I have been eating sweet these past few days like cookies, bread and baked goods so I often crave for salty food at night. What I do when craving starts I cooked ramen noodles, instead of boiling eggs separately I add the eggs in the noodles and it taste better and savory.

Korean Instant Ramen are usually known as Ramyeon noodles, and they do have some unique characteristics that set them apart from typical Ramen Noodles because they often contain more seasonings than ordinary instant noodles. They are flavorful and savory.

Today is our shopping day and before we go to the supermarket we stop at the nearby Paris Baguette bake shop to buy for a bagel. After shopping we excitedly toast the bagel in our pan, we have no toaster so that’s the best we can do. My husband was a bit disappointed with the bagel because it was not the bagel he expected.  I teased him, that’s why it is probably named “Simple Bagel” in the bakeshop because it was not a real bagel but simple only.

The bagel we bought was soft and not hard as bagel should be, after toasting we wiped Philadelphia cream cheese. Bagel is a  bread product, traditionally shaped by hand into the form of a ring from yeasted wheat dough, roughly hand-sized, which is first boiled for a short time in water and then baked. The result is a dense, chewy, doughy interior with a browned and sometimes crisp exterior. (source)

Pancakes are most popular food for breakfast and ready pancake mixes are big time saver, they are easy and convenient to prepare.  One of the benefits when making your own homemade pancakes is to avoid unnecessary ingredients such sugar and corn syrup.

Above is the mini pancakes/hot cakes we made the other day from Ottogi Hot Cake Mix we bought in the supermarket, my husband and I cooked separately. He cooked mini pancakes and I cooked bigger but they didn’t turn out well because they are not fully cooked, haha excuse me it is my first time to cook pancakes from ready mixed.

Pancake mixture is usually made of very simple ingredients such as flour, eggs, butter and milk. To prepare delicious pancakes, use native eggs when making pancake mixture.

We’ve been wanting to eat hot cake since the last 4 years but looking in the hot cake mix in every Korean supermarket we are just left in a corner wishing for the day we can finally buy a hot cake mix. It is not about the price it is about the product description and how to cook it, my husband and I can’t read or speak Hangul.

Well few days ago my friend in Korea who now resides in the US shared the photo of hot cake she just cooked for late night snacks.  I’ve told her about our ordeal and she happily shared her recipes, so when my husband came home from work I opened up of having hot cake on our Friday cheat day, he is a little unwilling because he said it is a different mix but I insisted that I can translate the description written in the package by using virtual Korean keyboard.

So when we shopped for groceries we scanned the hot cake mix for a good deal, Ottogi Hot Cake Mix is the best deal we could get so we bought one package which is 500g and two bottle of Ottogi Cake Syrup.  When we reached home, I carefully copied the procedure at the back using the virtual Korean keyboard and translate it  using Google.  It helps but the translation is not well translated, it is not easy to understand it is such a headache!

Oh well, when I got tired understanding the English translation I opted on searching in the internet and voila in just few key strokes I found what I need about Ottogi Hot Cake Mix.

▶ Product Description

•  Avoid direct sunlight, store in cool place.
• After opening, reseal and store it in the refrigerator.

▶ To Prepare

1. Mix 2 egg with 270cc of milk or water.
2. Pour 500g of hotcake mix and mix well with 1 egg.
3. Fry it in a low heat the dough for 2-3 minutes and turn it upside down and heat it again for 2 minutes.

So when Friday came we followed the instruction above and we are able to make our how hot cake as Friday treat. Having no whisk to mix the ingredients didn’t stop us.

Eating instant noodles developed a negative image over the years. It could be either unhealthy habit or has a bad effect to individual’s health because of too much sodium and preservatives. I do sometimes disregard this information because eating instant noodle is one of the convenient way to eat your meal without cooking or too much preparation. All you need is to boil hot water and fill in the noodle cup and let it sit for few minutes and voila meal is ready!

In Korea instant noodles, Ramyeon is a very popular food, snack. You can find different flavors of noodles from convenient stores to supermarket, from spicy to non-spicy noodles. When I first arrived in Korea instant noodles is the only food I ate along with rice because I was not accustomed with their food like Kimchi and gimbap.  I didn’t like the smell of gim in my food and the taste of kimchi.

As the day goes by, eating Korean food became so easy and I was able to cook Filipino food as well when we moved to a new apartment but still time to time I eat instant noodles to fed my hunger for soup but this time I already knew which soup is spicy and not.

When I shopped a week ago for my weekly supplies I just bought a package of chicken and few potatoes. I adobo the chicken I thought it will take me a week to consume all of it, well maybe yes but my husband help himself to my pot of adobo so I was left without food to eat in few days aside from eggs.  Being bored for eating eggs everyday I tried different way of cooking from frying, boiling and scrambled eggs.

I would like to cook sauteed bitter melon with egg but there’s no bitter melon in our fridge so instead I used zucchini it was left over from the vegetable soup I have cooked few days ago.

Every one of us wish to have that ideal Christmas dinner, with complete family members, sumptuous foods, amazing gifts and festive mood. However, the amount of money that you have to spent to create an amazing dinner for the whole family can really drive you insane. Before you get stressed just thinking about it, this article will help you make Christmas festivities fun yet within budget.

Saving Up for Christmas

There are lots of ways you can make extra money to finance your Christmas festivities. The first and easiest way to do Is to scour your house for any CDs, DVDs or any clothes that are already of no use to you then sell it online or in a car garage sale. A few weeks before Christmas season, you can try eating packed lunches or snacks in office or in school instead of buying them outside. You can also try jotting down all your expenses daily. By doing this, you can be able to monitor where you are spending your money. You can then easily get rid of any unnecessary expenses.

[Photo courtesy of picjumbo.com/pexels.com]

Planning A Frugal Christmas Menu

You do not have to spend too much money on your Christmas dinner. Here are some simple tips:

• Know the right portions. We all know that everybody loves turkey on Christmas. However, the turkey dish will become leftovers the next day. Just buy the right amount of food for everyone so that you can avoid wasting food and money.

• Cook the leftovers.

You can try to think of ways on how to recycle your leftovers. This will allow you to money on your meals for the next few days.

• Shop months before.

Make a list early on and try to stock these items on your pantry one by one.

• Use coupons. Coupons will come handy during the holiday season.

 Enjoy your Christmas eve!

My husband eat salad as part of his every day meal, boring with the same food I ate every week I tried to eat salad as well. Since I am the one who prepared it I know what are the ingredients, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, garlic, chicken tidbits, soy sauce, olive oil and small portion of rice mixed together.

I have been trying it for few days, eating salad at night and I have noticed I am slowly losing weight. With that discovery, I might put salad on my daily diet instead of eating big serving of rice and viand at night.

One of the local food I bought from the Asian store in downtown is bagoong or shrimp paste. It is one of the popular condiment in the Philippines it is either made of fermented fish or shrimps. My husband doesn’t like the smell and he always complaint every time I open the jar and eat it with tomato.

So I decided to saute the shrimp paste with garlic, onion and tomato. I also added one tablespoon of sugar for sweet tastes, after cooking it smells good that I immediately ate and then I remember I forgot to cook it with pork.

Shrimp paste or bagoong is best when paired with green mango.

These past few days I am so busy boxing things we don’t use anymore and needs to go home, I am boxing things as much as I can so they won’t be left behind when we left Korea and I can also travel light. With that, I forgot to eat and I will just realize that I am hungry when I felt dizzy moving around.

The other night with only an hour before we sleep I decided to prepare egg and sausage sandwich for myself, it was a good thing that there’s only one pair of bread left that I can look after my diet, you know older people say it is bad to eat a lot at night.