City trip

Last Friday we went down to NYC to renew my passport. They now require “Personal Appearance for ALL” which is a bummer coz we have to spend a precious leave time off work (it’s a 3 hrs drive away from where we live). But “All’s well that ends well”, right?! Since we’re down there anyway might as well make the most of it. And so, after all’s been taken care for the passport renewal, we stroll around time square and took some pictures… good ones… goofy ones… and some wala langs hehehe. So for starter, here we are in front of jamba juice…

I know, why jamba juice? Well, when warren was still living in California this is his favorite place to buy fresh fruit drinks, kind of like smoothies, plus they can add vitamin boost if you want it. We don’t have jamba juice anywhere here in Albany, and seeing it there makes us all excited and excited! hehe - as you can see - we even took pictures hahaha. It feels like people are looking at us thinking, what the?! But who cares! It’s jamba juice time! : )

Then off we go to New Jersey for some Filipino food, then IKEA to buy pans. And drove back home tired but satisfied on how things went down in the city.

Here are video clips of our drive to New Jersey passing by the Lincoln tunnel!

IKEA showroom pictures below… with us of course! : ) we love IKEA!

Tarte Française

As promised, here is the dessert I was raving about in our last post that I learned from my dessert cookbook that I bought for 2 dollars only (it was on sale hehe) at borders. It looks pretty fancy but it’s actually very easy to do. On days when I don’t have much things to do, I like to try out things specially in cooking. So, I browsed through this book and tried out the least complicated one hahaha, that is this one and it turned out good! Below are the picture of the book and the recipe page…

Following is the recipe:

Tarte Française

13 oz fresh or frozen puff pastry
1 egg yolk, beaten
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons apricot jam, sieved
2 table spoon lemon juice
1 ½ lb mixed fresh fruit such as grapes, strawberries, raspberries, and bananas
additional strawberries and leaves, for garnish
(optional)

Thaw pastry, if frozen, and roll out to a 12 x 8-inch rectangle. Fold pastry in half. Cut a rectangle from folded edge 1 ½ inch from outside edges. Unfold the middle section and roll out to a 12 x 8-inch rectangle. Place on a baking sheet, dampen edges with water, then unfold the frame and place carefully on top of the pastry rectangle. Press the edges of the pastry together. Mark a pattern on the frame and brush with beaten egg yolk. Prick center all over. Preheat oven to 425F (220C). Chill the pastry for 10 minutes, then bake for 20 minutes, until golden brown; cool. In a saucepan, heat the jam and lemon juice gently until the jam has melted. Halve and seed the grapes. Leave the strawberries and raspberries whole and peel and slice the bananas. Brush the bottom of the tart lightly with jam and arrange the prepared fruit in rows. Brush the fruit with jam and garnish with the additional strawberries and leaves, if desired. Served as soon as possible. Serve 6.

here is the end result, looks good huh? It tastes good too! : )

Note: I chose my own set of fresh fruits and did not follow exactly what was said in the recipe : ) I’m a bit rebel that way hahaha! So no bananas and grapes, I put kiwi and apricot instead same as what’s in the sample picture. This is to show that you can use any fruits of your liking and it will still be good hehe. :p
Enjoy! : )

Just a random thing… :) I bought shoes at payless shoe store and it’s kinda cute and really cheap too haha, what do you think? : )

Down to South Carolina, we go…

On Labor Day weekend, we decided to spend sometime with warren’s family in South Carolina. His parents own a house there and is been living there since they came here in the US together with his younger sister Ivy and youngest brother Jonas. And so, we took the Friday off, drove down to South Carolina and stayed there for the weekend then drove back home on Monday. We drove for 14 hours! back and forth… i know, it was a loooong drive… but we had so much fun especially seeing and spending some time with everybody in South Carolina!

having lunch at the rest area on our way down to South Carolina, we brought lunch : ) adobong pork and rice… yum!

Below are some pictures we took when we went apple picking at the SkyTop Orchard in North Carolina. This was on Saturday…

Then on Sunday, they invited over for dinner the aunties, uncles and cousins, they are warren’s mom’s side of the family, they live in South Carolina too. Warren offers to cook, he made pancit palabok and mussel marinara, it was really good! Everyone loved it! I also made a little contribution hahaha a fruit desert (I forgot what it’s called) that I just recently learned from my desert cookbook that I bought for 2 dollars at borders :) (I’ll post the recipe and picture here so you can try it too, in another post, it’s really simple) and mommy made some delicious honey mustard barbecued chicken wings mmmmm yum! Sorry we didn’t get the chance to take pictures of the dinner and everyone :( but we promise, will do better next time! :)

on our way back to New York :)

Now, back to work! :p