making the food of my people

so as i mentioned before, the selection for this month's book club was the controversial "tiger mom" book - battle hymn of the tiger mother.  i actually put off reading it for a while, but mostly because the days are going by so damn fast and i didn't see the GTG date sneaking up on me until about a week beforehand.  heh.

but it didn't stop me from doing some deep thinking about what to bring for the party.  the lovely claire was our hostess this month, and she'd decided to make it asian-themed.  you know, to go along with the book.  this is actually becoming quite a fun pattern, and hopefully we can continue to plan the important stuff (i.e., the food) around the storyline of the book.

i pondered maybe doing some green tea macarons, but after a fun twitter exchange with my buddy weezermonkey, i decided that maybe it was time to turn to my own heritage and learn to cook some grub from the homeland.  that's the philippines, if you didn't already know.  i wasn't born there, but my parents raised me to speak tagalog fluently (conversationally, at least).

after looking at a ton of online recipes and filipino food blogs, plus hitting up my mom for her own recipes (which, as it turned out, were mostly online as well, ha), i settled on several dishes that i thought would go over well.  filipinos eat some super weird shit, like dinuguan (a beef blood stew, EW) and dishes cooked with lots of vinegar.  i like some of it, but i didn't think it would be a crowd pleaser.  not to mention, i have a few favorites that i haven't eaten in ages.  i figured it would be good to learn how to make it myself.  and so my final picks:  pansit bihon (skinny rice noodles with chicken and shrimp and flavored with soy sauce and patis, a stinky but super delicious fish sauce), lumpiang shanghai (skinny eggrolls filled with ground pork and shrimp and served with a sweet & sour sauce), and some puto.  that last one always elicits a snort from people, considering it has an alternate meaning in spanish (look it up), but for us it's a yummy, slightly sweet steamed cake.

i had a pretty hilarious time shopping at the nearest filipino grocery store, gazing in awe at things i hadn't seen in years.  it was fun tossing things in my cart that reminded me of my childhood, like shrimp chips and cracker nuts, and finding authentic ingredients that i can't pick up at my local store.  i probably looked like a fool, giggling and cackling all by myself, and snapping pictures left and right of random stuff.  and i was so caught up in the moment that at some point, i grabbed someone else's cart and started shopping around the store with it.  i didn't even realize it until i was almost ready to check out and saw crap in there that most definitely wasn't mine.  damn.  as soon as i figured out what i'd done, i cracked up even harder and ended up putting back all of the unwanted stuff and trying to replace the items i'd actually wanted that were missing.

the day before book club, i decided to treat the hub and the bean to some homeland cooking for dinner. that way, i could do a test run for the dishes i was making, see if they liked any of it, and make sure it was suitable for consumption by my friends.  i started with the lumpia filling.

as i chopped and mixed and savored the wonderful aromas that filled my kitchen, the bean walked in with much less appreciation.  "it smells like FISH in here, mommy.  ew.  what are you making, shrimp?"

well, hell.  but i pressed on, putting a line of filling in the lumpia wrappers and rolling, rolling, rolling.

i ended up with quite a lot of lumpia.  even after i made some for dinner and then fried up more the next morning for book club, i still had ten whole pieces left.  so i wrapped them carefully in wax paper and stuck 'em in the freezer.

next up:  the puto.  i used a recipe my mom sent over:

1 cup flour
1 cup bisquick (i know, i know, but filipinos swear by the stuff)
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3 eggs
6 oz. coconut milk
3/4 cup water


all pretty basic ingredients, right?  you just mix it all up together, pour it into cupcake pans, and steam it for about half an hour.  i was stoked when i realized i had the perfect thing to use as my steamer:

not just for pasta, yo.  and because my cupcake pans are far too big to fit in there and still be able to cover it tightly with the lid, i improvised and used a set of silicone cupcake liners that have until now been pretty much useless to me.

yes, i dyed my puto orange, to go along with the tiger mom theme.  half an hour later, the first batch was puffy and perfect:

the texture of these cakes is really fantastic - light and fluffy, but with a chewy aspect to it, and just a little bit sweet.  it's really good, and you should totally try it if you get a chance.

the bean and i are currently addicted to them.  i may have already made another batch.  hey, i had leftover coconut milk.  i didn't want it to go to waste.  heh.

next up:  the pansit bihon.  this was a snap to make, and it came together pretty quickly.  i think most of the work is in cooking the chicken (which really only involves boiling it in plain water to make a stock for the noodles) and chopping the vegetables.

and then it was time to fry up some lumpia.

