Thursday Thirteen: Movie Marathon


13 movies and my rating


  1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone *****
  2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets *****
  3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban *****
  4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire *****
  5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix *****
  6. Harry Potter and the Half blood Prince *****
  7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 *****

    I've heard so much of the Harry Potter movies and I have 3 of those movies in our movie collection and yet I didn't find it interesting enough to watch. Until last month. I feel that I am the only one among my friends who hasn't seen a single Harry Potter movie. And so in 3 days time, I watched all 7 movies! And I loved it. I even bought the last book so I'll know what the ending would be.

  8. Red ****
  9. From Paris with Love ***
  10. Private Valentine Blonde Dangerous **
  11. Nancy Drew ***
  12. Public Enemies ***
  13. Eat Pray Love *


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Into beads

My daughter is addicted to the Swarovski Crystal beads ever since she got them as birthday gift last year. She was able to make a beautiful bracelet out of it. Now, she's asking me to buy her more beads so that she can make a matching necklace. She's at the age where she's into accessories already. Oh my, she's growing up just way too fast! I wish I could stop the time so she can stay longer at this age of hers.

Beef Tongue [Lengua] in Mushroom Sauce

My newly found recipe. This has been one of my favorite dish since I was a kid. But I have never attempted to cook one since I don't know how to clean the tongue. Last December though, after checking some videos online on how to clean the tongue, I finally decided to try it, and it turned out quite well. I serve it over Christmas dinner and everybody loves it. Everybody that eat tongue that is.



1 ox tongue (about 1.1 kilos)
2 tbsp. of vinegar
1 whole garlic
1 whole onion
6 peppercorns
1 bay leaf
1/2 carrot
a few stalks of leek
1 can condensed mushroom soup
1/4 c. + 2 tbsp. of butter
1 onion, chopped
1/2 k. of potatoes
1/2 c. of milk
salt and pepper
1 tsp. of finely chopped fresh parsley
1 onion, sliced
4 button mushrooms, chopped

Clean the tongue by scraping the knife under running water. Place in a glass bowl and cover with water. Add 2 tbsp. of vinegar. With your hands, "wash" the tongue in the warer-vinegar solution. Rinse well. Place the ox tongue in a casserole and cover with water. Pierce garlic in several places with a sharp pointed knife. Add garlic, onion, carrot, leeks, peppercorns and bay leaf to the tongue. Set over medium heat and bring to a soft boil, removing scum as it rises. Lower heat, cover and simmer until tender, about 3-4 hours.

When the tongue is tender, transfer it to a plate and cool completely. Remove the skin and slice crosswise into 1/4″ thick slices. Set aside. Strain the broth.

Over medium-high heat, melt 1 tbsp. of butter in a skillet. Brown the chopped onion. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. Set aside.

Increase heat to high and melt the remaining butter in the skillet. Add the sliced lengua and brown them in batches, removing them as they brown and adding more butter if necessary. Saute the sliced onion in the skillet. Add the chopped mushrooms. Dilute the mushroom soup with the meat broth. Use equal parts of soup and broth for a regular sauce; reduce the amount of broth by half for a thicker sauce. Pour diluted soup into the skillet. Lower heat to medium and bring to a soft boil, stirring to make sure that no lumps remain. Return the tongue slices to the skillet and heat through.

SOURCE

No consideration at all

My husband's friend, B, from the Philippines is supposed to come here last Sunday. B knows all of hubby's contact information and he also know that hubby plans to meet him at the airport on his arrival day. Everything has been set.

B's arrival was at 12 noon. Hubby and the kids didn't even had lunch yet when they went to the airport at 12:15 pm. They waited till 2:30 pm. Luckily, I got off at work at 1:30 pm and took the kids for a quick lunch at the food court. But hubby never left the waiting area.

Hubby waited for 2.5 hours at the airport, he thought he might be delayed at the immigration. But he never showed up. Either he missed his flight or got deported due to lack of documentation or he didn't even bother to look for hubby and left the airport on his own.

My daughter was supposed to go to a party that day at 2pm, and totally missed it because of this. Poor daughter, she was really looking forward to the party.

