Season's Eatings on the Last Day of 2017 :)

Happy New Year!

Until recently I have postponed controlling my food intake because it's kind of pointless when you have all of these food screaming "eat me" on your tabletop.

In honor - or more like, in memory - of all the wonderful food that we have consumed over the Hew Year Holiday, I decided to feature them on my first blog post for 2018. :)

This is also my way of sharing and showing the Filipino food culture to the world. 

The Philippines has been a colony of Spain for more than 300 years so you can see the Spanish influence in some of our dishes. It's also been Americanized a bit because of the American occupation. But prior to that, the Chinese has already been doing trade in the country.

So what we have here is a mixture of all those influences - plus a few twists.

Here are some food and dishes that we Filipinos love to prepare on New Year's Eve.

The Fruit Basket

Sweets and Desserts 

Chocolate coins and whatnots. My dearest loves, Ferrero,Cadbury, Toblerone and Hershey's. :)

Home made Mango Float, Fruit Salad, Pudding and Chocolate Overload Roll from Red Ribbon.

Chocolate Mousse Cake from Red Ribbon - yummy! 

Filipino Style Spaghetti

It seems that the standard for the Filipino Style Spaghetti is the one from Jolibee. Well, that's how it's made here. More sweet than sour and has loads of hotdogs.

The Viands or "Ulams"

The word viand may have a different definition in other countries but in the Philippines, a viand is an item of food, a meat, seafood, or vegetable dish that accompanies rice in a typical Filipino meal. en.oxforddictionaries.com

Chicken Roll or something like Chicken Cordon Bleu. I used to make these stuff but it is kind of time and energy consuming so mama just orders 'em now. Still yummy, specially when you get to the gooey cheese.

Ham! But not like the  real beef or pork leg kind of ham, more like a loaf.

Shrimp sauteed in ginger. I dunno what else is in there, my brother made it. Yummy too! I'm not really a big fan of seafood but I am willing to make an exemption for shrimp.

Pancit and Beef Steak - both staples in Filipino meals. I love them both! They both look very oily but they're kind hard to resist. Like, gosh I don't even wanna try. 

Roasted Chicken. Since we are not big pork eaters in our household, chicken is always our preference. My brother made this. Chicken was marinated overnight with some special sauce and it was stuffed with "tanglad" or lemon grass. 

Looking at these photos just made me feel hungry.

XO,

Carissa