The Adventures of a Calamari Queen – Page 28 – Christian, Wife, Mommy, Homemaker, Retired nurse, Fur-mama,living a simple and minimal life!

Chicken Adobo!

Hello Friends! I’ve made the world famous Filipino Chicken Adobo. A Filipino comfort food for sure! I love this dish because it’s so simple and quick (max 45 minutes). The original recipe (Panlasang Pinoy blog) calls for marinading the chicken for 1-3 hours. I skipped that part! The result was still good!* I also added more pepper because I love pepper. I used chicken wings and legs,because wings are my fave part! Mia loved it too based on the sounds she was making when we had dinner the other night!

This is the recipe I used (Panlasang Pinoy):

Ingredients

2 lbs. chicken, cut into serving pieces
3 pieces dried bay leaves
4 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp vinegar
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 to 2 cups water
¼ cup cooking oil
½ tablespoon white sugar
Salt and whole peppercorn
Cooking Process:
1. In a large container, combine the soy sauce and garlic then marinade the chicken for at least 1 to 3 hours
2. Place the cooking oil in a pan and apply heat
3. When the oil is hot enough, put-in the marinated chicken. Cook all the sides for about 5 minutes.
4. Pour-in the remaining marinade and add water. Bring to a boil
5. Add the dried bay leaves and whole peppercorn. Simmer for 30 minutes or until the chicken is tender
6. Add vinegar. Stir and cook for 10 minutes.
7. Put-in the sugar, and salt. Stir and turn the heat off.
8. Serve hot. Share and Enjoy!

Life Lately!

Hello Friends! Where did January Go?! It’s been a little busy here with us. Hubs is just recovering from the flu. Been miserable for him the last couple of days. Makes me realize how sometimes we take our health for granted! Health is Wealth! I’ve been monitoring Mia also because she threw up twice during the last week. So far she’s her usual self (climbing all over the place), drinking and eating well but I’m still keeping my eyes on her. Before all of these viruses got to us we had to do something in Seattle and we stopped at our favorite sandwich place, Salumi! It’s always a treat!

Hubs attempted to make a Filipino Brioche bread! TOTAL FAIL! Haha! He will try again sometime..

I’m looking forward to February! Lots of exciting things I plan to do:) I hope you are all doing great friends!

Roast Duck!

Hi friends! I wanted to share this very simple roast duck recipe I found. I’ve read a lot of duck recipes but most of them called for a sweet style kind of glaze that I have to constantly brush on the duck. Not a big fan of that myself, because I like mine to be less complicated. I decided to just have it roast at 350F for 3 hours but I have to flip it every hour. It turned out great! We got the duck from Whole Foods market, it was pricey to be honest ($32), but worth it because this would have been triple the price of what we paid if we ordered it from a restaurant. My hubs made an amazing gravy (it’s red wine gravy), he couldn’t stop talking about it! In fairness, it was delicious:) I love this kind of recipe, so simple (although took 3 hours) but so tender and flavorful. I cannot wait to make this again!

Weekend Fun!

Hi Friends! How’s your weekend going?! We did the usual things here, like errands (grocery shopping at Costco), Church, laundry,and naps galore! We finally put our Christmas decorations away this week too! Thanks to my Hubs who did most of the work (our Tree is too tall for me,so he mostly took care of things!). I’ve finally caught up with the show that I’ve been watching on Netflix “When Calls the Heart”. I’m so enjoying it, and looking forward to many more episodes.

My Rileypuss, the best furbaby ever! He’s the sweetest and most loyal to me!

We also went to Jollibee, a Filipino fast food chain here in WA!

Have a great week friends! About to have dinner here and watch some Netflix with the family! We are currently watching Planet Earth! God is so amazing watching all this animals He created! What an awesome God:)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Friends! I Hope you had a fun and safe New Years! We had a simple NYE with my In laws. We still have lots of leftovers from Christmas (mostly cheeses) so we had cheese appetizers, I grilled some shrimp, and we ordered BBQ from a local restaurant! It wasn’t very good (the bbq), very disappointing! We watched a movie (on Netflix) and called it a night! We did watch the Times Square celebration though! We were in bed by 10pm though, I was so tired. I normally wait for the Space Needle fireworks display on tv but last night, I could care less!

Family Selfie before we end 2017! Thank You Lord for a wonderful 2017, it went by too fast! I think having a one year old baby did that to me! HA!

First Breakfast of 2018! My hubs baked banana bread (he’s the baker in this family!) and gotta have a big cup of coffee to enjoy the first day of the year!

My In laws spent dinner with us. My DIL prepared Tenderloin steak; it was so good! My Mom In Law helped me prepare Twice baked potatoes. It’s very rare that we do things in the kitchen together !HA! She is more of a baker and I don’t like baking:) We are so different but we do get along very well. Love my Mom In Law Kathy, she is such an inspiration! My Hubby made cheese fondue for us to enjoy while we prepared for our New Years Day dinner! I also made another Roast Pork belly (Lechon belly in the Philippines) I just had an extra pork belly and I just want it out of the freezer!

About to enjoy cheese fondue! I love this apron that my Hubs gifted me a couple of years ago!

In the Kitchen with my MIL! We’re so different but we get a long very well! Love her!

Mia missed her afternoon nap, she can’t keep her eyes open during dinner time! too cute!

