Finding BonggaMom

How to fry croutons

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Sun, 26 May 2013 01:22:00 +0000

I must really be a glutton for punishment. Of all the weeks to pick to try out recipes from Jennie Perillo's cookbook, Homemade With Love: Simple Scratch Cooking from In Jennie's Kitchen, it had to be this week. Aside from my usual schedule I had PTA parties, blog events, lunch with a visiting uncle, The Pea's band concert and my birthday -- plus I've been in Disneyland for the last 2 days, so I had to cram 5 weekdays worth of work into 3. Yet I found myself not only cooking from scratch but blogging about it for 3 consecutive days!

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How to roast tomatoes

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Sat, 25 May 2013 00:53:00 +0000

I received a review copy of Jennifer Perillo's cookbook

Oven's are a lazy cook's best friend. I love baked dishes because usually all you have to do is throw ingredients into a casserole, throw the casserole into the oven, and the oven does the rest. Roasted vegetables are probably the easiest dishes to make, and getting a great-tasting roast is nearly foolproof. I first learned how to roast potatoes when I was a graduate student, then graduated to roasted carrots, peppers and onions when I first had kids.

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Jennifer Perillo's Zucchini Walnut Muffins (sort of)

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Fri, 24 May 2013 00:34:00 +0000

I received a review copy of Jennifer Perillo's cookbook

I've always wanted to make zucchini bread, but for some reason I've never gotten around to doing it. Maybe it's because zucchini isn't a vegetable I regularly buy. Maybe it's because I had a feeling that it would be a lot of trouble. Whatever the case, I've never tried making it until now. I've been leafing through Jennifer Perillo's cookbook Homemade With Love: Simple Scratch Cooking from In Jennie's Kitchen. Alfie has been hankering for some fruitcake or tea bread, so Jennie's recipe for Zucchini Walnut Muffins jumped out at me, and I decided to go for it.

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Raw Food Dinner

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Raw food diets are all the rage these days, with age-defying celebrities like Demi Moore, Alicia Silverstone, Gwyneth Paltrow and Woody Harrelson fueling the trend. I've never really looked into raw food, mostly because the thought of limiting myself to uncooked fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts is much too daunting.

No toasting.
No roasting.
No boiling.
No broiling.
No baking.
No frying.
I'm shaking.
I'm dying.

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What's for lunch this week?

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:05:00 +0000

Ham, cheese & Ritz crackers, blueberries, grape tomatoes

This week I'm going to be out of town for 2 days, so I can't make lunch for the kids on those days. OR CAN I? At first I thought of buying Oscar Mayer's Lunchables packs for them in advance and storing them in the fridge for Thursday and Friday, but then I realized, I can make my own lunchables! It's so easy to cut ham and cheese into squares and pack them with Ritz crackers. They'll keep in the fridge just as well as the store-bought Lunchables -- and my lunchables come with blueberries and tomatoes!

With that in mind, this week I'm featuring lunches that can be made ahead of time. I normally make each lunch fresh each morning because I don't want any sandwiches to get soggy (or worse, dry out). But the lunches below can be stored in the fridge overnight, or even a couple of nights ahead. Just wrap the sandwiches in cling wrap and freeze them; the rest of the ingredients can stay in the bento box container in the fridge. When it's time to pack lunch, add the frozen sandwich to the bento box and it should thaw by lunchtime.

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Business trip or pleasure junket?

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Mon, 20 May 2013 04:36:00 +0000

Bay Area mom bloggers from last year's Cars Land press event: Techmama, SV Twin Mom, bonggamom, Xiaolinmama, The Silent I

This week I'm traveling to the Disneyland Resort for a press event: they want to make sure everyone knows about the newest section of Fantasyland, Fantasy Faire, and they're celebrating the debut of Disneyland Park's new live show, Mickey and the Magical Map. Even though my time there will be filled with interviews and film tapings, there's going to be a press party and we do get lots of breaks to explore the parks. And even though I'm going solo (the kids are outraged, but they've missed enough school to visit the Philippines last December), any visit to the Disneyland Resort is a great one, and I'm really looking forward to my trip. Okay, I'm DYING to start my trip. What with end-of-school activities, next year's PTA activities, the usual afterschool carpool runs and my regular work, life has gotten way too hectic, and this trip is starting to feel like my only chance to take a breather from everyday life and grab some time for myself.

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What's for lunch this week?

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Tue, 14 May 2013 18:01:00 +0000

Scones with peanut butter and jelly, cherry tomatoes, honeydew melon

Holy cow, where has the time gone? I can't believe it has been almost a month since I last posted my lunch photos! I've been faithfully snapping away every weekday morning, but when Monday rolls around, I've either been too busy, too sick or too lazy to actually write the post. It doesn't help that school is ending a lot earlier than usual (our school district altered the school calendar to end in May instead of mid-June because the earlier calendar will give high school seniors the chance to finish their mid-term exams before the holiday break). It also doesn't help that I'm going to co-president of our school PTA board for next year.

