Please forgive me for another long overdue post. I'm just trying to cross out each one of my backlogs. :D

Part of the series of the pre-birthday celebrations that I had was another lunch out with my family. It was actually an impromptu lunch out. I guess Daddy was just feeling a little lazy to cook that time that he decided to eat out.


I already knew that we will have to dine at a Chinese restaurant, as that is the only cuisine that somehow keeps up with my daddy's meticulous palates. :) Good thing the Chinese food choices within Antipolo are already expanding. We now also have North Park here in our place. Yay!

Beef Caldereta is one of my Daddy's specialties which the whole family loves. I've tried different versions of this dish, but nothing still compares to my Daddy's caldereta. :D


I'm fond of just watching my Daddy cook especially the dishes which I haven't tried cooking yet. Though I'm not really sure if he also used liver spread and butter, it turned out to be a hit when I tried cooking Beef Caldereta for the first time. Got to cook this dish once again just a few months back, posted the photo of it online, and I've been getting requests for the recipe since then.

We were supposed to have some ice cream and snacks at the ice cream house in Robinsons Magnolia after our lunch and a little shopping, but we'd still have to endure a long queue so we decided to just dine elsewhere. We decided to leave the mall and dine somewhere that's already near Antipolo so we won't have to worry about braving the traffic anymore.

Mommy and I wanted some burgers so we suggested to dine at Army Navy in Cainta.


I first got to try Army Navy when I was still working in Makati. My first time didn't leave a good impression though because the burger tasted bland and was a bit try. But I enjoyed their Freedom Fries and Libertea on my first try!

The Christmas season is over and indeed 2014 has just started, but hey, we've only got a couple of months left before summer here in the Philippines. Oh how time flies! But I guess the weather's having a hard time catching up. :p Yup, it's been so cold since last December and it's getting colder by the day. I also heard we will still be experiencing a lot colder weather in the coming months. Brrrrr!

Windbreakers and blankets do come in handy, but is there a better way to keep yourself warm than enjoying a hot bowl of soup on a cold weather? Aside from Arroz Caldo, here's another family favorite that's perfect for the cold weather. Sharing with you this recipe, which I learned of course from my dad. :)

Lomi

Printable Recipe: Lomi

Today's the birthday of my older brother, Chino, so I decided to make a birthday cake for him. I was already thinking of designs for my brother's birthday cake as early as after I made my own birthday cake. Special thanks to my baby brother, Jaoey, for suggesting the designs. He knew how Chino loves cars and basketball so these were the designs that he had in mind.


I was choosing between a sports car cake or a basketball cake, and, because I thought it's kinda hard to sculpt a car out of a cake, I just chose the latter. :p

The renewal center in Farmers Plaza has already transferred, so after our merienda, we headed to SM Megamall because we will be having dinner there and there's also a renewal center there.


We got to the mall a little after 4pm only to find out that the renewal center has also transferred. And because we were still too early for our dinner reservation, and as per Jaoey's suggestion, we decided to kill time in the arcade.

I celebrated my 28th birthday last Friday, January 3. And because birthdays won't be complete without birthday cakes, I made my own birthday cake! Yay! :D


We usually buy cakes from bakeshops during special occasions, but ever since I started making cakes and cupcakes, the cakes that are present on our feasts are of course those which I personally made. Will do a separate post for that. :)

While daddy can cook almost every dish including those with the most complicated recipes and procedures, Gia on the other hand does it well in cooking easy-peasy yet very mouth-watering dishes!

Just like last weekend when Gia decided to make Beef Tacos for our snacks. Complicated as the dish seems, Gia did it in a breeze and got that authentic Mexican taste with the help of her secret ingredient.

Wanna know what that ingredient is? Read on! :D

Beef Tacos

It was my daddy's birthday last Wednesday, October 30. Since he had to go to work, we to decided to just have the celebration over a buffet dinner at Vikings.


Together with the rest of the family, we went to SM Marikina for lunch. And since we're with Jaoey and he got to choose what to eat, we had our lunch at KFC while waiting for our daddy dear.

Had to go to LTO in Pasig a couple of weeks back to process some documents for my car. Still haven't been there so I was badly in need of someone to accompany me. Good thing mommy also needed to have her driver's license renewed so she came along. :)

We learned that the renewal of driver's license wasn't available that time at LTO Pasig, so we just had our car documents processed (which took almost 4 hours) and just decided to renew mommy's license at Robinsons Metro East (which took only around 15 minutes). After having completed our agenda, which was way past lunch time, we finally got the time to eat!


Mommy chose to dine at Classic Savory and, since it's already late and my tummy's already screaming for food, I just immediately agreed. This is one of the few restaurants that our family frequents. Yup, Classic Savory's dishes, their chicken specifically, passed daddy's taste! :p Mommy and I got their an order of the Savory Chicken Combo Meal, which is already good for two, and a serving of their corn soup.

