First Attempt: Lattice Top Crust for My Apple Pie

My first attempt to make a lattice top pie crust. Not the best looking. This is pre oven.

After an hour in the oven:

 

Looks sumptuous (in my very biased opinion)!

I think the problem I had was that I didn’t roll out the top dough to the right size. It was a little too big, which caused the dough to be too thin and long, and it was uneven all over. Lessons learned. Once we have another bunch of leftover apples, I’ll try to do it again. Master the technique!

I’ll have to let it sit for now to cool down. Will have to wait until tomorrow to taste it!

And that’s my project for this weekend. Let’s see what I come up with for next weekend.

A Few Thoughts On My Recent Trip Back Home

Going back home for the holidays last November/December/January was an experience I will always treasure.

It was the first time I came back to visit my family and friends in Manila since deciding to move permanently to Canada. Although it was only 7 months prior that I did move to Canada, the thought that I have uprooted myself and moved here makes me miss everything back home so much more. When I used to stay in Canada for 3-6 months a year, I didn’t feel like I was missing a lot from back home. But now, there’s just so much more to miss, and at the same time, appreciate.

Living abroad permanently gives you a better sense of appreciation of everything – this could be family or friends that you may have taken for granted, or things that you hated about Manila but in fact, missed so much as well (the irony!).

Such  a blessing it was when my manager allowed me to stay put in Manila for an “extended” vacation of 6.5 weeks (includes 3 weeks of actual work). I had to burn the midnight oil for my work though, but who cares. It gave me another 3.5 weeks to spend with family and friends.

Aside from the pasalubongs that I brought home with me, I also brought back to Manila my new and improved (but still not good) cooking and baking skills! So of course I had to show it off to my family! I cooked siopao, spinach gratin, mushroom stuffed spinach and cheese,  chicken and broccoli, and some other. I baked my favorite banana bread, and made two apple pies! Funny thing is, my mom had this new oven toaster that’s still in the box, never been touched, never been used for a few months! My mom was so happy someone finally took it out of the box and used it!

For some reason, I loved cooking and baking for them, even though my dad almost never ate anything I made unless I forced him to do so. I fondly remember cooking my spinach stuffed mushroom and preparing apple cider (Christmas eve) and baking my apple pie (New Year’s eve) where in my guests of honor were required to eat and drink everything I prepared. :) Fortunately, the family gladly obliged.

This was just one of the few things that I enjoyed doing for them and with them. The gatherings for lunch and dinner together - spending time with each other made my trip more memorable. As I live far away from them now, I have learned to appreciate the time that I have been given with them even more. And with the younglings around, it’s just so much more fun! Take a look at the picture below!

 

I have to mention that friends also made my stay in Manila much more enjoyable. The chitchats and gossips, what more can I say? So worth it!

As dramatic as this post may sound, what I want to share is that I am one blessed person. I love the life I am slowly building here in Canada, and yet, I also and still have a wonderful life back home in Manila, which will always give me something to look forward to each year, that is, going back on another trip to a place I call my home.

Detox Take 2 Result

I hate to admit it, but I failed my detox 2 (again…). I only made it through one day.

Two main problems I encountered:

1. I followed the recipe right down to the tee. I would say, ideally that’s how it should be, but the problem with that approach is that it may not necessarily cater to your taste – which for me was the main reason why I failed. I just didn’t like the way ginger overpowered my breakfast drink, or perhaps the veggie juice with just tasted awful.

2. I wasn’t ready. By afternoon, I felt hungry, and then I couldn’t focus on work. Might’ve been psychological too (just the thought of only drinking juice).

There are a couple of things I learned though.

1. Be prepared mentally (and physically). It takes a lot of discipline to go through a strict and proper detox. Cheating is not an option as you’ll just be wasting your time.

2. Make sure to prepare drinks that you would enjoy drinking. When I did this detox, I strictly followed the prescribed fruit/veggie combination per meal, which unfortunately, did not always suite my taste buds. However, when I tried mixing the ingredients together according to my own preference, then I started looking forward to drinking them, instead of dreading them.