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Kids, kids and more kids: A visit to a goat farm

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Sun, 12 May 2013 05:41:00 +0000

May is always a crazy-busy month, what with all the end-of-year activities like class picnics, sports days, thank-you brunches, field trips and classroom activities. Yes, field trips and classroom activities happen throughout the year, and I could just stop volunteering and make my life easy. But this year all the coolest ones seemed to happen at the end of the year, so busy or not, I had to make time for them! Take the cow eye dissection -- no way I was about to miss that. Then the very next week came Jammy's field trip to Harley Farms Goat Dairy, and I've been wanting to visit that place since forever, so of course I had to go.

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Jennifer Perillo's Lentil-Ricotta "Meatballs" (sort of)

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Sat, 11 May 2013 04:30:00 +0000

Last week I attended a launch party for food blogger Jennifer Perillo's new cookbook, Homemade With Love: Simple Scratch Cooking from In Jennie's Kitchen. Everything we ate at the party was one of Jennie's dishes, cooked by Jennie and another food blogger and cookbook author, Gina Von Esmarch.

One of the tastiest dishes there was Jennie's Lentil-Ricotta "Meatballs" -- obviously, the quotes are there because this is a vegetarian version of traditional Italian meatballs. Since we're always looking for ways to cut down on our meat intake, I resolved that this would be the very first thing from Jennie's cookbook that I would try to make.

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Gumdrop Bridge Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Fri, 10 May 2013 03:45:00 +0000

One of the activities that 3Po and Jammy enjoyed most during their week at Camp Galileo was building a suspension bridge out of pipe cleaners, wood, cardboard and rocks. It wasn't just a beautiful art project: the bridge actually had to support the weight of 100 pennies! It was exactly the kind of challenge they relish. Even more important, they applied and learned some important engineering principles: forces, weight distribution, counterbalancing, etc -- have stuck with them. Now they know the difference between a cantilever and a suspension bridge, and every time we cross the Bay Bridge or the Golden Gate Bridge, they can look at the structure and understand what the trusses and cables are for.

Those lessons have definitely stuck with them: one afternoon a couple of months ago I found myself browsing through the Galileo Learning blog and came across a post describing a Gumdrop Bridge Challenge. It was a slow afternoon, and I already had toothpicks and mini marshmallows in the cupboard, so I challenged the boys to build a 10-inch bridge with just 40 toothpicks and 20 gumdrops.

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A sweet party for a sweet 12 year-old

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 07:00:00 +0000

If I'm not mistaken, it has rained almost every year on the day that The Pea has had a birthday party. This year, we finally wised up and realized that the best way to ensure clear skies would be to hold her party in late April instead of early April -- less showers, more flowers. Here's how we celebrated:

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How to Dissect a Cow Eye

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 05:47:00 +0000

Warning: This post contains graphic, gross, gory photos! If you feel squeamish at the thought of raw body parts, here is the gist of today's post: 3Po and Jammy dissected a cow's eyeball in class today. No need to read further.

For those of you who like the gore, read on...

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What's for lunch this week? Who cares?

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:43:00 +0000

Without a doubt, this was a week that sucked. So far we've had the horrible tragedy at the Boston Marathon on Monday, an earthquake at the Iran-Pakistan border on Tuesday, and a fertilizer plant explosion in Texas on Wednesday. I actually need a calculator to figure out the total number of dead and injured (I'm lazy at mental math). The US Senate voted down an already watered-down background check bill for gun purchases (the Manchin-Toomey amendment), which means even more bodies added to future death/injured tolls.

On the shallower side (far shallower, but focusing on the inane helps calm my agitation at the injustices of the world), my favorite soccer team Arsenal tied 0-0 with Everton and Manchester United managed to pull off a last minute goal to tie the score and deny West Ham a well-deserved victory. To top things off, a virus has entered our home. I've felt crappy all week and I've infected the rest of the family. Is it any wonder that I don't feel like making lunch?

This was not my week for homemade lunches with colorful fruit and interesting sandwich fillings. It was a week for school hot lunches, for bread and cheese, for bagels with cream cheese and PBJ, for Oscar Mayer Lunchables. It was a week to sit on the sofa and watch the news and explain to the kids the meaning of words like pressure cooker and fertilizer and amputation. Yes, a healthy, beautifully presented lunch shows your kids that you care, but so does a hug. This week, I chose hugs.

