The house-helper left the house quite late today for her Sunday grocery. The rest of the relatives were somewhere else and I was left all alone. It’s 11:30am. Time for lunch and I had to summon my secret impromptu cooking skills. 🙂

The result: sauteed squash (ginisang kalabasa) and a set of fried fish lumpia. 🙂

The fried fish lumpia was fairly easy. It’s a ready-to-fry lumpia pack from the grocery. 🙂 Ah, the convenience of instant food (in exchange for preservatives) 🙂

I cooked it first as a strategy I learned from mom way before.  It saves on cooking oil since you could use the left over cooking oil from the pan for sauteing the next vegetable dish — Sauteed Squash.

NomNom Recipe for Sauteed Squash:

Suateed Squash & Fried Lumpia

Ingredients:

• 1 medium squash/pumpkin; sliced into cubes
• 1/2 garlic bulb
• 1/2 onion bulb
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 cup water
• cooking oil

Procedure:

1. I first pan fried some crushed garlic and slices of half a bulb of onion.
2. This was followed by slices of squash cubes; mix well.
3. Heat for a while (1 minute) and add a cup of water.
4. Add two tablespoon of soy sauce and mix again; you may add salt and other spices to your liking.
5. Let it boil or simmer until the water left is just enough to cover the base of the pan; stir from time to time.
6. Serve while hot.

Well, this might not be perfect, or something, but this is how NomNom does his no-fuss Sauteed Squash and tricky fried lumpia. 🙂

It’s the season of commercial love. Yes, a market-driven one characterized by candies, chocolates, flowers, gifts, and occasional greeting cards, to materialistically symbolise one’s love and affection for another.

But whatever the Valentine’s Day critics say, it always feels good to receive a chocolate, a bouquet of flowers, and a cake from your loved one, be it your relative, parents, kids, or special partner.

Roses & Kisses Cake

So Red Ribbon made sure this becomes easy for the gift giver with their seasonal Roses and Kisses Cake which is now available for pre-order until February 9, 2009

It’s a chocolate pound cake shaped as a lovey-dovey heart and decorated with edible sugar roses and Hershey’s milk chocolate Kisses on top. Made beautiful inside-out, it is made with layers of chocolate fudge filling sprinkled with chocolate chips.

Looks and sounds lovely, doesn’t it?

So what about the taste? I like how it tastes different from the usual sweet cakes we usually have. It isn’t tiring to the taste buds, so I believe a couple can finish a whole cake in one sitting. 🙂

Truly a seasonal cake just for this valentine season, the 6 diameter white heart is priced at P330 and is customizable with a total of 14-character text before and after the “Happy Valentine’s Day” box for your special message for him/her.

Red Ribbon's Valentine's Day Cake - Roses And Kisses Cake

Read this blog post too late? And it’s Valentine’s Day in a day or two? Red Ribbon’s Valentine’s Cake – Roses and Kisses is available off the shelf in all Red Ribbon branches nationwide from Febraury 12-14, 2010.

As promised, we’re bringing back Food Foto Fiesta.

I had a recent surprising discovery of a Filipino restaurant called Serye. It’s related to the classic Aristocrat restaurant that anyone above 20, and residing in the Philippines, would be familiar with.

Actually, Serye have been around for sometime but is currently re-branding from Serye Restaurant and Cafe, to Serye Cafe Filipino; but that story deserves a separate article altogether. Stay tuned for that in the coming weeks.

For now, feast on the 10 photos I recently took from their Eastwood Libis branch.

Gambas

Pork Spareribs

Kesong Puti Puttanesca

Pork Binagoongan

Arroz Ala Cubana Pandesal

Tuna Sisig

Kesong Puti Salad

Dinuguan and Puto

Boneless Crispy Pata

* Food photos taken at Serye Cafe Filipino Eastwood Libis Branch.

The Food Foto Fiesta is a regular section from an affiliate food and travel blog LetsGoSago.net. Since it now focuses largely on travel (although still with some travel-related food write-ups), NomNomClub.com now revives a similar section here.

No explanation, no stories. Just dish labels and scrumptious images enough to make the onlooker drool, just enough to let your stomach grumble and make you want to go there and eat.

It’s roughly defined as a mob of food pictures from a focus dining place. 🙂 I hope you would enjoy our upcoming Food Foto Fiestas!

Silangan Elementary School

A follow up to the earlier Christmas hangover post is a charity-related event where Jollibee‘s Christmas Caravan went to Silangan Elementary School in Sta. Cruz, Laguna.

