Exploring the Philippines

Mar and I are presently enjoying our more than 3 hours stop-over at SeaTac - Seattle Tacoma International Airport, at their huge food court, with free wifi, after having just finished our lunch.  At 120pm we will be flying to Seoul, Korea's Inchon International Airport, then later, we will take another flight to country of our birth, the Philippines arriving at 1130pm on Sunday, Jan. 17, 2010.

We left home at 5am to cross the border to go to Bellingham International Airport to take our flight to here.  We were actually too early with about 3 hours before our flight at 930am.

Crossing the US border was easy, with some standard questions, then we were allowed entry.  Our luggages were not inspected.

With minor luggage weight reductions, after using the airport's weighing scale, our luggages hit a little below the maximum 50 lbs.  We have 4 checked, 2 carry-on and 2 computer bags.

I meant this trip to last one year while my husband's idea is 6 months.  Let's see!

RVing in Europe - The Hague, Netherlands

July 5, 2007

We left Rotterdam early morning to go see the sea.  We parked near the beach and had breakfast there.  It was only about 25 kms from Rotterdam.

We later drove around and found a mall.  This mall was interesting.  All shops are selling bargain, low cost, low quality stuff.  We enjoyed shopping and bought the ff:
table cloth
chopping board
stove lighter
2 camping foldable chairs 7 euros each
bleach

We found a supermarket and enjoyed shopping like we always do.  We bought the following for 28 euros.
fruits
meat
mushrooms
bread
rice
monggo
ginger

We check for free wifi connection anywhere we go and except for one time in Dresden, Germany, we always get it.  The parking lot in this mall was no exception.  We stayed the whole afternoon and early evening googling, emailing and researching our next destinations.

At 9pm, we left the mall parking lot and free-camped in an aire.

RVing in Europe - Rotterdam, The Netherlands

July 2, 2007

It was only about 100kms to reach Rotterdam from Antwerp, Brussels.   The night before, we actually arrived in Netherlands but it was late to go anywhere so we stayed the night in an aire beside Mc Donalds.   We had an unhealthy late night snack of McDonalds french fries before going to bed.

When we arrived in Rotterdam, we found a paid parking beside a small supermarket.  Did I mention, one of our favorite things to do in Europe is food shopping at supermarkets?  We liked finding things/food one can only find in Europe.  Every country in Europe has a different thing to offer so it is always interesting to look, buy and try.  For example:  I liked the pancetta from supermarkets in Italy and they're cheap.  It goes absolutely perfect with pasta and vegies.  We liked parmegiano reggiano and prosciutto from Parma, Italy.  I liked the spices I found from Spain and can't find it anywhere else.   My husband so much enjoyed different kinds of tetra packed multi-flavored fruit juices from Germany.  We ate a lot of chocolate croissants in France - it became our breakfast every morning.  We've tasted different kinds of sausages and they were all ok but nothing comes to mind as my favorite.  Eggplants looked perfect and individually wrapped in plastic in Netherlands - we wonder how they grow such perfect eggplants.  Our eggplants in Canada are normal looking.  Normal to me is what I had seen and enjoyed in the Philippines.

We were always excited to enter and explore any supermarket in any country in Europe.  I'd like to do it again - maybe next year - just thinking and writing about it makes me happy.

We drove around  and found a perfect place just outside the city - beautiful trees, a huge pond where there were mating ducks and their small ducks, in a quiet and peaceful looking neighborhood, free street parking and free wifi connection.  We parked there and stayed the night.  Nobody bothered us, so we stayed 2 more nights.

The days we were in Rotterdam were rainy.  We did not want to go doing tourist stuff when it was raining.  So we relaxed in our perfect parking in a perfect neighborhood enjoying my free wifi connection and enjoying good food.  We went to a small mall and did some more food shopping.  There was a chocolate shop and we sampled their various chocolate concoctions.  We also bought a vegetable peeler.

On July 4, we finally were able to tour the city. We did a tram tour of the outskirts too. Rotterdam is known for the Erasmus Bridge, the Euromast and the Port of Rotterdam being the largest port in Europe. We were in Rotterdam's Museum at the right time - free entrance day - so we went.

