Couple of weeks ago, we had our first camping trip (the 3 of us) with our friends. The camping site is around Mount Rainier National Park. It was fun, tiring (in a good way), and just great time hanging out with our friends. Riley was so good 90% of the time, he didn’t like our sleeping bed so much. He had a hard time on it, after all he sleeps in a comfy california king bed with us (he’s so spoiled!). It’s my first camping experience here in the U.S (the Hubs had a lot of camping experiences), and I really like it. Being in nature, no computer / tv, and relaxing with my hubs and friends, eating “camp” food were my favorite parts. We also went to the Sunrise Visitor Center hoping to see and take some nice pictures of the mountain but it was totally blocked by clouds :(. It will definitely not be our last camping trip!
Hubs setting up our tent!
chipmunks
my precious!
dinner
smores timeRiley can smell but he can’t eat smores(dogs can’t eat chocolate)
HubsThis is Riley’s “I miss our comfy bed” look!cooking breakfast!Coffee time!
Sunrise Visitor centerfamily picture (too bad it was such a cloudy day)
I made this Pork Belly Humba a couple of weeks ago and I just wanted to share this because it’s really easy and such a hearty filipino dish. It’s similar to the famous adobo (cooking style) but the major difference is the flavor because of the pineapple juice. One of my favorite sites to follow for Filipino dishes is the Panlasang Pinoy site. The directions are simple, and he also has a video so it’s easy to see and follow the procedures. Although I “adjusted” the recipe (I only put 1 bay leave;no banana blossom) because my Hubs doesn’t like bay leaves, and seasoned it to my liking (I added lots of pepper). It turned out great! I only wish I had doubled the recipe so I could have extra humba in my freezer. Oh well, I can always go to the asian market and get all the stuff I need to make this dish again.
it’s so important to brown the meat,DO NOT skip this part.
I added eggs in the last 10 minutes of cooking time because I like eggs with my humba
I sprinkled a little parsley just for color!dinner time!
Humba Recipe (www.panlasangpinoy.com)
Ingredients
2 lbs pork belly 1 cup Pineapple juice 1 large onion, diced 5 cloves garlic, minced 2 tablespoons salted black beans 2 tablespoons soy sauce 2 tablespoons vinegar 2 ½ tablespoons brown sugar ½ cup dried banana blossoms 2 pieces dried bay leaves 1 teaspoon whole peppercorn
Cooking Procedure:
Heat the cooking pot then brown the pork belly. Add the onions and garlic and cook until the onions are soft. Put-in the soy sauce, peppercorn, bay leaves. Pour-in the pineapple juice and let boil. Simmer until the pork is tender (add water as needed). Add the vinegar and wait for the mixture to re-boil. Simmer for 3 minutes. Spoon-in the salted black beans and brown sugar then simmer for 5 minutes. Add the dried banana blossoms and simmer for 5 to 8 minutes. Transfer to a serving plate and serve. Share and enjoy! Number of servings (yield): 6
Happy Monday Friends! Hope you had a great and relaxing weekend. Ours was a fun and lazy one. We watched the movie “One hundred foot Journey” and had sushi after. I really liked the movie, though it has some slow parts, all in all it was a feel good movie, not to mention all the food they showed was mouth watering:) We also went to Gas Works Park in Seattle to take advantage of the nice weather (summer will be gone before we know it). I always love Seattle in the summer, it’s just so pretty and the view is always amazing. Hubs and I watched a marathon of the new series “The Last Ship” and we really enjoyed that series. We are still thinking of what TV series to watch next. So we’ll see!
HubsZach and Riley at Gas Works park
LOL! he’s so precious!
enjoying five guys burgers (closest thing to In n Out for us)nap time!
We had a weekend trip to Oregon when my sister was here couple of weeks ago, we visited Portland and Cannon Beach, and the Seaside Area. It was more of a food trip because we just stuffed our faces with all of the yummy food that Oregon has to offer. Based on my research a must stop is the famous Voodoo doughnuts (I was totally disappointed) and find nothing special about the place. The doughnuts are fun to look at (reminded me of Gordughs doughnuts from Austin Texas) but Gordughs is so much better, moist and (IMO) worth the sugar coma you’ll get. Another place we visited was the Thai restaurant POKPOK! I had read good reviews and even Giada De Laurentiis recommend the place for good authentic thai food. I totally loved their fish sauce chicken wings, it was just the right amount of fish sauce flavor!Not overpowering at all. I think I will go back to Portland just for their wings! I think my hubs and sis find it “OKAY”,I disagree with them!
Cannon Beach was fun but the water was too cold for me. We checked out the famous Haystack Rock and it was gorgeous as I expected. We had fun strolling in the fine sandy beach, enjoyed our left over Voodoo donuts, iced coffee and just people watching.
Last place to check out was Seaside. It was super crowded though because they had a volleyball tournament when we visited. We only stayed for a couple hours, it was just too loud, crowded, and hot for me. I was really ready to go home and see my Riley Puss after not seeing him for 2 days! It was a fun weekend with my sis and Hubs.
with Hubs
Cheese and 1 meat platterdinner timesis and hubsweird combo but it was good!enjoying some ice cream while listening to this cute kid playing!if you love Thai food,you will love this one! The place was also visited by Guy Fieri of Food Networkwaiting time 10 minutes because we got here early;the other times we checked it was 2 hours..it’s that crazy!excited to try PokPok’s famous wingsour yummy drinks (thai iced tea,tamarind whiskey sour for hubs)foodies!Pok Pok’s famous chicken wingsfood trip with sisteret!another order please!because their ice cream was so good, we stopped again before going to Cannon Beachlots of yummy flavors to choose fromsalted caramel and the pear blue cheese (it was the bomb!)
