I’ve already posted it in my other blog, but I will also post it here just to share with you how easy it is to make my favorite Pinoy dessert, ginataan na halo-halo. I included the price of each ingredient so you’ll have an idea how much it will cost.

INGREDIENTS:
Galapong (P25 for one big plastic, makes a looooot of bilo-bilo)
1 cup sago (P5 per cup)
4 pcs saba banana (P5 each)
1 pc sweet potato (depends on you if you want more) (P5 each)
4 pcs ripe jackfruit (langka) (P35 for 1/4 kilo from some vendors)
3 cups water
2 1/2 cups pure coconut milk (about P25-30)
1/4 cup brown sugar

INSTRUCTIONS
Shape the galapong into small circles and set aside. Peel and chop up the saba banana and the sweet potato. Chop up the jackfruit into thin strips. Pour the water, coconut milk, and sugar into a pot. After a few minutes, put in the sweet potato, after 1-2 minutes, pour in the galapong balls. Once the sweet potato is almost done, put in the rest of the ingredients. Stir constantly. Turn off the heat and serve hot or set aside to cool down and then put in the fridge.

Best of all, it’s a vegan dessert. If you want to use muscovado sugar instead of brown sugar, it’s okay too. Best served with a tall glass of ice cold gulaman. Refreshing!

Asides
Find more information on alaskan king crabs online. The alaskan king crab is one of the deadliest and hardest crabs to capture. Also read about the controversy around cheaper but illegally caught alaskan king crabs.

One of the more challenging aspects of being a vegetarian (or especially vegan) is finding somewhere to eat at in the city. Once you turn vegetarian, you begin to take notice of places where it’s feasible to get something to eat while outside your home, but it takes time to build a “safe list”. When travelling, it’s harder to find somewhere to eat because of the unfamiliar surroundings so it’s best to research some facts about the country you’re going to. Take Slovenia for example. The culinary tradition of the country is a mixture of Italian, Balkan, and Hungarian influences. It’s not exactly a vegetarian-friendly place, but you can always try to look for places that sell solata or fresh salad. Their menu commonly has pork-based food and a wide variety of fish and seafood. One of the more famous food is called prekmurska gibanica, a pastry dish that contains cottage cheese, wallnuts, apple, and poppy seeds. Another is zeljsevka which is a rolled yeast dough filled with some herbs, and idrija zlikrofi which is spiced potato balls wrapped in a thinly-rolled dough.

Aside:
You can find unique cottages and farmhouses in Prekmurje, or family villas in Styria online. Consult online travel guides to know more about attractions of Prekmurje.

This is the first time ever that I cooked vegetable. Ever. Like in my whole, entire 28 years of existence on planet earth. I had the help of my mother-in-law, who sent me instructions through email. I changed some things in the recipe, added chicken instead of pork, and voila! Tasty, tasty.

It was easy to cook, except that the preparation (peeling and chopping the veggies) took some time, but the time it took to cook the entire thing was really short.

Aljude and I were looking for somewhere to eat last Sunday at Robinson’s Place Midtown. We were choosing between a steak house and an “asian cafe”, we weren’t really up to something that’s too heavy on the stomach so we chose Banana Leaf.

We both picked the lemon grass chicken with honey, which was okay except that it was just a tad too sweet for my taste. The taste of honey and ginger was a bit too overpowering for me.

Their spring rolls were okay, although a bit too salty. After eating it, I missed Pho Bac’s springrolls so much that we decided to have dinner at Pho Bac and order a plate of it as a side dish.

My favorite was the sago pudding. It’s really quite an exquisite treat, not too creamy and not too light. I loved the taste of corn and sago on the pudding. All in all, we thought that the main dish we ordered might not be the best in the menu and we’re willing to come back and give it another try next time.

We bought this at Bibingkahan at Market Market. I absolutely love bibingka, but this is one of the best I’ve tasted. It looks very simple and at P21 for the special bibingka (the one with red egg inside) it’s worth every peso. Best eaten when warm. Mmmm…

Pardon the interruption of the normal food posts in PinayFoodie. I’d like to take the opportunity to invite you guys out there to join Bloggerwave, another way to monetize your blog. The interface is easy to manage, the links are also easy to implement (so far all of them have the nofollow tag so it’s search engine friendly). If you’re looking for a way to monetize your blog, this is another option you might want to look into.

My friends from work and I went out to eat at Gerry’s tonight. Actually, we were walking along the line of restaurants at Greenbelt 3 and couldn’t decide where to eat. We decided that since it’s awfully hard to fit each other in our busy schedules and it’s not everyday we get to eat out together anyway, we’d stay with a safe choice and be adventurous next time. We went to Gerry’s and ordered what we were sure we’d like. I wasn’t able to take photos of the grilled squid and adobo rice. Ironically, the grilled squid was my favorite tonight. In any case, everything was just right, and swak sa budget. The tuna belly was a bit tough but the flavor was still good. The chicken kebab was okay albeit a bit too peppery for my taste.

We had dessert at Gelatone at Greenbelt 3. This was what I ordered, it’s Pistachio and Mascarpone, and it’s the most divine pistachio gelato I’ve ever tasted. Also posted at Lifelog.

My brother and I went to Unkyel Batjay’s booklaunch today. He treated me out to lunch at Market Market, and recommended sizzling porkchop from Buddy’s.

It was good, actually. The meat didn’t taste bland and wasn’t as tough to chew as I expected. I absolutely loved the gravy! I certainly would order their pork chop again next time we visit, but this time I’ll make sure it has Pancit Lucban on the side.

For dessert, we had some cupcakes from Sonja at Serendra.

They were all good but I loved the red one best, it’s the one my brother ordered. I think more than the icing, the cake itself was really heavenly. Moist and with just the right firmness and sweetness.

We noticed that there’s a newly opened (actually, not really new, but we just noticed it last month) Savory restaurant at Robinsons Place Ermita. My husband and his family used to go there before his father died. He had many happy memories in that restaurant, so eating there was really such a trip down memory lane for him. He told me stories about his family while we ate lunch, we had a really good time. We ordered half of their famous chicken, yang chow fried rice, miki bihon, and nido soup.

I can see why they’re famous for their chicken. It’s really very good. I’m not a big fan of chicken ( I prefer fish) but I really enjoyed their chicken very much. It goes well with their Yang Chow rice. I didn’t care much for the miki bihon, the taste was a bit too overwhelming for me, it tasted like it had a bit too much of seasoning (or maybe vetsin?). The nido soup was okay too. I want to go back for the chicken and the fried rice, though.

We invited my family over for lunch at KKK last Sunday. Aljude and I had Sisig ng Pampanga.

I’ve grown so used to the usual crunchy sisig that we order in other restos, but I really liked KKK’s version of sisig, even if it isn’t crunchy. It’s the kind of guilty pleasure you MUST NOT indulge in too often. Haha. Let’s just say it fills my heart… with good and bad things. Absolutely delicious.

I also ordered their Kesong Puti Sandwich for merienda while mama and my aunt ate Pancit Luglog. I liked their Kesong Puti sandwich but I prefer kesong puti on warm bread, with no veggies. My brother used to do some auditing work for a client in Laguna and he takes home some authentic kesong puti ng Laguna at the end of his auditing trips. It’s not salty as other kesong puti. It’s actually almost creamy, a bit sour and with that subtle taste of cheese.

My mother loved their Pancit Luglog. She said she’ll come back for it again. She also loved the Suman at Mangga and Sago’t Gulaman. We really enjoyed our lunch and merienda last Sunday. It’s something we want to do again soon.