I know, Thanksgiving hasn't even come yet

It's actually pretty late for me to wait till November to put up a Christmas tree. Back when I was a kid, we always put up the tree once October starts. That's when the Christmas season starts in the Philippines. We LOVE Christmas there. Part of the reason too was because we don't have Thanksgiving. People that do procrastinate wait till after all soul's day, November 2nd, to put up their tree. This is a sort of compromise for me to put up the tree one week before Thanksgiving.

We wanted to do a real tree this year, but our male cat, Bert, is a sort of knucklehead. He can't help but attack any kind of topiary or potted plant. I had envisioned a cat stuck in the middle of the tree hanging on to dear life. We pulled out our pre-lit tree instead and set it up. It's for the cat's sake.

I try to do a different color scheme every year, but we have our traditional ornaments too. I can't decorate a tree to save my life, but I try. I kind of just slapped them all there. I bought a new star to top the tree this year. I got  a capiz shell star at Target for $20. That was my biggest splurge. I reused my crystal snowflakes my Mom and I have accumulated over the years. We go to Macy's after Christmas and buy whatever they have left at a super discounted price. The only other addition I had was the garland, that's obviously not ample enough for $6.99, and the round plastic ornaments for a pack of 50 for $15.99, both also from Target. I might go back to the store again to get another one of those garlands to add some more oomph to my tree. 

This year, I've been seasonally changing my mantle in the living room. I don't overdo it and I use very inexpensive fixes to do it. I probably only use about $20 or under to make them over. This is what it looked like for Halloween.

And now like this for the Holidays. The only addition I added to this was the "Merry Christmas" sign from that cost $3 and the bow, $1, both from Target (are you sensing a pattern here?). I reused everything else. It was just a matter of looking around the house. See, that wasn't even $20. That was a splurge of $4 for my winter mantle.

The wreath was easy to make. Just a book that's been weathered enough, any type of sturdy and plain wreath, and hot glue to put the whole thing together. I've seen several styles, I've been obsessing on designs @ The Inspired Room.

The books were antique finds of mine from an Antique mall, along with the chiropodist sign. Yeah, chiropody is the last thing you think about when someone says Christmas, but it matched, and well, the sign is funny. Everything else was what I dug out of my Christmas bin.

I bought those apothecary jars when we first bought our house. They were empty before, then I placed those pumpkins and Indian corn in them. I like seeing them filled now. I think I might have bought them at Marshall's. I just filled them with ornaments that I didn't feel like putting up or some of the plastic ornaments we just bought weren't pierced well enough for an ornament hook so I just tossed them in there. The Noel sign is a hand me down from my mom. It's the oddest thing ever, it's bristles with pearls. If you look at my tree close enough, I have snowflake ornaments made out of the same material.

So now I blog here, enjoying the warmth of the house and the glimmer of the tree. It's Christmas in my house already and I love it. It makes life easier and happier and I feel like there's nothing that can weigh me down. I probably have a couple more projects to do. See, isn't it great to decorate early? There's room for a lot of projects. 

What's so bad about SPAM anyway?

It's old news, I know, but I was irked how carnival cruise lines denied the fact that their passengers were served SPAM. I get how it can be gross out of the can, but why deny it? I'm in love with spam, but it's probably mostly because I'm Filipino and I grew up on this stuff. Let's just put it this way, SPAM is as common a site to Asians as pickles are to hamburgers for Americans. We love this stuff, and we know the majority of mainland America is boggled by it. Hawaii loves it. I'm still boggled by jars and jars of gigantic pickled cucumber, so I understand why it's so freaky.

Spam is so versatile though, there's spamburgers, grilled cheese and spam, and the classic fried rice, eggs and spam. I'm usually a particularly healthy shopper going with mostly organic, but I do cave. I cave for 3 things, longganisa (which are Filipino breakfast sausages), red hotdogs (again, an oddity of Filipino grocery items) and SPAM.

Since part of me was offended by the Carnival Spamcation denial, I had to celebrate the deliciousness that shoulder pork ham is. Also, I had Chinese steam noodles (which highly resemble Japanese soba noodles, which could be the same) that needed to be used. I made Spam Saimin. It's also a quick lunch and I needed to feed the hungry boys. I was crocheting the whole day and lost track of time. Quickie lunches are the best.

If you've never tried Spam, you might want to give this a try. What's the worst that can happen? Ha, yeah, you just ate shoulder pork ham. It's good and you know it, don't even deny it. 

Spam Saimin

4 cups of chicken stock

2 cups of water

1 package Chinese steamed noodles or Japanese soba noodles

1 tsp grated ginger

2-3 tbsp soy sauce

2 tsp fish sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

1 romaine lettuce chopped into small pieces

3 spring onions, bias-sliced

1 can of spam lite (I like it better because it's not as overpowering as regular spam, unless you like all the sodium goodness. I like to believe I'm bettering myself), chopped into 1/2 inch cubes

*other additions can be scrambled eggs, tofu, chicken, mushrooms, peas (it's really a find what's in the pantry meal)

In a pot, combine stock, water, noodles, ginger, soy sauce, fish sauce, pepper and lettuce. Bring pot to boiling stage or just until the noodles are tender. Taste to see if it's salty enough, either add more soy sauce, fish sauce or salt. Don't make it too salty though because remember, Spam is salty on its own.

