FOOD: Oriental Ribs and Some Kansi-ish-but-not-really Soup

As you all may know, I love food so much that I decided to dedicate a year of my life to studying the damn thing. I cook for my family and boyfriend everyday. I make time to look for awesome recipes and tweak them a little. I've made time to make recipes faster, from what takes an hour takes 20 mins instead.

SO I'M INTRODUCING A NEW SECTION OF THE BLOG DEDICATED TO RECIPES THAT I ALWAYS USE YEHEY.

FIRST RECIPE EVER GOES TOOOOO:

ORIENTAL RIBS and  KANSI-ISH SOUP

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2-3 lbs of pork ribs
• 1/4 c white vinegar
• 3 tbsp salt

MARINADE:

• 1 tbsp Hoisin Sauce
• 1/2 cup Soy Sauce
• 1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)
• 1/2 Tomato ketchup (DO NOT USE BANANA KETCHUP PLEASE)
• 1/8 cup lemon juice + 1/8 cup orange juice (FRESHLY SQUEEZED NOT POWDER)
• 3 tbsp Honey
• 1 tbsp Ginger (minced)
• 1 tbsp Garlic (minced)
• 2 whole star anises (its the star looking spice that smells and like black licorice)
• 4 tbsp rice wine

1. Fill a large pot 3/4 the way up and bring to a boil. Add the vinegar and salt. Boil (At maximum 120 °C) for another 30 seconds while stirring then add the ribs. Boil for 20 minutes.

2. Remove the ribs from the pot and let cool in a pan. Do not throw away the water! Skim the bubble foam thing at the top. Throw that shit away. Add onions, 2 stalks of lemongrass, 2 green chilis (siling haba), garlic, and diced beef shanks, a tablespoon of knorr sinigang mix if you want, and chives. simmer at low for a good 30 minutes or until beef is cooked. Then yehey. Soup. HAHA.

3. Then in a separate bowl, mix in all of the marinade ingredients.

4. Once the ribs have cooled, put all of the ingredients in a ziplock bag or tupperware and marinate for 24 hours or a minimum of 2 hours.

TRIVIA: MARINATE VS. MARINADE

ANSWER: MARINATE (verb) means to soak. MARINADE (noun) is the sauce.

5. Here's the fun part. You can either grill your ribs, throw them in an oven, or do what I did---TURBO FUCKIN COOK THE SHIT OUT OF YOUR RIBS.

For the oven: preheat oven at 150 °C. Brush leftover sauce on the ribs and cook for 10 minutes. Flip the ribs, coat with marinade, and cook for another 10 minutes. Do this 3 times per side.

For the Turbo cooker: Same procedure as the oven one but instead of 10 minutes, flip and coat every 5 minutes.

Some stupid plating. I used Orange and dalandan zest to add color and fragrance. With the leftover marinade, I simmered it until it was thicker in consistency. Once the ribs were don cooking, I brushed some sauce on the plate drowned the ribs with it.

AND THERE YOU HAVE IT. Oriental Ribs and Some sort of Kansi-ish soup.

And a glass of Mais con Yelo for dessert! Yum!

I'm so wawa

Omg wawa Zoe.

BAHAHAHA. Shit. It's stuff like this that make my day.

Okay enough. Back to work. <3 p="">

Eventscapade: This Means War

No. No. NO. I'm not trying to start an altercation with anyone this time. "This Means War" is actually a game night curated by DJ Euric and DJ Cmart at Rye every Wednesdays.

Poster care of yours truly. I'll also be the resident photographer every Wednesday so please, feel free to drop by!

Rye is located at 2F, Antel 2000 Bldg, Valero St., Makati City. 

Basically, from EDSA, take a right turn to Ayala Ave, go straight then turn right at Valero street, then immediately turn right again then right again. The building to your right (ang daming right, ano ba) should be Antel 2000 already.

The two bosses LMPK-ing as usual. 

Ah my favorite new drinking game! It's called the tower of Power, invented by DJ Euric himself. To know the mechanics, you have to go to This Means War on wednesdays so that DJ Euric can explain it to you himself.

The usual Karaoke round thats so damn funny to watch.

