In My Kitchen

I am done hibernating, and started eating fruits today. I haven't eaten fruits in a while and today I started again. I go through the cycle of not eating certain stuff and goes back to it. The image below is for DH. He complains that he should eat better food. So, for start, I gave him bunch of veggie slices. No dip, he eats them plain. New Year, making ourselves better...well, kinda...he he he

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Pier 1 Imports . All opinions are 100% mine. Like I mentioned before, I don't feel very festive this holiday. It was probably the fact that, families have other things in mind, and we are the youngest sibling, and have the youngest grandchildren. However, when we were starting, we are always there for them to watch open their presents. Now, they hardly come even just to chat and catch up. I love it when my whole house is decorated for the season. I like matching table cloth, napkins, table liner and curtains. This is the time of the year that I do my spring cleaning too. I find all the things I needed at Pier 1 . My husband enjoys browsing through all the exotic things we can add to our old decorations. We both love their papasan the most. Furthermore, make sure you go back after the season, because seasonal are on sale. I urge you to stop by at one of their locations before the month ends. You can help supp...

We can finally go back to normal after a week. And the best part of all, is that the day is getting longer everyday. I know winter only started not too long ago, however, I'm looking for warmer temperature from now on. I made pot roast for Christmas dinner. Actually, that's all I have because my SIL told us that she will not be staying long. However, it changes because she had cold and their plan did go through. They are supposed to visit an ill step mother in law. This is the 3rd time we got a late noticed for Christmas dinner. And yes, she was late again. DH was sure that his parents was not staying long because his sister is not staying. Well, they all stayed. Not enough food to choose from, and I told my SIL, that I only made one dish because she said that she will not be eating here. I just don't like it when there is no other food choice. If it's my extended family, they will be more than happy to stay longer. Or until the food meant for the occasion are all gone....

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Toms of Maine . All opinions are 100% mine. I don't have any experience using   Tom's Of Maine   products as of yet. However, I have plenty of thoughts on the product. I will try to elaborate the way that do not discriminate a product that I have not used.      First of all, when I want to use a product it should be all natural. Are soothing and moisturizer    ingredients are really needed to have all natural toothpaste?    I do not believe so. I like my toothpaste with only three or four ingredients, for example, baking soda, food grade peroxide, peppermint oil and distilled water. If I have to refrigerate it to last longer, that is just fine. My family enjoys eating sweet delights, and I make sure they have the best and healthy toothpaste to clean their teeth with. I also make su...

I know that there is no chance that I will be able to go to the Asian store anytime soon. I decided to buy a few fish in my local grocery store instead. The tag said it was wild caught, ok...four little fish will not kill me. So, today, I brought my deep fryer outside the house and fried my four little fish in the cold. I can't bear to smell my house all day with fish scent. Not to mention my family can eat a well dressed fish but not the way I like them...ha ha ha. I ate some fried fish and my house does not smell like it. My neighbor who is very sensitive about things, like your foot on their property, might have said something if they were home. A comment like, "I don't want that stench going into my breathing air." I feel like putting a high wall between our property. They will never see the sunset after that. All in all, I am pretty happy with my dinner tonight. It's not dried fish, but it will do for now.

DH almost drove to NJ today to pick up a used PC for our youngest child. I could have been eating dry fish by now, because the Oriental Store is close by where he is supposed to go. I could have fresh fish easily, but somehow I want something different. Not to mention I haven't had any of my usual Filipino food lately. Vegetables do not cut it anymore. I might look like a vegetable one of these days...:)) Have a great day everyone!

I am just thinking how much take out we bought this year. Every time we go camping, we stop at fast food to eat before and after camping. When we (DC & I) go with DH to a meeting we always stop also. Whenever I don't feel like cooking or simply too busy to think about what to cook, I go out and buy something that are ready to eat. I bought so much, that I think the total was the same for us for the last 7 years. That is too much in my opinion. For the past seven years, we use all the take out in one year, which is this year 2010. It is too much easier when my college child was still in high school. Every time I don't know what to cook, I'll just asked him and that is what we eat. Now, I will ask anyone of them, and it takes them forever to get back to me. By the time they figure out what they all wanted, I am tired or just not enough time to thaw anything from the freezer. Or if I decide by myself what to cook, the food will sit inside the fridge forever. Then DH will s...

