Meet Mang Al, the fresh buko vendor near the gate of our subdivision. While taking photos of the buko, he turned around so that his face would be captured by my camera. Now that’s one confident vendor. He likes to joke around and tells me that he will choose the best photo, the most beautiful buko just like me. haha, funny now. I told him “You will be seen in America” as my readers are mainly Filipino-Americans.

Anyway, I bought 15 pieces of buko yesterday. I buy it ahead of time because the price of buko shoots up on New Years Eve. The demand is just too high. It normally costs 17 pesos a piece but yesterday, each buko cost 22 pesos. They cut the husk for you and even offer to grate the coconut meat. I just wanted it chopped and the coconut water poured into our coleman water container. I brought a large basin (actually a batya) for the coconuts.

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Posted: December 31st, 2007 under Supplies & Equipment.
Comments: none

A lot of you have been asking for kakanin recipes. I’ve been slowly adding recipes to this site so watch out for it.

In the meantime…

You can find the kakanin recipes in this Kakanin Recipe Category. I ‘ve also found great tasting kakanin recipes from Pinoy Merienda Site. Here are a few Bibingka recipes.

Just go over to their Kakanin Recipes

Posted: December 30th, 2007 under Recipes, kakanin.
Comments: 2

We had a lot of leftovers of Lechon (Roasted Pig). What did we do with the leftovers? Well, we cut them up to small pieces and placed them in freezer bags for storage. The following day, I cooked Lechon Paksiw which is just as delicious.

To cook Paksiw, follow this recipe:

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Posted: December 29th, 2007 under Pork, Recipes.
Comments: 6

Suman makes a great dessert for a traditional Noche Buena meal, or they can even be meals on their own if you don’t want to eat anything too heavy at that late hour. This sticky-rice pastry is wrapped in a banana leaf and eaten dipped in sugar or in hot chocolate. There are as many different kinds of suman as there are provinces in the Philippines since each region has its own variation of the pastry. In Metro Manila you can get suman in all sorts of flavors, from chocolate to ube-langka for about twenty to thirty pesos apiece.

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Posted: December 28th, 2007 under kakanin, suman, native rice cakes.
Comments: 7

If you’re inviting over a large number of family members and friends for Christmas dinner and have no time to prepare all that food for them, consider ordering an entire lechon paella. Lechon paella is a succulent, roasted, boneless young pig stuffed with hot, seafood paella, make the whole fare a meal in itself. The whole lechon can feed a group of about twenty people with healthy appetites and you might even have some left over for paksiw.

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Posted: December 27th, 2007 under Christmas, Noche Buena.
Comments: 2

I also bake apple pie every Christmas. The cinnamon smell reminds me so much of my childhood days when mom used to bake apple pie. There was one Christmas in the early seventies when Apple imports ceased. Mom innovated her apple pie by using sayote. No one knew it was a fake apple pie until she announced it after we all gobbled it up. But these days, apples are sold in most fruit stands. I use the tart apples (green/red apples) from China as they have a sweet apple aroma unlike the plain Washington apples. The Chinese apples have a crunchy texture that makes it a pleasure to eat.

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Technorati Tags: apple pie

Posted: December 26th, 2007 under Baking Recipes.
Comments: 3

Dolor’s Kakanin is probably known as the ultimate brand in kakanin. They are just as good as the homemade kakanin in the province. I was able to buy assorted kakanin at the SM Hypermarket in Libis, Quezon City just beside Tiendesitas. For 140 pesos, I got a variety of kakaning in an 8 inches diameter wide bilao. The larger bilao (11 inches in diameter) is 190 pesos while the medium bilao (10 inches in diameter) is 170 pesos.

Now this is an attractive centerpiece for celebrations and even for snack.

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Posted: December 23rd, 2007 under kakanin, suman, native rice cakes.
Comments: 6

You suddenly find that your holiday dishes are not enough for your guests. What do you do? Cooking can be stressful especially if one is faced with a lot of visitors. The thing to do is to order your Holiday dishes from reliable restaurants. Here are a few ideas of traditional Noche Buena dishes from Mario’s Restaurant:

• Embutido at 975 pesos
• Chicken Relleno at 1,100 pesos
• Chicken Galantina at 1,275 pesos
• Pastel de Lengua at 1,800 pesos
• Cochinillo at 1,250 pesos a kilo
• Paella Valenciana at 1,500 pesos

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Posted: December 20th, 2007 under Christmas, Filipino Restaurants, Noche Buena.
Comments: 2

Puto Bumbong from Via Mare

This is the almost perfect puto bumbong you can ever eat in an urban center. And you can order two pieces at 67 pesos at any Via Mare Restaurant. After a stressful shopping spree at Landmark Makati, I chose to rest at the Via Mare on the second floor right beside the ladies bag section. I was thrilled that they offered Puto Bumbong. I forgot how puto bumbong tasted like after my horrifying experience with the Puto bumbong vendor at the church grounds. Before I talk about Puto bumbong of Via Mare, allow me to share how some commercial puto bumbong vendors “cheat” us out of the real puto bumbong experience. Here is the puto bumbong which I bought for 20 pesos from the vendor after the misa de gallo.

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Posted: December 19th, 2007 under Christmas, Noche Buena, Restaurant and Eating Places, kakanin, suman, native rice cakes.
Comments: 2

The Gingerbread House is an impressive centerpiece in the noche buena table. The attractive candy colors will surely delight anyone of all ages and serve as a conversation piece. This particular Gingerbread house is made by Mandarin Oriental Hotel Christmas Tradition. The Gingerbread house is made with chocolate and royal icing. My friend, Reggie sells it at her online shopping site at Regalo Service for $87.00 (approx. PHP 3,741.00)

Place your Gingerbread House orders here.

Now if you want to make your own Gingerbread House, I found this Gingerbread House dough recipe and the steps in assembling the house.

Posted: December 19th, 2007 under Christmas, Supplies & Equipment.
Comments: none

It’s December 16 and the first day of the Misa de Gallo. For nine consecutive early mornings before Christmas Day, Catholic Churches throughout the Philippines ring their bells around 3 am to invite the faithful to worship and announce the start of this holiday custom. After the mass, the parishoners including myself headed off to the Puto Bumbong stand where it was sold for 20 pesos per pack.

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Posted: December 16th, 2007 under Christmas, Filipino Delicacies, Recipes, kakanin.
Comments: 1

Here is a playlist of Filipino Christmas Carols I collated for you to add more joy to your Christmas celebration. The first song in the track is Pasko na Sinta ko sung by my two girls and three other members of the Manila Children’s Choir in 1999. The second track is “Kasadya ni Takna-a” composed by Vicente Rubi, the original Cebuano version which is not as popular as the Tagalog version “Ang Pasko ay Sumapit”.

And English Christmas songs sang by Filipino artists. The first two songs are sang by the 1999 Manila Childrens’ Choir where my two daughters were members back then.

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Posted: December 15th, 2007 under Celebrations, Site News.
Comments: 1