Last Sunday, my father and I prepared the perfect merienda for the family — Banana Turon. Actually, it was my mother who asked us to cook Turon to be sold outside our house as an afternoon street snack alongside my sister’s Halo-halo. But I discovered some vanilla and ube ice creams in the freezer, so I think the family practically ate half of the Turons that we made.

Turon is a sweet roll of saba banana and jackfruit (langka) coated with caramelized sugar and enclosed in lumpia wrapper. In my native town Malabon, it is locally known as Valencia, and the Turon the we have always known has a munggo filling instead of banana. It is usually served as an afternoon snack, although some posh Filipino restaurants serve it as a dessert “a la mode” which sometimes comes with an unreasonable price tag.

Most of the ingredients of Turon are actually inexpensive. Saba bananas are cheap and nutritious. You can buy jackfruit flesh in tingi (small portions). In fact, we sell one piece of Turon for only P15. However, preparation can be hard labor, especially if you’re not used to rolling and wrapping and keeping everything neat and tidy.

Before you start cooking, here’s a few notes in buying the fruit ingredients: make sure the saba bananas are ripe, possibly with black spots on the skin, soft to the touch, but not mushy; jackfruit flesh must be golden yellow and sweet smelling. Using unripe fruits may result to a gummy bite which is not very appetizing.

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I love Globe’s SuperSurf!

In case you’re wondering why I mentioned Globe Telecom’s SuperSurf promo, I’m posting this article using my laptop while it’s connected to my Samsung Galazy SII on tether…and it’s fast! I simply subscribe to Globe SuperSurf Plan 999 and I can now stay online all day, anywhere I am, anywhere I go for 30 glorious days. Do you want to know how? Just dial *143# on your phone, press 5 for Surf promos, and choose the promo that you want. It’s as easy as that!

Now, that’s beyond amazing!

-oO0-

On today’s recipe, we have Minatamis na Saging or Kusilbang Saging. If the word kusilba is alien to you, it’s the Tagalog word for preserves, as in fruit preserves, such as jams and marmalades.

Minatamis na Saging is mouth-watering and very easy to prepare. This is your basic recipe for Saging con Yelo and also one of the ingredients of our favorite Halo-halo. Personally, I like Minatamis na Saging served as it is.

So, to make this sweet, simple, and short, check out the recipe below for Minatamis na Saging.

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The scorching summer heat in the Philippines is something that you either love or hate. You love it because a fine weather complements our picture-perfect beaches. You hate it because you don’t like the feeling of heat as you drip with sweat while commuting or walking along the streets of Metro Manila. The oppressively hot and humid weather in the past weeks has been getting worse — no thanks to climate change – and there are no signs of it alleviating anytime soon.

But, hey! We’re Pinoys! We can always find solutions in every problem. We are very adaptable to changes. Ika nga, if you can’t beat them, join them! And the summer heat, despite the temperature rising every year, is no exemption.

So, in order to cool us down, we have concocted different ice-cold sweets that are perfect in our tropical climate. One of which is the Ice Candy. Doesn’t it instantly remind you of your childhood? Don’t we all remember knocking on Aling Nena’s gate every afternoon to buy a stick of this amazing cold and refreshing treat? I’m sure you do!

Ice Candy comes in a variety of flavors, and I know everyone has his or her own personal choice. There’s red mung beans, mango, pinipig, chocolate,  and my favorite — avocado. In fact, even your preferred juice flavors can be turned into Ice Candy.

On this blog post, I am sharing my mother’s Avocado Ice Candy recipe which she made yesterday. Everyone in the family loves this flavor, and I’m pretty sure many of you would love it too. If you don’t like avocado, you can replace it with mango or any fruit that you like. Just make sure that your fruit of choice is in season. If you want to use red mung beans, click here to learn how to make the paste. Ice Candy is very easy and fun to make; you can actually involve the kids in making them. Not to mention, it’s easy on the budget.

Ready? Click below to grab the recipe:

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Our old folks undeniably love our local kakanin. My mother and father, even my lola and tita when they were still alive, are huge fans of these sweet rice cakes. They come in varieties of flavor, color, shape, and texture.

In Malabon, the town where I grew up, kakanin can be found everywhere. Go to one of our public markets and you will see a special section that sells different kinds of kakanin with names you probably have never heard of. In fact, the city is known for its delectable sapin-sapin, kutsinta, and biko elaborately served in a colorful array on a round bilao.

On this blog post, I will share to you my mother’s recipe for Palitaw. We call it dila-dila in Malabon because of its distinct shape (dila means tongue). The name palitaw was derived from how it is being prepared. Palitaw or litaw means “to appear,” or in this case, “to float,” because it starts to float in water once it’s cooked.

If you want to learn how to prepare palitaw, refer to the recipe below:

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I tried something new yesterday. I made an experiment to check if I could make a homemade ice cream without using any special equipment, such as an ice cream maker. Guess what? I never thought it would be this easy.

My mother buys fruits every now and then. This weekend, we had mangoes…lots of it. And avocados. I love mangoes and I’m sure my family does too. However, there are some instances that for some reason, we fail to consume all of them, hence, they are just put to waste. So I decided to make something out of it — a homemade mango ice cream.

Like what I said, we don’t have an ice cream maker at home. We also don’t have a blender nor a food processor, although we have this hand-powered machine mixer. You know, the one that you see on TV shopping channels with the handle that you turn to mix the ingredients. So that’s what I used.

But then again, if you don’t have any of these fancy machines, you can always do it manually. Mango meat is soft and none of the ingredients are hard, so it’s really easy to incorporate everything. Just minced the mango and use a regular egg beater just to aerate the mixture. That is, to make the mixture fluffy.

You may also want to top the ice cream with your favorite fruits. Just make sure that they’re in season. Or you may want to add caramel syrup (perfect with mangoes) just to add some extra sweetness and flavor.

Nutritious and full of yum, this homemade ice cream is surely an awesome and inexpensive way to stay healthy without sacrificing good taste. I hope you’d enjoy this recipe!

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