Weekends are almost everybody's favorite days of the week. I for one love weekends, especially weekends at home, because I get to be with my whole family. And when the family's all complete, it just means one thing...weekend feast! Courtesy of course of my daddy dear :)

Aside from lunch feasts, we also get to enjoy the products of daddy's cooking prowess during snack time. Just like last Saturday when daddy cooked homemade hamburgers for our snacks. He was actually craving for Jollibee Champ and we were supposed to have a drive-thru. But since daddy doesn't get easily satisfied with fast food, he decided to make his own. Well I guess that's just really how it goes when you know how to cook scrumptious dishes! :p


Here's an easy-to-prepare recipe of my daddy's juicy-licious burger patties that will surely satisfy both your palates and your tummies! :-p~

Went out on a date with my baby brother last Sunday. Well I was just actually scheduled to deliver some cupcakes at SM Masinag that time. Good thing I was able to convince my baby brother to accompany me, after I promised him that we'd have lunch at his favorite pizza chain and that I'll treat him afterwards with anything that he likes hahaha! :p


We got to the mall a little after 11am. After meeting up with my client, we headed straight to Sbarro for lunch. Aside from KFC, Jaoey's second favorite fast food chain is Sbarro. He has just began to love dining here when we started going out on Sundays with Mark's mom a few years back, and a slice of cheese pizza plus orange soda would be his default orders.

Since I was absent from the blogosphere for more than a month, I think I owe you guys a more decent post than the previous one, so I thought of delaying my backlogs a little bit and share with you my most recent food trip with my family. :)

After my morning routine (morning run, morning mass, and breakfast) last Monday, I decided to tag along my mom and my brothers, Chino and Jaoey, since I will be running some errands for Mark. We went to Manila to visit Mark's mom and to hand her some stuff from Mark. It was already past lunch time, but since we were all still full from our breakfast, instead of supposedly having lunch at Robinsons Manila, we decided to have it at Mama Chit's in Marikina.


It was actually our second time to check the place out. Our first time wasn't that successful though. It was a Saturday and we weren't able to dine there since the place was packed so we decided to dine elsewhere.

Was out earlier today to do some meetings, do some supplies shopping, and do some errands and girlfriend duties for Mark. Since my meeting ended a little before lunch time, I decided to grab some lunch and go straight to Hizon's in Manila to meet with Mark's mom.

Hizon's Quezo de Bola Ensaymada (Big) - Php 130.00

While everybody's been raving about a variety of sweets and pastries that came out a few months back and some just recently, my sweet tooth still chose to crave for the classics.

Aside from orders for birthday parties, we also get orders for Christenings. Here's the first set of Christening cupcakes that we made. We thought of baby items as the main topper, then added on some fondant flowers and edible pearls. :)

Pink and Green Baby Girl Items-themed Christening Cupcakes

Here are the other sets that we made for Baby Girl and Baby Boy Christening cupcakes.

Here's our first ever set of cupcakes with handcrafted fondant toppers. :D We got an order for cupcakes that would be given as gifts to a doctor so Gia and I thought of using fondant for the cupcake toppers. We searched over the net and came up with making these medical items out of fondant.

Chocolate-filled Chocolate Cupcakes with White Chocolate Buttercream Frosting and Hand-crafted Medical Items-themed Toppers

Working with fondant for the first time was both fun and challenging at the same time. It was challenging because Gia and I are both first timers. We were hesitant at first and wondered if we're doing it right, but we were glad that we pulled it off. And it turned out to be a lot more fun! It actually brought us back to our childhood memories when we used to make some stuff out of modeling clay.

Before anything else, let me just say sorry for another overdue post, a way overdue post that is. But this is definitely worth sharing so I hope you guys will continue to read on. :)


A few months back, I received a bloggers' night invitation from Holdak, the newest casual restaurant to open in the Philippines, which specializes in authentic Korean-style fried chicken.

Now this is the culprit of my absence in the blogosphere for the past weeks! :p

facebook.com/kriskacarla.KCkupcakes

Yup, and for the first time I can say that it's not because I was just too lazy to blog, it's just that I was very busy with making cupcakes. :D

Nope, I wasn't on a blogging hiatus. I was just busy (the happy kind of busy) with something for the past weeks. I will share the details on my next posts so watch out for it. :D

I have quite a number of posts about our family feasts here in this blog and more often than not, Ginataang Alimango is always included in the menu. I've been receiving messages and emails requesting me to post the recipe, but since it's my dad who always cooks, I don't really get to take pictures for the recipe.


Luckily, a couple of weekends back, I was able to finally cook Ginataang Alimango for the first time, of course using the recipe that I learned from no less than my dad. :)

Had a very fun and enjoyable time with my family last Sunday as we experienced an afternoon of culinary feast at the recently concluded Flavorful Fete at Eton Centris Walk.


Before the program started, we got to roam around and check the booths surrounding the area. There were a lot of exciting booths which were specially-prepared for moms and families. There's the Faber Castel booth were kids got to enjoy some coloring books and coloring pens for free.