• Baking Recipes,  Pies & Tarts,  Timeless Treats

    Since it’s a special recipe kind of season, I made my first baklava

    I feel like the closer we get to Christmas, the more people are prone to becoming a bit frazzled by the holiday grind. We all have to keep track of the parties, and whether or not we’ve already bought gifts for everyone on our list. Add to that there is some form of anxiety for people who are planning to cook their own Christmas feast or host their own parties. Even if you do it every year, it can still be daunting. Personally since I’m more party-goer than party-hoster, I like to take this opportunity to get creative in the kitchen and try out recipes that I feel are really…

  • Baking Recipes,  Christmas & holidays,  Cookies,  Timeless Treats

    It’s raining men— gingerbread men, that is!

    Every Christmas season requires a cookie recipe, and it’s been years since I last made any gingerbread people. At some point I had been thinking about creating a whole gingerbread town because I wanted to learn how to put up those adorable gingerbread houses, but now I am reminded just why I put that on hold. Man did my back hurt after making this hahaha! It’s the curse of tall people forced to work on low worktables. Our chairs aren’t high enough for the counters so sitting down while working is difficult too. When I move into my dream house I will make damn sure my counters are a little…

  • Foodie Life,  Recipe Round-Up

    The art of giving and receiving: A Christmas Gift Guide for the foodie in your life!

    You know one of the things I noticed about growing up? It’s that there seems to be less gifts under the tree the more years pass by. I guess people have this idea that since you’re working already, you have the means to buy whatever it is you want yourself. With this in mind, maybe they believe that whatever they give you will probably not be up to par, so they choose to stop. But let’s get real for a second: who the heck doesn’t like receiving gifts? Whether it’s for Christmas or a birthday, it’s always nice to feel like you’re being remembered. That’s what gifts mean to me anyway– that the giver has…

  • Cooking Recipes,  Pork dishes,  Timeless Treats

    Ushering Christmas feast-making season with a stress-less sort of recipe

    There are two things that require abundance during the holiday season and that is gifts and food. Arguably these are the two things that bring the most cheer, which is why most of our efforts and time in preparing for the holidays go to Christmas shopping and prepping for a feast in the kitchen. Many people haven’t even recovered from turkey-induced comas, yet here we are once again gearing up for another kind of coma. Eggnog-induced maybe? Thanksgiving isn’t a holiday here in the Philippines, so we jump right into getting ready for our Christmas. Filipinos go all-out during Pasko. The food and the parties (and the karaoke-singing) literally never…

  • Baking Recipes,  Christmas & holidays,  From the books,  My favourite things,  Simple cakes,  Timeless Treats

    A Bûche de Noël to wish you a very merry Christmas

    There are several things I love about Christmas, and no they do not involve material presents. There’s the food, which is always a tad more abundant around this time of the year. I also love getting reunion invitations from friends I haven’t seen in years! But what I really honestly look forward to about Christmas is that especially magnified sense of contentment I always get. I’ve always felt like my year culminates during the Christmas holidays instead of the new year. I guess with all the excitement on New Year’s Eve I have difficulty finding that moment of solitude to really take in everything that I have around me, or…

  • Baking Recipes,  Christmas & holidays,  From the books,  Layer cakes

    {Christmas Countdown 2013} Just because lamingtons remind me of snow

    We’re only a few days away from Christmas now, and it is on a day like this more than on any day of the year I start thinking about snow. (Especially since the weather these past few days has been on the warm side!) I wonder what it’s like to have snow falling on your face, brushing past the tip of your nose like a silent kiss. I wonder how those tiny white specks feel rolling between fingers that try to catch them. Do they feel like sharp icicles or are they really as cottony soft as they look on television? I haven’t been fortunate enough to witness falling snow…