Pinoy - new lead singer of Journey

Wow! I just read from http://pep.ph/ other than my youtube favorite Charice Pempengco there is one more Filipino making his way to Hollywood. His name is Arnel Pineda the new lead singer of one of my fave bands Journey. He really sounds like Steve Perry. I watched his videos on http://youtube.com/e.com/ , talagang super nakaka proud. Here is one of his youtube video http://youtube.com/watch?v=xUWJ8bf09BU

Journey welcomes Arnel Pineda with "Open Arms" to their family as the bands new lead singer.

quote for the day

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity...It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

new-found chef

We usually eat outside every weekend. Our favorite is the Wooly at Canning Garden. It's not a typical restaurant with their own specialty, but a variety of everything. Here in Malaysia they call it hawker... in Pinas we call it turo2, but all food here are freshly cooked. Since the kids got their PS2 they kinda feeling "tamad" to go out . Much as I want to just rest over the weekend from cooking, i have no choice. Last weekend I was not feeling well, my husband volunteered to cook for dinner. It's fried "liyempo" and stir fry vegie (i still don't know what its called, but i will ask my suki on my next visit to bercham). Well, the kids and I liked it. I guessed he got inspired on cooking with all the praises we gave him so he cooked again last night, his own version of the famous filipino food sinigang. I requested the sinigang since i am having trouble with my stomach and i am craving for something sour. I only want the soup, but when i tasted his sinigang, in fairness it was really good! Can't help but to eat it with rice. Kiana got 2 serving of rice, so was Kuya, Kei requested for an additional serving for her usual 2. Ethan almost finished the soup. My husband got nearly nothing left for him. I am so proud of our new-found chef @ home. He said next time he wants to try some grilling, of course i will post it here. The kids and I are looking forward to have a taste of his next menu......

oxtail soup in black beans

This is another family's favorite. My mother used to cook this recipe using pork pata. I sometimes use the same meat, but usually i use beef ribs or oxtail. i don't know what it's called so i just named it oxtail soup in black beans. She cooks this without the green vegetables, so i thought of adding the green vegie ang i guess my husband loved it.

1kg oxtail /pork pata

1 cup black beans (soaked overnight)

5 pcs Medium-sized tomato

1 pc/L Onion

1L Water

2pcs beef Knorr cube (chicken cube will do)

2Tbsp Fish sauce

2 cloves Garlic , chopped

1 bundle spinach (any type of spinach will do)

Chopped onion and tamatoes. Put Oxtail in the pressure cooker together with the water, tomato, onion, beef cube, black beans and fish sauce. Cover and let it boil in 30 minutes or until the meat is tender. In a separate pan, saute garlic, put the spinach, saute not more than 1 minute.

Serve on top of the oxtail soup.

Ginisang Munggo/Green Beans

Munggo or Green Beans, I remember my neighbor back home, this is what she cooks every Friday i guess until now. I don't really eat munggo, I just usually have its sauce or soup. People cooks it differently, some got a bit of sauce, some cooks it just like a soup. Since this is one of my husband's favorite food, I tried to make my own version of it. Timesaver, simple yet a very tasty one. Here's the recipe...

1/4 Green Beans (munggo)
1/2 kg pork ribs/ pata / etc. (any meat bones you like)
3 cups water (depends on the qty of green beans
1-2 pcs Knorr Chicken cube
1 bundle Alukbati white (Australian spinach) or any green leafy vegetables you want
3 cloves garlic
1 small onion
1 Tbs cooking oil

Put the washed green beans and pork ribs + the small onion (chopped) with the 3C of water and Knorr chicken cube in the pressure cooker, bring into boil about 15 minutes or just about its sauce thickens a bit. Cool it down. In a separate pan, saute garlic and put the Australian spinach. Stir it not more than 2 minutes. Put the vegetables on top of your cooked green beans when serving.

Note: if no pressure cooker, bring it to boil until the meat is tender. Maybe 15 minutes longer.
Pressure cooker is a big help, it saves a lot of time. It's worth the buy.

I will try to post its pix, next time i cook it.

french open

yebah! French open has started. I started watching tennis during the days of Agassi, I was not particularly into tennis but into Agassi (LOL). Everybody was so crazy about him, his long hair, the neon color wrist bands, head bands, his looks, everything. I was a big fan. Then I got over it and i just started watching tennis again here in Malaysia, when my husband started playing it and talking about it all the tiiiiiiiiiiiiiimmmmmmmmeeeeeee. In fairness to my husband, he is very good at it. I guess if he had given a chance and he started while he was young he can excel on it. Everytime there is a tournament, my H/P is so busy sending SMS of each others views with my tennis-fan pal Ana. Who will win this time? I'll keep you posted.

