Christmas
Fabulous Sumptuous Dinner!
It’s been a week since my last post. I have been very busy with house de-cluttering and wrapping gifts for the holidays. We also went to Batangas for the debut of Aldrin’s sister.
Yesterday, we went to the grocery to buy food and other home supplies. While I was there, I decided to cook something special for the night.(yeah, compulsive impulses) I envisioned a plate of cheesy mashed potato, beef steak with warm gravy and for side dish, penne with garlic and bacon bits. And so, that was the menu for last night.
Beef steak with mashed potato and Penne with Garlic and bacon
More of the details after this break…
Sam’s Yummy Birthday cake
It’s my daughter Sam’s 4th birthday last October 25. And for her birthday, I decided to make a no-bake home-made dessert which also served as her birthday cake. I made Oreo cookie Graham cake and Fruity Graham cake with Sam and Ley’s help. They enjoyed the mixing and tasting! I think they have a future in cooking, they like playing restaurant where they call me “miss” and they ask me “miss, ano pong order mo?”
Sam and a slice of her birthday cake
Before we get to another story, here are the ingredients:
For the Oreo Cookie Graham Cake:
- Graham crackers (original or choco-flavored)
- 3 cups of crushed Oreo Cookies
- 2 pouches of Nestle All-purpose cream, chilled
- 1 medium can of condensed milk
- gelatin powder (1 packet of Alsa Gulaman)
- 1/2 cup of milk (water will also do)
- whole Oreo cookies for decor
Procedure:
- First, melt the gelatin powder in 1/2 cup of milk (or water). Heat in pan until gelatin is fully dissolved. Set aside to warm a little bit. This will serve as a binder for a firmer cream mixture.
- Then, in a separate bowl, mix the chilled all-purpose cream and condensed milk. Stir in 1 1/2 cup of the crushed cookies and the melted gelatin. Mix well.
- you can let the kids help in the mixing. Kids will enjoy this stuff, as for my kids, I can see in their faces whenever I let them help out with the cooking and other chores like making the bed, drying the spoons and forks, they feel proud and they feel confident that I trusted them with an adult stuff. This is big deal for them!
- Line a baking pan or any other container with Aluminum foil or plastic wrap. This will make taking out the graham cake easier.
- After this, line the pan with whole graham crackers, make sure to cover the base of the pan. Pour part of the cream mixture to thinly cover the crackers. Repeat this step to have 2 layers of cream-covered Graham crackers. – Kids can also help in this, let them figure out how they can properly cover the pan with Graham crackers.
Graham and Cream layers
- Spread the remaining 1 1/2 cup of crushed Oreo cookies and cover with cream mixture then top with 2 more layers of the graham crackers and cream.
Oreo cookie cream mixture
- Decorate the top with whole Oreo cookies. If there are left-over Oreo cookies, this can serve as a rewarding merienda for your kids for helping in the kitchen!
- Chill for an hour or two. Serve cold.
Oreo Cookie Graham Cake
For the Fruity Graham Cake, just substitute the Oreo Cookies with a fruit cocktail. And you can use the fruit syrup to melt the gelatin powder. As final touch, set aside some of the melted gelatin to glaze the top layer of your Fruity Graham cake. Yum!
This Graham cake is also good as giveaway to your loved ones for Christmas, you can make smaller versions using those rectangular-shaped microwaveable containers. Your friends will surely love it!
My new backpack is not a Samsonite
I just bought a new backpack which closely resembles the Samsonite Laptop Backpack Yuga got last year. See pictures below.
It has a lot of compartments, good enough for your tiny gadgets. There’s a room for your laptop as well, though the fabric is not thick enough to absorb minor shocks but you can easily find a padding in stores.
Simplicity is its major factor. It simply looks like ordinary backpacks which I believe serves as its main security – a disguise that nobody can easily recognize that there’s a laptop inside. But now you already know it. It also has a strap on the outside where you can attach your foldable umbrella. An added disguise.
All in all, I like the bag and it doesn’t look cheap.
My wife also have one for herself. Think she’s getting prepared for an ASUS E? Btw, you can only avail this backpack from our company merchandise. But if you’re really interested of having one, you can leave a comment on this post because I will surely raffle out one unit for this season.
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Mechanics:
- You must leave a comment here showing your interest of having this bag. Deadline is on December 24.
- Include your prefered color (maroon, black, green, orange, gray). Depends on availability.
- You must be a blogger who doesn’t work in my company. Simply because you can avail one yourself if you also work here.
- You must be a blogger who resides in the Philippines (to save shipping cost).
- You must be interested on the bag!
Christmas Wishlist
Too early, isn’t it? Well, it’s better early to prepare my Christmas wishlist while I have time to think of all I want. 
I know all of us wish peace and prosperity for the world. That’s given. Let me be ‘materialistic’ this time. I haven’t been like this before. Here’s the list.
- iPod Touch. iPod Classic or Microsoft Zune.
- Long sleeves (checked. thanks to my wife.)
- Rubber shoes.
- Tachometer. (checked)
- ASUS EEE PC
- Digital Camera.
- yoga pose and exercise guide (for my wife)
- RC Cars.
- Nintendo Wii.
- Naruto Wii.
- A new wallet.
- A new bag.
- Billiards cue stick.
- Car audio setup.
I’m starting to get sleepy. I’ll just update this list when I thought of something more.
Update: I just got news from my credit card issuer that I have about 20K+ points to spend on their rewards list. I thought of choosing gifts from the rewards list and give this as my Christmas present for my wife. Here are the choices:
1. Turbo Broiler + 1000 Peso Gift Certificate from a Spa
2. Oven Toaster + 1000 Peso Gift Certificate from a Spa
3. Hotdog Griller + 1000 Peso Gift Certificate from a Spa
Actually, there are other choices in the Rewards List, I forwarded it to her as well, so she can choose. I just hope that she likes what’s on my list of my gifts for her.
Exchange gifts
One tradition that we still never fail to practice during the holiday season is gift-giving. There’s the Kris Kringle; you give gifts that fall within a particular theme for your baby. Some popular gift themes are ‘something hard’, ‘something long’, or both: ‘something hard and long’. There is the thrill of wondering who your baby really is.
 There is also the Exchanging of gifts, you buy something within a fixed budget and get to exchange it with someone else. Sometimes, you have to buy Unisex gifts to be safe and to make sure that your gift will be enjoyed by a guy or a girl. Â