend or whatsoever. :P

Side dish recipes from our kitchen

Pesto and bacon roll

This one is really fast and easy except that maybe I should put milk and create custard first before baking. Anyways I’ll do that next time. What are trial and errors for?

I used:

Bread slices, sides removed

Bacon strips

Ready made pesto

1 egg

I simply flatten the bread slices using a bottle. My kitchen lacks rolling pin :P

Spread thin amount of pesto, laid the bacon strips and roll. I obviously secured it with a toothpick and roll it in a beaten egg. Then baked it 200 degrees or until it turned golden brown. Best to eat this when its still hot.

Onion marmalade

I got this idea from 101 Cheap Eats by GoodFood magazine. It’s a book of compiled recipes that I bought from Page One in Hong Kong. Although it clearly listed the ingredients, I still made something that suits our palate at that time; the later meant only one thing—no more Chinese food or anything that resembles it.

This is a tipid recipe and you will need:

Apple juice (amount depends on the sweetness you want to achieve)

Tomato ketchup (I used Heinz)

Onion cut thinly

Soy sauce (amount depends on the color you want to achieve)

Parsley chopped

Salt and pepper

Cook the onions in a pan with olive oil until softened and lightly browned. Add the tomato ketchup and balance the sour taste with apple juice. Adjust the color by adding soy sauce. Sprinkle parsley, salt and pepper. Top with sesame seeds if desired.

Have this as a topping to any kind of baked, grilled or shallow fried meat. It even went well with mojo potatoes. It was also a good filling for onigiri. It’s very versatile you might want to eat it by itself as a main dish!

When is busy really "busy"?

After about six hours of sleep I will wake up to prepare our lunchboxes and start getting ready for work. I will probably check mails or websites or weather or news if I could squeeze it. Then it will be ten hours in the workplace, driving to and from included. Work includes mostly my right brain plus some cardio from running, walking, hopping, skipping…all the joys of preschool! But hey, don’t kid me, I barely have time to eat my lunch at work. Working with children surely isn’t a walk in the park. And then back at home I have to prepare my lesson for an hour of private tutorials, let’s say it takes about two, travel time included. After which I will pick hubby from his lab and we will either catch dinner out or I will cook in, the latter collecting the most frequent vote. On board our sanctuary a few episodes of downloaded TV series will glue the munching of food and day stories in between bites. Come weekends, it will be a whole lot of household chores, kitchen experiments that mostly include a lot of baking, cyber chat with friends, grocery, gizmos scouting, combing stores in different streets, long drives, gas refill… oh the works! I never usually finish one whole week without someone commenting on how I managed to do this and that.

Yet still, yesterday as I was checking the boxes right next to my to-do-list, it felt like I’ve done nothing. So I drove to the biggest mall here in Tsukuba and picked up cardstocks and button fasteners and it didn’t take me a long time to compute the ridiculously priced stuff so I stepped out, and head straight to my favorite 100yen shop. There I bought more stickers, ribbons, blings, cutting boards, pens, craft scissors, origami paper etcetera… Now I have all these cluttered in my living room.


Hubby told me that I should have bought a craft drawer to fit in all these. Oh well.. I do hope scrapbooking will keep me “busy”.

So again, here comes the question...when are we truly busy?

Birthmonth meme

I initially made this blog to document my own making as a “wife”. Along the way, I ventured to a daily obento making and it is one of my fave craft that I intended to refine. It was fun posting it here and virtually sharing it too. However, lately the food blogging is taking much space and totally displaces lot of things I wanted to write about. So I decided to relocate the bento posts to our multiply site. After all I registered it to be our “family” site where our friends and families can connect with us and peek at our “homemaking” wherever we may be.

It may not have started with big bang and fireworks, yet I still foresee that 2008 will be a promising year for everybody and ME. The later by definition means never shelving notable nor trivial thoughts.

So here is a trivial something about ME. Needless to say I have one meme overdue where Saj tagged me.
Meme rules:
1. Pick your birth month.
2. Bold the 5-10 that best apply to you.
3. Copy to your own journal, with all twelve months (click this for the list).
4. Tag 12 people from your friends list.

