With the holidays in full swing, and Noche Buena fast approaching, we are all looking for recipes and dishes for our Christmas table. I remember when I was younger, my mom, grandmother, and all my aunts and uncles would plan out our menus for Christmas Eve (and Christmas Day…and all the holiday parties!). I would eagerly await to see my favorites: my uncle’s turkey and roast beef, my mom’s Royal Apahap, my grandmother’s molo soup, any aunt’s hot chocolate with ensaymada and ham. These are what the season’s memories are truly made of…loved ones preparing dishes that have lived, and continue to ..read more

One of the most valuable things in my cooking journey has always been the advice of people who have been cooking long before me. I still remember my father dumping a spoonful of pimenton de la Vera in my fabada telling me “this will make it taste better“. My mother teaching me how to make stock out of ham bone. My godfather teaching my husband how to make paella (“I usually go upstairs to take a bath and when I come down it’s done”). My grand-aunt sharing the secret of her callos (make sure the butcher shows you the hoof!!). My abuelita telling me her “formula” for baked Parmesan chicken. And ..read more

Well hello. Ok, I’m not going to go into how long it has been since I’ve been here. Or why it was that I have been away for so long. Or about life and living and time and busyness and work and family and “the universe”. You have lives…so I think you know the drill. And I won’t waste both our times in looking back. Only just to say that nothing terrible has happened, we are sailing as smoothly forward as we can manage, and in fact, some exciting things have been, and are, happening. But I suppose the more important thing, for this little space anyway, is that I’m here now. (and hopefully, you a ..read more

I was at the grocery one day when I chanced upon some of Yummy magazine’s little cookbooks on the magazine rack. They are roughly the size of a paperback but thinner. A mini cookbook really. But packed to the brim with delicious and doable recipes. They have several in varying themes and the one I found was entitled Pinoy Regional Favorites. It had been published a while back already, so these were probably the last remaining copies (in the store). I couldn’t resist. I grabbed two and stuck them in my cart. I still remember the very first time I read the very first issue of Yummy magazine. I ..read more

Oh boy, have I been missing in action. And before anything let me just say I am so very sorry for the neglect. Do I have an excuse? Not really. I mean nothing really different from what everyone else has been up to…work, holidays, family, life and all its glorious foibles. But I’ve never really been totally gone. Not from food (never from food!). And not from the thought of sharing recipes with you. So, no more dallying with apologies of what was…onwards and upwards shall we? First off, Happy New Year! Yes, jauntily capitalized as are all our intentions in the beginning of a year. What are mi ..read more

We love our roast chickens over here. My husband and I have been having them since we were newly married and our kitchen was a tiny galley-type in our first apartment. We now have two children and a slightly bigger kitchen (emphasis on the slightly) and our love for good old roast chicken continues. Now my children wait patiently (sometimes not too patiently) for me to take the chicken out of the oven…and I cut choice bits to pop into their waiting mouths and hands…and am endlessly thrilled when they approve. We have, in fact, just recently graduated from a one-chicken family to a two-chicken ..read more

It’s funny how ideas can come from places we, at first, wouldn’t think likely. Like in the line at the ATM (always a good few long minutes there!), or while looking at old family photos (we need to go on holidays more often), or from scrounging through the leftovers in the fridge (so many great meals come by way of this, highly scientific, method, believe you me…). And it was during one such leftover incursion that I discovered this dish. It was after a shoot with Yummy magazine, which always leaves us with surplus of goodies in our fridge. Amongst the mess that is my refrigerator, I found th ..read more

Although I’ve had my KitchenAid for many years, I’ve never tried out any of the attachments. It could be said that I’ve been keeping my beloved KitchenAid from her full potential. After all, and KitchenAid is supposed to be just that…an aid in the kitchen, and not just a mixer. That’s not to say that I haven’t thought of the attachments, day dreaming about using one or the other (my most longed-for being the ice cream maker attachment). But all these years it’s been relegated to day-dreaming, and I never got around to actually procuring one myself. Fast forward to the KitchenAid Mini launch ..read more

Hello everyone! Thank you for being so patient with me! And if you weren’t…I completely understand! Life definitely has a way of teaching us how we need to spend our time, and what priorities we need to attend to. Especially for working moms, for whom there always seems to be one ball too many to gracefully juggle. BUT…I can’t, and won’t, complain. I am grateful to have a job. And I am beyond grateful to be a mother, even if sometimes (ok, more than sometimes) I have no idea what I’m doing. Anyway. My best friend K and I decided to celebrate Best Friends Day by having a little giveaway right h ..read more

Do you know what today is? It’s Best Friends Day! Yes, there is indeed such a day that celebrates and honors that special person that fate threw in your path, and changed your life forever. As it should be celebrated. A best friend is a soul mate. A life mate. A gift from the universe. Someone who sticks by you through thick and thin, through victory and defeat, through glorious first kisses and crappy boyfriends, through your first sip of a vodka tonic and holding your hair up whilst puking said vodka tonic. Through sneaking out, playing hooky, and getting tattoos. Through weddings, babies, a ..read more