Gourmet tuyo

Got 250 grams of tuyo! will make gourmet tuyo! surprise my husband from his trip with homemade gourmet tuyo.

Popular recipe is as follows:

Tuyo, fried. Remove heads, scales, debone if desired. Put in a clean bottle (sterilized is better); add some red chilis, garlic. fill half of the bottle with olive oil (pwede din naman corn oil, or soya oil), then the other half with vinegar (mas masarap kung sukang iloko, powerful!). Let it sit for 1 week before consumption. From time to time baliktarin ang glass bottle para maghalo ang oil at vinegar!

yummy!

masarap ito with sinangag tsaka pag tinatamad na ako magluto.haha can also be used with cooking a delightful pasta dish. Just cook pasta according to package directions. For the sauce - saute onions, garlic, some cilantro if you prefer, chopped tomatoes or canned, add the gourmet tuyo (flaked or whole).

toss together with pasta and serve with lots of love and a hug!

magazines are addicting!

let's face it, magazines are addicting. I remember my highschool days when one of my classmates brought his copy of Vougue magazine and we would sit around him as he flips its pages, never letting us touch it! as we salivate owning it (mine particularly on the scented /perfumed pages) , i remember saying to myself pagdating ng araw i'll buy all the magazines I want.

So the magazines of my life are a testament of who I am, what i went through, my interests and passions. I kept most of them.. my college magazines are the MAD magazine, post college are the PREVIEW issues though i never had the bucks and the guts to dress like the models, eventually I moved on reading ENTREPRENEUR Magazines the end result of which is my first venture in business while working (a 1 pc xerox machine) which lasted a good year and then had to fold it up because I had to move to another place.

So it was like that, I fell in love, got married and before that I was holding on to Martha Stewart line of magazines -wedding, living, etc! i just love the stuff going on in any of Martha stewart.haha

I won't ever forget one generous aunt who gave our family a gift of multiple years of national geographic subscriptions! i think it's the reason I like looking at photos and I grew up loving the great outdoors. My family still holds on to vintage Reader's Digests some as far back as 1950's. Time and again, i read it. Holding a 1952 issue, i read about how in year 2000 computers will be all over the world. isn't it wonderful how as far back that writer's analysis came true.

Now that I have a family, I buy Smart Parenting, YUmmy, GoodHouseKeeping and some other cooking mags. i coould have saved more money I know! but magazines are just a part of my life.haha

but thank God for e-copies of my favorite magazines! i'm able to save more. yes reading e-copies makes sense too! Though i must admit nothing compares to the real thing.

but what with this economic crunch, living a more sustainable lifestyle, e-magazines are the way to go! Im making some of my collections available here for your QUICK MAGAZINE FIX! or you can visit my multiply account dianneorpilla.multiply.com

Looking for Mr. Green Bag

I now bring my own bag whenever I do the grocery shopping. As the environment officer here in La Union, i'm also preparing a BYOB (Bring Your Own Bag) Campaign proposal for the approval of our Governor.

Yesterday, I went to the grocery with Wena (our super yaya). As usual i brought my own shopping bag and used it. kaya lang nung lumalabas na kami, biglang sinita si wena nung may-ari ng grocery. Akala shoplifters kami!haha of course I just kept my cool and just waited for them to verify the contents of our green bag. Yung may-ari ng shop sinsabi bawal daw ang ganung bag.

at that point, gusto ko sana sya kausapin at sabihin na hindi nya pwede ipagbawal ang pagdadala ng sarili kong bag for my shopping, pero hapon na at malapit na bumuhos ang ulan kaya hindi na lang.

what the experience thought me, parang divine plan din kasi nga I'm preparing a proposal for the BYOB. So at least nalaman ko ang concern ng mga retailers in terms of security and its something we have to think about pagdating ng campaign.

Chamba

They say the way to a Man’s heart is thru his stomach. Well my husband could be one of those men, though he is not a picky eater.

Now that my husband and I moved in to our own place, homemaking is now our priority. I now find myself thinking about what to cook for dinner and breakfast. Funny how I thought that this was easy, but since am not a very good cook thinking about variety in the dinner table is just challenging.

