The Nilsons

"Puto in Pink" - Breast Cancer Awareness Month

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:37:00 +0000

Hats off to my aunt, TITA OLIVE, a breast cancer survivor herself, who is walking the "Kiss Goodbye to Breast Cancer" sponsored by Avon Philippines this Saturday, October 5 in Manila, together with her husband Tito Tom. I would have loved to walk with her there but since I cannot, I am showing my support by BAKING. (You can stop the giggling now.)

And I am sending this PRETTY IN PINK STEAMED RICE MUFFINS recipe (AKA Puto in Pink)

as an entry to the 2008 Boobie Bake-Off sponsored by Baking Delights. You can vote for your favorite entry for just $1 per vote. All proceeds will be donated to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, the sponsors of the 3-Day walk.

What happened to summer?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 09:43:00 +0000

I finally finished the draft for my client. It is now 2:43 am on a Friday morning and I'm just about ready to go to bed. I just emailed my report and will now have to wait later for the response. So I can continue working on it over the weekend. Tsk..tsk..there goes my weekend.

And in less than three weeks, we drive up to Tahoe before flying to Manila. Three weeks is all I have to clean and prepare the guest room in San Diego. Then I have one week to do the same in Tahoe.

Summer is definitely over!

Lemon Pound Loaf

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 02:10:00 +0000

So the baking continues....

Just before my 5 pm online class, I baked two mini loaves of lemon pound cake. Pretty cool, huh?!

yeah...yeah..I cheated. I already had the lemons juiced the other day when I made lemon cupcakes. I had leftovers so I decided to make bigger lemon cakes this time. Well...bigger than the cupcake at least. These mini loaves are only 5 inches long.

You are probably wondering who's eating all these food I am making. NOBODY! After tasting a slice, they all end up in the freezer. For later consumption. Matt is not a dessert person. And neither am I. Sometimes, I send them to neighbors and friends.

Well, back to work. Had to finish my draft outline for the client. And I am already thinking of my next kitchen project -- THAI SAUSAGES!

As always, recipe available at the Cafe.

Green Tea Mochi with Ube Filling

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 23:18:00 +0000

Today is a busy day. I started working on the draft outline for my client (re my school project) in the morning. Then we took Nikita for a short walk at Fiesta Island. She was so happy since we forgot to do that yesterday. When we returned home, I started finalizing some bookkeeping stuff which needed to be finished before the weekend. Actually, both needed to be finished before the weekend.

In between work, I was enjoying my cups of espresso. It's been so hot lately, I started pouring my coffee in a big glass of ice cubes. Hmm...very refreshing. Well...it was so refreshing I didn't notice how much coffee I was downing. I make really strong espresso. The kind that could remove hair off a man's chest. (Okay..maybe not that strong but it is still stronger than normal.) By the time I was ready to fix lunch for Niki and Matt around noon, I was shaking like crazy.

I walked up and down our stairs, started folding my newly washed laundry, vacuumed the kitchen floor, and still...the shakes wouldn't stop. So I decided to bake.

Hah! It has always worked for me. Cooking is my therapy.

I spotted the leftover box of Mochiko (sweet rice flour) on the kitchen counter. Great! I'll make mochi balls. With green tea. And maybe some filling. The only thing I found in my pantry is a jar of ube (purple yam) spread. I don't even remember why I bought it. I must be planning on making ube puto at some point.

Anyway, here is the end result. It took less than 30 minutes to make. Maybe I'll try making green tea espasol next time.

You can check out the rest of the recipe on my food blog CAFE NILSON.

How My Mommy Lost Weight

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:55:00 +0000

This is what she eats for lunch and dinner (and sometimes breakfast!). And she lost weight...

We love steak!!! But we don't eat it much because Daddy is not allowed to eat red meat.

PUTO PAO

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 21:45:00 +0000

The latest craze in Filipino snack food. Combine puto and siopao and you get puto pao.

