What I learned Today

1. Never overestimate the hardness of a vegetable you are about to slice. I wounded three fingers because I was too enthusiastic with a sayote.
2. I learnt how to cook what mom calls “Chopsuey para sa mga Tinatamad”. Recipe below.
3. When you’re choreographing a song, accepting your limitations is the surest way to make things easier on yourself. Especially if you’re a beginner.
4. In the rural areas, people don’t worry about thieves stealing TVs or jewelry. They’re more concerned over plant thieves. Really. My mom’s been so anxious lately because just a couple of houses away, somebody’s euphorbias were stolen. Her euphorbias are sporting excellent blooms, all the more reason for more vigilant guard of the plants.

Chopsuey Para sa mga Tinatamad

Ingredients:
2 sayote, quartered then sliced crosswise
2 large carrots, sliced into disks 1cm thick
1 cup baby corn
2 cups baguio beans sliced to inch long pieces
3 onions, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 cup diced pork (cooked before hand by sautéing it)
1 cup squid balls quartered
1 pack of Knorr Cream of Chicken
Ginisa flavor mix or soy sauce or oyster sauce

Directions:

Heat pan. I used a wok. :)

Saute garlic until it begins to turn brown. Add onions, pork and squid balls. Cook for about five minutes on high flame. Meanwhile prepare cream of chicken according to package instructions.

Add soup and sayote to pork-squidball mix after the five minutes. Cook until the sayote are half-done.

Add beans. Cook at medium flame until half done.

Add corn. Um, let that all cook until the vegetables are all done. During this time, you may want to taste the cream and adjust things to your taste by adding any of the following: soy sauce or oyster sauce (the sauce will turn brown of course, so try not to use this if you want the white sauce to remain. Duh.) or Ginisa flavor mix.

Add carrots and turn off the heat. We usually prepare meals thirty minutes before we have the meal. The carrots will cook in the residual heat.

You can use any of the Knorr cream soup packs but the Cream of Chicken gives the best results. Also, you can add celery or spring onions to this. Mom does that when they're around. I'm not sure when you're supposed to add them but mom says that the rule of thumb is "Hard vegies first." Of course, exceptions to this rule are those vegies that you can actually eat raw like carrots and celery. I've also found that the more onions and garlic, the tastier. Know thy limits though.

And if you cry easily (like me) when doing the onions, here's two ways to cope: 1) put the onions in the freezer. when they're cold, they don't emit the sulfur easily. 2) turn the electric fan on and make it face you. it blows the irritants away.

Sorry if things seem disorderly and imprecise but my mom was teaching me this from her head and there were no exact measurements of things so this is my best rendition of the whole process. Cooking is fun. :) Tomorrow mom's showing me adobo. She says it's so easy that she hardly needs to teach me. "Just throw it all in, marinate then cook on low heat after it boils," she says. Right. Easy for her to say.