Ice Skating

Went along with friend PP to her daughter's ice-skating practice. After her practice, the daughter insisted that I joined her for a freestyle session. As a requirement, in order to not embarass myself, I asked PP to join us as well, but the daughter did not want her mother to join us. To please her daughter's wish, I got into my skates and into the big ice rink I go.

While putting my rental skates on, a friend came by to say hi and he was going into the rink which was a good thing because he gave me some pointers and skated with me for about half a rink. I was not as nervous as I thought I would be and I was doing pretty well skating a little at a time without hogging the wall. Then about halfway, I thought I was doing really good and try to speed up a little, then without paying much attention to my balance, I slipped backward, on my butt. Wow, I haven't landed on my butt for a long time and boy it hurt so bad on impact haha

He helped me up and I stood up again on my skates but this time paying more attention. He says to bend knees, but then I remembered with roller-blading, we'd have to lean forward and that helped me a lot too with ice-skating. The first round on the rink was absolute torture and slow but I got much better as I go around and faster and with more confidence. I think in total I did about 10 rounds and I could feel that my feet was getting tired. I stepped out of the rink and changed into my sneakers, it felt weird walking after that.

All in all, it was not too bad of a first experience. I'm liking ice-skating and will be doing a lot more skating in the future :)

Laziness

Oohh, been so lazy... Didn't prepare food for today's lunch, so just brought salted duck eggs and tomatoes. It's actually pretty good -- Filipino co-worker taught, just cubed the tomatoes and smashed the eggs, and mixed. Voila, best eaten with steam rice. Wow!

Will be going to watch friend's daughter ice-skating this Saturday in Valencia. Oh how fun! Then Sunday will be preparing ceviche for 25 people (Tuesday's lunch). Then, um.. oh Chinese New Year next month!

Life is good, but I'm still broke. Pfftt...

Beautiful Sunset

Caught this on the way home on Brand Blvd. Loved the palm lined street -- creates a nice effect against sunset in the background.

Did a quick grocery shopping at Vallarta -- loved this place, fresh fruits and vegetables are so cheap! Got about a pound of carrots, 2 garlics, 6 brown onions, 1/2 lbs of green beans, 4 big tomatoes and a bunch of cilantro (for my jalapenos bread). Total came up to less than $7!! Can't beat the price that's for sure.

For dinner, I made spinach and shrimp stir fry with garlic and sambal olek sauce, it came out so good, I ate half of what I've cooked. I managed to save the other half for lunch tomorrow. I ended up having spinach teeth *bleah*

And lastly, my long awaited bake -- jalapenos bread. I've informed everyone at work that I will be bringing this bread for breakfast tomorrow. Oh, the white bread that I brought to work this morning along with a container of 'I can't believe it's not butter' spread, was gone before lunch time. I was stoked. Hopefully, this jalapenos bread will receive the same kind of treatment. I've tasted it, the texture is not as soft as white, because I've used one cup of wheat in lieu of regular flour even the recipe called for all white. It also called for corn meal, which sticks to my teeth everytime I take a bite. Other ingredients besides cilantro and jalapenos are corn. And here's the end result after more than 3 hours in the machine. Smells wonderful and has a hint of spicyness to it. I'll be bringing some provolone cheese to enjoy the bread with!

Sunny Sunday

I didn't sleep too good last night and I got out of bed at 6 when the alarm sounded. I went downstairs to check on the bread and sure enough it was done. The breadmaker turned off automatically but there were droplets underneath the bread. I hurriedly dried the bread and put it away in a bag and made another batch of white bread, hoping that it would be ready in time before I leave.

After I'm done with the bread, I thought I should make some food ahead of time so I can have for dinner or lunch at work tomorrow. I already have some ground pork out so I thought of making baked beans with pork. This is one of my favorite grandma's recipe -- yummy! Here's how it came out. It's great with rice or bread and I made two cans of these and have plenty to share with coworkers.

Visited my friend today at Norwalk, EB looked fine but she could not sit for long as her back starts to hurt. She entertained us as long as she could but finally start to lay down. We didn't do our usual outing with her this time due to her pain so we just sit and chatted at home. We got there around 9:30 and left around 12:00 and arrived in the valley around 12:30. We decided to grab lunch at Seafood City before depart ways. On the way home, saw the snow-capped mountain in the horizon. It's beautiful but you'll have to really zoom in to see the snow.

At Seafood City, there was this vendor with a small cart selling chestnut outside the building. It didn't look like much but the vendor offered us a sample each. It was surprisingly sweet. We thanked him and went inside the food court to have lunch. After we're done, we stopped by at the vendor again and we bought 10oz bag for $5 from him. Included with our purchase was a plastic cracker, made especially to crack the chestnut shells which was pretty neat. I didn't really pay attention to the packaging that the chestnuts came in, but it looked Chinese to me. The reason I pointed this out was Seafood City is a Filipino market and to have a Chinese vendor selling chestnuts right by the entrance was a tad awkward hehe

After picking up HD, we proceeded to Ralphs to do some grocery shopping and to get cold-cuts -- HD's favorite (and he won't eat any other cold-cuts as they have fillers *roll eyes*) -- Boar's head. They are SO expensive for said reason but they are really tasty. And here's a shot of them. We got the turkey, roast beef, ham and provolone. Since I made so many loaves of bread hehe might as well. I also bought a can of San Marcos jalapenos and a box of corn meal. I wanted to make the jalapenos bread but I forgot another ingredient: cilantro... darn, it was too late when I realized that.

Freshly made bread

A couple of friends and I planned a visit to a friend tomorrow who has been 'strucked' with cancer twice in a row. It is really unfortunate but she's been strong physically and emotionally. Support from family and friends do help in times like these. I really admire her strength and optimism after all that she's gone through and yet another round. Hopefully, this time around, it is for good.

Not sure of what to bring with me, I figured that I'll bring out the trusty bread-maker and whip up some breads. I've gone through my baking phase and it was really fun leaving all the baking for the machine and enjoy all the benefits once it's done and boy freshly baked bread can be so addictive. It tastes so good when it's warm, right out of the oven and the smell is just incredible!

So, here are two loaves that I've baked already, left is french rosemary and on the right is white. The white one came up kind of weird, the surfaces are not smooth like the other one. I think the recipe called for just regular oil but I used olive instead. Oh well, I'll try to be more specific next time.

I just put in another batch for regular french. The whole house smells like a bakery. I'm going to get some ingredients tomorrow after the visit to make jalapenos bread :D

Happy when it rains

Coming from a tropical country and been living in desert country for the past nine years, I embrace rain whenever and however often we get them. It's been raining for five straight days and this is supposed to be the first out of two storms -- best winter storm so far. Dark and grey clouds hovering over the mountains in the horizon, cold and crisp air doesn't seem to dampen my spirit one bit. As a matter of fact, I was telling my coworker that I wished it would rain harder, a real thunderstorm with loud thunders and striking lightnings. Oh, how nice it is to be tucked in bed in that type of weather.