greener gift giving

We have more people on our Christmas list this year but in terms of expenses, we seem to be spending less for gifts compared to last year. Possibly because I’ve decided to prepare a lot of DIY gifts and homemade stuff for give away. Although they require a lot of planning and effort, I believe such presents are made more special that way. I’m not one for spoiling surprises so I’m keeping my mouth shut on what those gifts are until after Christmas. What I can reveal in this post is how I plan to wrap and package those ultra-special gifts.

a glassful of cool

our children are suckers for iced tea. a glassful of caramel colored liquid is a time-tested way to get them to behave on the table. we can run out of choco milk, yakult or juice but we would never be out of a pitcher of iced tea. and we don’t use those instant iced tea mixes. they’re expensive and sugar-laden, although i have to admit that they can be convenient. we still keep a container of nestea at home but “for emergency use” only.

mildly spiced is how i like it

When I went to market the other day, I made it a point to pick out the reddest tomatoes from my suki‘s array of vegetables. Since our ref is working, I can re-stock on homemade sauces starting with the most basic, tomato sauce. But now I make it a point to only make sauces in moderate amounts. My heart broke when I had to throw away big bottles of pesto sauce and vinaigrettes after the flood. Again, lesson learned.

I like my tomato sauce thick and mildly spiced. I could have it spicier but the babies might not eat it so I came up with a mildly spiced version. I use dried chilis to flavor my tomato sauce. The bottle of chili flakes was thrown out after the flood as well. But Turo surprised me with dried Thai chilis from a barely surviving chili plant we have out back.

mi tortilla

I was up at 3am yesterday. Again. My body clock must be really crazy by now. But when I’m up, I’m up. So while I worked on a new paper that I needed to finish by mid-November, my mind kept asking what we’re having for breakfast today.

The carnivore in me kept begging for a meat dish after eating seafood for several consecutive meals. So I thought of making beef wraps only because I wanted to try out a flour tortilla recipe I got from way back. I checked the time, it’s not even 4am. I do have enough time for a breakfast experiment before the kids wake up.

li’l barista makes iced citrus mint tea

The mint leaves I harvested last time are now completely dried. The babies are out of juice (although they’ve been having a lot of fruits lately) so I decided to try making homemade iced tea using the dried mint leaves.  I was lucky to have a very eager kitchen assistant to help me out. I’m not quite sure whether his eagerness was for helping me out or for gulping down the soon-to-be iced tea.

a cup of mint tea

When the parsley plant died just when I was supposed to use it to garnish a soup dish about a month ago, I sensed it was time for me to learn a bit about gardening. Turo might not always have the time to look after my herbs, and I don’t want them dying on me just when I’m about to use them for a particular recipe. I started by removing the weeds from around the plants. Then I did some pruning. I tried to remember what Turo told me when I accidentally killed the sweet basil because I cut the entire stem and left it without leaves. Never do that again.

toasters bake too

I used to bake a lot before because I was inspired by my lola who’s the best baker there is. But baking never seems to like me back. The cakes I baked are heavy and flopped, and the cookies flat and hard. Now I seem to have a renewed interest for baking. But this time I’m inspired more by the rising prices of snack foods from the supermarket.