Trick or Treat!

Ron and I headed to Ajax for Halloween. My family was having a dinner get-together and we were the first ones to arrive. The kids were anxious to go trick or treating so Ron and I volunteered to take them. My niece Aleenah didn't have her costume yet, as she was waiting for her mom to bring it, so I offered to loan her my dice costume! She received a lot of compliments on that costume as we went from house to house, and as we passed by other trick-or-treaters!! 'Thanks!' was what I said each time she did, of course! :)

A Halloween Partay...

I went to a Halloween Party this year, which I haven't done in a long time. Ron was studying and couldn't go, so I brought Quel as my partner instead! We went as a pair of hot pink dice (homemade costumes of course)! My brother went as Troy Polamalu (a Pittsburgh football player known for his hair), my cousin Leonard was a Jabbawockee, his gf Irene was Rambo, Sam was Little Red Riding Hood (she still had my red hood cape I wore in grade 5...my dad made it!), Shirley was a scary beauty pageant girl, Mike as Hulk, Falesha a devil with her hubby Shane as Moses. People would come up to us and want to spin us, so to amuse some of them - Quel and I spun round and round and then stopped at a number (got me dizzy as I was drinking as well). It was hilarious!

The party was a lot of fun! There were games: limbo, wrap a mummy game, and a pole-dancing competition. DJ Shane was also spinning his records at the party so we had awesome music to dance to, as well as all the bottles of alcohol available (a lot of them got so sick that night). Happy Halloween all!!

Look how skinny we were!

This was taken in May 1999...ten years ago when Ron and I were just 'friends'. I remember we were all going to go to a club for my 24th birthday and Ron joined us! I think he was the only guy! :)

Did you all notice how skinny we were?!!? (and check out my eyebrows - geesh!)

Getting out and about...

As I was folding the laundry the other day, I noticed that Ron's pile of clean clothes was 3x more than what I had! This meant only one thing: I wasn't going out enough.

I decided to head downtown today. Since moving to the 'burbs', heading to downtown Toronto almost seems like a treat! I met Di for lunch at Peter Street Deli.... lemon chicken baby! It's a place I used to frequent during my TPG working days... ah, the memories of that place.

I then met Quel at Chapters, and we hung out at a Starbucks with our laptops watching all the people pass by... I love just sitting back and just people-watch sometimes. We then went for a walk as it was a beautiful, warm, sunny day out (very rare these days!).

As fun as it was to be downtown again... after paying $15 for parking and sitting in rush-hour traffic for an hour, I was suddenly reminded of why I don't head down here as often. :P

Recipe Exchange!

A few days ago, a friend had sent me an email for a recipe exchange. I was surprised at the response I got with some of the recipes I received so I thought I'd share a few of them with you (even though some of you didn't participate! :P). Thanks to all those that did though.. here are the recipes:

1. Chicken Teriyaki
Cut pieces of slightly salt and peppered boneless chicken legs or breast, and put on the grill or pan fry until slightly brown.
Set aside.

Teriyaki Sauce:
1/2 cup Kikkoman soya sauce
1/2 cup Mirin (it's a sweet Japanese sauce, available at all Oriental
food stores)
mix together until you get desired consistency
add some brown sugar if you wish
corn starch (optional)
sesame seeds (optional)
green onions (optional)

Pour over cooked chicken, add some sesame seeds and/or green onions for
garnishing, ENJOY!!!

2. Brown Sugar and Ginger Glazed Salmon
Prep time: 2 minutes
Cook time: 5 minutes

1 tbsp dark brown sugar
1 tsp Dijon Mustard
1 tsp soy sauce
1/4 tsp ground ginger
4 (4 oz) salmon fillets
Sesame seeds, toasted (optional)

1. Preheat broiler. Coat broiler with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.
2. In a small bowl, combine sugar, mustard, soy sauce & ginger.
3. Season salmon to taste with pepper and place skin side up on broiler rack. Cook 6 inches from heat source for 3 minutes. Turn salmon; brush with sugar mixture. Broil 1 or 2 minutes more or until sugar melts and fish flakes with a fork. Top with toasted sesame seeds, if desired.

Serves 4.

3. Caramel Dip
Beat together:
-one 250 g pkg cream cheese
-3/4 cups packed brown sugar

Add 1/2 tsp vanilla, 1 tsp lemon juice, 1/2 package Skor bits

Mix and enjoy with sliced apples!

Catering to the Flips...

As I was grocery shopping at T&T Supermarket today (a store I frequent regularly for some Filipino ingredients), I noticed a new sign they had up:

Of course, I had to look! Tocino, longanisa, all the Mama Sita packets... all in one central location for moi!! haha.... thanks T&T!! That's FOBULOUS!!

Dill sauce...

Ron and I had a snack at St. Louis Wings a month ago and while we were there, I noticed that they were promoting purchasing bottles of their wing sauce and their dill sauce (which I absolutely love! - I could drink that thing).

So we bought a bottle of the dill sauce, and I put it in the fridge. I completely forgot that I had it, and just discovered it today! So I fried up some chicken wings, and dipped it into my dill sauce!! OMG.... sooooo good!!!!

~happy camper sally!

Happy Birthday Menalle!

In honour of Mel's birthday, I decided to try and bake one of her specialties... the classic apple pie. My parents had gone apple picking last weekend, which left me with quite a few apples here at home. So off I went to attempt to bake. I have to tell you, it did NOT go well!

Here's what I was supposed to do... and then what I ended up doing:

1. recipe measured the ingredients in grams - I didn't realize and was measuring in millilitres
2. recipe was for 2 pies, and I needed to split all ingredients in half - I forgot and remembered for only a few of the ingredients... I had to compensate by adding more of this/that, and dumping out what I could. (I realized this when my dough became really watery and there was more sugar in the filling than there were apples!!)
   
