Here’s my simple recipe for making nectar for our Hummingbird feeder:
In a small pot boil water then add sugar and stir until sugar melts. Make sure that nectar is at room temperature before transferring to hummingbird feeders. This is a great recipe and they love it!
Important note: Do not use different forms of sugar except White Refined Sugar only.
Maíz con hielo is a cold, sweet and refreshing desert snack in the Philippines. We used to make these a lot during the hot and humid summer months when we had no school. It’s a very economical treat and it’s very easy to make even minors can do it themselves (except for opening a canned corn, they will need assistance from a grown-up)
The picture shown on my blog is a special version of Maíz con hielo. I ordered this from a small Filipino restaurant in National City and their version includes a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a small chunk of Leche Flan (Filipino Custard). Really, when you want to make this, you don’t need these special ingredients.
Here’s the recipe for Maiz con Hielo
Ingredients:
Procedure:
In a large glass, put as much canned sweet corn that you like. i usually put 1/4 cup or a little bit more. Then add the shaved ice, sugar (depending on how sweet you want it to be) and milk. That’s it!!! Mix it well before enjoying. You can add any special ingredients like sweetened fruits, nuts, granola, ice cream, etc.
Easy right? I hope you can make some and show me some pictures of what you made. I will make some for my children tomorrow, they love it!
By the way, because we were in a Filipino restaurant, we ordered other delicacies like the Bibingka (Charcoal steamed Rice Cake) and Fresh Lumpiang Ubod (Egg roll Crepe with Palm Hearts and vegetables).
I go to my favorite Japanese stores…
You can’t tell if I am in Japan or California.
Inspired by Maangchi, I wanted to create my own version of her Soy Milk Cold Noodle. It was super easy and I loved it. Although my family doesn’t like cold noodle dishes that much, I personally enjoyed the nutty and creamy cold soup base.
This is a very easy and healthy & economical noodle dish perfect for the warm days of coming summer months.
For the recipe, you can visit Maangchi’s website. She is the expert and I am just a fan.
If you have any questions, feel free to leave me a message.
One of my favorite things to do with my family is going on a weekend Farmer’s market trip either locally or wherever we may be (when we are on a trip). I enjoy looking at each stall showcasing their handcrafted products or organically grown produce and/or plants.
We take time walking and enjoying all the “free-taste” offered by each seller. My kids get to taste the products and naturally, they ask us to buy more for them to consume on other days. While we look around what’s available during the season, my husband and I get to plan what we want to cook together, weekday meal plans for the family and the entire weeks’ school and/or work lunch ideas.
Because going to the Farmer’s Market is more economical and healthy, we get to enjoy our food budget with freedom to purchase what is needed and wanted, making our weekend mornings an enjoyable family errand, street food, food exploration day.
One might say, it’s still expensive to go to a Farmer’s Market because only organically grown produce are available and these products are pricier than produce sold by bulk at big supermarkets. Well, I learned from my own personal experience that buying all kinds of meat products and stocking processed food is the main reason why my food budget is exhausted easily. When my family eats fresh and healthy fruits and vegetables, minimize our consumption of meat products and a lot of those “boxed goodies”, we have more spending money left to buy these all-natural foodstuff.
Enjoy the photos I took and imagine yourself at a Farmer’s Market.
For more information about Orange County Certified Farmer’s Market, just like the link. Photos below were taken at the Saturday Irvine Farmer Market located at the Mariner’s Church parking lot.
Have you tried Detoxification? Juicing for detox is a very effective way for me and my husband to cleanse our body. Why do we do this? Simple, because we love ourselves. We enjoy juicing as a family, we have fun buying our produce from the local Farmer’s Market in Laguna Niguel, Irvine or San Juan Capistrano (California) and we spend time together in our kitchen cutting up, cleaning and preparing for our healthy juice for detox.