At our first dinner at home, I cooked salt and peppered fried chicken wings and
“dinengdeng” (ampalaya and straw mushrooms cooked the Ilocano way) . At the dinner table, Chris liked the chicken and asked what the sinabawang gulay’s name.
“ ano tawag dito sa gulay?”
“dinengdeng.”
“hindi… ang tawag dyan Chamba! haha”

Kung di lang nya naubos yung niluto ko, nainis ako.hehe But he liked what I prepared so my confidence for cooking for my own family was up to a number of points. Last night I had my first attempt to cook pochero.
Chris said “madalas nang nakakachamba si mommy!”.

To all husbands out there, always show your appreciation to your wife’s cooking even if it’s just hotdogs for breakfast. Think about how that dish came at your dining table! Fist the wife goes to the market, but before that, she planned for it (actually prepared a budget too, eliminating the item for your can of beer and a copy of her favorite magazine.) At the market, she haggles for prices so she can still have something left for dessert (like a banana). Then she carries that around, till she gets home.

Now she cooks it (while washing the dishes, looking over the baby and the children). Sets the table… there after fixes herself pretty so that when husband is home and it’s time to eat she looks great and smells wonderful. ..and show that cooking for the family is the “easiest” thing to do and one of the most meaningful and yummiest way to show love.

Dinner is ready!
*******
POCHERO (as cooked by me)

Boil half kg of pork (yung may ribs) with half a spoon of whole paminta and two medium size red onions until tender. Make sure that hindi matutuyuan ng tubig. Make sure may extra hot water na pandagdag ng tubig pag nabawasan yung sabaw.
Pag malambot na ang karne, timplahan ng asin at patis. Ilagay ang nahiwang saging (yung pang banana-q na medium ripe), baguio beans at Chinese pechay. Do not overcook vegetables.Hanguin pagkatapos.
Chow!

Earth Day should be Everyday!

Tomorrow, April 22 is International Earth Day!

Let's make Earth Day an everyday experience in our daily lives.

Here are a few examples of showing that we love Mother Earth and we are God's good stewards of his creation. These are things we personally practice in our family:

1. We segregate our solid wastes into biodegradable and non-biodegradable. The bio waste we just put in our composting pit in our yard.Good source of organic fertilizer for my Mom's plants.

2. We never (unless there's no other choice) use clean water (potable) for flushing in the toilet! What we do, we always save the greywater from washing clothes or collect rain water for flushing the toilet.That's big savings plus my conscience is clear from guilt of flushing clean water for urine and feces.Di ba sayang? Sa africa madami namamatay dahil walang malinis na tubig! Dito sa atin 20 million Filipinos don't have access to clean water.

3. The water used from washing dishes are saved and used water to the grass in our lawn. The birds get free bird food too afterwards.

4. We changed all the yellow light bulbs to white fluorescent lamps because it uses less energy thus less pressure to our water sheds!

5. BYOB. We practice "Bringing our own Bag" when going to the market, to reduce use of plastic bags. When I go to the bookstore I have my canvass bag and that's where I place my bought goods. it's more expensive to recycle plastic bags so the best way of helping mother earth is not just reducing the number of plastic bag we use but substituting it with sturdy, washable cloth bags.

Now that We're having a baby, we have committed to lessen the use of diapers when baby is born and use cloth lampins just like when I was brought up. Do you know that it takes 400 years before a piece of diaper totally decomposes? not to mention the damage it brings by blocking the canals and waterways or killing wildlife.

I encourage you to share this piece and add to it your personal practices for our Earth. The Only Planet we Have. Happy Earth Day!

Don't Be Caught Dead!

Found at the back of a Taxi...
"Don't be caught Dead Without Jesus".

Yes am Pregnant!

Yes, okay...the bulge in my belly is not actually fat but my baby who's six weeks old!
Oh God, were truly excited, the expecting lolo and lolas are more excited. Chris is actually over the top about it, two days after we've known it he actually asked if the baby is kicking already.haha

No, di pa ako naglilihi...just that I keep eating mangoes and pipino because this is the true "sisig" before it became pork ears and fat. "sisig" is eaten by pregnant women in the olden days to ward off morning sickness.

We came to know about our pregnancy because of my delayed menstruation, red days in February didn't come for me so we thought it best to buy a pregnancy test kit last Wednesday.
quite expensive, the kit... but it promised to "detect pregnancy even on the first day of missed period." So we did the test. I got the first look and I casually gave the result to Chris and savored his facial expression.

I would never forget the look on his face, its like winning the jackpot in the lotto.haha just an exaggeration, but happiness is clearly written in his face.

God so blessed us with life inside my womb. Praise the Lord!