Orchids

before: see page banner

21 hours and 34 minutes later this is what I witnessed:

at first I thought it's made of plastic sticked into a branch. reminded me of unfinished origami stars. but it's real! thank heavens it's real. simple things that make one smile in the middle of the day.

what made you smile today?

banner questions

Does the banner looks right to you? It should look like this:


but it's not what I'm seeing in my page.
There appears the old banner.
Or Blogspot is just slow updating?

Mama

To my Mama

to K-kun's mother
to my two lovely sisters
to the mothers who read this
and to their mother's mother
and to all who has been a mother to someone in one way or another
this is to all of you
Thank you
Happy Mother's Day.

+ + +

Spread the love. Feel free to copy and share this photo. Just make sure that you won't change anything at all. You can post this on you blog, personal page or have it printed into a card or a postcard and send to the important women in your life.
No commercial use please. Comments, credits and a link back are optional but highly appreciated. Click on the picture to fully enjoy.
Have a great day!

Mother's Day by Gene Pascual is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Philippines License.

Tamagoyaki Love

Tamagoyaki is the Japanese version of omelette. Today (and yesterday,) I was able to whip up something good despite the lack of the rectangular omelette pan, or even a flat pan.

tamagoyaki 001

For yesterday's version, I made it for K-kun's bento. I've been making bento for him for the past days but it's my first time making a tamagoyaki. Something that just popped up in my head since he's done with corned beef and anything that could be fried in the fridge. Something fried is essential to him because he doesn't want to bring an extra lunch box just for the soup or saucy dishes. Anyway, tamagoyaki 001 came with finely chopped hotdogs.

tamagoyaki 002

While tamagoyaki 002 came with finely chopped ham. This time it's for our lunch. K-kun's bento for the day are burger patties plus three slices of tamagoyaki 002.

To make tamagoyaki 002, you'll need:

• 3 eggs, beaten
• 2 slices of ham, finely chopped and pre-cooked
• salt and white pepper to taste
• your choice of butter and/or cooking oil for cooking (because I don't use a non-stick pan, little oil will do.)

How-to:

1. Pour egg mixture into the well-heated pan, enough to cover the face of the pan thinly. Cook the egg gently until you see the top almost set.
2. Roll the egg to one side of the pan using a slotted turner while supporting the eggs to keep in place using chopsticks or tongs. Place the rolled egg to the other side of the pan where the unrolled edge of the egg is set toward the face of pan (this makes the first layer.)
3. Pour another batch of the mixture into the pan making sure it flowed into the unrolled edge of the first layer (to make it looked like its the continuation of the first layer.)
4. Cook until the second layer is almost set then continue rolling the first layer joined with the second layer.
5. Allow it to cool for a while into a paper towel and at the same time to remove excess oil. Get a sharp knife, and I mean a sharp wicked knife to slice up the rolled up egg while your clean fingers are acting as support to the egg roll.
6. Serve as is or drizzled with your choice of ketchup!

I like my eggs well done so it looks a bit burnt but essentially it should be yellowish, like how a normal scrambled egg would look like. But just so you know the authentic tamagoyaki are mixed with light soy sauce, mirin (rice wine with lower alcohol content) and some with... gasp... sugar!

Sorry, no step by step photos because the kitchen is too hot I want to get out of it fast. If you're a bit confused with my explanation, watch this great video I found. Darn, I do wish I have that pan!

Papers

Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to cut things. I remember my mom buying me old issues of comics for me to cut. And how I marvel and dreamed of cutting an intricately made pastillas wrapper (click on "wrapper" to see how it is made) that I've seen in Batibot (Wikipedia) many years ago.

pastillas wrapper

Just recently, I've been craving for some locally made Pretzels so I asked K-kun to buy a big box for me. And the thought of Pretzels made me miss my hometown. You see, there's always a store open there and Pretzels are always within reach, together with Chocolate Mallows. Anyway, I was waiting for the video of Attention Please to load when I realized that I already finished up a box of Pretzels. What a shame! So I just threw it away in the trash bin when I noticed some illustrations on the back of the box. They've got some figures that you can cut-out! Yay! So I grabbed my scissors and jumped into the cutting frenzy. I already have 2 out of 29 collectibles so that means adding sugar to my system. But no worries, I only have to drink lots of water and it's perfect for summer.

Another thing that makes me busy in this super hot weather is making origami. Remember the Chiyogami set that I bought before? I started making use of it just recently. Seriously, following Japanese instructions are crazy, despite the diagrams and all. The paper crane (?) I made was not from the chiyogami instructions but based on what I have remembered. I know it's not a real paper crane but let's just say that it's my version of it, LOL!

So what makes you busy these days?