Puto Batter:

2 cups cake flour (or 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour + 3/4 cornstarch)
1/4 cup sugar substitute like Splenda (or 1/2 cup sugar)
2 tbs baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups soy milk or fat free half and half
4 egg whites, beaten until soft peaks form
shredded mozarella cheese or other quick-melt cheese

Directions:

Mix flour, sugar, salt and baking powder in a bowl. Add milk and stir until well mixed.

Fold in egg whites.

Fill muffin pan or ramekin half full, add a teaspon of filling (see below) and then add a little bit more batter to cover the filling. Sprinkle cheese on top.

Steam for 20 minutes.

I like oggi's way of preparing the muffin pan (although she uses puto mould's but I think it will work with ramekins and muffin pans, too). she lines the pan with banana leaf cut out in rounds. I will try this next time.

Siopao Filling:

Typically, the filling is made of shredded pork or chicken sauteed in onions, soy sauce and sugar. I used leftover beef roast and shredded the beef, adding yoshida gourmet sauce 1 tablespoon at a time until you get the desired taste. I sprinkle a pinch of crushed pepper for a little kick.

Moonlighting as a Plumber

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 22:10:00 +0000

Finally, we got the plumbing under the kitchen sink fixed! And no, we didn't need to call a plumber. I figured that between me and my gardener, this job should be a no-brainer. With a lot of elbow-grease ( and ruined fingernails!), we got the job done!

I now have cold water on my sink and the refrigerator line is connected. The bar is officially (re-) opened.

Check out the before and after pictures:

It looks easy, huh? My arsenal of vocabulary now includes compression fitting, pipe cutter, ferrule, coil pipe and teflon tape. You should have seen how those home improvement guys tried to explain to me how to install the coil pipe, or how to cut a copper pipe. One even stole a small piece of teflon tape "enough to wrap around the thread" of the joint I just purchased and placed it in my shopping bag claiming "nobody would notice such a small piece anyway". I could have told him we have several rolls of them in our garage but that would have spoiled my fun.

I am just not sure why they think it was necessary to speak slow when explaining something to me. Hmmmm..it's not as if I went there not knowing what I was going to buy... or do. Heck! That's what the internet is for. Besides, my resident gardener is also a plumber (among other things).

The look on the plumbing guy's face at Home Depot was priceless when I asked if any of the "faucet thingies" come in any other color. Picture John McEnroe yelling "You cannot be serious!"

Wicked!

Thanks, Ace Hardware and Home Depot!

Time to Prune

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 22:03:00 +0000

The flowers in the yard are happily blooming except for some bushes. My gardener decided to prune the hibiscus hoping to encourage it to bloom more. So far, we had two flowers.

Cafe Nilson Opening Soon

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 02:33:00 +0000

It's a work in progress. But feel free to visit, especially if you're a foodie!

http://www.cafenilson.com

A Clearer View

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 01:54:00 +0000

While we were enjoying the noise of the Thunderboat races from our balcony, a mini cherry-picker parked by our next door neighbor's house. Four men came out and started surveying the palm trees. You see, these palm trees sort of "block" our view of the bay. It is not really bad. We actually kind of like the palm trees, except the gardener does not do a good job of trimming the dead branches and leaves. And it just makes you want to go over there and start trimming the trees yourself. But we like our neighbor and we even offered to have their trees trimmed (so we can enjoy a better view)at our expense.

Well today, she had these men trim ALL the palm trees, even the ones at the back of her house (which was blocking my view from the dining room). Wow! It looked so bright I feel like installing drapes on my windows!!! Seriously, it looked great.

Here is the guy on the cherry-picker, trimming the second palm tree. And now we have a clearer view from our balcony bar.

This is the view from the sitting room (dining room). In the second picture, the tree in foreground is our tree which obviously needs to be trimmed now...!! (hint, hint)

My Mooncake Obsession

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 01:42:00 +0000

Sometimes, you just want to make something so badly that you have to keep trying until you get it exactly the way you want it. The last couple of weeks, I've had this obsession with creating my own sugarless, perfect mooncake. The mid-Autumn festival was last Sunday, September 14. I made snow skin mooncake but I couldn't get my lotus paste mooncake to look like the traditional one. As soon as I got the chance, I'm back experimenting again. This time with different flour. I went to 99 Ranch market and the ladies there do not know what a "hong kong flour" is. All they could tell me was that their flour "come from China so is the same." Oooookay.