i found an easy recipe online for my sauce.  sadly for me, the giant jug of white vinegar i thought we had in the house was nowhere to be found.  my tiny bottle in the pantry only had about an eighth of a cup in it, and i wanted to double the recipe so i'd have enough to bring to book club.  damn.  but i did have rice vinegar, and since it was a sweet & sour sauce anyway, i figured it would work as a decent substitute.  and i was right!

now i'm inspired to learn how to make more filipino food.  i just have to think of what else i want to eat.  yay!

pop! goes hello kitty

i managed to snag myself a sweet gig making 3 dozen cake pops for a baby shower, and i was excited to try my hand at doing them with a homemade cake vs. one from a box (or even from mushing up cupcakes from dots).  using recipes from hershey, i baked up the deepest, darkest, chocolatiest chocolate cake i've ever made.

it only took about half of this mixture to put together all 36 cake pops.  i debated between freezing the rest and making them to bring to book club - and i'm sure you can guess which won out.

i find that dipping the cake balls on sticks is much easier - you can dunk it once into the melted candy, do a little tap, tap, tap to let the extra goo fall off, and voila - pretty cake pops!

the shower was zebra-themed, and i was asked to use a hot pink drizzle on the white-coated pops and then individually bag them and tie with a color-coordinated ribbon.  i think they turned out pretty cute, don't you?

this month's book club selection was that controversial "tiger mom" book, with our potluck gathering asian-themed.  i already knew i was going to bring some food from the homeland (more on that later), and so i decided i'd asian-ize my cake pops to match.  can you guess where i was headed with this (using a tutorial from my cake pops idol, bakerella)?

a quick dunk in white candy and a few accents, and now it's unmistakable:

i busted out my edible black marker to finish 'em off.

but i only had so much patience for all that assembly.  so i melted some orange candy, dipped the rest of the balls in it, and tinted the rest of it with some black gel coloring.  get it?  get it?  TIGER MOM??

i was pretty proud of my handiwork. 

and i'm happy to report that they actually taste really good, too!  i can't wait till i have another chance to make a batch of them.

playdates rock

a handful of us have been trying to get it together for months and meet up with the kiddies for a playdate at kidspace in pasadena.  we'd set a date a couple of times and had to reschedule because everyone's always so busy.  but we finally managed to find a date that worked for us all - yay!

i'd been to kidspace a couple of times before, but always for junior league meetings and never with the bean in tow.  i knew she'd have a ball, and we dragged the teen along too. 

when we got there, the bean was happy to say hello to mini-lilcee and her doggies.

nanette and em arrived soon after, and we started making our way up to the museum.  it was cute to watch the bean and her BFF trotting across the lawn.

to get inside, you get to walk through this cool tunnel, decorated colorfully with fun stuff to touch and feel and look at.

i admired nanette's super duper cool lens.  i think we know what i'll be asking for next, right?  maybe...mother's day?

we got in line to pay our $10 admission and receive our handstamps.

engaged at kidspace!!  that will only be amusing to a few of you, but whatever.

i love that our kids love each other.

the main building housed a nature-type exhibit.  there were fun things to see, run through, climb up and down.

outside, we found a waterplay station.  the bean must've had ESP about this, since she's the one who chose to wear her rain boots that morning.

but i didn't really have extra clothes to put her in, and wasn't all about letting her get soaked.  besides, i didn't want her to be a bad influence on the others.  so we ushered her away from there and towards the track, where there were fun tricycles to ride.

there were other fun things to do on the museum grounds, too.

the teen and i giggled over this dude's resemblance to will ferrell.  can you see it?

there were little toy cars stuck in the concrete, which was fascinating to the bean for about 2.75 seconds.

we decided to head out and grab some lunch together.  on our way to mike & anne's, not too far away, nanette called to let me know that em had fallen asleep and they were heading home.  we were bummed, but totally understood.  and as we sat outside, waiting for a table, the bean spied this cute doggy and i told her to ask first if it was okay to pet him.  and as the man smiled at her and said "oh, sure, she's really friendly," i about shat myself.  i knew that face!  it was totally long duck dong from "sixteen candles"!

i was stoked to have had a perfect excuse to snap a few pics, although i'd left the good camera in the car and was armed only with my iPhone.  but still - you can see him, right?  i'm so sorry, LDD, i know you have a real name, but that wouldn't be as fun.  and i kept hearing gongs in my head and flashing back to awesome scenes from the movie.  heh.

after lunch, the three of us decided to walk about a block down the street to check out my sweet cupcake.  i wasn't in the mood to have one (i know, i know), and the girls chose one to share - the "animal cracker" flavor.

well, okay, i might have had one bite.  and it was pretty tasty. 

we made the bean walk most of the way back to the car, and we didn't make it very far before i looked back and saw this:

yeeeeeeah.  pretty awesome day.