Alexia Snacks

I saw this last weekend at Shop Rite: Alexia Snacks Stand.

If you are watching Top Chef this season, you've definitely seen these snacks. These are the snacks that the cheftestants have been snacking on this season. They even dedicated a quick-fire challenge for this. You can imagine how excited I was when I saw this stand. I got these:

Onion Strips: Jalapeno Flavor & Waffle Fries: Bold & Spicy BBQ

So far I've only tried the Onion Strips Jalapeno flavor. It's good! Definitely has a kick to it. I'm sure it's going to go well with a bottle of San Mig Light. Too bad we're out lol :) Bagay na bagay sana sa San Mig Light!

Happy Thanksgiving...

Belated Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Yesterday was thanksgiving and we hosted our very first thanksgiving feast at our humble abode. Mr. L and I really had a great time with my in-laws. Mr. L and I were really looking forward to it. We made sure we had everything we needed from plates, stemware, flatware, table cloth, napkins, napkin rings and of course food and drinks, etc.

Plastic cups and paper plates were not going to cut it this time that just seems so juvenile for this occasion. I can almost hear my dear mother talking in my ear; she’s not a big fan of using plastic cups and plastic cutlery. She thinks that you might as well go the extra mile in getting glass stemware since they usually sell affordable ones anyway and you can always reuse them.

As you know, I’m very OC (obsessive compulsive) and a perfectionist to a fault so I really wanted to make sure we were prepared for this event. We’ve a made a list of things we needed several weeks ago and we just seem to keep updating it every weekend until the culmination of this event. Lol, every other weekend we would check our list, check off our list and would end up revising it anyway making sure we have all of our bases covered. We collected all of the coupons that we received in the mail. We hopped from one store to another (from Target, Kohl’s, Wal-Mart and Bed, Bath and Beyond) to get the best deals for the items that we needed.

Since we don’t celebrate thanksgiving in Manila and I really never bring anything but my fabulous self (lol), an empty stomach and bottle of wine (to keep me in a festive mood the whole day) to the ones I’ve attended and my in-laws hosted in the past. Needless to say, I really don’t have a clue what to cook for thanksgiving. Of course I do know the basic ones that we definitely must have like--- a turkey, a pasta/lasagna dish (since my in-laws are of Italian descent), chips and dip, cranberry sauce, stuffing (which I do not have a clue how to make) and side dishes. So I was starting to stress out and was panicking a bit about it because I’ve never really cooked for so many people before, never roasted a turkey and I don’t have any idea on what side dishes to prepare and I didn’t want to serve a mediocre dish I wanted our dishes to be the best there is… well according to my own standards that is lol.

Thank God, I found this cookbook last month as we were checking out of A&P. There are a lot of good recipes on here to prepare for thanksgiving. One weekend, Mr. L and I went through the whole cookbook to decide which dishes we were going to prepare for our feast. It was tough deciding which ones we wanted to prepare lol.

So here’s our menu (most of the dishes we got from this cookbook):
Chips and Dip
Meat Lasagna (recipe c/o my mother dearest)

Creamed Peas and Carrots

Celebration Green Beans

Sweet Potato Casserole

Mashed Potatoes

Ultimate Macaroni N’ Cheese with Bacon (Mr. L found this online and “cooked” it)

Apple Walnut Sausage Stuffing

Turkey

Gravy (made by my SIL)

Cranberry Sauce (straight out of the can lol)

Deluxe Pumpkin Cheesecake

Apple Pie (made by Tony)

Pumpkin Pie (Tony's present for my BIL---brother-in-law)

Drinks: Wine and Soda

Of course since I’ve never roasted turkey in my whole entire life, I’ve asked Mr. L to ask my SIL (sister-in-law), Jamie and her boyfriend Tony to make the turkey for us and the gravy too. My MIL (mother-in-law), gave us the free 20 lbs. turkey that she got from Pathmark.

So the weekend before thanksgiving, I prepared a list of things that we needed to get at the grocery (Shop-Rite) and list of things that we should get from our local farmer’s market the day before to ensure that our produce will still be fresh for thanksgiving.

I also asked Mr. L to ask my SIL and Tony what we can make ahead of time because I don’t want to go crazy on the day of thanksgiving. They told us that we can make the lasagna ahead of time and just starting prepping the ingredients for all of the side dishes.

Over the weekend, Mr. L and I cleaned our place top to bottom making sure that it was spick-and-span.

On Tuesday night, I worked on my lasagna.

Wednesday night, I worked on my Deluxe Pumpkin Cheesecake. Mr. L washed our dog and cleaned the bathroom. I put all of our dishes, serving plates, glasses and wine glasses in our dish washer and changed the table cloth. Mr. L and I started prepping for ingredients for the big event and ended up staying up until 4 am lol.