In my part, that is. I got so much things I wanted to bake this season. Baking gets the house warmer than usual too, however, I can't find time to do them. Then when summer gets here, I don't feel like baking because it is too hot and I am not fond of baking when I am sweating. I can't win...gezz! Anyway, I will coming back more often now. I free myself from another none sense activity that I used to do. Yay! More posting for me...lol.

I am very thankful for my SIL, for taking over the Thanksgiving gathering this year. I don't have to clean and cook so much stuff and less half of the food will be eaten. My time cooking is not worth what they eat. Too many left over and most of the time they will never show up because my nieces rather be with their boyfriends' house or busy working. I only cooked cheese cake, pumpkin pie and chocolate cake this time. We left our untidy house and came back after eating dinner at her house. She set up the dinner at 2pm, but we did not show up until 3pm, because I told DH that she was always late showing up in my house for the whole 7 years the gathering was done in my house. She called around 1:45pm to make sure we are on our way, but we're not even ready to go yet. I forgot to tell her not to wait for us. Oh, well...I don't feel bad. lol, no remorse at all. High almighty forgive me. We never gave her time when the dinner was in my house, but she always gave us the time....

This is my very first home made pot pie. When DH and I were dating he asked me if I have eaten pot pie. Well, I haven't and he took me to Boston Market and order one for me. I like it, especially in a cold day. Yes, after so many years and during my busy schedule, I finally made one enough for the whole family. Please remember this is my very first try. I refuses to use shortening to make the dough and used oil instead. I use olive oil on every bread recipe I make. To those of you who are familiar with virgin coconut oil (CVO), it makes me wonder if the dough will taste differently if I use VCO? CVO have the same consistency like the shortening, I should try it sometimes and see the outcome. I will post the recipe sometime next week or this weekend when I have time typing. Have a great weekend everyone, and to join FTF, just follow the image below.

Huh, I finally made it here. Geez, it's getting hard every time to get in here. I finally had a chance to whip-up something this weekend. I will post it as my FTF entry, since I haven't really join it for so long. Thank you so much to EC advertisers from keep on buying ad here. I do try my best to visit EC and approve all of your request, except for half naked people EC avatars. I also try to return most drop when I have a chance. Schedule post is a life saver, I write about a few things and schedule them. When my schedule gets better, or if I get better with my schedule I will sure be here often. Have a great week everyone. Make sure to spend only cash this holiday, economy is not getting any time soon. And make sure you stock-up on food too and hide it somewhere safe from preying eyes.

Whew! I missed two weeks of FTF again. Like I said before, this will not get better anytime soon. I think this will only get better when my children can do their own lessons at home. Right now, I can't leave them alone. I'm having a lot of salad lately. Even DH cannot tell me what he wants to eat most of the time. And I don't want to waste time cooking if no one will eat it. I miss my son in college. He eats everything I put on the table and even the left-over. Too much chocolate from Halloween. Kids open them non-stop and when they are broken, they just put it in the garbage. Then later they will not have anything sweet to eat. I don't mind it at all, at least they will disappeared faster...but a waste of money. Have a great weekend everyone, I maybe traveling again this weekend along with the family. I have to pick up my ODS from Edinboro University on the 23rd and I am not looking forward for a 6 hours drive one way...:( But I have no choice, I wanted him to join us ...

I harvested my entire vegetable garden not too long ago and I have plenty of carrots. I have to use them or they will get bad and here is one recipe I used them at. The fish are cut into cubes and mixed with some flour then cook in butter for less than a minute. I usually like my fish a little crunchy but I did not cook this particular dish that way. DH like the fish just right and not over cooked. I used Mahi-mahi because the fish does not over power the sweet and sour. With DH first bite, he cannot recognized what kind of meat it was. Which is good, because if he can taste the fish more than the sauce, I am sure he will not eat it. Picture can also be seen in my Vegetable Garden blog I apologize for lack of post for FTF. To see more FTF entry, please click the below image.

Here is another way I like my steak sandwich. Cheese at the bottom, onions and bell peppers with ketchup on top. Yummy! Have a great week everyone.