answered prayer for the Elona

I got a good news weeks ago, at last my friend beth's prayer and perseverance of getting into shape to have their second baby has finally come true. Everyone in the family is so excited. I was really thrilled hearing the news, as i myself have been praying for this baby as well. Beth and I met through our common friend more than 3 years ago. We even became neighbors for a year in Bandar Baru Tambun. She has one lovely daughter Raya who has been longing for a sister/brother and i guess this baby will be very lucky as Ate Raya is ever protective whilst still in her mom's womb. She's always been asking me to lend my youngest son, Ethan to them. Ethan had his 1st sleepover with the Elona. They really treated him as one of the family. They are the ones who are always there whenever I have to take Ethan to the doctor, if Jong is not around. Beth sincerely worries about him whenever he is not feeling well, for my other kids as well. They have always been around when the going gets tough. I am very thankful having friends like them.

busy morning

Just finished my ironing. It took me 4 hours only the kids clothes alone. My husband's clothes and mine i bring it to "dobi", ironing/washing services here. I used to have someone, a filipina married to a chinese guy here, also my friend, who comes here once a week to do the ironing. I cannot keep up with the schedule though because i need to take her back home in the afternoon. The kids just got back from school at that time and they just want to rest and don't want to go out anymore, i just cannot leave them on their own at home. So here i am, need to sacrifice for the kids. My ever reliable Philips flat iron have been serving me for 4 years now. Though Ate Alice felt differently about it, I still keep it. It is lightweight and it automatically turns off when it's too hot already and turns on when it cools down a bit. Just resting for a while, and will do the cooking afterwards. I will cook tinola for lunch, though this is not one of their favorite dish, nothing much to cook, nothing much in the fridge. It's Friday, one week supply is almost finished. Gotta get going..........

Resort living

We just transferred to our new home last January. It is like a resort if there would only be a room service here. The name is Sky Homes. I fell in love with the place the first time i saw it, and so were the kids. I resent the thought of living in a condominium before with only 1 particular reason, as to where will i hang my clothes for drying. Then i saw this place, that reason has already set aside as i have my dryer machine already which i have only used not more than 5x since we bought it. The place is so calm, well except for the noise around here because of the other units' renovations. Our unit is on the 1/F overlooking the luscious one of the mountains here in ipoh. The pool we can see from our bedroom and living room, and the sound of the fountain awakes us in the morning together with the humming birds around the place. We rarely use our AC now as it is cold at night. Coffee is at its best while sitting in our veranda listening to the sound of the water and the piped-in music downstairs. Usually at night, my husband will visit the gym for an hour or so trying to build some muscles. I, if time permits uses the sauna at night. The kids love water, its water water water. This is the main reason why we ended up here, they are so crazy in love with swimming.

Mothers Day @ Penang

We rarely went out for a weekend for outstation. This time we did by celebrating Mother's day in Penang. We stayed in Lone Pine Hotel. It is a low-rise hotel, number of rooms you can check at lonepinehotel.com. The ambiance is very relaxing. It is not too crowded as what a big and popular hotel nearby. The hotel visitors are mostly europeans and other asian foreigners like us. Not too much to do for the kids, only the pool and the beach. There are some sports activities along the beach though which my kids really enjoyed. My son, who is turning 9 this coming June tried the parasailing not with his Dad though, he was not even scared. There are a lot of things he wants to do, others he is not allowed yet because of his age. He is being adventurous now. He wants to try everything. They enjoyed the pool and for the first time, they had a time of their lives in the beach. My husband and I had our time of our lives here as well. One reason we do not often go out of town is because we cannot handle the kids, it is just useless as at the end of the day we are just so stressed out taking care of our 4 active kids. But here at lone pine, we were able to relax. We were just at side of the pool watching them, while reading or having snacks, talking. Best part of it, we were able to visit their bar at night as our room is just overlooking the hotel bar. After we had our drink, we leisurely walk at the hotel garden talking, laughing until very late at night. The kids are safely sleeping to our huge room, which by the way got it a very low rate @ cuti.com.my. At night you can visit the pasar malam just outside the hotel. it is a long stretch of different item at a very low price. If you don't want to eat at the hotel there are variety of choices of restaurant and even hawkers outside as well. We will definitely be coming back here, not too far, from ipoh to penang and very relaxing. I think that is what an idea of a great out-of-town weekend, to relax....

nadal won again on clay

Just finished watching the Tennis Game held at Hamburg tonight. It was a match worth having a late sleep on a Sunday night. I was never a Nadal fan nor a Federer, the Lord of Tennis as they say. I heard of Nadal being so great at clay, and Federer the number one tennis player hasn't beat Nadal on clay yet gave me more the excitement to watch the match. First set won by Nadal. I started losing hope as the score reached to 5-1 in favor of Federer. Hey, how can you recover on that score when on the other side of the court is the number 1 in the world? First time i saw Federer, well since i got an interest watching tennis, that i saw his face with great frustration. Nadal was unstoppable, the score ended at 7-5 on 1st set. 2nd set, the score reached 5-2 in favor of Federer, but Nadal has tied the score at 5-5 until Federer won the 2nd set at 7-5. Decision set, Nadal had taken the lead, i know right there and then that he will get the title, and he did! Will they meet again on the finals of French Open? Let's wait and see.