Mi Amor - Quesadillas!

Because I was inspired by the cookout I had with my colleagues, I prepared quesadillas during the send off party for a cousin.

I placed  green bell peppers and onions with cheese as the filling for the pita bread heating on top of a non stick pan. For the salsa, I grilled a bellpepper, peeled, sliced and cooked it on a saucepan with diced fresh tomatoes, basil (from the rooftop garden) and some seasonings.

The extra cheese I grated I added to the salsa.

Cutting it up in 4 pieces:

 Finished product:

Bonding Time over Food :)

According to the famed cook, Julia Child, 

"People who love to eat, are the best people"

And I need to add, ".. People who love to cook, are my bestfriends."

My colleagues and I  have a unique bond between us. It might be because we are almost of the same age and we have been together for 5 years or more. So, it's no surprise that our cooking adventure last July was both fun and entertaining. 

First off, a colleague had an idea of creating designs out of fruits inspired from the Internet. These fruits will be later served with vanilla ice cream which was spectacular,  I am proud to say that this was my creation with Trina, a colleague's young daughter:

Nice, yeah? Here are some of the other fruit designs:

This is an upside down tree on an upside down island

When we ran out of ideas, we just made the fruits look like this:

My friends already had their own menu to cook so Vanessa and I were their sous-chef (alalay :p in Tagalog). Cut, chop vegetables, wash dishes, wipe dishes, mix dips etc.

Here are some of what my friends prepared:

Baked Ziti,... so creamy and yummy :)

Baked chicken ala buffalo wings. The ranch dressing made by my colleague was so creamy and it fits the buffalo chicken... Don't mind the Hershey's chocolate syrup-- it's not involved in the dish.

We also had grilled liempo. We mixed in calamansi juice, onions and cayenne pepper. It was a hit!

And then there's the quesadilla of Meynard:

which turned out like this when it was sliced. There were 2 dips: guacamole and tomatoes and the ranch dressing of the buffalo wings. I preferred the salsa because the quesadillas already have cheese.. too much dairy!:

And finally, the centerpiece... Lani's lobsters which were boiled in water:

We were all very full, happy and content with this bonding moment..
See the evidence?

I learned a lot. In less than a week, I also tried cooking the quesadilla for a family gathering which was a hit..which I will blog later on.

Anyway, looking forward to another cook off. home :)

Stargazers

I love stargazers or as my Canadian cousin calls them , tiger lilies... not only because of their beauty but also the scent it imparts to the room when the flowers bloom. I am lucky to have been this plant by a friend on my birthday:

This was taken at the office. As you can see the flower buds did not bloom yet. And so I brought it home with me. After 5 days, i had this:

 Our room smelled amazing. And there were still 3 buds about to bloom. After 3 more days, the other buds bloomed and so I have this. Only one more left to open.

 Finally, all are open!

 

Right now, there's only one blossom left. The petals of the first flowers started falling when the last flower bloomed. I plan to keep the plant alive all throughout the years and I am researching how. I hope it would be a success.

These flowers reflect how loved I am by my friend and by God.

Barney's Burger

We chanced upon Barney's Burger at Porta Vaga Mall after attending mass at the Baguio Cathedral. It is located in a small area near the steps connecting the mall to Puso ng Baguio.

At first we were intrigued because  it was packed  although it was a small place of 4  tables. However, there were 3-5 people lining up for takeout/takeaway so we opted to taste their burger ....and, we were not disappointed.

We had the bacon cheeseburger, fries and lemonade. The burger was juicy and tasted "flame grilled"  ( I did not observe if they were using coals) and I like their fries because it's "real" potatoes.

If you happen to pass by Barney's Burger-- give it a try.. it's a cheaper alternative to Army Navy with almost the same or better taste. :)

Zumba Fitness Party 1 Wii

My new exercise companion which started this morning...

Zumba Fitness Party Wii version!

 I love the graphics and how they conceptualized it like you are travelling all over the world and you can choose the level of difficulty (beginner, intermediate and advance) and the number or minutes for the workout.

The European Zumba dances made me huff and puff because of the Irish and Russian steps which involve a lot of jumps and feet movement.

There's also the Hawaiian Zumba dances which are good for cool down.. it's so calming..

 And then there's the Latin American Zumba dances which are engaging and fast.

There are Latino dances as well -- the hip gyrating ones with Gina as the lead dancer but I couldn't find a picture on it from the Web. There's still hiphop, Indian and other dances I haven't tried yet.

If it weren't for my 8 AM class, I would have had a longer session in our bedroom.

I browsed the Web and then there's Zumba Wii 2. I'll stick to the first version for sometime first. Hopefully, these Zumba workouts will help me achieve my target weight goal.

Photos courtesy of Google Images
Zumba Wii courtesy of the BaguioPirate :D

Enjoying Life at Vitalis

This place was formerly called Santiago Cove but now it is named as Vitalis Resort and Spa. We were fortunate to be introduced to this place by my brother and hipag.

Vitalis is located in Santiago, Ilocos Sur. It is the town after Candon City and it is 45 minutes away from Vigan City.

The amenities include the following:

The pool whose depth starts  from 4 ft and slowly becomes 6 ft in depth. It is a bit small compared to other resorts but it is clean and there is a slide.

