One Tortilla Dinner Sunday

It's one of those family Sundays.

There are some weekends where we just decide to cook something extra-ordinary when we don't have a scheduled family brunch with my brothers and their families. Got started with going to the grocery to get ingredients for home-made tortilla.

The recipe I followed for basic tortilla:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt 1 tsp baking powder
1 T shortening (we used canola oil)
1/2 cup water

Mix dry ingredients in a stainless bowl followed by your shortening, then slowly add water. We tripled the recipe and sa totoo lang, didn't keep track of the oil and water that we used heheh. After mixing, we left it covered in the bowl for about 15 minutes, before we emptied a wine bottle (yup, my rolling pin decided to hide himself), that we used for rolling.  Andee helped in dusting the table with flour and rolling the tortilla dough before I 'cooked' it in a heated frying pan.  We made about 22 pieces of tortilla.

I cooked the ground beef as usual, parang pang-spaghetti lang, Although I also added Chili con Carne mix (McCormick's ata yun).  Sometimes I use Taco Mix, other wise, you can season it with cumin, basil and Italian seasoning (Italian seasoning?!? so much for mexican flair).  And as usual, iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, white onions and grated cheese.  We can't find sour cream, and we even forgot to make do with mayonnaise with garlic.  Ok pa rin.  Swak na swak!

Christmas Colored Mung Beans

Can't believe that Christmas was just yesterday!

Had to rush home from work, got home at around 10am. Caught cousin Angge cooking her specialty "Pad Thai" (she also arrived a few hours before me from work too!); had to gear up as well. My turn to cook (Dory Fillet with Asparagus cream sauce)!

Every year, Christmas Lunch is tradition for the family. We don't celebrate Noche Buena like what most families do. Normally we'd just spruce up the house, bringing out all plates and utensils, finish our cooking marathon. We'd then open a bottle of red wine and toast at midnight, Christmas Day, wake the kids and open presents! That was then. Sans the wine toasting and gifts opening, this year, sleeping early was the agenda. I was at work when I called at midnight expecting to hear the kid's excitement opening their gifts. Ha! everyone's asleep-- Mama answered the phone, a bit groggy--sorry, woke her up kasi. Anyway....

Our house becomes the venue for a grand family reunion. I remember about two weeks before. Mama was really down to tears, not wanting to plan the celebration anymore. Mainly because we (literally) have no chairs for our relatives and visitors to sit on! --thanks to Ondoy. And to add to mama's frustration, she has scanned the Marikina Yellow Pages for chairs and tables for rent..but everyone's booked! Good thing Yaya Wilma chanced upon a flier somewhere last week that rents out tables and chairs. Lo and behold! Problem solved :-)

Like clockwork, our relatives (and my brothers and their families) arrived like, just a minute apart-- and I am not exaggerating! After one family comes in and the beso-beso's were done, the next family arrives. This cycle continued on 5 times! 5 families! Enough to make everyone smile.

By mid-afternoon, we all went to Loyola Park (Marikina) to visit Papa and Lolo. Our ride has my kids and all my pamangkins. We are the schoolbus. Kids' ride. We call them the 'Retazos' --hahaha! A strip from the original!

It was a riot going to and from Loyola. Christmas concert ito. Singing ABS-CBN's Christmas staion ID, "Star ng Pasko, Salamat sa Liwanag Mo"... the 'RETAZOS' (aged 2-10):

"Salamat sa liwanag mo.. Muling magkakakulay ang munggo!"

Huh?!?!

Family Day at 8Waves

It was a first. Family get-together out-of-town. Everything was a blast! We left  Marikina at around 6:30am and had breakfast at Jolibee NLEX. We were 16 altogether including the yayas. ( except bro Earl, and cousin Angge). Arrived at 8 Waves at exactly 9am, but lo and behold! We thought that since it was an early summer treat, we'd somehow have the park all to ourselves. Little did we know that there was this big, big religious gathering, as well as 3 school field trips were also scheduled today!!!
The nice lady at the ticket counter said that they are expecting around 2 thousand guests and if we'd like, we can do an ocular first to see if we'd really like to push through. Hay naku! and pushed through we did. The kids are all excited, not even gazillions of people can stop them! Anyways...
Everyone had a wonderful time kahit sa sobrang dami ng tao. We vowed to return, of course, but made sure we'd call first to see if there were any bookings. Left the park at 6pm and had dinner at Max's NLEX. The kids were exhausted, the yayas have fun stories to tell their amigas, and we had our own tans. Yey!