Grilled cheese and mushroom sandwich

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 01:49:00 +0000

Today is National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day, but I didn't find out about it until mid-morning, so I wasn't able to make grilled cheese sandwiches for the kids' lunch. I'm not about to let such a delectable holiday pass by without any fanfare, so naturally I put grilled cheese sandwiches on the menu for dinner.

Tonight's grilled cheese sandwich has two kinds of cheese, brie and cheddar. It also has sauteed mushrooms, onions and roasted garlic. I bought roasted garlic from the deli, then sauteed it with the mushrooms and onions for about 10 minutes. Then I sandwiched the sauteed mixture with the brie and cheddar in a sandwich roll.

To grill the sandwich, I used our panini press, which has rendered our actual grilled cheese sandwich press obsolete ever since Alfie got it for our anniversary in November. It's so easy to grill any kind of sandwich, of any thickness -- and it marks the sandwich with those pretty grill lines. Every time we use it, I remember the days we spent in France and Belgium, sitting in chic little sidewalk cafes, munching on paninis. Our panini press doesn't just serve up great food, it serves up great memories as well :)

Happy National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day! Here's hoping your grilled cheese sandwiches bring back lots of good memories for you.

Thirty-eight lunches to go....

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 21:10:00 +0000

Honeydew melon, olives, cherry tomatoes, string cheese, Ritz Crackers

Spring Break is over, and after nine days of leisure it's difficult to go back to the daily school schedule. It makes it even more difficult because the days are getting sunnier, the air is getting warmer, the daylight is lasting longer.

Summer is almost here.... except it actually isn't. We just say it's almost here because we so badly want it to be. We still have eight weeks of school left -- or to be more precise, we have 7 weeks plus 4 school days since school lets out on a Thursday. Plus 3 school days, not 4, since today's school day is pretty much over. That's thirty-eight more school lunches to pack. That's 114 servings of fruit for my 3 kids. And 228 slices of bread, assuming I pack a sandwich every day.

Can you tell I'm ready for the schoolyear to be over?

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Celebrating Twelve

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 14:00:00 +0000

Three years ago I wrote a blog post about how sad/scared/sentimental I was about The Pea turning nine. Ha. If only I knew how good I had it back then. Now her younger brothers are nine, and this beautiful creature has turned twelve. Twelve.

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My kid got the honors... but our car won't be getting a bumper sticker

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 06:27:00 +0000

Last week we received some exciting news: The Pea has made the Honor Roll for the first semester of 6th grade! Truth be told, we have no idea what being on the Honor Roll signifies: whether only the top 1 or 5 or 10 percent of students get it, or whether everyone with an A or A+ or B+ grade average gets it. "Honor Roll" definitely has an air of distinction about it, but then again, in this day and age where just completing all your homework for a week can earn a kid a certificate, or just entering a tournament can earn him a medal, it's hard to tell whether this award really means something. On the other hand, The Pea is a pretty good student, and she has been bringing home mostly perfect scores on assignments. One of these days I'll get around to asking a teacher exactly what it means, but for now we are assuming it is a Big Deal, and acting accordingly.

As a reward for her accomplishment, we ate out last weekend and The Pea got to choose the restaurant, and we're giving her some money to get her a bit closer to that iPhone she's desperately saving up for. Apparently that is not enough: she wants us to get The Bumper Sticker. You know, the one that says "Proud Parent of an Honor Student at XXX Middle School" or "My kid is an honor student at XXX Middle School".

Hmmm.......um.... maybe we should tone the celebrations down?

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Happy (Minimalist) Easter!

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 01:41:00 +0000

All day I've been enjoying cute Easter photos of my kids' friends on Facebook -- cuties dressed in adorable pastel outfits, showing off their Easter baskets, hunting for eggs, posing with the Easter Bunny (Doesn't anyone make a CUTE Easter Bunny costume? They all look kind of freaky!). Unfortunately, I don't have any cute Easter photos of my own to share. The last time attended an Easter brunch or egg hunt was 2 or 3 years ago, and it has been even longer than that since we've seen the Easter bunny.

This year even Easter eggs have fallen by the wayside. The kids received just one Cadbury's Creme Egg apiece (two if you count the eggs I bought a couple of days ago). After Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day, I didn't really want to celebrate with more sugar. In past years I've filled their Easter baskets with little toys like Lego or Playmobil, but the thought of introducing more toys, stuffed animals and plastic junk to the household made me want to hop away. So I took what I would have spent on candy and toys, bought iTunes and Google Play Store gift cards, and put those in the plastic eggs. It's not that I'm trying to be a better parent by doing away with the candy and toys; after all, it just encourages them to buy their noses in apps and videogames. It's just that Easter is evolving as the kids grow up.

