Vanilla with choco-chips cupcake topped with Cream cheese frosting

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Baking has finally become a regular activity at home. :) The kids enjoy doing this with me from mixing the batter to putting cupcake papers in tins and from piping the frosting to sprinkling candies or chocolate bits.

Our afternoons got a bit busier and more colorful with this, they're enjoying it as much as I do. There are still so many flavors to discover, so many combinations to put together and I'm willing to take it slowly and learn them one by one.

The most fun part in this is, my kids not only love baking and decorating, they also enjoy eating their creations. :) 

The recipe for Vanilla with choco-chips cupcake can be found here.

The recipe for Cream cheese frosting can be found here.

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Naruto Kamaboko

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When Kuya O arrived 2 months ago he gave me Kamaboko packs as presents from Japan. Kamaboko is a type of cured surimi (imitation crab/fish) or processed white fish...I like putting them in soups and yakisoba.  He got me aka (red) and shiro (white) plus the rarely found in Vienna, naruto - it means swirl, yes the food where the Ninja character  Uzumaki Naruto was named after. If you are watching that anime you will notice the pink swirl below in many of the costumes worn by the characters,it is in reference to "naruto."

For the naruto kamaboko, I used them with a favorite soup at home, crab and corn. I also made use of them as side dishes in a ramen recipe which I will post later on. If you want a recipe for this crab and corn soup, please click here.

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At home with smoked fish

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I grew up in a rural area where fish is abundant, with fish as part of a daily meal. It has been an inside joke that if we are to eat more fish, we'll grow scales and fins. :)

There's milkfish (bangus) in sour soup (sinigang) and skipjack tuna (tulingan) in a stew made by cooking them in water with vinegar and salt (pinangat). There's tilapia stuffed with tomatoes, onion and celery and deep fried inside a foil (pinaputok na tilapia) and grouper (lapu-lapu) in sweet-sour sauce (escabeche). There's dried fish of different sorts that you eat with rice...dipped in vinegar with garlic. Then there's round scads (galunggong), black scabbard (espada), spanish mackerel (tanigue), milkfish again, tilapia again fried and eaten with rice complimented with any of the following: diced tomatoes and onions in soysauce (toyo), fried eggplant with shrimp paste (bagoong), a mix of vegetables - pinakbet, munggo and the likes and of course the classic dip; calamondin (calamansi) squeezed on fish sauce (patis). 

The list goes on but a blog post won't be enough for all of them...I like fish best when smoked (tinapa). My mom would especially pack tinapang bangus for me when she visits us in Quezon City (circa 2001).  I was never familiar about the place so I could only go as far as SM North and Cherry Foodarama. I doubt they carry tinapa in their food section. If they do, I was so reliant to my mom that I didn't bother looking.

Now, being 12 hours away from our dining table I often crave for smoked fish..I'm happy once in a while getting smoked mackerel in the market- whose cost I wouldn't spend on often. Then, there was an elderly Filipino who sells tinapang bangus for 10Euro. I buy one if I chanced upon him at the mall but he hasn't been there for years...I crave even more.

William Camden once said “The sea hath fish for every man.” - I take that as one which becomes a favorite, I think the sea gave me a number of them, it's just that with smoked fish, I feel a bit closer to home.

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Pizza weekend

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"Time goes by like a breeze" is a cliche that holds true to most aspects of life. Last month, we ate at a cozy Italian restaurant with Kuya O. Today at exactly 6 PM he boarded a plane; flying back to Japan. The kids and I would surely miss him...

The restaurant's name slipped my mind, it's located just below the Praterstern station. I remember there used to be a replica of the Eiffel Tower in the middle of this restaurant, a curious installment for additional amusement to passersby and diners. Thinking, this must have been newly renovated...from being a French restaurant to Italian.

The ambiance, if it's worth writing about, is superb. There's a separate entrance and area for non-smokers so we "enjoyed" the smell of pizza being cooked and the aroma of herbs on them!

We were served with a basket of breads including a giant pretzel which we munched on while waiting for the Hawaiian and Salami Pizza we ordered.

The little girl asked for some french fries as well so she didn't try any of the pizza. Bigger boy's favorite is salami so he had a number of slices and took home 2 more...the littlest of my kids is the biggest eater. lol. He had a bite of everything on the table and this is no wonder why he grows the fastest among the three.

Kuya O doesn't look like it but he eats a lot too. :D This is one thing I like about him, you get the appetite just dining with him...with stories and jokes as side dishes...and I blame him for the 3 kilos I gained while he was here. lol.

Dear Kuya O, fleeting as it may, thank you for the memories and the food you shared with us. Hontou ni arigatou gozaimashita! We'll see you again...

Pizzeria/Ristorante in Prater Station
1020 Vienna





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