Do You Love Cooking? Do You Eat What You Cook?

I do! Obvious ba? LOL! 

I come from a family of 5 and i think it’s already moderately big.  As the eldest,  I learned to cook rice at a very young age.  I cooked my first “biko” or sweet sticky rice when i was 11 years old and i earned some hittings from mom because she said, “the coconut milk is not well cooked.” Ay malay ko ba! Akala ko when the coconut milk boils, after sometime, I would put in the sticky rice. hehehehe 

Since then, I love to cook.  I don’t cook like a professional chef in the restaurant but i can cook very well simple dishes that would make someone full beyond his/her head! (it’s exaggeration but that’s what my family feels when i cooked something special).  My specialty are vegetables dishes and semi-vegetarian dishes. Can cook several meat dishes too that i can prepare for simple party for my friends or family.

Some women loves to cook but they don’t eat what they cook.  One thing with me and my cooking is that — i eat what i cook. hehehe. Makita talaga sa katawan!  Especially now that I am stuck at home, I am in a situation that calls for me to cook when mom is tired or when cousins are not yet home — so i cook And i eat my cooking!

For dinner this evening, we had Ginataang Kalabasa (Squashh cooked in coconut milk). It was yummy and Dimple enjoyed it to the max.

Ingredients:

Half kilo squash

2 cups coconut milk (1st washing & 2nd washing)

1 stalk Tanglad (lemon grass)

2 finger long thinly sliced ginger (mashed)

Leafy vegetable (malunggay)

Salt to taste

Directions:

For grated coconut: put a glass of warm water and squeezed the milk out of the grated coconut. (that is your first washing).  Then strain the pure mixture with a strainer. Then add another 2 glasses of warm water and squeezed it to the max for the “2nd round of washed coconut milk”.

Placed the squash, ginger, and lemon grass  in a kettle with 2 glasses of water.  Cover to boil.

Two minutes after boiling, pour in the “2nd washing” of coconut milk.  Cover to continue cooking the squash.

Check the squash after sometime if it is moderately soft, then add the “1st washing” of coconut milk.  Cover to simmer.

Add the leaves (malunggay or saluyot)

Bring to a quick boil. 

Season with salt.

Remove from heat.

Serve hot.

Best served with hot or newly cooked grain rice  or corn rice.  (But i prefer cold left-over rice).

If you like the taste of dried fish, you can use big head of dried fish and let it boil with the squash.

Prelim Exams

It will be her prelim exams tomorrow, thursday, and Friday (half day). I aksed her earlier if she is ready and she said — I will study now.

If i am her, i would study every night. But she is so hard of the habit except on Monday nights when she has 3-4 assignments to be done. On other nights, she just study casually. Even Thursday evening, she does not study hard for the test the next day. As her mom — am getting nervous — what if she can’t make it to honor roll! hehehehe. So am pressuring her and i feel she is resisting it and i feel she is so hard headed.

Yesterday, when i got home, i screamed at her to study because she was watching tv as if there was no examination this week. I was so mad that i pulled out all her books into the kitchen table and told her to study. She said, “No, I wont!” I continue to blah blah blah — i do want to hit her badly so i left home to do an errand.

While on my way, i kept thinking about her. I was hoping she would study. But when i came back, i asked my mom if she studied, and my mom said, “No. She did not.” Haiiii, D disappoints in her study habits! I bought something nice for her when i came back, but since she did not study — i ate it myself and i really showed her i ate it alone — her price for not studying.

"Toppings"

D belongs to the generation of kids that find fastfood foods yummy. She belongs to the generation of kids who watches tv and see all sorts of rubbish foods as ads. In spite of that, I didn’t let her grow up getting used to all these types of food. She may eat Jollibee or Mc Donalds once in awhile in the past years when she does well in school.

While she was still a 6 month old baby, we introduced her to boiled water from vegetables from all sorts of beans or camote tops (green & red), and malunggay. She loves mashed potatos, boiled carrots, mashed monggo (sweet or abit salty). She prefers these compared to her cerelac. When she was around 3-4 years old, almost every week, i prepared patties made of vegetables just for her to think that it is always nice to eat veggie.

5 years ago, when I had the chance to work abroad — mom treated her to jollbee once a month and it causes the decline of eating her well loved vegetables. She prefered fried fish to vegetables soup or stir-fried vegetables.

Just lately, she started to read mom’s new purchased book – Cooking Smart by Blecenda Miranda-Varona and David Arsulo-Varona. She reads it well and understood it well so she eats now her less loved vegetables — the green leafy vegetables which she calls — TOPPINGS.

This evening — we had malunggay in the Ginataang Kalabasa and she said to me gleefully, “mommy, see! I have toppings!”

Influence of Ordinal Position on Children

I am the eldest of 3 siblings.  I got a younger sister who at this time is having same age as me. (Gonna change mine in few days. hmmmm). Our youngest is a boy –which i think complicated more the hardship my mom has to go through.

 As the eldest child — I have so many questions on why was i dealt that way when i was still a kid and why my younger sister is treated this way and my brother that way.  My questions can’t be answered my mom.  The “favoritism” is not so obvious but i have clearly seen it — the 3 of us were reared differently as we grow up with different attitudes and outlook in life.

I come across a reading that made me understand (now) in a way that the ordinal position of kids in the family matters in the formation of outlook in one’s life.

 FIRST BORN: 

- Are achievement oriented 

- Are more dominant

- Receive more physical punishment

- Are allowed to show more aggression to siblings

- Have stronger consciences, are self-disciplined and inner directed

- Are more socially anxious

- Are prone to feelings of guilt

- Identify more with parents than with peers

- Are more conservative

- Are subject to greater parental expectations

- Begin to speak earlier in life

- Demonstrate higher intellectual achievement

- Plan better and experience fever frustrations

 

MIDDLE CHILDREN:

- Have more demands on them for household help

- Are praised less often

- Receive less of parent’s time

- Learn to communicate and be adaptable

- Are less stimulated toward achievement

- Are more difficult to characterize because of variety of positions in the family

 

YOUNGEST CHILDREN: 

- Are less dependent than firstborn children

- Are less tense, more affectionate, and more good-natured

- Tend to identify more with peer group than with parents

- Are more flexible in their thinking

- Are popular with classmates

- Have fewer demands placed on them for household help.

ONLY CHILDREN: 

- Resemble firstborn children

- Are more mature and cultivated

- Experience great parental pressure for mature behavior and achievement

- Demonstrate superiority in language facility

- Rarely, develop into stereotype of spoiled, selfish child

- Often enjoy a rich fantasy life as a result of isolation

 

I can clearly identify myself on the first born description and my siblings in theirs respectively.  I could say lucky me or lucky them at same time say unlucky me and unlucky them.  I can’t forget those times when I am punished because my siblings are fighting eachother.    My mom thinks i I didn’t do my responsibility of taking care of them.  Anyway – am glad to be grown up now.  Challenges and responsibilities are much more but at least i can now decide on my own and live life the way am comfortable with it.

How about you? Do you find the corresponding traits in yourself or your sibling? Would love to hear about it.