Back to my research on the internet. Not having seen "hong kong flour", I have no idea what the heck the difference is. Finally, I found a Malaysian website that explained the protein and gluten content of hong kong flour compared to other flour. Voila! Finally, something I can use. Apparently, hong kong flour is a very highly bleached flour with low protein content (around 8 - 9%). The closest flour I could get with that percentage is CAKE FLOUR. And by golly, the recipe finally worked!!!!

Using my leftover filling of sugarfree lotus paste and sugarfree red bean paste, I made another batch using cake flour and sugar free syrup. Look what I got...

The newly-moulded mooncakes, with lotus paste filling. Waiting to be pre-baked. And here they are, fresh out of the oven. Yummy!

And I made more!!! I had lotus paste, red bean paste and even chocolate lotus paste. I better freeze all of these or they'll be gone before they can even mature. Look, I can even see the design. Woohoo!

Now all I need to do is let it sit for 2-3 days to mature. And then I get to enjoy it!!! I'll post the recipe later.

Sewage Spill in Mission Bay

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 15:41:00 +0000

We're back in San Diego. Drove from Tahoe on Tuesday morning and made it in a little less than 10 hours. It was tiring because of the heat. But we're glad to be back to enjoy the breeze from the balcony. Even Nikita's happy.

The last couple of days were spent cleaning and gardening (as usual). We weren't able to take Nikita to Fiesta Island because of a sewage spill in Mission Bay. They were not allowing pets which is fine with us. Not so good news for the Thunderboat Races which started yesterday. At try-outs, one boat already crashed! Driver survived (lucky for him!).

When we couldn't get into Fiesta, we drove to the boat area near the Seaworld parking lot and discovered the "toy plane" airstrip. There were several "pilots" (most of them in their 60s and 70s) flying their toy plane. it was fun to watch and Nikita had a great time sniffing new terrain. We'll probably go back there today since Fiesta Island is still closed for the races until tomorrow.

GREEN TEA SNOW SKIN MOON CAKE

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:23:00 +0000

Here is my first attempt at making snow skin moon cake. I used the same filling I made for the traditional moon cake. The photos are not clear but by the time I loaded it on the computer, I already ate the mooncake so I couldn't take another photo. :)

GREEN TEA SNOW SKIN MOON CAKE

The original recipe for this mooncake was based on Amanda's recipe for Snow Skin Moon Cake and Ja's Green Tea Moon Cake. I didn't have any fried glutinous rice flour available so I used Lily's recipe for a home made one with just a minor change.

To make home made fried glutinous rice flour or KOH FUN:

1. Bake flour in the oven for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.
2. Place baked flour in a bowl and steam for 1/2 hour.
3. Remove and put in a microwable glass bowl . Microwave on high 1 minute at a time until slightly brown. My one pound bag of glutinous rice flour took 3 minutes, stirring every 1 minute to make sure flour does not burn.

To make Snow Skin:

3/4 cup Koh fun or fried glutinous rice flour
1 tbs green tea powder
1/2 cup powdered sugar (OR 3/4 cup Splenda + 2 tbs cornstarch)
1/3 cup vegetable shortening or butter
120 ml cold water

Procedure:
1. Sift Koh Fun, powdered sugar and green tea powder into a mixing bowl.
2. Add shortening into the flour mixture and rub until it resembles coarse bread crumbs
3. Gradually add in cold water a little at a time until a soft dough forms.
4. Let sit for 20 minutes before using.