I saw a few salad restaurant going to Harrisburg a few months back. I guess this is the in thing now. People can stop there and grab some salad for dinner. They are like mushrooms popping every where. I guess I have not left my county for a long time and never noticed it before. However, I am frequent in NJ and never saw one. Might be a PA thing, who knows. You will not see me there unless we are traveling. I rather make my own salad at home. I remember my ODS is complaining about the salad in his campus dinner hall. He said most of the food are GMO and he quit eating salad because he always find brown lettuce in them...ewww. We are doom when it comes to vegetables and meat. Unless you are growing your own, you will never know if that organic thing they sell in the store is really organic. They can easily pay FDA to have the label organic, you see. As long as they get 50% of the profit, they don't care. Money moves mountain...I hate it.

I haven't share a new food recipe picture for two weeks now...whew. My weekend has been very hectic and cooking some new recipes are out of the picture. I don't think it will get easier either. We(my family) have some activities lined up for the 4 day weekend we will having. Camping would be nice but that is not in our schedule (yet). A few meetings to go to and a gathering (picnic) of some sort. I'm hoping to go shopping tonight for food and fabric for my kids costume. Hopefully I have spare time to sew even only one costume this weekend. I'll be making brownies (from the box) for the gathering. I don't have time to make it from scratch this time. The picture should be in my FTF next week. I hate making dish from the box, but I don't have any choice at this time. Have a great weekend everyone.

Since my ODS is out of the house (in college) the meal that I usually cook last forever because we don't like leftover. I used to cook two pans of pizza and it is usually gone or sometimes not enough when he is around. However, we always have leftover now a days. So, instead of having a lot of pizza the next day, I tried making pizza wrap (or calzone) from one pan. Not as filled like the one you buy from an eatery, but the same concept on how to do calzones. I ask DH if he prefer them all cheese, or mix stuffing instead? He likes the pizza better, but I will making the calzone again and put other stuffing like chicken and cheese, or vegetables. Here is my finish calzone. It needed more filling inside. Next time this sure will be filled with something.

I wish I still live in the south to catch some of these. My friends and I used to spend one whole day in the pier catching crabs. This one however, is caught inside a grocery store. DH asked me how much I paid for it, I kinda lied because I know if he heard the right amount I will never hear the end of it. He does love crabs but he rather buy the big ones because it has more meat in them. DD was asking when we are going crabbing. With DH schedule, all I can tell her is I don't know.

I apologize for posting this late, I was pre-occupied with so much stuff. I looked at so many recipe and I settled with two. I took the recipe for the seafood on one, and the recipe for the white sauce on the other. The picture can be found below this post. For seafood: salt and pepper (to taste) thyme (to taste) lemon juice (to taste) 1/4 c shredded mild cheddar cheese 1/4 c Parmesan cheese 1 tsp mustard 1/4 c white wine or sherry cooked shrimps and crab meat cooked rice or pasta Mix all the ingredients and put it in a baking dish. For white cream sauce: 1/4 c butter 1/4 c flour 2 c light cream 2 onions chopped 2 bay leaves salt and pepper to taste grated fresh nutmeg to taste Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat. Stir in flour and cook 3 to 4 minutes while stirring; do not brown. In another saucepan, bring the cream to just boil. Stir the warm cream into the flour mixture, whisking until smooth. Add onions and bay leaves, simmer for 20 minutes on low heat. season sauce with sa...

I know not much to see here because I covered the mixture with the sauce which by the way is too thick...lol. It almost taste like the one we ate at the 50th anniversary celebration, but (you know there is always but) the sherry is over powering the imitation crab meat and the sauce is too thick. Next time I will decrease the sherry and make sure I do not leave the sauce in the sauce pan. I enjoyed it very much. I will add the recipe I used later today...busy teaching my children right now...

I found a recipe for peach short bread a few days back while dropping EC. The picture look enticing and I told DH about it. Then over the weekend we passed a farmers market who sells peaches and DH asked if I wanted some. I told him, "if you will eat some peach short bread sure we can buy some." He said, "yuck! I can't believe people actually eat it, why ruined a perfectly bad for you short bread and add something good, it ruins the whole purpose of bad food (or the other way around)." Well, he got a point you know. In my case why add something bad for perfectly good food? What exactly the point of all of this? To keep it balance? I don't know, but I like to try something different once in a while, and only once. I don not understand it either cooking meat you with fruit. With vegetables I don't have any problem, but fruit...why? Maybe someone can explain it to me...:))