Oh hey! It's Wednesday today. Did I mention that the winning team for tonight gets Open bar for tonight? Drop Bye Rye later! I'll see you there!

Cravings.

I got hungry so I made pizza from scratch.

Egg for scale

Brb. Bye.

Recalculating: Nuvali/Tagaytay

Rai and I decided to have a spontaneous date in Tagaytay. Nothing special. We were just really bored. Since we've both been to Tagaytay and have seen almost everything there was to be seen and experienced, we dropped by Nuvali first.

It was probably 9 in the morning when we arrived. Apparently, the shops and restaurants around the area opened at 10 except for Starbucks. *Thank you, Starbucks. You really know the needs of your customers.* We got our regular drinks (if you must know, mine is: Venti Caramel Frappucino, Coffee based, Soy milk, with 1 tbsp cinnamon blended in, no whip.)

Once the shops were open, we took a long walk (we had to cross the street since Solenad was at the other side) and check out the shops. We gave up after 10 shops since most of them were still closed. When we got back to the lagoon area (or is it a lake? a pond??) we bought fish food (about Php15) and decided to go crazy with the Koi.

They may look nice now but...

THESE FISH ARE MONSTERS. I mean, they don't hurt people, but imagine falling in to this. Then again, this is milder compared to feeding Arapaimas at the Avilon Zoo.

AAAANYWAYYYYY

I'm not quite sure if Rai enjoyed the fish feeding or he was jus posing for the camera. Either way, he still has better photos with the fish than me. *This boy abuses the fact that his girlfriend is a photographer*

When we got to Tagaytay, we ate Bulalo for lunch at Green ATS. And I must say, their view is spectacular.

Pre-busog photo of Rai taking a photo of...

...Pre-busog me.

Well what else was there to do in Tagaytay? There were so many options yet most of them didn't really fit the bill. Sky Ranch? Nah too many people. Ilog Maria Bee Farm? We were just there a month ago. Puzzle Museum? No offense, but that's boring.

"Meh. Let's go to the zoo and kill time."

Rai: Oh hey. A tiger.

Me: PICTUUUUUREEE.

*PHILIPPINE FREEDOM INTENSIFIES*

Us by the smoking area of the zoo. We only had two couple photos that night (supposedly 3 but the photo in Sonya's garden was so blurry thanks to the attendant who was apparently too eager to leave and go home). This and the one with the tiger. The rest are either solo shots of Rai (I told you he's abusive.), animals, and landscapes.

Mr. Velasco photosynthesizing under the Tagaytay sun.

Special Thanks to Sunnies by Charlie for our shades!

Not in photo: Another special thanks to Sole Academy for our Adidas Tricot Running shoes.

AND THE HIGHLIGHT OF OUR NIGHT. We dropped by Sonya's Garden to have their Specialty Massage. Shiatsu and Swedish massages are about Php756 and their Specialty Massage is Php879.

Ohoho it looks tiny but the spa is actually enormous. Each cubicle has it's own shower room. And the shower room is relaxing as well. The windows are covered by a  built in waterfall and the shower tiles are actually small stones to massage your feet. It's crazy relaxing. Personally, this is my favorite spa in the Philippines.

After our ever so relaxing massage, we dropped by the Apothecary. Sonya's Garden specializes in products with activated carbon so I bought a few products. My favorite would be the "No Pores No Shine T-Zone Facial Booze".

Til my next adventure!

Eventscapade: UNLEASHED 5

The fifth instillment of the Unleashed Series was too much for anyone to handle. Even when everyone expected the rain, no one was prepared to get drenched by a storm. 

My cousin, Kurt, and I arrived at the venue at 12 noon. Why so early? Nauto kasi ako ni Mohit na 12 ng hapon call-time ko. Same shit happened in Unleashed 3 and 4 when Mohit asked me to arrive at 12 when I was actually needed at 2:30PM. HAW HAW VERY FUNNY, MO. NOT GONNA HAPPEN NEXT TIME.

Proud little munchkin of a cousin. It was his first major event so he was so excited to shoot. I'll post some of the photos that he took by the end of this entry.