The Weekend

Saturday was staying at home in our jammies, except for the mister who went biking with his friends from Analog Cycles at 3 in the afternoon.

I am so glad that the mister stayed in the plant based lifestyle. I teased him if he wanted chicken for dinner. He immediately turned it down. So, I made Paksiw na Gulay of eggplant and bitter melon. For my non-Filipino readers, Paksiw (PAK-seew) is a style of Filipino cooking using vinegar to cook and simmer fish and roasted pork. Gulay is vegetable in English.

Being a herbivore does not mean we only eat green and leafy salad. Hehehe. This dish was probably one of the first Filipino dishes that I tweaked into an all-plant recipe.

Saturday dinner was the first time that the mister tried this plant based paksiw, and he approved it. This is a keeper!

Yay!

Sunday. I tagged along with the mister in downtown for a hair cut. We went antiquing after. Actually, we went to Cannon Hill Place Antiques to look for books. I meant Jay did. I went looking for old jewelries and knick-knacks.

There are 2 second hand book shops there, one is Night Diary.



...  and another one  is located on the second level near the stairs. I forgot the name of it.



He didn't find the book he was looking for at both book stores, so we drove to another second hand book shop called Wonder Books. The place is huge that books and vinyl records overflowed to the outside.



He was looking for a book written by Haruki Murakami. I think he is one of his favorite authors. We have 5 of his books.

While he was scouring the whole store for a certain book, I spent my time where all kinds of cookbooks were located. I love reading cookbooks, taking notes of recipes, and tweaking it according to my preference---the all plants and preferably no oil recipes.



We left home empty handed. The mister didn't find that certain book that he wanted to read for his book club.

We were hungry so I made a quick Margherita Pizza and Chicken Barbecue Pizza for the boy for our early dinner.

The end. How was your weekend?

Weekend 'Carneval'

We had the unhealthiest weekend since I can remember. We mostly ate meat. Blech! Well, we had homemade Spanish bread with our coffee for breakfast on Saturday. For lunch, the boys had fried chicken and mashed potato, and I had vegetable stew.

However for dinner, we all had meat. I cooked Pork Adobo for dinner, plus there were still a few pieces of fried chicken from lunch.  I think I used the fattest part of a pig, pork belly. I had a small slab in our freezer, so I used that. I forgot to add several hard boiled eggs to it as extender. I only remembered about it today when the mister had the last bite.

Today, Sunday, I cooked Filipino style beef steak (Bistek Tagalog). I had fruits and quinoa with mine. But still, it didn't feel right eating all the unhealthy dishes I prepared for the family. I wasn't able to go to the grocery store on Friday and Saturday, that's why.

Today, before the mister went upstairs to take a shower,

Me: Di na lang ko mag-chicken adobo ugma sa panihapon! Puro karne man ta karon nga weekend gud. (Let's not have chicken adobo tomorrow for dinner because we've been eating meat the whole weekend.)

The mister: Sige. (Okay.)

Me: Tagnaa unsa atong panihapon ugma! (Guess what we're having for dinner tomorrow?)

The mister: TOFU!?

Hehehe.

Yes. He guessed it right that we're not going to have anything meat tomorrow, but we're not having tofu. I'll prepare mung beans soup with lots of spinach. That's how the boy likes it.

How was your weekend?

The Weekend

The mister got a text message on Friday from our friend, Verner for an intimate Saturday dinner invitation at their house. So, I told the mister that we'll bring two trays of cassava cake. They always request me to bring this everytime we see each other.

Broiling for 2 more minutes and it's done. #cassavacake - 1tray for @extrafunky and 1 for me. 😆😅😃 #homebaking #homebaked #homebaker #pinoyfood #kakanin

A video posted by Hi! I'm Lili. (@missnalupa) on Feb 20, 2016 at 1:38pm PST

Grilled fish (pompano), grilled squid, grilled pork belly, two varieties of Palabok (one had chicken and another had shrimp), cassava cake, coffee cake, cheese, and cured and smoked meat platter, coffee, red wine, and beer. All were instagrammable, even our water.




The following day we came back at the Abella's for more. Again!? Hahaha. So, basically we spent most of our weekend at their house. We had Saturday's left overs, and Rema's (Verner's wife) steamed rice Dimsum Style for dinner.



I didn't exactly know the reason for the gathering, so I asked my friend, Yengyeng on Friday evening.

She said, "Great weather!"

I disagree. It wasn't great. It was perfect.


P.S. Yes! We finished the two trays of cassava cake.