Our dining table (the night before):


Table setting (the night before...without the cutlery):


Our service table:



Thanksgiving Day: Mr. L and I woke up so early because my SIL, MIL and Tony, were coming early to help us cook. Mr. L bought bagels at the Dunkin Donuts across the street and made coffee too. The next thing I remember, my SIL and Tony started cooking the turkey and everything lol. Thank God, we prepped all of the ingredients earlier so at least all my SIL and Tony had to do was cook everything. Thank God for both of them (SIL and Tony) --- they made everything lol. Mr. L “cooked” his Ultimate Mac’ N’ Cheese (with the supervision of my SIL and Tony of course).

Mr. L making his Ultimate Mac N' Cheese with Bacon with my SIL and Tony:


Our Thanksgiving Spread:
We used paper plates for the lasagna :)...

Our 20 lbs. turkey:


My SIL bought us presents: Poinsettia & my birtday card with an Express gift card :)

It was truly a beautiful thanksgiving for us. Although, our life may not be as “perfect” as others have it I honestly believe our life is perfect in its own special way. We definitely have a lot to be thankful for --- everything that God had bestowed us this year ---good, bad and the somewhere in betweens. It’s the not so perfect things, perfect and imperfect things that makes our whole unit a family. A lot may seem different from we had last year and we may not have what we want but at least we have everything we need. It’s also the simple things that you see around you the make your heart and soul happy. What a difference a year makes…the best is yet to come.

Happy Thanksgiving Y’All!

The Pacman Won!

Yay, The Pacman won again! Hooray, I’m so proud to be a Pinoy! Manny once again you made your country proud!
[Here are some photos I took while watching the match from our tv set lol]



Last night we invited Dan over to watch Pacquiao fight Cotto. Dan requested that we serve him some San Miguel beer and so we did. In fact, we bought a box of San Miguel Light which had 24 bottles. This was the only available quantity in the liquor store and I thought it was too much but hey surprise-surprise we only had 6 bottles left from last night lol.


Dan and his San Mig Light:


Oh Dan was a trooper showing up with the Philippine flag draped around his shoulder.

Lol, shame on me I don’t even own a Philippine flag. Way to go Mrs. L for being nationalistic!

Note to self: when I go back home to the Philippines must get a Philippine flag to be prepared for events like this lol.

I can’t believe Jeremy Piven was also at the Pacquiao vs. Cotto fight. Oh we love Jeremy Piven. He's our favorite from the show Entourage.


Some scenes from the match:


Here's the total number of punches:


Although I'm for Manny in this match, I feel bad for Cotto he seems like a nice guy and a good sport at that hugging Manny at the end of the match. Look at how badly bruised his face is. I can only imagine how much swollen it is today...


I also feel bad for his wife and kid watching this whole event...


After the watching Manny win, we brought out Dan's cake and sang "happy birthday." Dan's birthday was in September but we never really got the chance to celebrate with him since he went to Washington for work and he just recently came back to Jersey.



It was definitely a great match lasting till round 12 lol! Mabuhay, Manny! Proud to be Pinoy!

Pacquiao vs. Cotto

Tonight is the night, Manny Pacquiao (The Pacman), the Pride of the Philippines, faces Miguel Cotto of Puerto Rico.

[ What we got in the mail yesterday. This is posted in our fridge]

Quite frankly, I’m very nervous as it seems Miguel Cotto is stronger that The Pacman. But then again I was also nervous when Manny fought Oscar De La Joya, since; Oscar is so much taller than Manny. Oh, well I’m just hoping for the best. Here’s me rooting for the Pride of the Philippines.

So last week, Sunday, I was laughing so hard in our second bedroom, when Mr. L shouted out from the living room: What’s so funny? I said, you have to see this, Manny’s interview on the Jimmy Kimmel show on YouTube. So we both watched it. Mr. L is also a big fan of Manny. He hurriedly called two of his best friends to check out Manny’s interview.

Oh, it was hilarious! How Manny spoke broken English. But I have to give this fella’ props for how he’s improved his English and how he really tries to speak the language. Don’t get me wrong I am a big fan of Manny and I say this with love and I am very proud of him of how far he’s come--- from his humble beginnings in General Santos City,Philippines to where he is now.

Judging from this interview, Manny seems very down to earth, sincere and genuine. You see the humility in his eyes, gestures and child-like mannerisms. Manny is so humble of his status that he even recognizes the fact that Miguel Cotto is a “champion for this fight” and that he’s just a “challenger. ” He even made mention that Miguel Cotto is a good fighter. It seems that he is passionate of what he does and his current status doesn’t seem to get the best of him. You can also sense how he loves pleasing the crowd. I’m not quite sure though if he fully understood Jimmy Kimmel’s interview lol :)

I also found out in this interview that Manny is a big fan of Orange Julius. We have that in common aside from being a Filipino and Visaya.

