Entertainment

February 26, 2015 by feyma

Paella & popcorn shrimp: with my little touch in it!

Just a few days ago we celebrated Bob’s birthday. As a tradition in our household we would ask the celebrant what would they want to eat for dinner. Bob told me that he will think for a few minutes, then he remembered the recipe he really likes that we saw on MKR (My Kitchen Rules Australia) show. Well, he then decided that he wants paella, we saw one of the contestant there cooked seafood paella. I had to make other food too because some of my kids would not eat seafood.

Bob, asked me if I think it would be easy to make paella. The recipe in the MKR was a little bit complicated. So I told him I will look it up in the internet for the recipe and let him know. I then told my daughter Jean and my niece Glenda that it’s Paella and popcorn shrimp for dinner. Jean is not really into seafood that much too. But since Dad wants that menu she’s happy to help me out.

Paella

I found a few good seafood paella recipe in the internet. I cooked the one that I know the chef. Good thing most of his ingredients I can find it locally. Few ingredients that I was lucking was the saffron and the Spanish rice. I’ve seen saffron on some stores here but they don’t have this time. My niece went all over the place and can’t find it. Maybe the “No shipment” and “The no stocks” is here again for sure. For the rice I just substitute with Japanese rice. It works out good too. For the clams I used mussels instead, since that’s what Bob preferred. Since it’s hard to get lobster in the market, plus its a bit expensive, I just put more of the prawns then. The calls for Spanish chorizo and it really adds flavors. I marinate the chicken with the spices the chef recommended, but he marinated his chicken for an hour. I marinated my chicken with the spices for half a day. The flavor were really good. At the end, I followed what he said to turn up the heat for 40 seconds to give toasted rice bottom, its called socarrat (dukot in Bisaya). You can really find good paella recipe that your family will enjoy and that will also suits your budget. If some of the ingredients were expensive, find some local substitute from your local grocery stores.

With the other recipe the popcorn shrimp. I made the batter from scratch. I even made my own heavy cream. Thank goodness for the google. Both recipe I tweak to suit more to our own taste. I think it works really good for us. Bob and us in the house seems to like it and so did our friend Bebe.

Talking about the popcorn shrimp. It’s rally a simple recipe too. I made some of the spices and save the rest for the next time uses. The popcorn shrimp on the other hand, we had to used small shrimp. The downside to it, the cleaning and deveining of the shrimp was a bit of work (we had to devein prawns for paella and shrimp for popcorn shrimp. But at the end its all worth it though. Everyone that likes seafood in our house loves it. I made some ingredients out from substitution. I saw heavy cream in the store. It not worth the money for me because I just need 2 tablespoon.

If ever you want the recipes of the paella and the popcorn shrimp that we made, Just let me know, I’m happy to email them to you.

Good eating you guys!

February 12, 2015 by feyma

Our baby has babies!

Well, almost over a year ago I wrote about that we had new baby in the house. The name of that baby was Blue. Our helper got her from the ditch (canal) here near the house. Well just 10 months from we found her she gave us 5 kittens. The runt kitten died the next day. Blue didn’t feed her properly, really she abandoned him. We tried to feed him, but no luck. He was really weak. I never thought we will get kittens this early. We did have a female kitten before and it took awhile for me to have them taking care of (spayed) because they didn’t show signs to have it taking care of right away. Well, Blue was just different I guess.

We joke here at the house that we feel that Blue was a victim of a teen pregnancy. Firstly, she got pregnant early, then she just doesn’t know how to take care of her kittens at first. I guess sometimes now too. She gave birth a little over 3 weeks ago. Not the best mom ever. We also joke that she’s having postpartum depression. She would be in with the kitchen like just staring at something and sadness in her eyes. We’re giving her special attention while her babies were sleeping. We would cuddle her and rubbing her head or tummy. She’s close to Bob, Jean and Chris. She will leave her babies and stay in our bedroom to be on Bob’s lap and be cuddled. She will stay with me once in awhile. A lot of times we just bring her babies to our room and let her stay there until time for us to go to bed.

Blue is something else. When she gets nervous she will lay down/step on her babies, or she’s trying to hurt them by biting hard. It’s not the carrying kind of bite, its really hurting them. Sometimes she will bite the legs of her kittens. My kids will help her when time for feeding the babies. I bought those little bottles for the animals. She really gets nervous when she heard her babies made sounds. She thinks that they’re crying. We felt that her kittens are getting bigger and bigger everyday. We tried to feed Blue more, she feeds active 4 kittens now, we let her drinks lots of milk too.

By the way, we are naming her kittens in honor of Pope Francis visiting the Philippines. Blue give birth the 2nd day of Pope Francis arrival in the Philippines. The first born name is Pope (the easily recognized kitten), the other names are Francis, Tina (short for Argentina, where the Pope came from), Yolly (For Yolanda, Pope Francis visit the PI for the Yolanda victims), last was Jorge (unfortunately Jorge died, he was the runt). Jean, Chris, my niece Bebe and our helper Joy helped Blue during the birth. They even made record of what time every kitten were born. I’m proud of them for helping Blue and staying up late until she was done with the last kitten.

