At Home With MrsC

Raising a family, making a home.

Recipe: Openface Tuna Melt Sandwich

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It’s been a gloomy, rainy day, and I’m feeling under the weather.  I decided to stay home today to get some rest, and what perfect timing since classes are suspended and the kiddo stayed in too. Days like today, most people look for a hot bowl of soup, arroz caldo or champorado.  I, on the other hand, not being much of a soup lover myself, turned to my ever so reliable childhood comfort food to fill my belly on this chilly afternoon – an openface tuna melt sandwich.  This has been my go-to quick snack fix ever since my mom introduced it to me when I was maybe 8 or 9 years old.  It’s really quick and easy to make, especially in households like ours where homemade tuna spread is always available on hand in the refrigerator.

TUNA SPREAD
1 can tuna flakes in water
1/4 cup mayonnaise (you may adjust depending on how wet or dry you want your spread to be)
1 tbsp sweet pickle relish
salt and pepper to taste
chili flakes or hot sauce (optional)
TUNA MELT SANDWICH
1 slice bread
1 slice cheese
2 tbsp homemade tuna spread
1. Make the tuna spread.  Drain all the water from the tuna, dump it in a bowl together with the rest of the ingredients and mix until everything is smooth and spreadable.
2. Spread some tuna onto the bread and layer cheese on top.  Place in an oven toaster until the cheese is melted.
3. Enjoy!
I prefer to use Gardenia bread for this since the slices are large and thick. I also like to use white bread which may not be the most healthy option, but tastes best when toasted, in my opinion. You can use whatever cheese you’ve got in your fridge. Most of the time I just use quick melt, but today I found a nice slice of Dutch Edam left over from my trip to Santi’s last weekend, and that gave my snack the extra umph I needed today.  
Simple joys.  Happy tummy. 

Super Saturday Nights

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When you work in events management, weekends are usually nonexistent.  I think this is a happy problem, because too much work is better than no work in this industry.  It all boils down to how you can make your schedule work for you, and how you manage to de-stress.  After all, there’s nothing worse than seeing a stressed out, overworked, tired, cranky person standing in the middle of a supposedly fun activity.  Now that I’m working in a mall we actually only get one day off in a week, but we’re lucky that our rest day falls on a Sunday.  Thing is, most of the time we have activities on Sundays so my weekends, or rather, my rest days have become fewer and further between.

I’ve been doing events for about 7 years now and have tried everything from corporate events, social functions, concerts, seminars, awards ceremonies, weddings, birthdays, name it.  I’ve been through many levels of sleeplessness, and at one point, I actually had to work 21 days straight.  Things are getting even busier now as the holidays are fast approaching.  The funny thing is I really love the job and everything that comes with it, including the stress and the erratic schedule.

Since I don’t want to burn out too quickly like I did in my previous job, I decided last night to follow one very basic rule – I MUST HAVE MY SATURDAY NIGHT.  Meaning, whether or not I have work on Sunday, I should make sure that I spend my Saturday night doing something I like.  There will be Saturdays when I’ll need to stay late at the office or at an event, and owning my Saturday could mean having anything I want for dinner, or treating myself to a good cup of coffee or a nice drink after work.

Wine, cheese and cold cuts from Santis!

I unknowingly started this Saturday night thing last weekend, when my boys and I had dinner at Mona Lisa.  Had a glass of wine with dinner, which is not something I usually do when we go out with Tristan.  But that one glass of wine really helped me relax, and I actually slept like a baby that night.  I enjoyed it so much that I decided to stop by Santi’s before heading home after work yesterday to get a bottle of wine and some cheese and cold cuts.  Like I said before, I’m lucky to have a husband who gives in to my snooty food preferences.

Yummers

I ended up taking home a bottle of Sangiovese, some Brie and Dutch Edam, Salami Milano and Parma Ham.  Yum!  When I arrived home, mom had a pot of awesome Oso Buco on the stove, so I had my DIY deli platter and a glass of wine as a happy appetizer.  Then I treated myself to some coffee crumble ice cream for dessert, to cap off my high fat, high calorie weekend treat.  And yes, I slept like a baby again last night.

These are a few of my favorite things.

Even if I had to work today, I still feel like I got my weekend’s worth of R&R.  And I am so looking forward to next Saturday.

What do you guys do to unwind on weekends?

Report Card Day!

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I love days like today when I get to perform mommy duties. Since I have ingress at the mall tonight, I was able to change to closing shift and free up my morning to pick up Tristan’s report card from school. I’m really happy that I was able to do that because it’s the Kiddo’s first report card in big school, and I really wanted to hear his teacher’s feedback on his performance and behavior. I was the second parent from his class to arrive, proof that I really was excited. I’m NEVER early!

While waiting for the first mommy to finish her consultation, I took a look at the kids’ displayed projects and saw Tristan and his dad’s photo on the reading board.