I’ve hiked Rattlesnake ledge with my Hubs before and as much as I loved the view I didn’t really plan to do it again, but my sister, Christine, really wanted to hike Rattlesnake when she was here so I did it again for her sake! It’s a 4 mile hike(total), but the uphill part is what i hate the most. I don’t mind going down, that’s the easy part! We got hungry after the hike so we decided to have dinner at our local burger and root beer place. Great place for burgers and milkshakes! My sister was shocked with the American servings, so huge compared to New Zealand where she has been living for the last 6 or 7 years! It was such a a great summer day.
Let the hiking begin!pretty view🙂sisterwe love this viewgood job sis!dinner timeI had to have my fave drink that time because it was National Root Beer day!even the drinks are massive!fave local resto! Triple XXX
We did the usual thing while my older sis visited, Pike Place Market (both of us really loved going to the Market),we checked out the Seattle Waterfront, and for the first time we rode the Seattle Great Wheel (it was scary at first but we got over it quickly and were totally blown away with the Seattle view!)I love Seattle during summer. The city is so pretty and it was so special to share these moments with my sis!
Our view while riding the Ferris WheelCan you spot the needle?Sis at the Gum WallPikesHow cute is this store with all of the hanging chiles?Post AlleyPretty FlowersPrettiesYummy Seafood!why are the Morels so expensive?!pretty Seattle summer day!enjoying happy hour at cutters!🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂Seattleenjoying Gelato!
Hello everyone! I’ve been MIA for the last 2 weeks because my older sister visited me here in Washington (State) and we just spent a lot of time doing fun things (shopping, dining, gardening, hiking, watching movies) the kind of fun things you do with your siblings! She’s already back in NYC (visiting my other sis), then off to Hawaii to yet again visit another sis! A lot of traveling for her but she loves to travel so she doesn’t mind. I’ll be posting about what we did while she was here because it such a great time and we miss her already. First weekend she was here, we went to see the Blue Angels (it was part of the SeaFair weekend). It was pretty cool to see them perform, it was kinda loud but I guess that’s part of the craziness! Hope you enjoy the pictures:)
Sis and I having a little picnic with friends while waiting for the Blue Angels!
Great shot by Hubs!US NAVY:)
After a fun long day we decided to have yummy seafood on the patio to enjoy the nice weather too! We had crabs and shrimps that we got from Costco! Seafood on a summer night…my kind of dinner!
Visiting our Local Farmer’s Market is one of my favorite things to do in the summer! Fresh produce, fun activities, live music and yummy food is my idea of a fun weekend. Last Saturday the hubs and I checked out Issaquah’s Framer’s market, dogs are not allowed so our fatty Riley stayed home. My favorite parts were the berry and flower sections. They’re so fresh, yet so cheap! We ended up buying some berries, although they have the same price with our local grocery, the quality was superior. I bought potatoes, pappardelle pasta, honey that I will send to my mom in the PI (through balikbayan box) The Hubs and I enjoyed some tacos and crepes too, both of them were Okay and nothing special. Hope you all had a great week!
🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂YUM!🙂so pretty!all kinds of mushrooms!different kinds of pappardelle pasta! I end up buying the garlic chive kind!enjoying some tacoscarne asada tacosenjoying his crepes!Riley wasn’t very happy that we left him,so I had to cuddle with him when we got home!
Our Garden is doing really well lately, with the nice summer we are having here the plants and flowers are loving it. My favorite is my hydrangea plants. The white and purple are really blooming well and I’m really enjoying picking fresh flowers every week. Flowers are kinda expensive when I buy them in our local farmer’s market. I’ve been using my herbs in my cooking and eating the lettuces too,admittedly I’ve thrown some because it’s just too much and we can’t eat them all.I’m looking forward to harvesting our tomatoes in the coming weeks.
basil and parsleyGreen beans(we’ve already eaten them this week)Riley checking our cherry tomatoswiss chardpineapple mintanother cherry tomatopurple hydrangeas in our front yardso pretty!I love it!my own little farmer’s market!more flowers
Hello everyone! It was my sister in law Julia’s birthday last week, and yesterday (Sunday) we had a late birthday dinner with the rest of the family. We ate at this Italian restaurant called Gianfranco Ristorante Italiano. Although it’s a small resto (kinda cramped), the ambiance was nice and most importantly the food was great! It’s one of the best italian restaurants we’ve been to in a long time. The portions were HUGE too! I had Braised short ribs and I had the left overs for dinner tonight and I still didn’t finish the leftovers! Anyways, the Hubs and I will be coming back again soon to this lovely italian place! After dinner we went back to my In law’s to have ice cream and just hangout celebrating Julia’s birthday! Happy Birthday Julia, we love you:)
calamari affogati(sauteed in tomato,garlic,hot peppers,white wine)My In Laws,they’re the best!MIL and SIL!love this pic of them:)Hubs and DIL whose being silly!lolme and my huge dinner!braised short ribs with creamy polenta and veggiescrab ravioli in pesto sauce (Hubs order)Linguini alle Vongole (Fresh clams sautéed with garlic, olive oil, and white wine) My DIL’s order,he REALLY loved this dish!In laws and their food!they had lots of left overs!MILs lasagna!Rigatoni Inferno (the best sauce ever!) Julia’s order!the sweetest Havanese baby Lexy!sundae barBanana split!The Birthday girl!A Birthday tradition!Rosco song!bday cards and gift time!