In another pan, preferably a non-stick pan, brown the spam. You'll see a golden brown glisten to it. That's when you know it's done.

To assemble, place noodles and broth in a bowl. Top it with fried spam and spring onions. Then you'll realize you just fell in-love with Spam. You'll either love me or hate me for this.

*I dedicate this entry to my friend Lisa, whom I have both disturbed and amazed by the foreign substance, Spam.

When weekends are weekdays

My days are over the place. I have to constantly check my celphone to see what day it is. I'm glad this guy is around to keep me company whenever we're having one of those stagnant days.

It was a really beautiful fall day in California yesterday.

We have no cloud in sight, but the winds are all over the place. My house would fly away if I extended my awning right now.

So, what day is it today? I know what kind though; hot, humid and windy. 

Pulido Family Photos

I took one of my friend's family portraits today. I of course wish I could have done better. For the time we had, and with the allergies their cutie son had for the day, I ended up with 18 gorgeous photos. Their son is also one of my son's best friends, so this family is like family to us too.

 I'm beefing up my portfolio that's why I've been taking photos of my friends' families. This is my second one in the past 2 months and I'm learning techniques I like and mistakes I want to avoid. I'm still debating if the photography thing is something I want to do professionally. It's definitely something I like as a hobby. My cheap canon xs works great for me and this hobby and I'm glad I have friends that let me take their pictures. Here are some of my favorites from this set.

Bistek (thin sliced beef steak)

I finally got my Coq Au Riesling marinating. That will be fore tomorrow though. Tonight, I only had time to make bistek for husband's lunch. I don't make it often, mostly because I think my mom does it way better than I do. I bought a bottle of soy sauce with kalamansi (a type of citrus) mixed in it already. I wish I only used half of the amount I did and used mostly regular soy sauce. 

Now I have my rules with soy sauce. I do buy the kikkoman, or lately, I've been getting the Tamari brand. I only use those for my other Asian cuisines. For Filipino cooking, I stick to the the Datu Puti or Silver Swan brands. They're easy to find, I've seen them in commissaries and even regular grocery stores. It's essential to Filipino food, the soy sauce just tastes a lot different than the wider brands. 

This is a dish best served with rice. The soy makes it particularly very salty, but then you'll only need bits of meat to make the rice super delicious. I used thinly sliced chuck beef. I bought it pre-sliced, but it's not hard to slice it thin either on your own. 

Ingredients:

1/2 cup water

2/3 cup soy sauce (datu puti or silver swan brand)

juice of half a lemon

zest of half a lemon

1 tbsp sugar

2 tsp pepper

2 cloves of garlic, smashed

1 large red onion, sliced in half, then sliced thinly

1 tbsp basil, chopped

1/2 lb to 1 lb chuck steak, sliced thinly

Combine all ingredients, except for the onion and basil, in a container. I used a ziploc bag. Marinate the meat in the marinade for 4 hours or overnight. Once ready to cook, put about 1 tbsp vegetable oil in a pan. Drain the marinade from the meat, reserving the liquid. On medium high heat, toss the meat and half of the onions in the pan.

Saute the meat and onions. When the meat is getting browner and the onions are tender, pour half of the marinade in. Let the liquid reduce to half, then place the rest of the marinade. Let it reduce almost halt the original amount again. Tadah! Bistek is done. Place it in your ideal serving dish.

I have a basil plant I planted from a bunch I bought at a farmer's market. It's now a happy plant in my kitchen. I added some of it. It's not a traditional Filipino cuisine ingredient but the soy sauce color drives me crazy. It's so bland and brown. Plus, I like adding herbs to everything. They do make food fresher, plus, my basil needed a little trimming.

I finely chopped the basil and I sliced the rest of that onion paper thin.



Top the bistek with the basil and sliced onions.

Serve it with rice. Please serve it with rice! It's not the same without it.

Now this is a bit of a salty dish. A little bit goes a long way, but MMM, white rice is very happy to know bistek as a friend. It's a friendship you don't want to miss out on.

March, march.

August 2009 was when we found out that my husband was finally getting promoted to Staff Sergeant. He found out while he was on a week long duty in Georgia. When he came back, he needed to do some formality and Airman Leadership School was one of them. One of the things they had to do was march for the
Veteran's day parade. It went so successfully, he decided to volunteer again this year.

I woke-up really early this year though. Part of it was anxiousness, part of it was because I was home alone. This year was different. I started with some tribute videos for service members and it was a sure fire way to just start with the water works. My son also picked out his outfit and he was so excited about the fact that he gets to wear his Air Force kid shirt. He's been so giddy and so proud about the fact that Daddy is in the Air Force. It warms my heart and breaks it at the same time because I know just how much of a whiplash military kids get. My kid is particularly one of the luckiest because he sees his dad daily. He was looking for him tonight after we came home from a friend's house, and I just explained how he'll see him tomorrow morning. That's a dream for a lot of kids out there of course.