To make Filling:

2 cups black beans soaked overnight in enough water to cover
1/2 cup Splenda
1/3 cup oil or melted butter
water

Procedure:
1. Wash and drain soaked beans.
2. Boil in enough water until tender.
3. Mash (using food processor or blender or hand blender) until it is the consistency of mashed potatoes or paste.
4. Heat oil in wok or pan (non-stick is better). Add bean paste and sugar. Fry until dry, adding more oil if required. Cool before using.
5. Roll into balls big enough to cover your moon cake mould.

Assembling your moon cake:

1. Wrap each portion of filling with a portion of snow skin.
2. Press into mooncake mould.
3. Knock out and chill before serving.

My Mooncake Experiment

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 02:38:00 +0000

Making mooncakes is a lot of work! When we arrived here in Tahoe, I found a box of mooncakes (in my freezer) sent to me by Carlos a couple of months ago. I quickly defrosted it and ate all huge 4 pcs. And of course, I immediately felt guilty about all the sugar I just consumed.

Then on a quick stop at a local thrift store, I found this pretty looking mooncake mould. The store didn't know what it was (thought it was a wall decor) and sold it to me for a dollar. Mooncake in my freezer and a mooncake mould for a dollar? Who could resist? I was certain it was a sign from somewhere that I needed to make my own sugarless mooncake!

I found numerous recipes on the internet. At a glance, they all looked simple to make. And probably not such a big deal substituting Splenda with the kilos of sugar required to make one small mooncake. So I gathered my ingredients (most of them substitutes) and started my project.

My first attempt was a failure. My mooncake didn't look like one and the crust (or mooncake skin) was so hard I didn't even want to taste it. The second one was a little better but still far from what a mooncake should look like. When I mixed all my ingredients and placed my mooncake ball in the mold, it looked so pretty, I thought it would look the same coming out of the oven.

It looked more like two EXTRA LARGE, delicious-tasting HOPIA!

I should have read all the instructions carefully. The kind of flour they use for the mooncake skin is crucial. I used regular all-purpose flour and ended up making a hard crust. Also, I thought I could skip the lye water, thinking that it was only for removing the skin off the lotus seeds. Apparently, lye water also allowed the shape of the moon cake to stay and look the same after baking. The only correct thing I did was the filling. I made lotus seed filling (which is the traditional moon cake filling) and a batch of black bean paste filling--both using Splenda as a sugar substitute. The filling turned out okay (as you can see from the photo below) except for the color which was not such a big deal for me. Besides, the moon cakes I have had in the past had 90% filling and 10% crust. So I was happy to have mostly sugarfree dessert.

A quick note, though. Making the filling takes HOURS and a lot of arm work. In addition to soaking (overnight) and boiling the seeds, you need to seriously and continuously stir them while "frying" until dry. Or you will end up with soggy filling or a crumbly one. The upside is once you get it right, you have enough filling to make plenty moon cakes to last you a season!

I have not given up on my search for a sugarless mooncake. I have to wait until I get back to San Diego so I have access to proper ingredients from my local oriental store. In the meantime, I made some no-bake GREEN TEA SNOW SKIN MOON CAKES using my sugarless black bean paste filling.

As soon as I get the traditional moon cake (sugarless) recipe right, I will post with delicious photos. This time I'll make sure I take good photos (or make several moon cakes!).

Happy Birthday, Kim!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 21:27:00 +0000

Today is my sister-in-law's birthday. Here she is with my brother Jon and their son Kalvin

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Kimchie!!!!

Love
Ate Jay and Uncle Matt (and Nikita)

Yucca Root in Banana Leaves (with Jackfruit)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 02:07:00 +0000

Cassava Suman

The ingredients for this delicious snack is quite simple:

grated cassava (or yucca as we call it here) root,
shredded coconut and
sugar.

Wrap in banana leaves and steam.

