Here's that rainy day.../SWF

Maybe I should have saved those leftover dreams  

Funny but here's that rainy day  

Here's that rainy day they told me about  

And I laughed at the thought that it might turn out this way

 Where's that worn out wish that I threw aside  

After it brought my lover near  

Oh, funny how love becomes a cold rainy day 

Funny that rainy day is here...

~ Nancy Wilson's version here.

Linking to Sky-Watch Friday

Seafood Pho

We were in Glorietta in early October after attending a trade show at the WTC.  I was craving for Vietnamese pho but too tired to walk to Pho Hoa in Greenbelt.  I kinda made up my mind to have a sandwich instead when I noticed Pho Bac right beside Subway.  

I assumed Pho Hoa was the same as Pho Bac.  The moment I tasted the seafood pho, I realized my mistake.  The seafood pho was bland and didn't have the fresh flavors of basil and cilantro.  The seafood curry was alright but lacked the spiciness I was looking for. We were full but unsatisfied.:-(

 

Linking to Food Friday and Food Trip Friday

Island life/OWT and WWW

One of the 80 plus islands in the Calamian Islands, northen Palawan.

“It is true that I miss intelligent companionship, but there are so few with whom I can share the things that mean so much to me that I have learned to contain myself. It is enough that I am surrounded with beauty...”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild 

Tangab or fish trap is a type of fishing done during calm seas, weak winds, and no-storm season. Fishermen work from dusk till dawn--they drop the tangab net at low tide and haul the nets up at high tide to harvest the catch. 

Linking to Our World Tuesday
 Water World Wednesday

Zinnia/Mandarin Orange Monday

I am here to live out loud!

Sharing with Mandarin Orange-Monday

Wonder/Sky-Watch

A painting is nothing more than light reflected from the surface of a pigment-covered canvas. But a great painter can make you see the depth, make you feel the underlying emotion, make you sense the larger world. That, too, is the power of science: to sense and convey the depth and dimensionality of nature, to glance at the surface and to divine the shape of the universe around us. ~ Carl Safina

Be still, and the world is bound to turn herself inside out to entertain you. Everywhere you look, joyful noise is clanging to drown out quiet desperation.~ Barbara Kingsolver

Linking to Sky-Watch Friday

Lumpiang Ubod

I found julienne ubod (heart of coconut palm) at the supermarket and decided to make an impromptu lumpiang ubod for dinner.  I don't like the ready-made lumpia wrapper in the supermarket, the lettuce has also wilted.  My 15-year old nephew snickered when I told him this is called lumpiang hubad  due to the absence of a wrap.

This is simple and easy to prepare. Here's how:

Saute ground pork in minced garlic and onions.  Add minced bell pepper and stir fry until ground pork is thoroughly cooked.  Add chopped shelled shrimps, soy sauce, salt and pepper and a pinch of brown sugar.  Mix in julienne ubod and carrots and add a little water just enough to cook the mixture.  Let this cook for 10-15 minutes until the liquid is reduced. Don't overcook to maintain the crunch of ubod and carrots.

On the side, prepare the sauce---a mixture of corn starch diluted in water, brown sugar, soy sauce, lots of minced garlic (yes, we like our lumpia garlicky).

Add the sauce mixture, mix well until you get the desired consistency.

Garnish with ground peanuts and spring onions.

 

Linking to Food Trip Friday and Food Friday

Oasis/Water World Wednesday

Be the peace you seek.

Linking to Water World Wednesday

Optimism/Mandarin Orange Monday

Count your blessings. Once you realize how valuable you are and how much you have going for you, the smiles will return, the sun will break out, the music will play, and you will finally be able to move forward the life that God intended for you with grace, strength, courage, and confidence. ~ Og Mandino

Bromeliad

Linking to Mandarin Orange Monday

Mural/Photo Hunt

 "Peace" mosaic mural along Roxas Boulevard.

 

Linking to Photo Hunt

Blends of colors/Sky-Watch

“The world is wide; no two days are alike, nor even two hours; neither were there ever two leaves of a tree alike since the creation of the world; and the genuine productions of art, like those of nature, are all distinct from one another.” ~ John Constable

Take a moment as though it were a canvas. Begin to paint on it creative blends of colors. In every moment we can find and live our purpose.

Linking to Sky-Watch Friday

Folded Pizza

Met a friend for brunch at a Yellow Cab near my place last week.  We wanted to try their breakfast offering.  I ordered the breakfast combo---My Size - Folded Pizza with Hungarian sausage and scrambled egg and Charlie Chan Chicken Pasta.  K had the Bacon and Mango Egg Breakfast. The folded pizza was actually too big for me, I only finished half.   

Charlie Chan Chicken Pasta has chicken strips, shiitake mushrooms and roasted peanuts, sauteed in a spicy oriental sauce and garnished with spring onions.  It's one of my favorite at Yellow Cab.

How's that for brunch?:p

Charlie Chan Chicken Pasta

 

Linking to Food Friday and Food Trip Friday

Solitude/Water World Wednesday

“We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.” ~ C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Linking to Water World Wednesday

 

Multi-colored leaves/Mandarin Orange-Monday

“Still

In the fall, I believe again in poetry
if nothing else it is
a movement of the mind.
Summers ball together
into sticky lumps,
spring evenings are glass beads from one mould
for standard-size youth,
winter a smooth heaviness, not even cold.
But the mind trembles
here, on the brink
the mind trembles
there is life, after all,
there is life, still
unbelief left.”

~ Jaakko Ahokas

Linking to Mandarin Orange Monday

Rain or Shine/SWF

I'm gonna love you
Like nobody's loved you,
Come rain or come shine.
High as a mountain,
Deep as a river...
Come rain or come shine.

~ Come Rain or Come Shine (Billie Holiday)

Listen here

Linking to Sky-Watch Friday

Scallops with Broccoli

I posted the appetizers last week, was lazy to post the rest of the photos.:p  So here's the second installment of our meal at Mongkok-Santana Grove.

The mixed vegetables tasted as it looks in this photo, just blah.  The vegetables were fresh but the flavor was lost on this soupy dish.

In an effort to eat more veggies, we chose yang chow with vegetables.  It was alright.

I was excited when I read scallops on the menu.  It's been a while since I had scallops.  But I didn't expect baby scallops---they were microscopic! I wondered if the scallops were harvested too early.  The dish was also totally bland...the delicate flavor of scallops was wasted on this dish.  Scallops probably taste better when baked with butter, or with cream sauce because this one didn't make the grade.

We left the restaurant unsatisfied, and mind you, our taste buds are not hard to please.  It was one of those meals that you feel sad after paying---what a disappointment! :#

 

Linking to Food Trip Friday and Food Friday

Wordless/Water World Wednesday

 "What we've got here is a failure to communicate."

Linking to Water World Wednesday

Mother of Thousands/Mandarin Orange-Monday

We dream to give ourselves hope. To stop dreaming - well, that’s like saying you can never change your fate.” ~ Amy Tan, The Hundred Secret Senses

Mother of Thousands, Mexican Hat Plant, Kalanchoe daigremontiana

Kalanchoe daigremontiana syn. Bryophyllum daigremontianum also called Mother of Thousands, Alligator Plant, or Mexican Hat Plant is a succulent plant native to Madagascar. This plant is distinguished by its ability to propagate via vegetative propagation. All parts of the plant are poisonous, which can even be fatal if ingested by infants or small pets.

  Linking to Mandarin Orange Monday