Thank You Family and Friends for taking the time to check here in my little blog! I pray that 2018 will be full of blessings, good health, peace and laughter to you and your family! God bless you and Keep you always!

Blessings,

Calamariqueen

Snowy Day!

Hi Friends! It’s the day after Christmas and we still have a decent amount of snow so Hubs wanted to go out and play in the snow with Mia and Riley (he’s such a big kid at heart!). I really didn’t want to do it because I hate being cold, but the park is just in front of the house, so I had to suck it up! HA! Mia wasn’t into it at first but eventually she did give us a lot of smiles and seemed to be enjoying her snow day! I’m glad we did it because it’s a great memory for Mia and us!

We enjoyed hot cocoa after our playtime at the park! Hubs baked both the sugar cookie Christmas tree and pistachio macarons! Both were delicious! Thanks Ga for baking all of our holiday goodies:)

Christmas 2017!

Merry Christmas family and friends! Happy Birthday Jesus! We had a wonderful White Christmas, it SNOWED! It was so special! My In laws say it’s very rare to have snow on Christmas day here in the PNW. We stayed at home the whole day. Breakfast, opened gifts, watched Hallmark movies, ate yummy food (what a spread we had!) and just spent time with family! Thank You to our family who sent gifts to Mia (specially my sisters) we appreciate your generosity!

This is always our Christmas breakfast: Cheesy popovers (made by Zach),bacon,sausages, fruits!

Thanks to Uncle Chad and Auntie Cynthia!

Mia looking at her Dad’s 2nd Christmas picture! Zach’s second Christmas, 1980!

Strawberry shoes for our boo-berry! hehe

I made roast pork belly (lechon belly in the Philippines)

Enjoying her books given by Aunt Candy and Uncle Tom!

Dessert: Bread Pudding made by Aunt Candy!

Merry Christmas Friends! Blessings in the coming new year!

Christmas Eve!

Hello Friends! Merry Christmas EVE! Merry Christmas to my family and friends back home in the Philippines! We attended a Christmas service this afternoon at our church, then Chinese food for dinner! I’ve done a lot of things in preparation for tomorrow, we’ve been hosting Christmas day festivities for a long time now! We (my In laws) have brunch here, open gifts, watch Christmas movie/ naps/ walk around the neighborhood, then Christmas dinner (nothing fancy though). Have a wonderful Christmas Friends!

Thank You Heavenly Father for the gift of your Son Jesus!

Before we left for Church I cracked some crabbies for tomorrow! I’m in charge of the crabs because I REALLY enjoy cracking! hahaha (the Hubs is not complaining but has mentioned that I’m so weird!)

My audience during the cracking! HA

Dinner at Yea Wok! We really enjoyed our dinner, we’ll be back again!

Watching the snow after we got home! I hope there will be lots of snow on Christmas day! It will be magical:)

Listening to a Michael Bublé Christmas album while folding laundry! HA! We have very simple Christmas decorations this year! Nothing new, but I might get something during the after Christmas sale this week! I love a good deal:) Anyway, Good night Friends!

Merry Christmas Eve eve!

Hello Friends! I hope you had a great Saturday! Ours was pretty fun and “yummy”! We went to the house warming party of a good friend of my mom’s. Lots of yummy Filipino dishes, and I was pleasantly surprised that they had lechon! Love Lechon! Anyways, 2 more nights and it’s Christmas! I kept our Christmas/Holiday activities simple this year. After our NYC trip I just wanted to slow down and enjoy the season. Jesus is the reason for the season. I don’t think He would wanted us to be stressed! We did some fun activities with my In laws at one of our local Zoos and got a pic with Santa. We ended up doing Snowflake Lane last weekend. Lots of quality time with family this time of year.

Christmas shopping with Grandpa yesterday:

Cougar Mountain Zoo earlier this week with Grandparents to see Santa and reindeer (and other animal friends):

SnowFlake Lane fun last weekend:

It’s getting kinda late here, and I still have things to do! I wish you all a Merry Christmas Friends! Lots of Blessings to you and your family!

The Plaza!

Hi Friends! Hope you’re having a great Saturday. The hubs and babies (Mia and Riley) are napping, so I got a little free time to post our NYC adventure! My sis was very generous in treating us to a dinner at The Palm Court (Plaza Hotel). Originally we wanted their afternoon tea but they were fully booked so we opted for dinner. Before our reservation we made sure we had enough time to walk around Central Park and enjoy the scenery.

Took picture of the hotel lobby and their Christmas tree! So pretty, I love it!

The Palm Court is such an elegant restaurant! The interior (from the ceiling to the table) is beautiful. The service was quick and good but the food was disappointing for us! Not impressed with our orders, especially my roast Chicken (a simple dish in my opinion) and I found it quite DRY! I was like, “What in the world is going on in their kitchen?!HAHA! How can a prominent Hotel fail a chicken dish?!” My hubs and Sis found their dishes ordinary too. She had bolognese (the flavor was good though) and hubs had duck which he found dry too! Anyways, it was still neat to see the hotel!

The most expensive Root beer float ever!haha

After dinner we walked around Fifth Avenue and enjoyed the Christmas decorations/lights show. We also stopped at the Rockefeller Area, the tree was beautiful! What a fun and exhausting day:)