I love cassava but not so much the sugar. (I always have yucca root at home because I feed it to Nikita. It's great for her arthritis and she loves it mixed with broccoli and yogurt. Go figure!) So here is my revised version minus the sugar:

Ingredients:

16 oz package grated frozen cassava root, thawed (or 2 cups grated fresh cassava root)
1/2 cup sugar substitute such as Splenda (or more depending on how sweet you want it )
1/2 cup chopped jackfruit (I didn't have shredded coconut so l substituted this instead)
pieces of banana leaves cut into squares

Directions:

1. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Set aside.
2. Prepare banana leaves by wiping both sides with a damp cloth or paper towel.
3. To assemble, add 2 - 3 heaping tablespoons of the mixture and place in the center of the banana leaf (use the shiny side)

4. Roll like a spring roll then fold the ends toward the center. Repeat with the rest of the mixture. Place in a steamer, seam side down. Steam for one hour.

A Short Visit in Tahoe

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 23:30:00 +0000

We are here. We arrived last night. We left San Diego at around 6:30 am. Matt was barely awake (still recovering from the Crayfish party the night before). With three stops along Highway 395 (Victorville, Bishop, Minden), we made it home in 9 hours and 30 minutes (more or less). The weather was wonderful but drier than San Diego of course. I crashed on the couch after a short trip to the grocery store for some roast chicken. Matt went to bed after a quick early dinner and so did Nikita. I woke up at 10:00pm and went to bed.

This morning, we checked out our deck and cleaned a little after taking Niki to the beach. The view from my kitchen is now brighter, what with most of the trees in the backyard gone and reduced to firewood! They are all piled up along the hillside. Our own backyard was okay and looked better in my opinion although I admit I will miss a couple of trees. The front yard is a mess (weeds everywhere) we'll have to do gardening tomorrow when we are both more relaxed and acclimated. I had a terrible sinus headache all morning.

After sweeping pine needles off the deck, it looks cleaner now. The Canadian maple tree has been trimmed.

Piles of chopped down pine trees line the hillside at the back of the house. Plants are happy, they can now get sunshine! And maybe our snow will melt faster. Look at our new roof!

The water drainage built on the front of the house. Looks pretty with all those rocks and pebbles. But look at the weeds!!! We really need to do some serious gardening this week.

Another Swedish Crayfish Party

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 22:01:00 +0000

Last Saturday, we attended a crayfish party sponsored by the Swedish Women's group in San Diego. We went there as guests of our friends Carroll and Borje Ekberg. It was so much fun (an lots of crayfish!) with all the drinking and the singing. Unfortunately we had to leave early because we had to drive to Tahoe the next morning.

Beautiful evening for a crayfish party! Look at these crayfish, freshly shipped from Oregon and cooked the Swedish way.

Matt with Carrol and Borje / And some of the members of the Swedish Women's group

Marianne, Effie and Ralph / Matt with Effie

Yes, we did wear the customary crayfish hats. They distributed copies of swedish crayfish party songs so everybody could sing along. After every song, each one has to drink Acquavit. Skoal!

And here's another Swede Ralph, going around the table pouring Absolut Vodka. Or maybe socializing with the women?!? At some point, the funny hats started to look good on everybody. Ooops...must be the vodka and acquavit ...LOTS OF FUN!

Bacon and Herbs Pasta with Fresh Herb Rolls

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 19:24:00 +0000

To finish off all the herbs harvested yesterday, we had pasta for lunch today. I just browned a few garlic cloves in olive oil, added the chopped herbs (chives, parsley and basil), a little red chilli pepper and parmesan cheese. This would have been enough for me but Matt prefers creamy sauces so I added a little bit of half and half, throw in the pasta and here's lunch. Hmmm...great with the freshly baked herb roll and a nice refreshing glass of basil lemonade.

FRESH HERB ROLLS

Ingredients:

1 package active dry yeast
1 tbs white sugar
1 cup warm water
1 cup half and half fat free
2 eggs
2 tsp salt
2 tbs butter, softened
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley, chives and basil leaves
3 cups all purpose flour
2 cups wholewheat flour
1 cups wheat bran
Glaze
1 egg white
2 tablespoons water

DIRECTIONS:

1. In mixing bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in 1 cup warm water. Let stand until foamy.
2. In a separate bowl, stir together milk, eggs, salt, butter, herbs. Pour into yeast mixtue and 4 cups flour. Add the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until dough has pulled together.
3. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl, and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth and put in a warm place to rise until doubled.