When they were born Pope was the biggest one. Now he’s the runt. He is the one also that easily recognized. He’s the one that had Blue’s color of hair and with some white on him. To be honest we had to put tag with the other 3 kittens. It’s so hard to recognized them, they had the same color of hair all over their body and the same size. For the record we are giving them away. We already had 4 cats in the house. I’m trying to convince everybody here in the house that we don’t need a cat anymore. I think it’s going to be hard to give them away. We are giving them to friends that we know. I want to give them to people that will take good care of them. But in all honesty, I might give the older ones and keep the 4 kittens. NOT…

December 24, 2014 by feyma

Going around different places in Mindanao with Santa!

I think everyone knows here already that Bob took a job from a cellphone company here to be a Santa for a few days from late November until mid December. That’s the reason why we celebrated our Thanksgiving earlier than it should be. The day that we usually celebrates, Bob was already on his first day of being a Santa. So we had to move our celebration ahead of time.

Bob went with his team for the first day of his job. The team leader told Bob that he could bring somebody from the house with him if he wants to. So the second day, Jean went with Bob and the team. Jean was really helpful. She helped Bob with the costume and helping taking lots of pictures. So important for the company to have lots of pictures. I could see that Bob really had fun talking to the kids and even with the adults. I went with him and his team to the out of town tours in General Santos, Koronodal and Kidapawan. Some days our daughter Jean went with Bob too in going to the malls here in the city and out of town. Jean went to Cotabato City and Kidapawan in addition to many malls in Davao City.

Jean posing with “Santa Dad” and “Santa’s Girl” (Merry Cris) in Kidapawan City

It was fun going and helping Bob. I went twice with him to GenSan. The first one there, we didn’t stay overnight. We came back the same day and it was exhausting, but watching Bob with kids, I think his exhaustion just fade away when he saw the smile of the kids and the parents. He really is good with talking to the kids and he would not leave the kids until all of them finished up taking pictures with him. Amazingly some people they want to take plenty of pictures with Santa. Some kids were happy to see Santa, some were just petrified seeing Santa. You could see some kids were just in horror when Santa held out his hand to pick them up.

My second trip to GenSan with the team and we went to other areas near there. On that trip we stayed overnight. You know, you could see that for some of the kids it was their first time seeing Santa. Honestly some of them they just don’t know how to react. They didn’t know if they would be scared or happy seeing someone in a costume. It really fascinates me watching them. In other areas, we saw a mother and a kid both were terrified seeing Santa. We could tell they were from the mountain. They went to that mall to shop, then on the front door here comes Santa and his helper giving away something. We could see the fear in their eyes. Luckily Santa’s helper know how to distract their fears by giving something right away.

Feyma with Santa’s Crew in Kidapawan City

Santa with his Special Child friend

In one of the malls (in Koronodal City) we saw a special child. Bob really got him and he had lots of picture with that young man. I think the parents think that we might not want their kid because he’s different. They were shocked that we asked them if it’s okay to give something to their kid and have pictures. They were really happy that we took the time to show we care to their son. We told them that we also have a child that has special needs. They ‘re just so happy that we understood their child.

The Lady who really wanted a picture with Santa

Towards at the end of Bob’s job, a lady made a request from me that if she could have photo with Santa. Problem she doesn’t have camera. I told her it’s okay, I will have her picture taken and I will send the photo to the cellphone company there in her area that Bob was hired and she will just pick it up there. She hardly goes there but I told her I will have someone I know give to the store and make sure she will have it. She really told me that she really wants the photo with Santa to show to her neighborhood that she saw the real Santa. Real Santa because Bob is a foreigner. My heart really goes out to her.

Anyway, I could go on and on about our trips. It was really fun and amazingly good seeing so many kids and adults loves to have pictures taken with Santa. To see more photos go to Santa in the Philippines.

Have a Happy Holiday Everyone. Have a Prosperous year ahead!!!

September 4, 2014 by feyma

Are the in-charge doing their job right?

I was just reading my Kindle and Bob just told me something that really bothered me. He said something about a winner of the beauty contest in Bukidnon who was stripped of her title and her other awards. I asked him what’s the reason for it? Bob told me about the girl being an American citizen. He told me that he will give me the link. The name of the lady is Miss Marah Luz Smith.

So I read the link. So Miss Smith was born in the States, at the age of 3 the family moved back to Bukidnon. The mom is a Filipina. The thing that gets me on this, before the contest there supposed to be a committee, supposed to be overseeing all the contestants. It showed she passed all the requirements or she’s not gonna be there on stage and be the winner. Then, all of a sudden they felt that she’s not eligible to be the winner so just take it away from her. Is there rules on the contest that mix race were not allowed? How can you justify the stripping of her winning if the committee even said she was good to join before the contest? What made them change? It’s mind-boggling to me.