Lumpiang Gulay - Vegetable Spring Rolls

Filipinos have their own version of spring rolls which we call lumpia.  Although I am now Canadian, I will always refer to myself in this blog as Filipino.  We Filipinos have several types of lumpia, two of which I cook every once in a while.  First, which I cook more often, is called lumpia shanghai which uses ground pork as main ingredient and the second, called lumpiang gulay is pictured above.  Lumpiang gulay literally means vegetable sping rolls.  This can be a vegetarian meal if you want, just omit the inclusion of any meat product.

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground pork

1 lb. bean sprout, washed, blanched, set aside to cool in a strainer

1 lb. cabbage, washed and sliced thinly

1 lb. green beans, washed and sliced thinly

1 med size carrot, peeled and sliced match sticks size

1 large camote or sweet potato, peeled and sliced twice the size of match sticks

2 packs spring roll wrapper or 50 pcs.

6 cloves garlic, minced

1 large onions, chopped

4 tbsp corn oil

1 liter corn oil

salt and pepper

Cooking Instructions:

1.  In a large wok or large frying pan, saute garlic and onion, add ground pork, season with salt and pepper and cook until water is gone and pork is frying and started browning.

2.  Add carrots and sweet potato, a bit of salt and pepper, stir fry a little bit and remove from the pan while still half-cooked.  I use a big pyrex dish to transfer the contents of the frying pan so that the stir fry is cooled a lot faster instead of a huge bowl which would keep the heat more.  Remember, we want it half-cooked.

3.  Add a little oil, add green beans, stir fry a minute then add cabbage, stir fry one minute, season with salt andn pepper then remove from pan, transfer to a second pyrex dish.  Allow it to cool down.

4.  When vegies are cooled, put all together, mix well.

5.  Wrap the vegies using the spring roll wrapper.  Look at the picture above to get an idea. Practice makes perfect, remember.

6.  Deep fry in a deep fryer or if you don't have a deep fryer use a medium sized, heavy bottom cooking pan, use about 1-2 inches of corn oil, fry until light golden brown.

7.  Drain the oil, use a paper towel.

8.  Sweet chili sauce, store bought, bottled, product of Thailand is good sauce but we use vinegar/garlic/salt dipping sauce for this kind of lumpia and sweet chili sauce for lumpia shanghai.

Traditional Meatloaf

I go to a meat shop in Langley, BC where I go to buy a lot of meat, mostly beef and some pork.  They always have a discounted ground beef pack of 10 lbs.  So once a month ground beef becomes meatloaf, mexican chili, spaghetti meat sauce and sometimes hamburger.

Here's my recipe for my meatloaf.

 Ingredients:                     
1 kg. ground beef (or 1/2 kg pork  and 1/2 kg beef)
2 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper
2 tsp worcestershire sauce (optional, if you don't have it, skip it)
4 slices bread
2 large eggs

1 cup milk
1 large carrot
2 stalk celery
1 large onion
3 tbsp corn oil
1/2 cup ketchup

Cooking Instructions:
1.  In a frying pan, saute onion, carrot and celery in corn oil until soft and onion translucent.  Set aside.

2.  In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs, add milk and soak bread, mix until bread are mushy
3.  In the same bowl, add ground beef, salt, pepper and worcestershire sauce
4.  Add sauted vegetables to the bowl and mix well.  You can use your clean hands to mix.

5.  In a rectangular pyrex covered with foil, transfer the mixture and shape it with your hands to form a  rectangular loaf  
6.  Pour ketchup on top of the beef , spread evenly
7.  Bake in preheated oven, 350 degrees Farenheit, 50 minutes to 1 hour
8.  Remove from oven, check if cooked through by inserting a table knife in the center of 
the meatloaf.  If the knife came out not wet, it's cooked.  If you have a cooking thermometer, inside temp should be 160 degrees F.