4. Grease two 9x13 inch baking pans. Punch dough, and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide into 24 pieces. Shape each piece into a round ball and place into the prepared pans. Cover
the rolls with a warm, damp cloth, and let rise until doubled.

5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). In a small bowl, lightly
beat the egg white with 2 tablespoons of water; brush egg wash over
tops of rolls.
6. Bake in preheated oven for about 30 minutes, or until golden brown.

Cheese and Chives Scones

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 23:59:00 +0000

This morning I was harvesting some of my herbs from the garden (yard) and ended up with a big bunch of chives, about two cups worth of sweet basil and some parsley. I decided to make some basil lemonade to take with us to Tahoe on Sunday. I was thinking of making some creamy sauce with the chives and parsley for maybe a pasta dinner tonight but Matt wasn’t interested in pasta.

I found a yummy looking picture of scones on some food blog with a recipe for savory scallions and cheese scones. I didn’t have all of the ingredients in my refrigerator so, as always, I had to improvise. Instead of scallions, I used chives.

My first attempt, I used wholewheat flour and the exact amount of cheese as listed. The final product didn't look as appetizing although it tasted good. A little more cheese would have made it yummier.

It took only 40 minutes to prepare and bake the scones so I tried it again this time using all-purpose flour and double the amount of cheese. Matt thought the second batch was much better and tasted like the cheese bread we usually get at Red Lobster.
I leave it up to you to judge which looked more appetizing.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (used all-purpose flour on second batch

1/2 cup whipped cream cheese (no cream cheese on the second batch)

1 cup mexican mix cheese ( I used 2 cups of cheese on the second attempt)

1 tsp salt

1 tbs + 2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 cups half and half fat free

1 egg

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Mix 2-1/2 cups flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Add cheeses & toss gently with a fork until combined. Then add chives. Mix and set aside.

3. Beat half & half with egg and gently fold into dry ingredients, mixing lightly until a soft dough forms. Add up to 1/2 cup additional flour if the dough is too sticky.

4. On a floured surface, gently pat dough into a circle approximately 1-inch thick. Handle the dough lightly and as little as possible. With a sharp knife cut the circle into wedges and place them on a greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. (I sliced mine into 12 pieces.)

Brush tops and sides of scones with egg glaze if desired. To make egg glaze, beat 1 egg with 2 tbsp half and half or milk or water.

5. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack. Serve warm, or cool completely and refrigerate or freeze in an airtight container.

I may have put too much baking powder that's why the scones looked like they collapsed. But, it didn't make any difference in taste. It was still yummy and much more appetizing than the whole wheat version.

Fall Semester Starts

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 01:15:00 +0000

Officially, it started September 2. But our class will start September 8. At least the first online meeting. I am very excited since this class involves a "real-world" client with a project (approved by the department). I am also taking my directed internship but it may have to wait until next semester due to our travel plans for November. I hope to graduate in the Spring of 2009....fingers crossed.

Key Lime Pie - Sugarless and Carb Friendly

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:01:00 +0000

In celebration of finally getting the recreation room finished and the contractors out of the house, I decided to bake a pie. Really. Well..actually, I was at the 99cents store the other day looking for an oven cleaner when I spotted a bag of key lime for $0.49. I really have no need for them since I have a whole bowl of newly harvested lemons from my yard but I grabbed it anyway. Maybe I could use it for some cocktail drink.

But the pie sounded much better so I went on the internet to look for a recipe and found this simple one with only a handful of ingredients: can of sweetened condensed milk, pre-made graham crust, key lime juice and eggs. The instructions were pretty simple, too and will only take 15 minutes to prepare and 20 minutes to bake. Then I remembered that I was not supposed to be eating "too much" sugar and starch and a can of sweetened condensed milk is probably more than what I am supposed to consume (okay so I am not supposed to eat the whole pie but it is still a whole can's worth in there!). Not to mention graham cracker crust. Hmmm..

