Moving to Maginhawa wasn't easy for me. Tomas Morato has been my home for 3 years and being surrounded by bars, pubs and restaurants that operate 24/7 isn't actually a bad thing. But whenever I remember all the times I had to feel like a survivor just to get home while battling the rain, moving makes sense all of a sudden. 

Looking for a place close to work wasn't easy either. Sometimes I begin to think, why did I decide to work here in the first place if I had to endure all the evilness this place has to offer? Business-wise, Manila is a pool of endless job opportunities and aggressive career growth, but it's not a conducive place for a healthy and productive life--unless you're rich and can actually afford a nice place to live in. I have more to say on the topic but that deserves a separate blog post, back to the topic. Maginhawa is like a more laid-back version of Tomas Morato. There aren't a lot of establishments that are open 24/7 but the selection of places you can go to are eccentric and fascinating. One of which is Gerry's Jeepney. 

Before summer started, I had this thinking that my body was okay and I'm not fat in any way. Yes, I wasn't THAT fat but I was definitely unhealthy. To make things worse, I committed myself to the GM diet program without prior preparation nor was I fully educated about the whole thing.  I did lose a lot of weight but I think it only made my body's state worse!

A couple of months after that, I realized that I'm not getting any younger and therefore should be living and eating healthier. I started engaging in physical activities, from Zumba to Boing to the Ab Ripper workout. Eventually, I changed my eating habits too and it involved less fast food and more home-cooked/prepared meals. Yay!

And that's what I'll be sharing today, my go-to weekday salad recipe!

Ola! I'm not Spanish in any way, I just love using that greeting. Meh. For today's post, I'd like to formally introduce a new category on my blog, 'Kitchen Chronicles'! I'll be sharing recipes and my kitchen adventures! I just want to over share and go all out, the boyf and I not so formally moved together (This I will share in another blog post!) 2 weeks ago. And can I just say, I love love love our Kitchen! I don't know what's been up with me lately but I've been addicted to cooking! By the way, just a disclaimer, I'm not really a good cook, I'm just a normal person who loves to cook. The good thing about this new category is that I'll be sharing my boo-boo's too so you can avoid them in the future. Yay!

Sorry for the text overload, let's proceed with the recipe! For today, I'll be sharing my recipe for Spicy Tuyo Pasta! Yummmmm!

Ingredients:

Quick post before I head to the kitchen to cook dinner! Here's my cheat entry for the week, I've been quite obsessed with home cooking since I moved to a different unit and I love my kitchen so much! It has been rather easy to resist temptation with the new set up, but of course, I still cheated. LOL. 

Let me introduce you to this baby, Samanco! I first had a taste of this fish-shaped ice cream at Donday, at eat-all-you-can Korean restaurant. I loved the taste because aside from Vanilla Ice Cream, it also had red bean paste which is something I really love! (Thinking about Starbucks' Green Tea with Red Beans? I only eat the red beans because I hate tea. Lol.) I wouldn't want to go all the way to Malingap St. just to buy the fish-shaped ice cream so I felt kinda sad 'cause I only get to eat it when we go there for buffets--well, until I discovered Samanco at Mini Stop! Yay!

I'm sorry for not being able to post consistently on this blog. I've been a little depressed lately, and I've been mulling over my existence for the past days and my birthday made it worst! I'll write about that on a different blog post, I don't want to spread bad vibes. 

So, moving on. I'm feeling quite domesticated lately, I didn't celebrate my birthday anywhere. I was thinking of getting drunk but I remember how painful it was to vomit the last time it happened. I thought, a staycation with lovey would be nice, 5 days at home with the family and the boyfriend. It was nice but I'm going back to work later. 

And before I do, I thought of sharing a recipe with you! Again if I may say, I'm feeling domesticated. Lol. It's a very simple dish that you can cook anytime, it's most ideal when it's raining! So here goes, drum roll please. Today I'll teach you how to cook, Paksiw na Tilapia! This is my first how-to on cooking so correct me if ever I say something wrong. Haha!

What's going on Chicharon? Hah, that's me trying to pull off a Mikey Bustos opening. Hahaha! Okay, if you don't know him you might not be laughing as hard as I am. 

A few weeks ago, we dined at Red Kimono before our tip to Baguio. My workplace (UP-Ayalaland Technohub) is surrounded by various restaurants which caters to different kinds of food. That particular Friday night we were craving for Japanese food thus leading us to Red Kimono. I promise you this post won't be heavy with text, I'll smother you with photos!