Mmmmmusubi!

Mmmm... Musubi. I love spam musubi. I first had it when my cousin returned from a 1-year hiatus to Hawaii, and I've loved it ever since. Most people cringe at the mention of Spam, but mention it in almost any Filipino household (I'd say 99%... you have the rare ones who join the "dark side" of the vegetarian and vegan movement), and you're sure to make some mouths water.


I like to marinate my spam before frying it for my musubi. I base my marinade on a recipe from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin that I found online a long time ago. It's always changing and always done to taste... and it goes a little something like this:

1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup mirin
1/3 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon grated ginger
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon grated/minced ginger
1/8 - 1/4 cup tonkatsu sauce
1/8 - 1/4 cup korean barbecue sauce
1/8 - 1/4 cup brown sugar
* sometimes I add something spicy, too... like Sriracha Hot Sauce

I always adjust it based on what sauce is available at home... and what else I feel like adding at the time.

I made these in celebration of the first surf session I had with my brand new 5'8" Rusty Pirhana, which my husband bought at an AMAZING price at the Mira Mesa Rusty Warehouse. The board is *AMAZING* and fun.


My husband completed the package with some Future Fins that he thought would complement my surfing style (haha... as if I were good enough to have one) and weight... the John Johns! :)


I can't wait to take it out more often.. especially as the weather gets warmer down here.

Oceanside: a window of sunshine during rainy season...

My husband and I were able to enjoy a three day weekend together, and we started it off as a family day with my parents. Despite the pouring flurry of rain we had over that week, the sun peeked out for a few hours, presenting us with a window of opportunity to go for a walk around the Oceanside harbor area and have some fish and chips. :)

Why hadn't we done this earlier (when we originally moved to Oceanside)? The harbor is a nice, entertaining walk. I'd definitely do it again, especially when the weather lightens up.

We even found another little fishing pier... tiny and not as crowded as the Oceanside pier. I can't vouch for as much fishing success here, though...


...but it looks like a great place to have a picnic or lunch with lolo and lola! Besides, Caleb made a "friend" that day:


The walk was mellow, but it was still long enough to get our appetites worked up. Before we knew it, we turned around and headed back to Harbor Fish & Chips for some... fish and chips! Yum, yum, yum!


We finished our outing by visiting a local sunbathing sea lion pair who were bullying a third sea lion... poor guy just wanted to chill, but they wouldn't let him join them!


All in all a good mellow day. :)

Mmmm... Brownies... and Breakfast Sausage... and then some... :D

It's difficult to pass up super cheap brownie mixes at the supermarket when they're on sale... they're like an insta-dessert you can easily make at home (and that it's practically impossible to bake wrong... even though I admit to fudging them up a couple of times in the past). Besides, brownie mix gives me more time to enjoy being around my family WHILE enjoying the brownies... and it's kinda fun making them without having to think too hard about it, too. :)



Mmmm... easy, tasty yumminess. :)

On another note, I used my three day weekend as an excuse to eat well while also eating easily.. which gave me an excuse to buy some Jimmy Dean maple-flavored breakfast sausages and make little breakfast sandwiches with English muffins, over-easy eggs, cheese, and tomato. The tomato was an excellent added touch that my husband came up with at the last minute:


And an added bonus: the valentines day rosebuds finally bloomed. Too bad they didn't last as long as we were hoping...

Springtime in (Sometimes) Sunny San Diego

We've been getting quite a bit of rain and dreariness this winter, so the little pockets of sunshine that come by have been quite a blessing. I guess that's just me being a sissy: winters here are nowhere close to how cold they were in Colorado Springs at 7,258 feet above sea level. After moving to San Diego, it's difficult to NOT get acclimated to San Diego's version of cold. The very thought of surfing in San Francisco, where I first learned how to surf, makes me want to cry.

Unfortunately, our baby boy had been battling a cold for a few days, so he spent a few of the sunny days indoors. Thank goodness for this Craigslist score, quite possibly one of the coolest Christmas gifts we could ever buy for a mere $25:



Cold, rainy winters in San Diego often make us long for warmer winters... like Hawaiian winters... and this longing led to us mustering the motivation to make a Hawaiian pizza that was more Hawaiian than, say, the Hawaiian pizzas offered at most pizzarias. Why limit yourself to Canadian Bacon when you can have Spam and Portuguese Sausage instead? We finally decided to make our own personalized version of a Hawaiian pizza using on pizza sauce and crust from Trader Joes... and tossed in some sweet maui onions, just for an additional topping.



Don't the Portuguese sausage and Spam look delicious? ;)



My husband decided to toss all the ingredients on top of the sauce...



...so we ended up with the cheesy goodness you see below:



Mmmmm.... talk about some sweet-and-savory goodness! Next time we make it, we hope we find some slightly spicier Linguica... just to add a little more pizazz to the mix. :)

Healthier Filipino?

With aging family and their accompanying health issues, it's always a challenge finding new ways to enhance their diets while respecting the lifestyle and habits they're used to. Let's face it: it's difficult to ask someone who's lived for so long to make drastic changes to the way they've lived for so many years. I mean, they gotten by okay this far, right? Besides, I need to find ways to make the food I love enjoyable for my little one, too.



One of my favorite things to do is find ways to make some of the dishes I've grown up with slightly healthier. Yes, it does change the way they taste slightly... but you got to give a little if you're going to take a little. Take adobo, for example. I can't help but wonder if the original dish started similarly because it's hard to believe that people consumed so much MEAT in an island country without throwing in veggies to supplement. Haha!

Then again, I do remember an old college friend of mine confessing to me, after eating adobo for the first time, "Karm... I actually ate a chunk of fat... and you know what? I tasted GOOD! I wanted to eat all of the fat on the meat." Take that, health freaks! ;)

When I make the adobo, I often use boneless, skinless chicken thighs. To cut on cost at times (when I have the time to spare, of couse), I will buy the bone-in skin-on thighs and de-bone/de-skin them myself... and I trim off a bit of the fat. An old roommate of mine used to only use chicken breast, but I find chicken breast dry and uninviting. While dark meat is fatty, chicken thighs tend to be more economical as chicken breast... and just about as "healthy." Besides, they're one of the recommended meats in the hypertension-battling DASH diet.

When I cook the adobo, I tend to brown the chicken first and then proceed to cook the rest like a stew... and then I add all kinds of veggies, including (ta-da) zucchini! It gets very colorful and tasty... and I'm sure that there are other variations of veggies I can add, especially if I have to take the beans away (for my father's gout... poor guy!).



Anyhow, the end-product is still delicious and wrought with much vinegar-soaked glory. My husband is happy with the addition of veggies (since he's very health-conscious), and it gets my son to chomp down on veggies happily... AND, at the very least, my parents happily tolerate it when they have to eat it. ;)

On another note, my son (in his pickiness) also loooooooves SPAM with a passion. Luckily, I tricked him into eating the low sodium stuff. While most white people cringe at the thought of him eating "ham in a can," I don't mind it at all, since it gives me an excuse to make some, too! Besides, it's fun and easy to present it in a cute little package.



I can't wait until he's big enough to manage a Spam Musubi on his own. :)