Lutong Bahay 003

since it's the lenten season, i tried to cook and eat veggies and seafoods only on fridays. So last Thursday night, i cooked Chopsuey using the Mama Sita's Chopsuey Mix that i brought with me from the Philippines :-)

On the other note, I've been very busy with work that I'm always out of the office to the job site (meaning: showrooms). And, i'm so pre-occuppied with other works also at home, like the scrapping that I intend to finish on time for April 12. Luckily, I was able to send the package for the Creative Swap first week of March, and I'm crossing my fingers that she will be able to receive it at all. I'm not sure of the efficiency of the postal service here yet. Like, I received a mail only once even if my friends in the Philippines claimed that they send a birthday card for me last year hehe! But my sister in New Jersey never received the card that I send them while my sister in the Philippines received theirs. Oh well! I just hope the package will reach my Creative Swap partner soon.

Lutong Bahay 002

I don't know if there is a tagalog name for this food but in Vigan, they call it Dinuyduy or Duyduy (i think the latter is the tagalog name). It's one of my childhood food memories and I always end up eating a lot. Other people, like me, prefers the squash/pumpkin to be really squashed almost like pumpkin soup consistency, while others will love the squash to be just soft but not soupy. Just add few thinly sliced meat and bittergourd leaves. I don't follow any recipe for this, it's in my memory stock :-) Luckily, everytime I cooked this, the taste is always the same. Yummy!

How i cooked it? Hmmm....saute the garlic and meat, then add water and the cut into square squash/pumpkin. Add fish sauce to taste. Let it boil, when it is soft enough for you, squash the squash...add the leaves, let it boil for awhile then serve hot. Pour the soup in a hot rice and it's heaven :-)

Lutong Bahay 001

It's the second day of the month, and I'm really going to follow one of my new year's resolution, and that is "to cook every other day". This isn't the first time that I cook since I came to this country, but this is the first time that I'm going to document it. H asked me too to blog all the food that I cook, both tried and tested, so here it is.


Menudo is a Filipino dish, but I guess it isn't an original Filipino dish based in the google search. Anyho, i added potatoes and carrots to the recipe

HOLIDAYS IN DHAKA

my little christmas tree, with little santa claus and his harley davidson ride

Christmas is a much celebrated day in the Philippines and in my family, thus celebrating Christmas for the first time without anyone from my family and in a hardcore Muslim country was totally a different experience.

Christmas tree @ a friend's house, Bamboo Shoot, Nando's

The day passed like just any ordinary day. There are few Christmas trimmings in the shops and there is no Christmas rush. No gift giving and no giddy feeling of Christmas time. It was just simply an ordinary day, with the slightest happiness that I feel with the thought that I’m going to celebrate Christmas with friends. There are lot of things that I missed so much last Holiday, the Simbang Gabi even if I never completed one, my family even if ours is far from perfect family, the simple and festive non-stop eat-all-you-can Noche Buena & Christmas lunches /snacks with friends and relatives, the last minute shopping, and the fireworks display on New Year’s Eve. Really, there is no place like home….


But since I can’t do anything with the situation, (I can’t leave the country coz I just got my Visa and passport last week), I have to do with what I have. I may not have the simple and festive Noche Buena that I’m used to, but I can adapt or try other traditions and share my own traditions too. And what is Christmas without “sweet ham” right? It’s not readily available here as pork is not available in groceries or any public market. So, I search the recipe for sweet ham and did it myself. And the verdict: it looks like ham and it tasted like ham.

small gathering after the Christmas Eve Mass

I attended Christmas Eve Mass at Banani and meet some friends there. After the mass, there was a small gathering at the church yard. Cakes, breads, drinks and other pica-pica are served. There are lots of Filipinos there too, and even the Ambassadress was there. Too bad I wasn’t able to take more pictures of the little gathering. One thing I noticed here is that I feel so safe and at home whenever I’m at the Church grounds. Everyone seems to be so friendly, maybe because it’s a small community that’s why people almost knew everyone, similar to private subdivisions in the Philippines.

After eating some cakes and saying “hellos” and greeting friends, we went home and have some simple Christmas dinner Bangladeshi style, and again, I forgot to take pictures. And drank some tequila which made me a little tipsy. I received a black saree, a jewelry set and a box of chocolates as a gift, yihii! The following day, we ate the sweet ham that I made, it was okay and it can pass as the commercial ones hehehe!


After Christmas, I am so busy with the DITF 2009 set up already, that I have to literally celebrate New Year’s Eve at the DITF Grounds with my staff and colleague since the following day will be the opening of the fair.
New Year’s Eve celebration here means going to the clubs and restaurants and other sponsored parties at the hotel and elsewhere. There are no funfair, no fireworks, none at all. But it was okay anyway, I’m just so glad that I was able to finish the set up on time and well, we received good comments about it (another entry for this).


January 1, of course is a working day, but I was able to spend the day with friends again and on the following weekend. I thank God for all this wonderful friends… Another year ahead, praying that this will be another fruitful one. Happy New Year everyone!

Eid and a Cake

It’s another Eid holiday here, Eid al-Adha also referred as “cow cutting eid”. This is the Eid where a family will sacrifice a cow, a goat or camel. They divide the meat amongst themselves, their relatives, friends and they give a portion of it to the poor people too. So, before the Eid day, you will see cows, goats being sold along the streets. And since it is Eid, the office gave a week long holiday plus the weekend, a total of 9 days, too bad I don’t have my visa and passport yet, so I wasn’t able to go out of the country and spend the holidays somewhere else.

Since it’s holiday, and even if I’m trying hard to diet and lose weight, I decided to give in to my craving of eating a “sans rival cake” which is not available here, by baking the cake myself. I searched the recipe from the net and read some reviews also from those who tried baking it themselves, and even Marketman find it's a torture to bake the cake. With the recipe at hand, the ingredients prepared, I braved myself in baking my first cake.


I boiled the syrup and at the same time melting the butter, which I should have not melted in the first place. Well, it's my first time to bake a cake so I thought the butter should be melted :-). I run out of the required amounts of chopped cashew nuts, so I just mixed it with almond nuts and another nuts, is that a walnut? And the egg yolks that should be beaten until creamy, well, I'm using only a hand mixer and it was a torture holding it for an hour just to make the eggs creamy. I got tired and the eggs are not that creamy, maybe because I melted the butter? Halfway at baking the meringue, I got scared that it will explode inside the electric oven since it just kept on rising and rising and rising. But after it was done baking, it stop rising and went back to its normal height.

And, because I don't have more than 1 Pyrex, I decided to bake all the mixture in one and just thought of slicing them when it's done baking. Only to find out that slicing this meringue is "sticky and a tough job".

So, instead of 4 layers, I was able to slice it only into three and its not perfect. I filled it with the "watery butter cream" and sprinkled it with lots of nuts and put it in the freeze, with lots of hope that this will turn out okay.



And the verdict: it is PERFECT! Just the right sweetness for me, not too sweet which will make you stop finishing a slice and not too bland that will make you guess what kind of a cake it is. The crunchiness is perfectly chewy, I love it! I just can't believe that my first attempt to bake a cake was almost perfect, almost because I didn't perfected the butter cream and the layers. But anyhoo, this is still one perfect cake for me and to share with special friends.