Holiday Baking

The holiday season is over, but I can still enjoy my baked goods if only in photos. It's so satisfying to see the results of your hard work and also to remember how your goodies disappeared at the holiday parties.  Here's what I made this past holiday season.


Sugar Cookies and Gingerbread Men
I made some Christmas Tree Sugar Cookies with green and white sparkling sugars.  For the gingerbread men I cheated a little (too lazy to fight with molasses this year) and used a Betty Crocker mix for the cookies, but still made the icing from scratch.  These are always so fun to decorate.  My favorite is the evil one.

Ube Macapuno Cheesecake Bites
I decided to experiment with my favorite cheesecake recipe and give it a little Filipino twist.  This was my first time using ube powder.  Perhaps I didn't use enough powder or the coconut and graham cracker crust were over powering.  It didn't taste very ube-ish, but it was still super yummy and I'll definitely try making it again.

Peppermint Brownie Bites
Took my favorite Ghirardelli brownie mix from Costco and sprinkled some crushed candy canes on top. 

Hardest Christmas Gifts to Shop For

With over 50 kids on our Christmas shopping list this year and quite a few adults too, I am so relieved to almost be done shopping.  We cheated again this year with the kids and got mostly gift cards.  We tried to get more personalized gifts only for our god kids and closest nieces and nephews.


This left us struggling with some of the hardest gifts right near the end.  My lola is 94 years old now!  Since she is so fragile, she doesn't get out much these days and has to be very picky about what she eats.  She has a small apartment so I also hesitate to get her more clothes or household things that she may not have room for.  With so many restrictions I turned to the internets for help.  Gifts.com lets you search for gifts for women and then you can narrow it further by senior women.  I totally thought this would be helpful.  I was so entertained by some of the gifts on here that that's why I'm up late writing about it!  Here are some of the winners.

InterCourses and iPhone magnets?

The Godfather...I'm sure plenty of Lola's have this on their Christmas list

This wasn't very helpful, but I did see some cute angel figurines. Since she is very religious and prays every day I thought I would look for a pretty rosary or figurine of Mary.  I tried googling for "Catholic gifts" but found the figurines to be out of my budget.  I then went to amazon and searched for a rosary. Check out this related item!

Customers who bought this rosary also bought Red Dead Redemption??

I did some more searching/browsing and finally found the perfect gift...or so I thought

Beautiful ornament from Things Remembered

It was on sale for $14.99. What a deal, right?  Well, once I added in engraving, tax and shipping it came to $43. Wow!  That seemed like a little too much for one ornament and again over budget for me.  I searched other sites, but couldn't find anything comparable. Rather than buy online I went to a couple different malls searching for an angel ornament I had also seen on their site.  I was so happy to finally find a store that still had it in stock and ordered it right away.  They were able to engrave it the same day.  This one came out to $23.  Perhaps still a bit much for an ornament but it is silver plated and it looks so pretty!

   

The other two gifts I wanted to mention are not difficult to pick out, but are still hard to shop for in a different way.  My father in law passed away four years ago.  Towards the end of that year I was updating our Christmas List and came across his name.  I could not bear to take him off our list.  After shedding some tears I decided I didn't have to.  So every Christmas and also on his birthday we donate to a charity in his honor.  I also started donating for my Lola Espie when she passed away two years ago.  Here are some of the charities we've donated to so far.  

http://www.unicef.org/philippines/index.html

http://www.americanheart.org

http://www.cscshelter.org/

Pacman cookies to celebrate Manny Pacquiao's Birthday

Today, December 17 is Manny Pacquiao's 32nd birthday!  Happy Birthday Pacman!!

I first made Pacman cookies last year for his fight against Cotto and they have now become a tradition.  Not only for the fights but even for family gatherings.  Since today is Manny's birthday I thought I'd bake some to celebrate.  It also helps that my daughter has a holiday party today and will be bringing most of them to school...although we could probably eat the entire 4 dozen batch by ourselves!

Kirkland Vanilla Extract and butter, hehe.  Yes, I'm a costcoholic.
And parchment paper is amazing! 

Mixin it up

Let's roll

I don't actually have pacman cookie cutters, so I start with a
circle and use part of a star to cut out the mouth

Fresh out the oven. Must defend to prevent major casualties

Pacman Cookies Hella Pinay Style!

Happy Birthday Pacman!  Hope you enjoy it!  I'm sure you'll be singing your heart out today.  

Hmm, I wonder if boxers like sugar cookies...

What's that in my soup!

Today I tried making sinigang for the very first time.  This is one of my favorite Filipino soups.  Not only because it's sooo delicious but also because it's like no other soup I've tried before.


I had some turnips (greens and all) from our CSA and was trying to think of what to do with them over the weekend.  We also had tons of lemons from a big box of fruits my dad gave us.  Funny how after eating turnips, green beans and daikon radishes from our CSA over the past few weeks...months even...it finally hit me that I should make some Sinigang.  Mmmm.

I went to Seafood City to pick up the missing ingredients.  I decided to cheat for my first try and use one of those powdered soup mixes.  I ended up spending at least 20 minutes staring at the wall of powdered soup mixes!  I was glad they had such a great selection, but it was next to impossible to find one without msg.  After looking at the ingredients for at least 8 different mixes I finally found one.  It was made with guava instead of tamarind, but figured I'd give it a try.

There was a recipe on the soup packet, but I'm so bad at following those things.  I made a few modifications.  Those pre-made flavor packets usually have way too much sodium so I added some extra water.  I also was trying to work with the veggies I had instead of buying more, so I omitted the green beans, tomatoes, etc.


....and the final test...how did the family like it?  The way I can tell if a new dish is a keeper is 1) did they go back for seconds? and 2) did hubbie have to drown it with hot sauce?  Well, I'd have to say it was a success because they did go back for seconds and no sriracha required!    Not as sour as sinigang usually is, but that can always be adjusted.  I totally forgot to use the lemon.


I'm trying to cut down on meat these days so wasn't going to include any, but it didn't seem like authentic sinigang unless it had some type of meat.  Seafood city had a good sale on shrimp, so that's what I used.  Again, the soup did turn out great, but next time around I'll have to opt for tofu instead of whole shrimp.  My daughter ended up loving the soup and having seconds...thirds actually, but when she first saw it she said...."Mommy, there's eyeballs in my soup!"


Singang na Hipon Receipe
1 Mama Sita Sinigang Guava Soup Base Mix
1/2 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
3-1/2 c water
3 turnips with greens
1 pound head-on shrimp


Remove the greens from the turnips and thoroughly wash.  Peel and thinly slice the turnips
Saute the onion in olive oil and add garlic
Add in the water, soup mix and shrimp.  Bring back to a boil and simmer until shrimp turns slightly pink
Add the turnips.  Bring back to a boil and simmer until almost cooked.
Turn off the heat and add the turnip greens


*Although the soup mix did not contain monosodium glutamate, it did have disodium inosinate.  After doing some research this appears to be on the naughty list too, boo.  I'll have to make this soup from scratch next time.