Maja Blanca

I so love it.

It is very easy to prepare and it's my late dad's favorite dessert. Interested?

Here's how to make it.

Ingredients:

1 cup cornstarch

2 cups coconut milk

1 can condensed milk

1 evaporated milk

1 can sweetcorn cream style

sugar to taste

ground peanuts

Procedure:

1. Combine the evaporated milk and cornstarch then whisk until constarch is diluted.Then add coconut milk and condensed milk. Make sure that they are combined evenly.

2. Put a spoonful of the mixture and stir it in a small pan until it is done for tasting. If the taste is not too sweet for you, put sugar until you reach the desired sweetness before bringing it  to a boil.

3. Pour the combined ingredients in a pot and bring it to a boil while stirring it thoroughly and continously. Set the fire to low. Continue stirring.

4. While stirring, pour in the sweetcorn creamstyle.

5. Allow to cook while stirring until the mixture reaches your desired thickness.

6. Pour the mixture in a mold while it is hot, garnish with ground peanuts.

7. Allow to cool then refrigerate for at least an hour.

8. Serve.

Olive Garden Experience!

This post has already been posted to my other blogsite which I discontinued. I just reposted it here.

Olive Garden is an Italian Restaurant. Well, it is my hubby’s most favorite restaurant ever. Whenever we go to Reno, we always plan to go there but we always end up eating in Manila Hongkong Kitchenette because they served Filipino foods there.

Hubby, my teenagers and I went to Reno last Tuesday and we stayed there overnight so we had plenty of time to go anywhere we want to. We lunched out in Manila Hongkong Kitchenette and we dined out in Olive Garden Restaurant.

We hardly got a parking space when we arrived there. There were so many people in the lobby patiently waiting for their turn to be accommodated. Hubby assured me that the foods there are worth the wait. Hmmm. Whatever. When we got inside the building, someone standing in the front greeted us and ask hubby’s name and then gave us a round pager that blinks and vibrates when they are ready to accommodate us. What a fancy pager, huh? We don’t have like that in the Philippines. Anyway, we stayed in the lobby and waited for 20 minutes.

When the pager blinked and vibrated, we went inside. Somebody took us to a vacant table. A waiter named Bill introduced himself and served us a bowl of fresh green salad and freshly baked bread sticks. Wow… I was really drooling that time. Then he introduced the Wine of the Night and asked us if we would want to try it. Free. We declined. He gave us the Menu. I ordered raspberry lemonade for my drink. Hubby and my teenagers ordered soda for their drinks. We ordered chicken flat bread as appetizer. I ordered Chicken Marsala. Hubby ordered Tour of Italy. Jen wanted Chicken Alfredo Fettuccine, Jun ordered Stuffed Chicken Marsala. The appetizer was served right away.

While munching the fresh salad and eating the bread sticks and the chicken flat bread, my eyes wandered around. There were different kinds of bottled wine properly displayed in the corner. The waiters wore white long sleeved shirt with necktie paired with black dress pants. They were very pleasant to all customers and they knew their job pretty well. They seemed well trained. And the customers looked happy and contended with the foods and the service.

When the main dish was served, wow, we ate like there was no tomorrow! I love the grilled potatoes and grilled green and red bell pepper in my Chicken Marsala. Hubby noticed that Jen ate allot too! Jun loved his foods and he ate with serious manner. Hubby enjoyed his choice. He had fettuccini, special lasagna and chicken with fresh Parmesan cheese grated at our table in his Tour of Italy dish.

For the first time, we really enjoyed all the foods that we ordered! I almost forgot to mention that we ordered Black Tie Mousse Cake for our dessert. But we were too full so we took it as "to go" or "take out".

Finally, Bill gave us choco mint to complement our meal. Hubby gave him a big tip.

We were all happy when we left the place. We had a sumptuous meal and we got excellent service! I rated them 9.99 in a scale of 1-10 but hubby said to make it a perfect 10 instead, I agreed. 

It was such a nice experience!

Drugged-up!

I have been working graveyard for a year and I have never had to have a "wake-up" call from the hotel, until last night. Whew, that was so embarassing!

I work 5 nights a week. During my first 3 months, everything was okey. I go to bed right after I got off work. The following months, I started to have difficulty to fall asleep so I took sleeping pills. At first I tried Melatonin but it didn't work for me so I tried the other kind of sleeping pills, the generic one and it worked. Since I am aware that taking sleeping pills is not good, as much as possible I refrain from taking them all the time. Everything was going smoothly.

The other day was different, I slept for 4 hours only and I hardly survived that night. God, I was sooo sleepy at work that made me a little crazy so I decided to take pills before I went to bed. Since I was out of pills, I bought another box and this time I tried the Tylenol Pm Simply Sleep. I took 2 caplets. I set my alarm then I hit the bed. It was around 11:00am. The next thing I knew, hubby who's enjoying his day off, woke me up, he was half- awake too, and he was telling me that my workmate Melinda just called asking about me. And my reaction was, "WHAAAAT?" Then I looked at the clock, it was 11:06pm already. I was like lightning, jolted from the bed and called the hotel to say that I'll be right there. I washed and dressed up. I grabbed my toothpaste and toothbrush and went off. When I got at the hotel, I was 22 minutes late. After the adrenalin rush, my body was trembling and my head was so heavy. I was still groggy. Wow, Tylenol PM really knocked me out! It cost me a mug of coffee before everything went ok. I brushed my teeth when I got my break, put some lipstick and I said, "Now, I am ready for work"! the hotel cashier said I was funny, hehehe!

Lesson learned. Next time I will only take 1 caplet. Hubby was sorry that he himself fell asleep in the couch. He said he was preparing spaghetti for my "baon" and he watched TV afterwards then fell asleep. It was not his fault of course. It was my fault, err.. my alarm clock's fault, I mean, Tylenol Pm's fault, whatever.