When It was finally my turn to speak with Teacher Lou, I was so happy to hear that Tristan has been doing exceptionally well in school. He has excellent grades and behavior in class, is friends with everyone, and helps out his teacher too. I’m so proud of him! I’m proud of Bong and myself as well, because it means were doing OK in the parenting department.

Now to figure out what would be a nice prize for the Kiddo…

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Recipe: Best Banana Bread

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I discovered this banana bread recipe in a library book a few years ago, and I liked it so much that I even made a few loaves and gave them as presents one Christmas.  I make mine without the walnuts coz my brother doesn’t like them.  I made a batch again today after over a year of not baking, and I’m glad that they turned out just as good as they did before.

Thought I’d share the recipe with everyone, and digitally archive it as well in case I lose my precious recipe notebook.  Do let me know how it turns out in case any of you try to make this yourselves.

 
BEST BANANA BREAD
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup salted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar, packed
2 large eggs
3 cups ripe bananas (about 7 medium), mashed
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup (4 ounces) chopped walnuts (optional) 
 
  1. Preheat oven to 325°F.  Grease two 9×5″ loaf pans.
  2. In a medium bowl, combine flour, soda and salt with a wire whisk; set aside.
  3. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer.  Add eggs, bananas and vanilla, and beat at medium speed until thick.  Scrape down sides of bowl.
  4. Add the flour mixture & walnuts, then blend at low speed until just combined.  Do not overmix.
  5. Pour batter into prepared pans.  Bake on center rack of oven for 60-70 minutes.  A toothpick inserted in center should come out clean, and the bread should pull away from the sides.
  6. Cool in pan for 10 minutes.  Turn pans on sides; cool to room temperature before removing and slicing.
Enjoy!  Our household certainly did.

Wanderlust

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If there’s one thing I miss about my previous jobs, it would have to be all the wonderful travelling.  I’ve been to many great places around the Philippines for work over the years – Cebu, Davao, Baguio, Boracay, El Nido, Cagayan de Oro, Linggayen, Puerto Prinsesa, Clark, Subic, Batangas… And the list goes on.

It’s been nearly six months now since I started my new job, and looking at it on a day-to-day perspective, the location and the fact that I’m now based in one fixed area is ever so convenient.  I seriously miss travelling and staying at nice hotels and all that, though.  My wanderlust has been activated, and I think this was brought about by our wedding weekend hotel hopping experience, which I completely enjoyed.

Over the past couple of days, I’ve been going through photos of nice vacation spots and bed and breakfasts and hotels in Manila and nearby provinces, looking for nice little getaway spots that the Hubs and I can easily sneak away to.  I’m also looking for a great deal on a honeymoon vacation destination that we hopefully will get to go to by next year, around the time of my birthday.  Am thinking maybe somewhere in Bohol, since I’ve never been there before?  Bellarocca looks pretty too, but I’m worried there might not be much to do once were there already.

For a quick getaway, Tagaytay is always top of mind since it’s so close to home.  I’ve always wanted to stay at Discovery Country Suites, but the price is pretty steep.  We’ve already tried Boutique Bed and Breakfast, which was pretty ok.  There are a lot of B&B’s sprouting in Tagaytay actually, and I’m pretty intrigued by T House and Lee Boutique Hotel.  Of course, there’s always that option for a quick overnight getaway at one of the nice hotels in the city.

Oh how I wish we could plan a monthly escape.  Then again, that might be a bit too much.

*Cue daydreaming*

And So Begins My Sugarcoated Life

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For some reason, I can’t keep to one blog for a long period of time.  I’ve been through maybe four or five already over the last 10 years, jumping from Geocities to Blogspot to Tumblr to my latest effort on WordPress.com.   It took some time for me to get used to WordPress’ interface, and just when I was finally happy with how my blog looked, my site got suspended due to a supposed violation of the terms of service.  Ironically, I discovered that the site was blocked after not being able to log on for about a month or so.  It’s so disappointing, and I feel kind of rejected.

Ironically, my blog prior to my move to WordPress, “Hooked” powered by Blogger is just sitting on my dashboard, waiting to be un-deleted.  Because of this discovery, I tried to access my old blogs, both of which are on Blogger.  Lo and behold, they are all still up and running, although I can’t log on to update them anymore since I’ve long forgotten the username and password for both.

 
Brainfarting (Last post was in 2005)
 
Mommy In Training (Last post was in 2006)

Blogger has never failed me, and so I’ve decided to come back.  I thought the grass might be greener on the other side, and I decided to try it out.  But my best blogging experience is still right here.

So, Blogger friends, you guys can start following me again!  And this time maybe I’ll keep this blog going longer.  Or at least I’ll try.

 

EDIT: I moved to WordPress.org in 2012, and I have no regrets! 😀