Thursday, February 26, 2009

moon and venus converged



went outside tonight and i saw a magnificient view in the sky, a crescent moon and venus are close together, this apparition happened rarely and so i can say its my lucky night tonight having the chance to see this brilliant appearance of this 2 dazzling planet converged....

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

weird weather




here comes snow again after almost 2 months without it. It's just wierd, i thougth no more snow as signs of springs are here, my husband and i thought that its just gonna be rain until the winter is over, hmmm...we are wrong, last week, the weather is wierd, its icy at night but in the middle of the day its hot, colds and flu is common at this time, infact my husband got colds and i catched a bit too. Well, during winter, colds and flu are really common, before winter starts, vaccines are given to people here to fight against flu. Prevention is better than cure, so prepare yourself then, wear snow jacket and boots and scarf too, and ofcourse take vitamins, eat a lot of fruits and drink a lot of fluids too.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Sesame beef, simple recipe but taste really good...

My sister ask me this recipe and i wanna share it to others too.

Sesame Beef

Ingredients:

1 lb. round steak
4 tbsp. soy sauce
4 tbsp. white sugar
4 tbsp. vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 green onions/scallions chopped
2 tbsp. sesame seeds - slightly toasted

Directions:

Mix soy sauce, sugar, oil, garlic and onions in a large bowl. Set aside
Cut steak into strips and add to bowl. Cover and refrigerate overnight, or atleast 30 minutes.
Cook in wok or frying pan until brown, about 5 minutes. Add sesame seeds and cook for additional 2 minutes.

You can add veggies as side dishes, you can saute' broccoli, carrots or asparagus and mushroom.
When i make this recipe, i doubled the sauce and lower alittle bit of sugar, too sweet for me and i used sesame toasted oil instead of vegetable oil coz i like the taste of it more.

Friday, February 20, 2009

cooking for a plain housewife

Now that i'm a full pledge housewife, i make sure that i am fit to be called a good housewife, and by that, i'm into cooking right now. Took all the recipe books from the book shelf in which my husband bought before i came here. Every dinner, i make sure i set the table with good and nutritious food for my husband. I found few favorites that we like, and i want to share some with you, hope you like it too. I copied these recipes from chinese recipe book and the other is from the internet, i forgot the name of the site alreday. So here it is:



Maple Glazed Ribs



Ing.:

3 lbs. baby back pork ribs

3/4 c. maple syrup

2 tbsp. packed brown sugar

2 tbsp. ketchup

1 tbsp. cider vinegar

1 tbsp. worcestershire sauce

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. mustard powder



Directions:

Place ribs in large pot, simmer with water for 1 hour or until meat is tender. Drain and transfer to a bowl.



In a small saucepan, mix all ingredients and bring to a low boil and cook for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Let it cool for a bit then pour over to the ribs and marinate in the fridge for 2 hours.



Remove ribs from marinade. Prepare grill for cooking, grill the ribs in indirect heat. Transfer the marinade to a saucepan and boil for several minutes or until slightly thicken.

Lifhtly oil grate. Cook for 20 minutes, basting with boiled marinade frequently until nicely glazed.

* i did alittle adjustments. for me its too sweet so i lower alittle bit of maple syrup, then i boiled the meat with water and i put a boullion cube of pork or beef, just to add extra taste of the meat, boil for an hour then, together with the sauce i baked them at 300F for an hour and a half, or just enought that the meat is tender but not falling off the bone, with this it makes the meat so tasty with the sauce and then grill for 10 to 15 minutes with indirect heat and brushing more sauce while grilling. The taste is really good. You will love it for sure....just so thankful to the person who post this recipe, i forgot the site already, so i dont have the chance to comment on this yummy recipe.

I love salad, so i wanted to share to you one of my favorite. The spinach salad.

Ingredients:
1 lb. fresh spinach, torn in pices
4 boiled eggs, sliced
6 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
1/2 lb. fresh mushroom

Dressing:
1 c. salad oil/ vegetable oil/ olive oil
1/4 c. sugar
1/3 c. ketchup
1/4 c. vinegar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. worcestershire sauce
1 medium onion

Directions:
Mix dressing ingredients and refrigerate. Combine salad ingredients, saving a few eggs and mushrooms slices to arrange on top. For a wilted salad, pour dressing on and toss before serving. For a crisp salad, leave dressing off and pass for individual serving. Makes 8 servings.