Ms Bukidnon Pagent

I’ve seen some contestants for our beauty pageant here the big one contest for Miss Universe, Miss International, Miss Earth and others that compete abroad. Some of those contestant were born abroad and grew up there. You can tell they even had the accent from the country there from. Then the beauty contest committee were okay from it. They’ve been sent to other countries to compete. What’s the difference with the one from Bukidnon?

With the dilemma of Miss Smith it got me thinking of when my son was thinking of going to Philippine Science High School. When we went there to inquire wow the paperwork of a mixed race kids to be admitted to the school were just slim. When we saw the requirements to get to be admitted it’s just like going to get a Philippines passport. The list were just endless. Even studying on the regular school here the mixed kids really had to pass lots of papers. Which I’m not complaining about. At least they had someone there to tell you that your papers are good or not. Same with the papers with Miss Smith they gave her the A-okay.

How could they miss looking through the papers of Miss Smith? She’s probably the only mixed race contestant on that contest. Or one or two of them. For me it’s just not fair to strip the title if the committee missed out doing their job. If Miss Smith doing bad stuff to shame the title holder then that could be justified.

What do you think guys? Feel free to share your thoughts here. I’m just hoping that the committee will see what they’re doing to the young lady. She’s really devastated right now. Hopefully they resolved the matter soon. Good luck to Miss Smith and her family. Hoping for the best for her.

Mabuhay!

July 17, 2014 by feyma

Hair coloring for pups, is it happening here?

Just a month or two ago I was telling you guys about our dog Fluffy that we put to sleep. So then Bob and I had promised the kids that we will be getting a new pup for them after our other dog Chi Chi gets used to being without Fluffy around. So a few weeks after Fluffy was gone I was looking on the internet for a puppy that’s for sale in Davao City area. Really I found a few that caught our attention. So I began texting one of the owners that we like the puppy that she had advertise. We already agreed on the puppy we want and the price and set the place and the time to met the next day. Reason I brought Jean because she’s the one that really is into dogs.

We agreed to met somewhere and we went there 15 minutes ahead of the time schedule. We waited for the owner for over an hour though. With some excuse of course. I was proud of myself because I was being patient. :-). Finally the lady showed up. Geez, it was really a disappointment. She brought a puppy that’s not what she advertise on the net and it looks sickly. It really made me mad because I could see Jean’s disappointment. But still I held off from saying something, but oh boy inside of me was boiling already. I told the lady politely that I am not buying the puppy that she’s showing us because that’s not the one she’s advertising and it’s not even the breed that we want and what she said on line. I told her to take care of the puppy that she’s showing us and good luck to her business.

Our new puppy, Pepper, is getting friendly with our older puppy, Che Che

Our new puppy, Pepper, is getting friendly with our older puppy, Chi Chi

Jean is looking happy!

After seeing Jean’s sad face, I had to do something. My niece Glenda reminded me of the place that that sells puppies.. So we went there right away, the place is just near JS Gaisano (Gaisano South now). We already bought a puppy there before and we were happy with the pup that we got there. So we searched for a bit in the area when we got there. Luckily we found one vendor who had 3 puppies (2 light brown- one of the brown pup was a bulldog, and one black) in the cage. I could see Jean’s eyes were sparkling. LOL. She was playing with the pups. I could tell she wanted them all. Ha ha ha. Well, we settled for the black pup. He looks appealing because his hair so shiny and so dark black on top.

As soon as we got home he looks kinda sickly. As usual if we got some pets here in the house we bring them to the vet right away. Since the puppy looks a little sick and had runny nose. My niece and Aaron brought him to the vet that afternoon. He has a little bit of fever. Maybe because it was too hot when we took him home. We felt sorry for him. So the doctor gave him some meds and vitamins. The vet also gave him medicine for de-worming. Doc said to not bathe him for a few days. Take note I said his hair color was black.

So far, Pepper is a good dog!

The next day we noticed that his color was changing a little, brown color was showing a bit on top. When Bob picked him up, he immediately said “I had a feeling those people colored the hair of this puppy”. I told him no way they’ll do that. That’s insane, it might make the animal feeling sick. Hmm to think our puppy was sick. Day after day his color really kept changing, showing more brown and a little bit of white on his legs. Really me and the kids were convinced by Bob now that those vendors really colored the hair of the puppy. I know it’s weird to think but how could the hair change in span of just a few days? Well we are not animal expert here we are just animal lovers.

So if you ever buy any pets here ask the vendors if the color of the pets is natural. We had so many pets before but first time for us that the hair changes.

The name of our pup is Pepper. Getting so spoiled. He’s friends with all of our cats and Chi Chi now. LOL

Cheers!