3. recipe said to bake in the oven for 40 minutes in 220 celsius - I didn't realize it said celsius, and put it in for 40 minutes in 220 fahrenheit!! When the oven beep went off after 40 minutes, the dough still looked raw to me, and that's when I realized.... doh! So then I increased it to the correct temperature (375 F), for another 20 minutes.
   

Here's the final result:

I left the pie out on the counter. Ron came home and while I was on the phone in the other room, he ended up eating 2 slices! He said to me: that was a good pie!! hoa hoa hoa... I guess that's all that matters... he doesn't need to know!! :)

Happy Birthday Menalle! I'll let you try it on my next attempt - when ingredients and oven temperatures are correct. Or better yet... maybe I'll just leave all this baking business to YOU!

Flash Forward...

Imagine the entire world simultaneously losing consciousness for 137 seconds. In that 137 seconds, each person sees a vision into the future - into April 29, 2010 to be exact.

Ron's sister was telling me about this new show, Flash Forward, that she's completely into. It's on Thursday nights, but I hadn't had a chance to see it. So Ron downloaded all the past episodes, and I just finished watching then.... OMG... sooo GOOD!! I'm totally hooked. Watch it... you'll be hooked too.

Happy Thanksgiving WND crew!

With the wedding plans and preparing to move into their new house, D+G still had time to host a Thanksgiving WND for all of us. Mind you, Di had a special 'sous-chef' to help her with the preparations... MOI, and everything was deeeeeee-licious!! This will probably be the last WND until the big move and the wedding day!! Next one's at the new house, right?? :)

For dessert, Ev baked a special birthday cake for Mel... sooo good!! Baby Eric was asleep during dinner, but managed to wake up for a feeding just after we all ate our desserts. It's so nice to have a baby to play with for these WND now...

Gobble Gobble!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Ron and I celebrated with his family for Thanksgiving. There were only 9 of us, but the amount of food that was at the table could have served 30 people... I'm not kidding. After everyone's bellies were full, it didn't even look like there was a dent in any of the dishes... which was fine by all of us since we all received packages of food to take home with us!! Thanksgiving continues in our household for a few more days with all the food we brought home.

Di's wedding dress!

I took Di wedding dress shopping today. Maybe I wasn't the best person to take, since almost every dress she tried on I liked (which didn't make it easy for her)! What can I say... you wear it well Miss Lee. In the end, she found THE dress.... can't wait to see it on you on the big day! Now if I can only find MY dress to wear....

Celebrating D+G!

Saads and Raju held an engagement dinner in honour of Di and Gerwyn. It was great to see everyone, and Di had all of her bridesmaids there (top left pic). There was lots of food, and little Baby Eric slept most of the night away... how can he sleep with all our noise?? Mel didn't disappoint with her yummy desserts, including caramel crunch! Ron was MIA since he was studying, but I made sure to bring him home some of the good eats. He loved the caramel crunch btw Menalle!!

It's official!

I just got my new health card and driver's license in the mail... it's OFFICIAL now!! :)

Family Day...

To celebrate my dad's birthday, the whole family (of 14) got together to take a family portrait photo. I'm not so sure these portrait places are used to having big families, because we all had to cram into a small space to get us all into the shot!!

Each 'family' wore a different colour (white for me & Ron; red for my parents; blue for Sarah's family; black for Shirley's; and Tirso wore yellow)... with everyone wearing blue jeans for our bottoms. We haven't done a family portrait since I was 13 years old. We were a family of just 6 back then.. and now look at us... 14!! :)

After picture taking, we all headed to a chinese buffet restaurant to continue the celebration for my dad! They served king crab legs that had me coming back for more... YUM! Once we were completely stuffed, we all headed to my sister's place. We started drinking and reminiscing about old stories of when we were growing up. Poor Ron hadn't heard about all of these stories, so he was exposed to all of our craziness growing up!

Melia...

My niece and I were talking today, and this was our conversation:

me: It's Lolo's birthday, did you get him anything?
Melia: yes, I got him something. I gave him my looooooove. (smirking)

Melia: Are you Filipino?
me: yes, I am. I'm a quarter Chinese too.
Melia: really? I think I'm only a penny Chinese.

hoa hoa hoa... the girl cracks me up!

Proud to be Filipino...

During a conversation with Quel a couple of weeks ago, I recently discovered that the Filipino guy in the Black Eyed Peas group was NOT the guy with the long hair (no Filipino in him at all)! In fact, the Filipino guy is the one on the very right of this photo. I had it wrong all along (he's in fact half Flip, and half black).

As I googled and you-tubed him, I learned more and more about him. His name is Allan Pineda Lindo (aka APL), and was born in Pampanga, Philippines.

What's great about him is that he's completely proud of his Filipino heritage! He's brought his Filipino culture into a few of his songs with the Black Eyed Peas such as:
The APL Song (about his life story)
Bebot (Filipino slang for pretty woman), there are 2 videos made: generation 1 & 2 (with Jasmine Trias/American Idol in the video).
Mare (is a term used to refer to female friends in tagalog)

and the songs he's done on his own for his solo album:
Mama Filipina
You Can Dream - with legendary Philippine guitarist Boy "Florante" De Leon (Quel thinks he looks like my dad)

APL has also started the APL Foundation, which is committed in giving back to communities and children within the Philippines and throughout Asia. He also started his own music company called Jeepney Music, Inc. (I like the logo!)

Now if that's not proud to be Filipino.... I don't know what is! :)