Bon appetit!

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Fort Langley, the birth of British Columbia

Last sunday my husband and i went to Fort Langley, its one of the historic site of canada, we went to Langley Museum where you can see a 150 years old house and buildings in british columbia, and not just that, you can find an archival photographs, objects and works of art from the past hundreds years. I love going back there, i like the old town setting, its a window from the past life living in that community. If ever we win a lottery, i wanna buy a house there, it seems the town is peaceful and the people are friendly.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

my first snowfall, Maple Ridge BC

its my first posting a video here, so just wanted to try.....my husband took this video when the snow just started first week of december, we thought it was just a few inches of snow we get this winter, but unfortunately we had a snow storm....

Thursday, February 12, 2009

beautiful flowers in my garden....soon!

Winter is almost over and summer is coming, oh i look forward to do some gardening this year. This week me and my husband recieved magazines from different garden shops, oh lots of beautiful beutiful flowers that potentially grow in our front and back yard, oh we will definitely have a beautiful garden this summer. So now, we are planning what to plant in our graden, we planted lots of different roses already, it's frozen at this time though but it wil grow back again when winter is over. Oh i would love to have tulips, begonias, dahlias, lily's in our garden in which i never see in our garden back in the philippines before. I love flower, and thinking about it, oh it really excites me to do some gardening.........

Sunday, February 8, 2009

snow boots....

I'm so glad weather here in british columbia is back to normal now, well, its still winter though but the snow is just once in a while, like one day or just half day in a week, mostly raining 4 or 5 days a week. I can live with that, i had enough snow, one or 2 days of snow is fun but not more than that hehhe.....Now that winter is almost over, snow boots are on sale, mostly half the price, there are some 70% off. I remember me and my husband tried to look for a snow boots in several department stores last december but we cant find one as its always sold out, it sells like a cake, we just bought fancy ones which is not really good in our feet, but we dont have a choice, need to have one even if not that great. When winter started last october, ofcourse snow boots was displayed in every departments stores here, but i never bothered to buy even if my husband insisted, we never expected that it was going to be so bad, i mean going to have a snow storm here, now, when i saw the snow boots today, oh i said to my husband that i really gotta have one, i really appreciate having 1 or 2 in my shoe rack, its no fun walking in the snow with cold feet even if you wore very thick socks without a snow boots.....now i can say i'm ready for another snow day, oh not in snow storm though, i wish and i pray no snow storm ever again.....

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Auction day....

me and my husband went to an auction place today, mostly are police stuff, but we went there for police vehicles. It's my first time auctioning and I had fun, there are nice nice couches, chairs, tables, paintings and bicycles which are sold for just a few dollars or hundreds, i told my husband its really a nice way to buy things, like for some bicycles was just auctioned arround 50 dollars to a 100 dollars, wow amazing, there was a nice set of racking chairs which was sold for only 60 dollars and it seems those racking chairs and foot rests are still new, and there are some stuff really sold for 5 bucks, isnt it amazing? Actually there's a lot in there, from kitchen stuff, for gardening, pumps and flooring too. But what fascinate me most are the vehicles, there are some really really good cars which are just sold from 700 to 11,000. Actually we won one, a mini black van which was used as a recruiting vehicle for police and just 170,000 kilometers and had a little rust at the hood because of the decals, probably the water sets on under the decals thats why got rusted a little portion of the hood and it was just a 2003 vehicle. the inside is clean, it runs smoothly, no major damage, the body and engine are perfectly good, well, to summarize all up, the mini van we got are still in good condition and we bought it for just cheap price, it was really a jockpot for us, really nice car and i like it. It's a good way to look for something that you can bargain on, though mostly are second hand but you can find things there that are still good. I told my husband that i might get use to this, hehhehe....well, we plan to go to an auction again on march, mostly all the contents for auctioning are from L word production, which was a popular tv series that has been stopped, there will be designer clothing and shoes, jewelries and many more. Hope we could find good stuff and bargain again.