First thing’s first, we buy organic fruits and vegetables to make sure our juice is free from any pesticides or chemicals. We make sure to pick the fruits and vegetables that our children like plus a little bit of this and that that they don’t know I mix into the juice but they still love the taste (i.e., celery, beets, ginger, lemon, different herbs, etc.).
Today I went to Sprouts Farmer’s Market with my little girl and she helped me bag all the fresh ingredients for our juice. Our children eat all kinds of vegetables and fruits so she picked the celery, cucumbers, green bell peppers and green apples. Green is her favorite color 🙂 and I picked the rest.
Our photo gallery below shows all the ingredients.
Juicing for Detox is really easy. We are very lucky to have all these fresh vegetables available locally but really, wherever you are, there are all kinds of produce available to you. Just pick anything that you want and juice them up.
Finding a good juicer is an investment for your health. We use the Omega Nutrition System Juicer that use low-speed juicing. There are a lot of juicers in the market. Invest on one that is durable and something that will last for a long time.
Good luck on your juicing!
Watch Dr. Oz for more inspiring messages on Juicing for Detox:
Day after day, my family craves for some sweet and juicy watermelon.
We’ve been buying watermelon for more than a week now. Prices are going down and it is getting cheaper and cheaper, truly a bargain. I just bought 2 whole seedless watermelons at Wholefoods Market today for $2.49 each.
Filled with nutrients such as vitamin C and lycopene, our watermelon sure quenches our thirst and fills our hunger.
Read more about the “Benefits of Watermelon” from the World’s Healthiest Food Website.
Go ahead and buy your watermelon today. Summer is just around the corner so let’s enjoy what’s in season and buy them at a reasonable cost today!
Nilagang Mani (Boiled peanuts) is a very economical snack available everywhere in the Philippines. Memories of traveling by bus with my Mom going to Pangasinan or Baguio City.. Mommy buys me a bag of boiled peanuts and boiled eggs to snack on during the long road trip.
It’s very common to see street peddlers in Manila selling these boiled peanuts. Sometimes, they come in pre-packed brown bags and peddlers would quickly load a tour bus to sell to travelers for their long bus ride to the provinces.
Recently, my husband and I bought a small pack of these boiled peanuts from an Asian store and knowing that my eldest daughter loves to eat this too, I was inspired to make some from my kitchen in order to save money, control the saltiness of the peanuts and add more seasoning to make the boiled peanuts more aromatic and flavorful.
Here’s my very simple recipe:
Ingredients:
Cooking Procedure:
Wash raw peanuts well. In a large stock pot, add raw peanuts and cover it with water or fill the pot until it’s about more than half way filled. Add salt and start boiling. When the water in on a rolling boil, add star anise and garlic powder. You can add more or put less depending on your taste. Continue to boil covered for 2 hours.
Turn off the heat after 2 hours and leave the peanuts to cool down with the salted water.
After 3-5 hours, drain and your boiled peanuts are ready! Enjoy!
It’s truly a healthy and fun snack for the whole family. Making a big batch is a good idea. It holds well in the refrigerator for 2-3 days, even up to 5 days. You will find boiled peanuts from Asian markets but I think it’s more fun to just make some at home.
NOTES:
This is a very easy baked chicken wing recipe great for any day of the week. This scored high in our family so I am sharing my recipe to everyone.
Ingredients:
In a bowl, mix cleaned chicken wings, 2 tbsp. light soy sauce, ginger, onions, salt and pepper. Mix well and marinade for a minimum of 2 hours. I marinated mine for 10 hours.
When ready to bake, place chicken wings (remove onions and ginger) on a foil-lined baking dish topped with a rack.
Mix 2 tbps. of honey with 1 tsp of water. Mix well then brush on top of each chicken wing. Bake the chicken wings for 15 minutes on 375 degrees Fahrenheit. After 15 minutes, bring out the baking rack and turn over each chicken wing. Brush the other side with more honey water, return to the oven and bake for 20 more minutes or more depending on how much you want the chicken caramelized.
Rest for 10 minutes before serving.
Enjoy!!!
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