Palabok

I always cook two big pyrex of palabok for my family.  One and it would be gone very quickly, so in order for us to enjoy multiple servings, gotta have two.

I brought this once to a potluck party and it was a huge success, it was all gone, two pyrex-full, in no time at all.  Now this is a requested food for potluck.

Ingredients:

500 gms rice noodles (bihon), boiled al dente, goes straight to 2 pyrex from boilling water

2 lbs. ground pork

1 lb. shrimp, deveined, boiled in little salt, remove shells and head

6 large eggs, hard boiled, remove shell, slice nicely, if possible use an egg slicer

1 bunch green onion, washed and chopped small

1 pack pork skin crackers (sitsaron), pounded to bits

3 pack Mama Sita palabok mix

1 large onion, finely chopped

1 garlic head, minced

2-3 tbsp corn oil

salt and pepper

Cooking and assembling instructions:

1.  In a large, heavy bottom cooking pan, put oil and saute garlic until golden brown and onion until translucent

2.  Add ground pork, season with salt and pepper, saute until water has evaporated and pork is slightly frying

3.  Follow Mama Sita instruction in mixing with water, add mixture to large pan, bring to boil while stirring the sauce to ensure Mama Sita is diluted in water and is mixed with ground pork.

4.  Simmer in very low heat for 45 mins to 1 hr.

5.  Check seasoning and adjust salt and pepper.

6.  Using a soup ladle, transfer sauce to boiled noodles in pyrex, drenched all white noodles with sauce

7.  Arrange egg slices on top, alternately arrange shrimps on top, top with green onions

8.  Just before eating, top with sitsaron and some more green onions if you like.

Christmas 2009

 

Picture of our dining table on Christmas day laid our for brunch.  Earlier, I cooked noodles and made 4 pyrex of palabok (filipino noodles with shrimp sauce).  Two pyrex for us and two pyrex of palabok for potluck later with friends.  Palabok actually was requested, it was a hot item the last time I brought it to a potluck party.

On Dec. 24, with the help of my husband, I cooked 3 meat loafs (1 for potluck), 5 kg. ham, palabok meat sauce, boiled shrimp for palabok, boiled eggs for palabok, big pot of mexican ground beef chili (not in picture),  leche flan and mixed fruit salad. 

Because I cooked the palabok sauce and prepped all the toppings the day before, it was just boiling the noodles and assembling all the ingredients on Christmas day.  It would be accurate to say, we were very tired on the 24th and very relaxed on the 25th.  That was exactly the plan.

Fruit Salad

Fruit salad is one dessert we always have for Christmas and New Year.  This is one of our family favorites.  Some fruit salad I noticed are drained totally before ingredients were mixed so that cream and condensed milk just coats the ingredients just like when you put dressing to your greens.  My fruit salad, we like it to be 'saucy'.  I just pour out the fruit coctail juices, drain it a little bit and that's it.  The result is a saucy and creamy fruit salad.

Ingredients:

1 big can fruit coctail, drained

1 bottle nata de coco, drained

1 or 2 cans corn kernel, drained

2 fresh and crispy apples, washed and diced

1 condensed milk

1 big Nestle cream

Mix everything together in a big mixing bowl.  Transfer to containers and refrigerate.  Enjoy once chilled.

Goodbye 2009, Hello 2010

One minute before midnight last night, we counted down from 60 to 0 and wished everyone a Happy New Year at our party of about 40 people.  Everyone was energetic, happy and really enthusiastic to welcome the beginning of a new decade - 2010.  Everyone hugged and kissed almost everyone.  Isn't that a great way to celebrate the beginning of a year and a decade?

We did a lot of games and laughed a lot.  We did a lot of eating, singing and dancing too.

Food was potluck and quite a lot, everyone had a take-out of huge amount of food at the end of the party.  I didn't take out too much because I cooked big batches of two main dishes for the New Year which would be good for couple of days with the addition of some vegies to add fibers and variety to our menu.

Last night was cold and rainy and today is rainy still.

Christmas day, Dec. 26 and 27 was cold and foggy but sunny in contrast.

Happy New Year everyone!