My Expat Mommy

Ginisang Munggo is one of my favorite vegetable dishes since childhood. Unfortunately at this time, since most of the Fam now suffers from arthritis and they said beans are a big no-no, we are no longer able to cook this as often as we like. lol! Also, my dad had now retired to the Philippines and he's my "monggo-lovers club" co-member. :)

This is a very simple recipe also very popular in Batangas Province in the Philippines. Usually it is what you make of Tuna. In Batangas, normally it would be Tulingan or the smaller variety of Skipjack Tuna which is quite abundant in the local markets, the bigger version and easier to find is the Tambakol. The Tulingan averages about a foot long while the Tambakol would generally go from about 2 feet to much much bigger!

When I planned on making this dish, I didn't really know what to expect. I just knew that this is quite a popular dish the high end restos in the Philippines. I personally have not tried it. Seen it on some buffet spreads but haven't really tried it. But I always knew that I eat beef tongue. I mean I eat other offal and the lengua seems to have the least "yuck" factor of all.

Ok, it isn't just my 5-yo daughter who's in panic mode at the moment. Both hubby and I are also anxious about the situation. See the plan had already been set in stone. Our two girls, Zci and Lyian are relocating back to Qatar in June this year. We have already advised their schools that they won't be enrolling for the incoming school year and will be finalizing their clearances when we get home either in May or June.

This vegetable dish is one of the standard fares we have during Good Friday when I was young. This is also one of my favorites as I so love squash no matter how you cook it. But I specially love this dish as it also includes lots of other vegetables and a perfect match for fried fish, pork or chicken. 

More popularly known in Batangas province as Dila-Dila, but for the rest of the Philippines, this sweet snack or dessert is known Palitaw, derived from the process of cooking where the rice flour dough is dropped in boiling water and cooked until they float to the surface.

The idea is really to make the usual "Ginataan" where the fish is simmered in rice washing, dried kamias  and salt.  Kamias is a local fruit which can be eaten fresh dipped in salt. This is often used also in our province in Batangas, Philippines as a souring agent when cooking fish.

For this year's Good Friday lunch (see other post on Green Mango, for a backgrounder) we have prepared the following menu for our friends and relatives here in Qatar in honor of our beloved grandmother and aunt who have been our gracious hosts through the years.

Today is Good Friday and as family tradition, it would be a "no meat" day for us.  But although it is supposed to be a day of fasting, we had prepared a lunch feast for family and friends who would be coming over for lunch. Back during my childhood days it had been our family's tradition to host our community's lunch after recitation of the Passion of Christ, more popularly known in the Philippines as "Pabasa" it is a narrative of passion, death and resurrection of Christ.

There's a red snapper overload in the refrigerator this week! See, my mom does the fresh food shopping only every Friday morning at the Abu Hamour Fresh Market (but grocery shopping is our favorite past time, we do it nightly! hahaha!).

I have always known Osso Bucco is a tough one to prepare, with all the pricey and not so easy to find ingredients here in Doha. "Osso Bucco" is an originally Italian dish which means "bone with a hole" and traditionally cooked with veal shanks (which, in the rare instance it's available, would be astronomically priced!) "bone and marrow in" and braised in white wine (which of course in Qatar you would first need a liquor license to buy one). Guess now you get what I mean when I say it's a tough one to make in Doha!

I was actually thinking of rice pilaf to go with the baked salmon we had for dinner last night. But, as things go, we had an unexpected guest and I didn't have the time to make a grocery run for my rice pilaf ingredients. Still, I don't think plain white rice would go nicely with my salmon specially since we don't even have anything in the refrigerator at the moment suited to be made into some buttered vegies...

Whenever we out at any of the theme restaurants around town, it would always be either steak or grilled salmon for me, well more often than not it's the salmon since I know I wouldn't be able to finish the steak anyway.

In any buffet spread, the one dish that always go into my plate no matter what, is the fish in lemon butter sauce and I've been meaning to make it at home. This is my first try, although what I really wanted to make is the breaded-fish-with-lemon-butter-cream-sauce, I had opted for this simple lemon butter sauce for lack of preparation time and ingredients.

This is another simple fish dish to go into the Fam's lunch box for the next day. As I don't want waking up too early to prepare the the lunch boxes, I usually make it the night before while I'm watching (more like listening to) the TV.

For this whole week, news about the new Qatar Central Bank (QCB) regulations for bank loans including credit cards have been hogging the headlines of all the newspaper in Qatar, and I'm sure it had caught the attention of the locals and majority of expatriates who are generally affected by these rules.

In the Philippines, when you order barbeque in most restaurants, it would usually be accompanied by Java Rice. I've always wondered what  exactly it is in that "Java" that makes it different from any other fried rice. All those times in the Philippines I always thought it was just fried rice in ketchup! lol!

There was a treasure in the refrigerator! I don't usually know what's inside our refrigerator since my mom and our nanny are the ones doing our weekly shopping at the Abu Hamour Fish Market. So mostly I do the cooking based on what our nanny takes out from the ref before every meal (except breakfast).

Last night, I prepared Pan Roast Hamour, which was posted here sometime October last year. But since "the boys" (i.e. hubby, brother in law and cousin) are still out for a game of basketball, I saved one fish to cook when they get home.

Well, it isn't exactly 15 minutes, more like about 2 minutes... Just this afternoon around 3pm I decided to take some money from the bank for the weekend. I was supposed to go the the machine at the Mashreq Bank near Ramada Signal (The one beside Chowking Restaurant and Jaguar Showroom) but since I was going to meet a friend at Dairy Queen anyway, I just decided to use the HSBC ATM machine at the Ramada Hotel parking, which would be more convenient since Dairy Queen is in the same vicinity.

We mommies all know that the toddler years, specially what we call the "terrible twos" is the phase when we find disciplining our kids so exhausting. This is the stage when the little ones are just trying to understand the context of our words and the varying tones we use can sometimes be confusing for them.

My husband is one of the expat Pinoys I know who is partial to curried food, something I do not share. Thing is, when it comes to cooking, my guide had always been my taste buds. I always tell family and friends that the best way for me learn a recipe is by tasting the dishes. That's how I know what ingredients are included in a certain dish. So when it comes to curried dishes, it seems that I am working in the kitchen blindfolded.

Now the Expat Mommy's in business! Just finished cooking for my hubby's colleague who had sampled the pandan chicken a few times it was in his lunch box. When it comes to my cooking, the hubby has always been my guinea pig, with his very adventurous taste buds.

And my girls are coming back! Finally, after 3 years, my 2 elder daughters, Lucia and Lyian are coming back to Qatar. Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled that finally we'd be together. My other 2 best friends will be here to share stories with, to go on theme park dates, to bond in front of the television and most specially to guide and watch over.

As I am writing this entry, I have just finished a bowl of mami from the left over ingredients I have prepared two days ago. Then it strikes me, among all the hundreds of thousands of Filipino working abroad who I would guess about 70% of which do not have families with them, I would also be guessing that most of them had had a bowl of Maggie instant noodles or a plate of Lucky Me pancit canton.