Since I am not yet mentally prepared for a detox yet, I still made good use of my ingredients. I still made my juices, but this time around, according to my preferred taste. And these juices, I use as supplement for now, instead of a meal replacement. It still gives you that bit of a detox (I suppose), but balances it out with my main meals. And when I get hungry within the day, instead of grabbing just some random stuff to snack on, I drink this instead. And so far, after a couple of days, it’s been working out pretty good.

Detox Take 2

Almost 1.5 years ago, I did a partial detoxification via the Juju Cleanse – a set of expensive juices set to provide you with some cleansing and detox.

With the new year, I’ve been feeling a little bit anxious and uneasy inside out (yes!). In order to address the physical aspect of the uneasiness, I’ve decided to try doing a few days of detox, just to start fresh and clean out the system. I’m planning to do it for three days. I’m hoping I can stick with it this time.

In order to show my drive in undergoing this detox, I went grocery shopping today to buy my ingredients and prepared my breakfast and lunch ingredients for juicing for tomorrow.

Breakfast:

Consists of: Kale, Apples, Grapes, Blueberries, Cucumber and Ginger

Lunch:

Consists of: More Kale leaves, Granny Smith Apples, Cucumber, Ginger, Celery and Lemon.

I am anticipating that the breakfast option will be much favorable as there are a lot of sweeteners there (grapes, apples) as opposed to the lunch menu where all I see is green. 

I have not prepared my dinner juicing ingredients yet as I had to catch a Aussie Open match and besides, my hands have pruned due to lots of veggie water cleaning.

I’ll have an update for tomorrow. Hopefully I survive a day without eating solid foods and to strictly follow the program.

Nutella 5kg

I was at Costco earlier to pick up some items that my mom asked me to buy for her when I stumbled upon this!



5 kilograms!! Isang balde!



I didn't even know they sold something this big at all! N-year supply of Nutella!

The Book Thief

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

Great book. It is fascinating because whenever we hear about World War II, the story would usually revolve around how evil the Germans were (mainly because of Hitler) and how the bad the Jews had it. This book though, was the first book that I read about the life of the Germans during the war, and how, not all of them agreed to the war and that there were those who showed sympathy for the Jews.

The book centers around the life of the book thief - Liesel Meminger, a young German girl, who lived with foster parents the Hubbermans. It tells of her life during the war, and how she made her life wonderful because of her thirst for reading.

I find that the book was quite confusing for me at first, and it started a little slow. However, it eventually picked up along the way and I found myself not wanting to put it down. I didn't shed some tears unlike when I was reading Silver Linings Playbook, but it touched my heart a whole lot, especially with the character of Hans Hubberman. He wasn't the great dashing war hero that one would usually see in movies or other books, but he was simply, a kind man.

I read this book knowing that it will be created as a movie soon, but all the while I thought it would be for next year. But imagine my surprise when after doing a simple google, I found out that it's actually going to be showing this November and has a trailer already!

And what can I say, oh wow. Something definitely to look forward to. I don't think it'll be a commercial success, but I think for those who like the drama, and perhaps for those who loved the book, may just enjoy this touching story showing in the big screen.

Watch the trailer here.

Can't wait!

Yahoo Changes

We all remember back in the days when Yahoo! was the tech giant and most people that I know had yahoo mail. But as Google slowly made it's way to the consumers, and yahoo slowly deteriorated, a lot started moving to Google's services, in particular - gmail. I was one of those. I signed up for a new personal gmail account and although I still have my decades old yahoo mail account, I decided that I will use gmail as my primary account, and ymail as my, secondary email account.

Over the years, while Google, Facebook, Apple thrived, Yahoo declined. According to this source, its share prices went as high as 118.75 back in 2000. And went down to as low as 8.11. Now it's hovering around 30, which is already a big improvement from two years ago before Marissa Mayer stepped in.

I've been fascinated by Yahoo recently because we've been seeing a lot of changes. Just earlier I saw the gui for their ymail changed again! And if you haven't noticed, they did change their logo recently as well. Another recent headliner was when CEO Marissa Mayer banned work from home for its employees! So that got me wondering who is this CEO?

And here I found a wonderful article about: Marissa Mayer

I have to admit, she's now one of my most admired women.