This is the fun part of cooking. I searched for SUGAR FREE CONDENSED MILK. I did not find any in the store so I had to make my own. For the crust, I used the recipe for pecan tart crust my Ninang Tatie made once. It only had butter, cream cheese and flour. I used whole wheat flour and added 1/4 cup of Splenda with fat free cream cheese.

Here's my version of the EASY KEY LIME PIE:

For SUGAR FREE CONDENSED MILK, I followed the recipe from www.bigoven.com:

1 can fat free evaporated milk (14 oz)
1 1/2 cup fat free powdered milk
1/2 cup Splenda (or even less , just to taste)

Mix it all together. Use a blender because it does have the consistency of condensed milk when mixed. Set aside in the refrigerator. You can actually keep it there for a week.

For MOCK GRAHAM CRACKER CRUST:

1/2 cup butter softened
1/4 cup Splenda
1/3 cup cream cheese
1 cup whole wheat flour

Melt the butter with the Splenda and cream cheese. Mine took a minute in the microwave. The butter will still stay semi-solid but leave it in the container for a couple minutes and it will melt.

Place flour in a bowl then pour the butter mixture. Mix until blended. With your hand is best. The "dough" will feel like crumbs of graham crackers.

Take a pie pan, and start pressing the dough until bottom and sides are covered. This is now ready for your key lime filling. Set aside.

KEY LIME FILLING

1/2 cup key lime juice
4 egg yolks, beaten
condensed milk

Mix together until well blended.

Pour filling onto crust.

Bake in preheated oven 375 degrees for about 15 minutes until set. That's it.

You can cool before serving or decorate with thinly sliced key lime or even put whipped cream topping.

It is now time for the "taste test". I'll let you know Matt's verdict. :)

Results of Mighty Putty Test

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 16:32:00 +0000

Hey, I finally got my kitchen back! Yesterday, the workers finished my kitchen floor and laid all the tiles back. It wasn't perfect but I think 10 days is enough. The problem is my cold water is still shut off to the kitchen. Our mighty putty temporary fix did not work. I waited at least 24 hours to "cure" the putty. Then as soon as the workers were gone, I gingerly turned the water valve back on and I immediately got a fine mist of spray on my face!

So off the valve went again and I peeled off the putty. We stared at the darn thing for minutes and decided to have a plumber fix it. Ooooppsss.. it's a long weekend. Nobody will be available until Tuesday.

Well...we'll try another fix this weekend and see if it works. Back to Home Depot for supplies.

The plan is to cut the portion with hole (using a tube cutter or hacksaw) and reconnect to the valve with either a coil tube or maybe the same copper line using compression fittings. Everybody says we have to solder. I have never soldered anything in my life and Matt doesn't want to mess with that. The copper line behind our refrigerator is connected with a coil tube so maybe we can duplicate the same?

Matt is not terribly concerned about the lack of water in the kitchen. Helloo???? All he needs from the kitchen are ice cubes. I had to do the dishes and cook and clean.. Okay...so it's not like it is a long walk to the garage where I have access to water. Yeah..yeah..I am too lazy and spoiled. But I want my kitchen the way it was--with plumbing working! Not that it is that bad. My dishwasher works since it is connected to the hot water supply. I still have hot water to the kitchen sink so I waste hot water instead. And the grill is perfect for lunch and dinner. Yesterday, we had grilled pizza. And the microwave still works.

Geez..put that way, I really shouldn't be complaining. :)

Party Guests

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:46:00 +0000

The Birthday Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:29:00 +0000

We made banana cake with cream cheese icing for Matt's birthday cake. Rodney did a fantastic job decorating it with flipflops, mini umbrella and seven (7) mini palm trees. Truly island theme!

As the guessts belted out their own rendition of "Happy Birthday", our good friend Lena Burholm led the crowd to the Swedish version before Matt blew out the candles.