Yesterday, Brian went to work Wednesday, came home Thursday then just ate breakfast, put on his unform again, then hopped in the car to drive downtown. The crowd was wonderful and brought tears to my eyes the moment they clapped loudly as the airmen, one of which was my husband, marched perfectly in sync down the street. My son waved his flag proudly and my friend's niece exclaimed "I love how their feet march all at the same time!"

Three and a half hours after he came home from work, drove to go on formation, marched at the parade, it was time to go home again. He was welcomed by a broken closet door in my son's room and by the time he was done, he's been up 22 hours straight. Even though Air Force duty was done, dad duty couldn't wait. He was running on fumes and a can of energy drink. He was up for that long because he needed to do a job for his country, provide for his family so we can eat, and seriously, the warmth from the community was a great enough thank you to him and to us as well because it makes all this worth it.

We survive this lifestyle with ample support from family, friends and one another, and without it we'd be a wreck. We would crack more often than not. Having a positive yet realistic outlook also helps. There is no perfect schedule, no perfect base, no perfect command, not even assignment. It's just making the best of what's given to you. It's all the key to survival to this military life. My husband has been gone for months, he's been gone for hours, sometimes just days. It's not miserable, but it's hard, but looking at it as some sort of punishment will just make the hours and months longer and less tolerable. If I complained about anything and everything that came my way, I wouldn't get anything out of it. Seriously, I get enough gray hair from stressing over my own schedule. I'm due to dye my hair again.

Being in the military is like buying a house for a family. There will be that wishlist of all the needs that house has to have, but maybe only 70% of the dream is actual reality. That reality needs to be embraced instead of mulling over the 30% and figuring out how much worse it can be. A lot of families have it a lot worse than others, but it takes everyone's effort to make the system a functioning one, whether it be in front of a computer, or behind weapons in the middle of the desert in Afghanistan.

There's an upside to everything, even this crazy pick-up and go way of life. Some people might not like this idea of life, and we have gotten our share of words and looks, mostly because of political opinions. The bright side of all this though is that my kid has his own personal superhero. Nothing can beat that.

Crocheted hats courtesy of youtube

Sooo I think it's safe for me to say that I HATE the $2 regular red heart yarn. It's not my friend when it comes to crocheting. I used it to start my first bear hat, a grizzly bear hart for my two year old, and well, I started eight times before I chucked the dang thing in my yarn cubby. I of course had back-up, red heart soft yarn, I only started it 4 times, 5 you tube videos on "How to crochet a hat" and voila, a grizzly bear hat!

Now it occurred to me that I made it a little too big. I made it so big it can last him for many winter years to come. I'm starting another one and forcefully putting this hat on my child for now while I pull a "Don't you love your mother?" face whenever he thinks it's ridiculous I'm giving him a hat 2 sizes too big.

Well, maybe 3 sizes too big.

Dinner tonight was fall-back option dinner night because I wanted tuna casserole. My husband isn't too big on tuna casserole. Bless his heart, he'll eat it though, even though fish isn't exactly his favorite protein. Let's put it this way, he'd rather eat tofu than anything with a gill, fin or claw, but out of love, he'll eat fish (as long as of course, it's made deliciously). It's not in his top food request. I compromised, because I really wanted tuna. I made a meal that I used to make when we were stationed in Monterey. It was quick, easy, and lemony, and he usually would gobble up the whole plate. The acid from the lemon cuts down a lot of the fishiness of canned tuna. 

Warning, do not make this meal if you're not into citrus, It's very tart that it makes you pucker up a bit when you're eating it. It's a great dose of vitamin C.

Tuna with lemon vinaigrette spaghetti

1 box thick spaghetti, cooked to box's instructions until al dente

Juice of 2 lemons (or just 1 if you don't want it too tangy)

Zest of 1 lemon

1/4 cup olive oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes, or more, depending how spicy you want it

2 tbsp parsley, chopped finely

shaved parmigiano reggiano to top

2 small cans of tuna, in water, drained

Combine the juice, zest, oil, salt and pepper, red pepper flakes and parsley in a bowl. Whisk the vinaigrette until it thickens up a bit, then stir in the tuna. Toss in the pasta until thoroughly mixed, top with parmigiano.

Please DON'T use the stuff in the green container. Grana padano works, but no icky fake parmesan stuff. A little effort is worth it especially since this is a no cook sauce pasta. 

I use this vinaigrette base for salads too, but with a bit of variation. It's really easy to vary up vinaigrette and it really will go a long way.

Just remember that there's a 2:3 ratio, 2 portions of acid to 3 portions of oil. It can be any oil or acid you'd like. An emulsifier helps, I like using honey and/or mustard. This time of the year, cranberries are of course aplenty so go ahead and use a sweeter vinaigrette for your salad. 

This was last night's dinner, it was just a chicken salad I tossed with a honey mustard vinaigrette (uh, courtesy of whole food though, I was REALLY lazy) but I just grilled the chicken and tossed it with chiffonade lettuce, craisins, candied pecans and feta. 

I'm going to go back to finishing that crocheted hat, part two. I'm hoping I measured it more properly this time , the weather is getting pretty nippy and warm hats are in order.