Our Family's Thanksgiving Tradition

Our family tries to stick to traditions, and part of that is celebrating the four major holidays with my in-laws. There are 4 of us families in all -- my parents-in-law, my husband's brother's family, his sister's family, and our very own, that take turns hosting the four major holidays, and for this year's Thanksgiving, my mother-in-law was the "IT." In addition, we have her father with us as well, so that makes for four generations in these gatherings.

I was excited when Eric and Tiffany of theguerrilagourmet.com emailed me for an invitation to be a part of their holiday project - The Gorilla Gourmet -- to represent Maine.  It is an honor for me to do so.

Our family probably typically represents the Mainers in that we try our best to be together with family (and exclusively family) during the Holidays. My mother-in-law prepares her fruit cocktail with mostly canned fruits that they picked from their own trees and bushes.

Our usual menu stars THE TURKEY and it will never be Thanksgiving if we prepare an entreé other than the turkey. (Oh, the Filipina in me tried to do that before, and it was like a major violation to them true Mainers!). The turkey is roasted with stuffing that is usually prepared the night before then stuffed into the turkey's cavity just before roasting.

Mashed potatoes are also prepared using potatoes they harvested from their own garden. White bread is prepared using a breadmaker (and no, we don't mill our own flour; we get that from Hannaford stores). Other sides are pitted olives, cranberry salad, bread and butter pickles, boiled onions (a Tibbetts family tradition that I am still trying very hard to assimilate), and mashed turnips.

My mother-in-law also prepared three various pies -- pecan pie, pumpkin pie and raspberry pie, but I forgot to take photos of these desserts before they were gone. One thing that my mother-in-law prepared last year that she skipped this year was the pumpkin whoopie piea, something that was not really traditionally prepared in our family during Thanksgiving, but my younger son was somehow anticipating this year. Now if there is something in our menu that I would be almost sure was very Maine-ly, it would be whoopie pies. So I decided to make the whoopie pies the very next day (recipe coming soon), and I promised to my son that from now on, pumpkin whoopie pies will be part of the Thanksgiving tradition in our family.

From the slideshow above, you can see how closely-knit our families are.  I feel so blessed to have in-laws who treat my sons as if they are true blood relations, and that is something worth thanking for.  We have a lot other things to be thankful for, but that would be something exclusively for our family to ponder upon.

Menu for July 4th

Gotta prepare for July 4th...I am the IT for this year. Yikes! Menu in mind: pork and chicken barbecue, hotdogs and burgers (for the Americans), chips, veggies with dip, tossed salad, potato salad, deviled eggs, cut up fruits, orange salad (or ambrosia), fruit salad (pinoy style), homemade vanilla ice cream, wave-your-flag crema de fruta...

Oh wait...I don't have Pinoy visitors...the only Pinoys are myself and my boys. I might end up with lots of leftovers. Oh well, we'll see

What's in your menu?

Filipino Christmas Party

I miss the kind of Filipino Christmas Celebration...no matter how little money we had then, we would always have something special on the table for Christmas. I remember my usual role was to prep the leche flan and lumpiang shanghai. My Nanay would prepare the buko salad (or macaroni or fruit), and my younger sister would cook pancit. The men are usually busy with the bakery giveaways and distribution then. My older sister was not living with us anymore since she was in college, and would just visit us during holidays, often not really to join in the cooking. This preparation time I missed most because of the "stress" of preparing food in time for Noche Buena. Then we would always have some party-ing involving karaoke and some dancing, whether or not we actually knew how to. In the small subdivision where we lived then, we had a brief Christmas party with exchange gifts and some singing/dancing program and eating the potluck foods. Then we would come back home and have our own Noche Buena, followed by the most awaited moment by the kids: giving our gifts to them. They were always excited to receive theirs, no matter how cheap they were. The adults get gifts and had to be content with what the others could afford (don't we all?). Very little did we have in money terms, and it was with heavy heart that we indulge in this once-a-year important event...a time to forget about our worries no matter how short, and just bask in the presence and love of one another in the family.


Now here in the US, as I try to recreate the same atmosphere, I only have several established friends that I do these things with, although some are still quite shy to dance or sing, and most of the kids do not feel like joining in with the adults. They have their computer games to enjoy, in the company of other kids. I don't mind, really. As long as we are having fun, that's all that matters. However, I wish I had my family of origin to share this moment with as well. The photos below show the foods we prepared. They were all lined up on my countertops. We used the dining table mainly for eating.

In trying to recreate the hustle and bustle, I prepped quite a lot of foods, although it really got tiring to prep all I wanted singlehandedly. Of course my sons could pitch in some, but it is never the same preparing foods while chatting with the other females in the family. I created and sent out 20++ invitations to Filipinos here, both known to me personally or not. Only 4 were able to make it, one declined (out of state) and the rest did not even care to respond/leave a message on my phone. Would I dare do the same thing next year? Probably not. I will just call my closest friends and plan for the party, just like we did in the previous years.
My visitors all had some food to share. We had monito-monita both for us adults and exchange gifts for the kids. I made it a point to emphasize that the gifts be less than $15, only so we get into the spirit of gift-giving. While the kids did DDR, we adults just contented ourselves chatting with one another.

We had fun enough to somewhat satisfy our craving for Filipino companionship during this season.

I do not have any religious allusions to this season. Please do not attack me for being an agnostic Christian.

Sugar Cookies for decorating Graveyard Halloween Cake

This post should have been earlier uploaded,.

From Sugar cookies for Halloween

but I had been working every night since Halloween, and I blog during the slow time of my shift, if any.

I was not able to take a photo of the cake that I made for Halloween. I got the idea of "graveyard" look by browsing kraftfood.com. I brought it to work with only the chocolate glaze on it, planning to top it with crushed Oreos then decorate once I got to work, but I forgot to bring my camera! Anyway, while I found it quite too sweet for my teeth, my coworkers said it was excellent!

The recipe I used for the sugar cookies was courtesy of Liz. My husband hogged the sugar cookies as soon as the first batches were out of the oven. He loved them especially with the sugars. I got different sprinkles and icing colors from Walmart. (Hubby had been hinting to me for years that he likes sugar cookies. I just got discouraged with the flat cookies I have been making using Nestle Toll House choco chip cookies recipe that I did not try sugar cookies too soon.) My sons had some fun trying to shape them cookies and decorating, but I myself had a hard time achieving the effect I wanted (as you can see in the photo). I probably will try to recreate that graveyard cake just so I can take a photo. I still have some sugar cookies in the freezer (we got tired of shaping them).

I will post about the cake recipe itself once I had the gumption to make it again and take a photo of it complete with "graveyard" decors.

Pumpkin Carving

It's Halloween!

From pumpkin carving

One thing we have embraced in the Western Culture is the tradition of pumpkin carving during this holiday. I have to go to work tonight so we did this last night. Too bad my stepd had to be with her mother so she was not able to join in the fun. (We also made sugar cookies and tried to decorate them.) Here's my artwork, and those of my kids can be seen in the slideshow below.

I purchased a cheap pumpkin carving kit from Hannaford a few weeks ago. The boys were quite excited when they saw it (first time to have that at home!) so last night was the opportunity they (we all) have been waiting for. I myself had some fun (I joined in the carving craze since my stepd was not here and my husband never really was interested in this activity. He just likes appreciating our finished products.) Now I am off to find a recipe for the seeds...