It's only been recently that I wandered into our kitchen again since G is now sooo malikot and has to be watched over like a hawk. I bought a cookbook wherein there's a month's worth of planned menu. The recipes are fairly easy to do and most are simple Filipino homecooked dishes. I haven't really sat down and used the book to plan our menu (which I SHOULD be doing now especially with current home setup), let alone tried the recipes there. Now that I remember, I did try making leche flan and beef stroganoff wherein I burnt the caramel syrup for the flan (but the custard is pretty much ok according to M) and I had underdone the beef.  They're not miserable fails but I think I need a bit more practice to nail them.

   
Back to the subject, we had some dory fillets in the fridge and I was thinking of making beer battered fish for one of our lunches. But I decided to ditch the beer batter since I am still breastfeeding G. A hyper kid + a dowse of alcohol = not good combination. But I did try my hand on making homemade tartar sauce :) Result? Fantastic! I may have added a bit more lemon juice but no one's complaining :)  Recipe for the tartar sauce is found at Casa Veneracion (aka Pinoy Cook) but I didn't add any milk for my version of the sauce.

One more thing I liked about MCNP and MTP is that I get to discover new tools, products and what-nots that could be of great use to mommies and girls alike. I said "could be" since the use of these things are subjective. It could be useful for one and totally useless for another. It will really depend on your lifestyle and interests. But still, I still appreciate all the things my groupmates had shared. Kung di man lahat e applicable for me o magagamit ko, at least it's good to know of these things. For future reference maybe o baka may kaibigan ako na naghahanap o nangangailangan ng mga ganyang bagay. Makakatulong pa rin naman, in a way :)

Kamsnaps. I haven't really learned about this until Kariz shared her project at MCNP. I know snaps, I've seen them on my kid's nappies but I didn't really know how they were applied nor was I interested. When Kariz showed how she used her pliers to put snap-on frills on her daughter's nappy, I got curious. Pero di pa naman enough ang curiosity ko para bumili agad. I waited for sometime before I finally bought one from Asya's Cradle. I had to think it through muna, if it would be worth it to buy the pliers and snaps by putting it to good use. Then, our help left so I wasn't able to tinker with my pliers right away (though I had already listed down the items that I would be using my pliers on, hehehe).

Yesterday, I finally brought out the pliers and snaps and decided to use Georgie's shoes as my experimental project. I bought these pink soft soled shoes for her but it usually falls off her feet. The velcro isn't that adhesive enough so oftentimes, the strap comes off. At dahil di masyado madikit, the fit of her shoe is also a bit loose so kung di natanggal yung strap, lumulusot naman yung paa niya. Either way, minsan isa na lang ang sapatos nya sa paa. I finally thought of using snaps for them.

I stumbled upon this at the recipe exchange thread of GirlTalk. Got curious about the recipe posted by hunny_ally that everyone was raving about so I decided to try it out myself. The recipe itself is pretty easy: Just throw in a kilo of pork (ribs or liempo), 5-6 pcs medium size tomatoes (cubed), fish sauce and 1-2pcs green chilis in a pot and let it cook until the pork is tender.

I added a few more tomatoes since I wanted to have some sauce; sliced the chilis so we could taste some heat.

Verdict: Very good.  Hubby and my mom liked it. Parang sinigang but without the broth (and I heart sinigang). The sourness and the spicyness of the dish made it a perfect pair with some hot rice. Definitely a hassle-free dish one could make when you're too tired to cook, hehe.