I must say Jimmy Kimmel, is a good host. He helped out Manny in this interview when he sensed that Manny had a bit of a struggle expressing himself.

Here are some snippets of the interview that I find funny…
Part 1 of The Pacman & Jimmy Kimmel Interview:

On being nicknamed as Pacman:
Jimmy Kimmel: You know what Pacman is?
Manny Pacquiao: My dog (gesturing to the height of his dog) (giggles). Act-tuaaa-lee (Actually), I have a dog named Pac Man...

About his movie, Wapakman:
MP: That’s my mu-bee (movie)!
JK: What are Wapakman’s powers?
MP: Eeeb-bree-ting (everything)!
JK: Can you fly?
MP: Yeah, I do my own stan (meaning "stunt")!
MP: (On Wapakman’s powers:) It’s mixed like a Sooo-perr-man and a Spi-derrr-man (Superman and Spiderman)!

Part 2 of The Pacman & Jimmy Kimmel Interview:

Assignments of his entourage:
MP: There’s a guy who cook me… (Oh no someone cooked him already lol)

Names of Pacman's kids:
MP: The first one is "Jun-yor" (Junior), the second one is Michael Stephen, the third one is Mary Divine Grace and the fourth is Queen Elizabeth…

In terms of using the stick in his training:
MP: Oh , it’s gonna be hurt...

The best is his singing performance...hilarious!

Oh Mr. L and I love Manny Pacquiao and tonight we’re watching him fight Miguel Cotto. Fingers, legs and toes crossed hopefully the Pacman wins tonight. Manny make us proud! :)

Menu for the Week 003: Lechon Kawal with Mang Tomas Lechon Sauce

Yesterday, Sunday, I made Lechon Kawali (Pan-Roasted Pork) with Mang Tomas Lechon Sauce for our lunch.

A couple of weeks back we went food shopping at one of the Asian groceries that we used to go to in Little Ferry, NJ, called the HMart (which stands for Hanahreum = Han-Ah-Reum). They sell a lot of Asian goodies ranging from Chinese, Japanese, Filipino and a lot Korean goodies, etc.

(Note: Image was taken from HMart's website)

Their produce section is unbelievable they have a wide selection of vegetables and fruits specifically of Asian vegetables that you hardly see in regular groceries like Shop Rite or Stop N' Shop. They are also very affordable and you don't necessarily have to buy them in bulk which is one of the few things that I find annoying at some of the regular groceries.  Regular groceries usually sell produce in bulk and on sale and some of them are really not good anymore and sometimes its just too much to get for both Mr. L and I. Being that I am Filipino I prefer buying things "tingi-tingi" or "bit by bit" or in smaller quantities to make sure that everything that I prepare is fresh and doesn't go bad right away because I hate wasting food. Although buying in bulk is cheaper and is a norm for Americans, I prefer buying produce in smaller quantities only because I'm only preparing food for Mr. L and myself. Now buying in bulk for meat that are on sale is another story and I'm all for that lol.

(Note: Filipinos are known for buying items in "tingi-tingi" translation "bit by bit" or  "smaller quantities" like buying shampoo, conditioner and toothpaste, etc. in sachet form to make it more affordable and convenient for the less fortunate to get their basic necessities. So selling items in sachet form is really big in terms of marketing goods in the Philippines.)

Also, HMart has a lot of seafood selection like crabs and shrimps (take note that the shrimps shells and heads are still intact lol), etc. They also have a lot of Korean meat for Korean barbecues. They sell a lot of stuff but you just have to be vigilant to identify which meats are cheaper here vs. regular groceries but more often than not meat and seafood are definitely cheaper at HMart vs. regular groceries.

And so I saw some pork liempo, which I was going to use as a sahog for the pancit that I prepared on my birthday but they didn't sell them in a really really smaller quantity (lol) so I decided that I'll use most of them to make Lechon Kawali. The liempo though was thinly sliced so it kind of looked like thick bacon strips but it's all good because I think I got the whole thing for $5 which is very good.

So I decided to simmer the pork in a pot with water, salt and pepper and I added some garlic too because we have a lot of garlic and I wanted to use some of it before they go bad. After simmering it, I laid it on a cookie sheet wrapped with foil so I can bake it. One of my friends and college classmate, Sue Anne, recommeded that I bake my lechon kawali which I did. It's so much easier to do it that way.

After they were done baking, I chopped them off in pieces. Here's the result:


Mr. L and I enjoyed it with white rice, some veggies and Mang Tomas Lechon Sauce (which is a must condiment for every Filipino household it goes well with everything: chicken, beef and pork, etc). It tastes so good yet it so bad for your health lol. This was definitely a perfect Sunday lunch.