Up to now, there's no word on B if he made it here or not. Well, that's really rude on my part. A simple email saying "I made it here" will suffice. But nothing so far!

Island Life

Do you think island life would be the life for you? ~ From That's My Answer. ~

Isolated island, NO... But a developed island with facilities, YES! Hahaha...

I remember watching Tom Hanks movie "Cast Away", and I told my husband that I would not have survived in that island that long... nor would I even have the courage to sail out to the sea and take the chance of being found. :-( You see, I don't know how to swim, and water scares the hell out of me.

What about you???

Self Portrait

Reposting: These were drawn by my daughter... a self-portrait and a couple of horses... she really has the talent to draw and I wish I could find a drawing school for her soon...


Observations

What do you see when you watch Grey's Anatomy? Do you watch the story line? Do you get mesmerized with McDreamy or the sexy love making scenes or the part of the surgeries in the OR? Well, my friend is into the settings, the charts and the medical carts. Go figure. She told me that it's because she works in the hospital and would love to have the equipments and all supplies that she sees in the show.

Fresh Flowers

Since I can never grow any plants around the house, except for my Chinese Bamboo Tree, I am in the habit of buying fresh flowers every now and then. Especially when it's on sale already. And every time I have guests over.

One project at a time

Now that my basement is done and got a new leather sofa and matching love seat, I'm itching to redecorate our living room with new designer furniture. I know I am way into my head with this new project since I haven't fully paid my basement yet. But seeing how nice our basement looks right now, I just can't wait. As I said, I've been itching to redecorate, but I guess it will have to wait till I pay off my basement! One project at a time, as my husband would say. Oh well...

Acnetix

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am looking for acne products. And I think I just found the best treatment for acne in the market today.

Acnetix™ is quickly becoming the #1 selling and best acne treatment on the internet. It is a 1-step, all natural acne treatment, and customers absolutely love the results. It is perfect even with the worst cases of acne. Has anyone ever tried this product before?

Acne problems

When I was in my teenage years, I never had any acne problems like my friends. I consider myself very lucky at that time. And in my 20s and 30s, I would probably have 1 pimple every month, usually before I get my period. Now that I'm in my 40s, I seem to be having more pimples than before, is aging a contributing factor? hmmmm.

Anyway, I think it's high time I browse through some acne products, just in case it got worst! But so far it is still manageable and it clears away after 2-3 days.

Cypress Trees

I don't have a green thumb, so aside from the Chinese Bamboo Tree, all plants die on me. Trees, I guess are much easier to grow, but since we live in a condo townhouse, we've got management handling all the shoveling and planting in our neighborhood. If we did have a single detach house, I would love to have Italian cypress trees or even just the cypress shrubs in my backyard along the pathway.

Patrick turns 14!

Tomorrow, my son turns 14! We had a pre-celebration today with 3 families. And am thankful for my guests for coming despite the cold and bad winter condition we had today.





I didn't plan on any games or loot bags for the kids since he's already a teenager. My son gets to play Wii with his friends and sister. And they also played DSi and watch movies.

Happy, happy birthday Patrick!!! We love you very, very much!

Corporate Tax

Tax season is here once again. And I am quite excited for this one. I'm hoping that I will make more out of my commission since I took a Tax Corporate course with an online university. I never thought I could do a self-study course, but I did. So now, I am officially qualified to do Corporate Tax Returns.

After this tax season, I'm looking at another online university to take up bookkeeping course. I just wanted to be able to do bookkeeping for my corporate client.

Black Friday Deals

Is it only on Thanksgiving weekend that we can get a really huge discounts? Well, if you're an online shopper, you should know by now that at Buy.com, the day after Thanksgiving and every day in between, you can still get the same, if not better, Black Friday deals in Electronics, Computers, Games, Toys, Jewelries, Clothing and Shoes, Household Essentials, and a whole lot more. Whatever you need, you can be sure to find it there.

Food!

Our new year's eve dinner... food is great! Company's great! Tons of fun and laughter... Cheers to 2011!



Relenong Manok... Paella Valenciana... Kare-kare... Chicken Alexander...
Sushi... Spring rolls... Pancit molo...



and Goldilock's Sans Rival and Brazo de Mercedes... and mini brownies...