They also have this separate dining area;

The resort offers kayaking and  pedal boating. This picture shows the function area of the hotel and the bar below it.

 It is a cove,so the waters are shallow. This is a view of the hotel 8-10 meters away from the hotel taken from the beach.

 This was a picture taken of me during sunset... See, the water is really shallow and the waves just lap around.

The sand is quite off-white/beige in color and the beach is not rocky. It might not be as powdery as Boracay's white sand but it's still fine.

There are surrounding small resorts in the area-- mainly for the public which dots the way going to Vitalis Resort. If you can see the small roofs in the picture, those are the stalls that were put up that offer cooked food or videoke.

There are plenty of people swimming in that area.

At night time, there is a play of lights in the main area of Vitalis. The colors would turn in different colors of the rainbow.

They also have mosaic displays which the workers work on once in a while during the day. It seems like they do it only when they do't have anything to do. 

It is notable to mention that there are various paintings and works of art inside and outside the lobby of the hotel. We even met one of their artists doing a painting.

For two nights, we 2-3 hours outside the beach staring at the stars....

and watching crabs/hermit crabs crawling along the sand.

During the mornings, we go out and walk or try some of their equipment such as the paddle boat. 

With the paddle boat you can see beneath the CLEAR waters.. we saw some sea snakes and small fishes but these aren't very colorful.. what was colorful unfortunately were the some plastic trash we saw sticking out from the rocks. There are residences on a sitio found a few kilometers from the cove which we discovered when we went driving there. We were dismayed with the trash we saw near the beach which might be going to theVitalis Cove.

We booked in a modest room which is one of those first rooms built in the area when it was still called Santiago Cove:

But there are rooms roughly double the price of our room which had first class amenities which we saw when we toured there a couple of weeks before we checked in. These are located in the new building. 

Our room is at the old building. We also need to economize when we travel if we want to stretch our budget. Thus, the explanation of some of our snacks and stuff there. No shame there...heheh! proud piso pincher here! 

Food:

For the food, I had breakfast buffets way better than at Vitalis. However, they are renovating and changing things so this is understable. 

These are some of the stuff they offer for breakfast:

which can be eaten with these priceless views in the morning..

For our dinners for 2 nights, we tried the following:

Dinner 1: Liempo with rice-- overpriced at Php 300.00. I can have thrice of this is in Andok's! Again-- this is in a resort..:P

Yummy pakbet with bagnet which is PHp 200.00 - more reasonable than the liempo (can't get over it!!!)

For dessert, fruit salad and leche flan (still overpirced but do I need to remind myself that we were in isolation?)

Dinner #2: Bolognese pasta.. This needs a little makeover-- 7/10

And club sandwich..this one I love ..same as the pinakbet however the bacon was burned! That's my complaint.

So, all in all-- I would give Vitalis 6.5- 7/10-- they need a major makeover on their menu and also some trainings for their dining stuff... The place has a feel of a 5 star hotel in appearance but they need to match their food and dining service to that impression. 

With the ongoing renovations an d changes that are coming-- they cannot put a claim on the word, spa, yet - But, it will be exciting to see how much the place will change 2 -3 years from now.

Vigan City, Vigan Church and Baluarte

Enter my second entry to my post about Vigan -- this time it is about the sites we saw at Vigan City.

Most of the new architectures tried to capture the old Spanish Vigan Heritage site... I do not know if this is a requirement from the city but these fastfoods look cute:

a. Chowking

b.  McDonalds

Hubby and I also visited the Vigan Cathedral in order to give thanks for our safe trip and blessings which paved the way for us to travel. It is a very  beautiful Church:

Frontage:

Belfry:

Inside:

At first, I was shy to take out our camera but once we saw a few tourists taking pictures, I asked my hubby to capture some pics to show it as well to my mother-in-law who is a devout Catholic.

The Vigan Church actually faces the City Hall of Vigan and the Vigan Plaza which has a fountain:

I bet this has a dancing fountain show at night... it's just unfortunate we weren't there to witness it.

After visiting the Church, hubby and I went to Baluarte Zoo which is owned by the incumbent governor, Chavit Singson. The entrance fee is free and there are signages reminding visitors that everything is for free and they are not asking for donations.

First stop: Tigers

 Among the animals here, these are the ones who are not freely roaming around. and then there are the miniature horses and ostriches. The ostriches are so used to people they do not chase them.

 Then there are these colorful birds... they do look like the protagonist at Rio ... they do not fly away and thank God there weren't any mischievous guests goading on the animals when we went to visit.

Very tame deers... they are not afraid to interact and be fed by visitors:

 And of course, the grown up Little Foot (those who have watched the The Land Before Time know him)

 Hub is giving a hi-5 to this dinosaur.

Noticeable in this area is this gold building... Hubs and I assumed that it is Chavit Singson's home which is possible. There seems to be a helipad  on top of the building.

There were so many people we did not dare enter their Butterfly Sanctuary so we just contented ourselves with these. 

I still remember a friend who frequents in Vigan advising me to go to Baluarte because the animals there are healthier looking than those at Manila Zoo which is actually true because they are well taken cared of although I pity them such that they are in a stressful environment with all the people ogling at them or trying to touch them -- maybe they are just used to it.