Do you ever have one of those days when you don’t want to do anything but lounge around the house in your most comfortable pajamas, coffee in hand, and basically do nothing? I’m having one such day.

Now that fall is slowly ushering in the winter season, I sometimes dream of long-driving it to the warm south, to sit lazily on the beach, pina colada in hand, and basically do nothing. But then, when I think of the responsibilities here at home, it’s just not possible right now. Besides, what if the vacation doesn’t go as lazily as I want it and I end up doing rv repair… no thanks.

I’ll just take my coffee, my jammies, my soaps, my warm little baby, and lazily do nothing around the house.

Touted as Canada’s favourite Fish & Chips, we just had to try Joey’s since my daughter was craving for, exactly, some fish and chips (and shrimps, too). And yes, their fish and chips and the skewered crispy shrimps were indeed very tasty, crunchy, and surprisingly light. Their tartar sauce is a good complement, but my daughter preferred her eternal dipping sauce of choice, which is ketchup.

It was a good thing that I was able to bring along my camera for this picture, my hubby’s iphone camera wouldn’t have done these goldies justice. We love Joey’s.

I am such a fan of loaded nachos. It’s my go to food when I can’t think of anything else I want to eat. I love nachos so much that I would probably even agree to receive it as my social security disability instead of money, haha! Just kidding.

For me, these nachos from TacoTime fits my bill. It’s loaded, but not so much that it leaves the chips soaked and soggy. You can find it in most food courts here in Canada so it’s pretty easy to get a hold of. Ole!

My sister-in-law is visiting us from Australia and look what she hoarded all the way from down under.

My daughter absolutely loves the original kind while I, of course, go gaga over the blue double coat. We do have TimTams at the local superstore but there’s something about the ones directly from Australia that changes everything. Like dependable tv mounts for huge flat screens, this stash (there’s more of them that you don’t see in the picture!) will definitely prop us up happily for the next few days weeks.

This has become a favorite snack of ours ever since we bought a bunch of them at my daughter’s school’s fundraising activity. Personally, the white cheddar is my favorite although my daughter and my husband prefer the basic butter and salt variety.

We love these so much because they’re a healthier snack alternative than our usual chips and cookies, and they simply taste good. Granted, they cost more than the usual microwaved popcorn products, which is why I usually store them at the topmost shelf of our pantry because they tend to disappear in a snap. And here I thought that the need for a metal step stool to reach a snack would be a deterrent.

Now, though, we need not make our own pseudo-pandesal because we found some readily available for consumption at our local asian supermarket.

Mang Pedro’s is a local bakery that makes good pandesal. Although a bit pricey, it couldn’t hurt to satisfy our pandesal craving once in a while, right? Their bread is well-balanced – not too sweet and not too salty – and the bread crumbs are tempting, unlike some other pandesals we’ve had that reminded us of blackheads on nose. Haha!

A single pack contains a dozen good-sized buns, which my family and I actually devour in a sitting. At the rate we’re going, we’re probably going to make Mang Pedro a rich guy, I guess.

Happy Birthday, Bunso!

For her first month birthday celebration, I left the cake up to the experts. Above is the Brownie Bits and Swirls ice cream cake from the Marble Slab Creamery. The cake itself was super yummy although the people at the ice cream store made a booboo and spelled my baby’s name wrong. Friends, it’s Mian, not Mina – thus the erasure. And yes, the weather was warm enough to have some ice cream cake (finally!), which explains why the ice cream store was packed with people who perhaps were all thinking the same thing. I guess, the store people were as busy as generac generators during a blackout, trying to serve everyone that they eventually made the spelling mistake. Anyway, they fixed it as best they could but, in the grander scheme of things, nobody in the house minded the spelling anyway as everyone was just too busy eating.

All I can say is, sometimes it really is best to leave the baking to the professionals.

For her third week birthday celebration, big sis had another rice cake in mind. She calls this “the yellow one with the eggs on top”. Ladies and gentlemen, she meant the Bibingka. A bibingka, along with the puto, is another type of Filipino rice cake but is traditionally eaten during the Christmas season.

This particular one is as close as we could get to an authentic bibingka – instead of cooking it in traditional earthenware, we baked it in the oven in a pyrex dish and instead of using banana leaves to line the dish, we just used wax paper because that was what was on hand. In the end, with the sprinkling of shredded coconut and sliced salted duck egg on top, the celebratory cake may not have looked exactly like a bibingka per se but it definitely tasted like one.

My girl turns one month old next week, which means I have been sleepless for almost that long, too. Can someone tell me how to get rid of pimples? I have been so sleep deprived that my complexion has become a nightmare. Oh well, I’ll just drown myself then in yummy rice cakes and the sweet scent of my month old chick. That’ll work for me.

Puto? Yes, and this was big sister’s idea. She didn’t like the idea of making another cupcake for baby, but I told big sis that we needed to make another small cake to celebrate her sister’s second week birthday. She said, but a puto is like a little rice cake too! And she had a point. I think she deserves teaching degrees for that!

So puto it was. We made a dozen of these little rice cakes (with cheese on top, of course!) and the whole family (like the four of us) almost devoured the entire lot before I could even finish singing “happy birthday” and before I could snatch two for the photo op.

For week three, my daughter already has something in mind. Wait and see.

I still can’t believe it, I have a one week old baby!

Forty-one weeks of waiting and, here she is, finally! And because we are so excited, her big sister and I have decided to celebrate each and every milestone of our little jelly bean. This week we baked her a “Happy One Week Old Birthday” chocolate cupcake (with a jellybean on top)! The little one is like our very own air purifier, whenever we breathe her scent in, we are rejuvenated! We shall be reserving the bigger cakes for bigger milestones but, just the same, a little goes a long way in celebrating how grateful we are for this lovely miracle that we now have.