Birth month: February
Abstract thoughts. Loves reality and abstract. Intelligent and clever. Changing personality. Attractive. Sexy. Temperamental. Quiet, shy and humble. Honest and loyal. Determined to reach goals. Loves freedom. Rebellious when restricted. Loves aggressiveness. Too sensitive and easily hurt. Gets angry really easily but does not show it. Dislikes unnecessary things. Loves making friends but rarely shows it. Daring and stubborn. Ambitious. Realizes dreams and hopes. Sharp. Loves entertainment and leisure. Romantic on the inside not outside. Superstitious and ludicrous. Spendthrift. Tries to learn to show emotions.

That was just 9! Although I wanted to highlight sexy, haha! But nah, I had enough spills of pheromones I think the lid is now on. The darling word I was actually looking for is “closet deviant” which is why more than half trait of my birth month just doesn’t apply to me.

Speaking of deviant, i can only tag a few since i have a few on my list. Please join this bandwagon Ced, Bill, Karmi and Herb. :)

photo nicked from here

bento muli

Good morning. I woke up 5am today. At this time I’m supposed to be preparing or should have finished preparing our bento for today. Yet instead I turned my back at my kitchen and went to open my computer. I’m currently in a state of denial that for the first time ever I actually made a mistake in cooking pasta sauce. Okay. I said it. Now I want to run away from typing this too.

Argh. I’m not quite sure yet but I think the cream of mushroom leftover that I stirred in my red sauce mixture is already spoiled. I did check after opening but I didn’t smell anything off. And now I am about to blame my impaired olfaction. Shheeeesshh!

Whew! Scratch that. I went back to check if my suspicion was correct and it failed me. Thank heavens! My hormones are really raging bananas for some time now, and I give myself some credits for breathing in and out instead of going nuts.

So anyways I have the whole December obento backlog plus this week’s. I will try to post them all as soon as I can and I dearly dedicate my obentos to my old friends who recently got married, moved in with boyfriends, had a child, on the way, and of course to new friends who loves good food whether or not they have it on their plates on a dinner table or just munching on a cold pizza on their bed ;).

This was the one I was talking about.


And this is our bento today.

Easy macaroni with mushroom twist

Since I still have some leftover ingredients I used to make medya noche I decided to free more fridge space by combining it to make a macaroni sauce. I started with the basic sauté of onion, garlic, red bell pepper in butter (all minced). Add the ham and mushroom which was cut to tiny pieces. Next I poured in the canned chopped tomato and added salt, freshly grounded pepper and dried basil. When the mixture started to boil, turn down your stove fore and let simmer for 10 minutes. This will let all your ingredients to blend well and create that distinct taste. Then I stirred the campbell’s cream of mushroom, about half a cup of it. Adjust the taste with salt, pepper, sugar and parmesan. I used sugar to balance the sourness of the canned tomato. I also prefer to put the parmesan while simmering the sauce to enrich the flavor. Let cool and add your cooked macaroni.

Peanut butter sandwich

I initially thought of making a club but I have to cut short the prep time to blog this :P
Cut the bread loaf in desired shape, spread the peanut butter and arrange.

new year.

Time is up. My ten-day vacation meets its end. Bum days are over. Seeking refuge from the fridge, pots and pans, from the microwave is so over. Endless watching of TV series has to be moderated once again. Early morning to late afternoon sleep is unacceptable. This whole inactivity is over.

It’s the time to shed off the excess, fill up the lack of it and have it just right enough. It’s the time to pick up my book and prepare for a possibility of considering more options. It’s the time to read so I may read. It’s the time to accept that the “benefit of the doubt” was actually a mislabeled cynicism. It’s the time to go with the flow and not complain. It’s the time to liberate the times of yore and fashion a new one.

December is gone. The month reserved for reminiscing good and old memories trotted away. The dreaded urge of pouring emotions to writing should long been gone. Hormones should be excused from blame this time.

The time is up…and it’s about time…eventhough I know that I will probably have this kind of entry again, next year.