But in case you're nostalgic for a more traditional Easter, here are a few Easter memories as sweet as a basketful of chocolate bunnies:

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3Po aces our Fire Drill

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 04:05:00 +0000

A couple of months ago I bought two fire extinguishers for the house: the first, to replace the 10 year-old extinguisher for the first floor, and the second, for the second floor, which has never had a fire extinguisher until now. Alfie showed everyone where he installed both fire extinguishers, but when he quizzed us about it a month later, our fire safety savvy was sadly lacking. None of us could remember where they were! 3Po, however, showed us that whatever his lack of fire safety savvy, he had other kinds of savvy:

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Spinach Smoothie

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:24:00 +0000

Spinach is one of my favorite vegetables. I use it in salads, scrambles, soups, sandwiches and a few more dishes that I can't remember at this moment (probably because they don't begin with "s"). But I never really thought about using it in a drink (spinach to sip!) until the advent of Pinterest. The prospect doesn't disgust me (Naked Juice's Green Machine, which has spinach, broccoli, wheatgrass and other good stuff, is one of my favorite storebought smoothies ), I've just never thought of making it for myself.

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Painting the town RED for Marriage Equality

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 05:14:00 +0000

Today was one of those rare IRL -- In Real Life -- days. I spent the entire morning on a field trip, chaperoning The Pea's 6th grade class around Chinatown. I spent lunchtime watching old episodes of Modern Family (after months of being on the library's waiting list for the Season 3 DVD, my turn had finally come up!). I drove the boys to soccer practice, and while they were at the field I took The Pea to Home Depot to choose paint colors for her room. I checked my email, Twitter and Instagram feeds throughout the day, but for some reason didn't get around to checking Facebook until almost 6PM. So I was totally unprepared for the sea of red that covered Facebook today.

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What's for lunch? And how much is too much?

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 15:34:00 +0000

California rolls, dried pineapple, Girl Scout Thin Mints

A reader left a comment on one of my "What's for Lunch" posts that left me thinking. She had the opinion that I wasn't packing enough lunch to fill my kids up. She was nice enough to say that she meant no offense, and none was taken, but it's an interesting topic of conversation.

Packing the right amount for lunch is like reliving the story of Goldilocks. Pack too much, and you've wasted good food (unlike dinner leftovers, these have been out all day so I can't save them for another day. Pack too little, and the kids come home hungry and cranky. Pack just the right amount, and everyone is happy!

So how do I figure out how much to pack?
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Oxbow Public Market, Napa

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 18:25:00 +0000

When people make plans to visit Napa Valley, they add cities like St. Helena, Oakville, Rutherford, Yountville, and Calistoga to the list. That's where the big name restaurants (think French Laundry or Auberge du Soleil or Mustard Grill) and popular joints (think Bouchon Bakery or Oakville Grocery or even the V. Sattui deli) are located, with all the wineries sprinkled in between.

The one city that doesn't seem to get mentioned as often is the region's namesake, Napa. A quick drive through downtown Napa might give you a clue: it's shabby, forlorn and half-empty, in need of a makeover. Sure, there are good eateries and pretty galleries, but it lacks the vibrance that makes drivers-by want to stop and hang around.

Don't make the mistake of overlooking Napa, though. The revival might already be happening, just not in downtown Napa. For good food and a good atmosphere, look to the Napa River Promenade, and just beyond it, my favorite place in Napa: the Oxbow Public Market.

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Do you sneak veggies into your kids' food?

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 18:00:00 +0000

Who doesn't love macaroni and cheese? You can make it less junky by adding pureed cauliflower and using whole-wheat pasta or pasta with veggies already in it.

My kids are good about eating vegetables. I serve vegetables like tomatoes, cucumbers, all kinds of lettuce, cauliflower, bell peppers, carrots, chickpeas, butternut squash, green beans, celery, mushrooms, onions, avocados, olives and more every day, and they will happily eat them. But it wasn't always so easy. When they were younger and in their picky phases, it took a lot of patience and cunning to get those veggies in! Here are some of the strategies I used to get them to try vegetables:

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What's for lunch?

noreply@blogger.com (Bongga Mom) — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Veggie pizza, cherry tomatoes, Samoas

If you missed out on buying Girl Scout cookies, you're out of luck: cookie selling season is over, and you won't see any Thin Mints, Samoas, Trefoils, Do Si Dos or Tagalongs until 2014. The good news is, you can make the cookies you've already bought last longer by storing them in the freezer. Assuming you have any left over to freeze, that is. I've been trying to pace our consumption of Girl Scout cookies, but it's not easy, given that any one of us could probably gobble down a whole box. Each. We each have our favorite flavors, and fortunately they're all different: 3Po and I like Samoas, Jammy likes Thin Mints, The Pea likes Tagalongs, and Alfie likes Trefoils.

What's your favorite Girl Scout Cookie flavor? Are they too precious to pack in your kids' lunchboxes or are you free and generous with your Girl Scout Cookies?

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