This is part of Jollibee‘s “MaAga Ang Pasko” program where they collected children’s used toys through theor Christmas boxes in all Jollibee branches nationwide.

After the collection period, the toys were cleaned and washed in partnership with a commercial laundry group and some volunteers.

Then from hereon, they selected a number of public schools from different locations around the Philippines. One of which is the Silangan Elementary School.

Celebrity/Actor Aga Muhlach

Jollibee MaAga Ang Pasko

A school ravaged by last year’s typhoon Ondoy (Internaitonal typhoon Ketsana), Silangan Elementary School was still in the process of recovery when we went there last December of 2009.

Interestingly, this event opened the first day of their classes as well. (School operations stopped while the school was under construction and rehabilitation from the typhoon).

In line with this, Jollibee will be assisting the school in its recovery efforts.

All the students gathered at the school gym with its stage prepped-up for the program.

More Photos as a movie:

And of course, the celebrity model for the Jollibee MaAga Ang Pasko program is none other than Aga Muhlach. Aga spearheaded the program after two stage presentations from the school’s student representatives. Aga Muhlach went around the school as well before helping in the distribution of the Jollibee MaAga Ang Pasko toys and gift packs to the students.

Jollibee Christmas Caravan

The Jollibee Christmas Caravan was a long trip from Manila to Laguna but it was all worth it having seen the happy faces of the children and students.

A month after the holidays, Starbucks‘ Dark Cherry Mocha still stayed on the menu board way after the other two holiday featured beverages Toffee Nut Latte and Peppermint Mocha was taken off the shelf – which is a good thing! 🙂

Give in to your chocolate craving with its combination of espresso, steamed milk, and bittersweet chocolate with dark cherry flavor; topped with whipped cream and cocoa powder.

And although the Starbucks Planner fever is over, it tastes like Christmas all over. 🙂

Finally, a week  after the Top 6 Christmas Wishlist entry came out, we will now know who will be NomNom Club’s 2009 Best Christmas Wishlist Bl0g.

From among the 25 entries last December 2009, “My Shrubbish Nomnomlicious Wishlist“ wins as NomNom Club’s 2009 Best Christmas Wishlist Blog!

Congratulations to John Paul Vergoni of Kompyuter Sayantist for his entry “My Shrubbish Nomnomlicious Wishlist“.

First (1st) Runner-up is ‘”My Christmas 2009 Wishlist” by Edelweiza Mabalay from  “The Life of a Breadwinner.”

Second (2nd) Runner up is “My Grownup Christmas List” by Ria Tirazona from”Daydream Believer“.

Thanks you to Ia Lucero who helped us in the very hard judging process. Ia is a fellow writer, blogger, and a respected web designer in the online community. See more details of her work at Stellify.net

The grand winner brings home the limited edition Starbucks USB flash drive. The second and third placer each gets an authentic Starbucks cap and lace (instead of the earlier announced gift certificates). Wait for the confirmation email in your inbox within this week where your valid Philippine address will be requested for shipping purposes.

Again, congratulations to all winners and participants. I hope you would join our succeeding contests in the future.

Stay tuned to Nomnom Club‘s food adventures and contests by subscribing to our email feed and Facebook Fanpage.

Hopefully we could have another Christmas Wishlist contest for 2010 come December. 🙂

Via Mare Restaurant

When I refer to something as ‘expensive‘, it does not necessarily pertain to the high price alone.

When it comes to food, I consider the value through the balance of  quantity, quality, and preparation involved. Simply said, ‘is it worth your buck‘?

As a supposed branch specialty, I decided to try out Via Mare‘s Bulalo from their SM Mall of Asia branch.

Via Mare Interiors, SM Mall of Asia

Bulalo is one of my favorite stew dish so I was anticipating  to try Via Mare’s version. The menu says P400 ($9). It’s not cheap, but I assumed it’s a big bowl enough for at least two.

Come serving time, it was indeed a big bowl with some vegetables and 2 corn cub slices. I excitedly got the meat part first but it wasn’t as soft as a bulalo should. The soup is just so-so and almost half of the meat serving is ‘litid‘ (ligament).

Bulalo @ P400

I’d just like to clarify though that the bulalo was not that bad, it was average. It juat wasn’t at par with my expectations – which was the problem because I expected more from Via Mare who prepares good Bibingka Galapong and is one of the established restaurant brands in the Philippines.

I guess it was just a bad night for the bulalo. 🙂