I found this recipe on the Lea Perrins bottle marinade for chicken. I think I cooked the chicken a little bit longer because it was a little dry. DH refuses to eat pork meat and my meat choices is very limited. Sometimes I can cook chicken perfectly but this time this one came out not perfect. I checked it when I got it out of the oven, and I can still see some juice, but when we ate it, it was dry. I probably should have remove it from the roaster pan while cooking the side dishes. All I can do is try again next time. Dijon Marinade: * 1/2 cup(s) Lea & Perrins® Marinade for Chicken * 3 tablespoon(s) Dijon-style mustard * 2 tablespoon(s) olive oil * 4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves (about 1 ¼ lbs) Cooking Instructions: 1. Combine all ingredients except chicken. 2. Marinate in refrigerator 1 to 3 hours. 3. Grill or broil, turning occasionally and brushing frequently with additional Lea & Perrins® until chicken is no longer pink and juices run clear.

Author: Jonathan Suarez There is no greater pleasure for me than flipping through the directv channels and checking out CNN in the morning. Getting caught up on the day's events, and what might be coming down the pipe helps prepare me for the day while I sip on a cup of coffee. The anchors and reports present the facts in a professional and somewhat entertaining manner, and the show varies topics enough that a half hour or so is usually enough to figure out what I may have to research more on the Internet later in the day. Basically, national and global newscasts, like CNN, provide a sound basis of just about everything going on. Of course, larger newsworthy events get focused on much more. This expanded coverage allows for an in-depth look at a given situation. I can always count on CNN for an unbiased report, and the reporters almost always ask the right questions. It is nice to watch my favorite news program without it trying to skew itself into entertainment. First thing in the...

Vegetables in coconut milk with fish...lol. My parents always make this when I was little. Yes, with rice, I can't eat it without rice...:)) One version of cheese steak that I like, mushrooms and onions. Sometimes I make it with red/green bell peppers and onions, or mushrooms, onions, lettuce and tomatoes. It depends what I have available in the fridge or my garden.

This is my very first harvest in my garden this year...in August? yes, I am not very happy about it either. I should be in the end of harvesting season already. However, I am still happy because I can have some fresh veggies that I love, even though there are too little of it. Some type of squash, okra/lady fingers, sitaw/long/string/yard beans with shrimps. This shellfish thing will bring me to hell...argh. Below is my DD showing how long some of my sitaw are. All natural soil, the only difference from last year was food scraps from my kitchen mixed with the soil. You will find some of the pictures in my other blogs. No, I do not copy it, I own them both...just to clarify if you find the same pictures somewhere...:))

Our neighbor knocked on our door yesterday and gave us a lot of vine ripe tomatoes. I haven't really made ketchup yet, and that came to mind when I saw how ripe they are. Now I found plenty of recipe but I don't know which one to pick. I like it to be thick just like Heinz ketchup. If I make something not that thick, it will end up in the garbage and my work will be wasted. So, which recipe would you recommend?

Guest post written by Kathryn Myers I never tried sushi until my freshman year of college. I’m originally from a small town and there was one Japanese restaurant there that offered sushi , but I wasn’t crazy about the food so I never braved trying it. But once I went off to school and found a great little sushi place near campus when I was looking up local eateries with my blue internet service Oregon . I’m basically a regular there now and always chat up the employees when I go there for a meal. In the spring semester my best friend from home was visiting and I of course wanted to show her a good time so we found a movie to go and see through wild blue and direct tv and then after I took her to the sushi place. At first she was really unsure and skeptical. So I told her to order a California roll and got an order of hibachi chicken for us to split just in case she didn’t like it. But she ended up liking it once she got used to the concept!

These are half gallon milk bottles we are using to get milk from our friend. They have farm animals and their cows are giving too much milk for their own consumptions. We barely pay anything, because I know the work done milking a cow is a lot more than $3 a gallon. We like to pay them $5 a gallon but they don't want to accept it. So, I try very hard to go there with no change and just give them the money I came with, usually $10. We are very thankful that they give us milk or trust us. We will do the same if we have cows and if we know our neighbors are nice and will not get us in trouble with FDA. By the way, the milk we get from them are raw and sometimes still warm. mmmm, nothing compare to warm milk (natural) before bedtime. I know some cannot drink raw milk. I cannot tolerate dairy product when I came in this country, but drinking raw milk prove it wrong. My new brother in law was having digesting pasteurize and homogenize when she married my SIL. Now, he drinks raw milk and ...