Food, food, food.

When it comes to travel planning, I have been taught to focus on certain things: Getting good deals on flights, where you're staying, how you will get around, how much to pack, and what sight-seeing you want to do there. But in most cases, I kinda forget about food. I'm so excited about the trip itself, that I forget that during the course of my travels...I'm going to have to eat sometime. Now when you go to places like Italy or France you just think to yourself "Oh, I will get my fill in authentic cuisines and cultural favorites". But most of the time, its SUPER expensive to eat out. I know when I went to France I was excited to indulge in the foods of the country...but my bank account was not as excited to do so. I spent most of that trip buying loaves of bread and a jar of marinara sauce...Happy Dinner Time...again...lol. So when it comes to traveling I always have this little "fear" that I either won't enjoy the food or it will be too expensive for me to enjoy.

But here in the Philippines, this is NOT the case. Staying with the Reyes family has been quite the tasty adventure! The last couple weeks we have been SPOILED with some amazing food! Some tasty Filipino dishes and some delicious attempts at Western food, either way it has been awesome! Shielah is a very creative and diverse cook and I think thats what we love the most about her! :)

One day we were sitting in the house and Shielah said, "Do you girls like onion rings?" and we said, "Uh...yes, we do." "Ok, thats what I'll make for lunch then." she said. We were kinda confused, does she mean actual onion rings or is this a Filipino onion ring? But sure enough. She took some onions, cut them into nice round pieces and then made a batter to dip them in. Then after they were covered in batter she fried them. They turned out PERFECT! Better than any frozen-then-deep-fried onion ring I have ever had.

Another time, I had mentioned that I was craving buko salad. A couple days later, Roy and Shielah said, "Hey girls! We have the buko here. Come help us prepare it for the buko salad" Let me explain, Buko is a young coconut. It is still green and has a very large shell. Inside there is water, very sweet and sanitary water, which is also called Buko Juice and the flesh of the coconut is very soft. 

So to prepare a Buko for Buko salad you start by chopping off the top of the coconut and then you can drink the water out of the coconut or you can pour the water into a container to save for later. But of course it is SOOO much more fun to drink the Buko Juice right out of the coconut.

Then once the coconut is empty you chop it in half and use this little shaving tool and a spoon to collect all the flesh inside. Then we would put it into a large bucket to use for our Buko Salad.

The kids even helped us...for about 20 seconds...lol.

Once the Buko is all shaved you add Fruit cocktail and Condensed milk to the large bucket, then you refrigerate it for awhile and Ta-Da! You have Buko Salad (We never said it was a HEALTHY salad....;)  ) LeAnne and I were able to help with the whole process which made it taste even better!

Mmm! Sooo Good!

A couple days later, Shielah need coconut milk for a lunch time recipe. She went to the market and bought a Nyog, which is an older coconut. The shell of the Nyog is brown and thinner than the Buko, it looks like the coconuts you would see in movies. Inside there is sanitary water, but it has a sour taste and the flesh is hard.

 Like the Buko, you chop the Nyog in two. But then, you take the two halves and you shred them on "the horse". The horse it just a clever name Roy came up with for their shredder, because its a long board with a sharp tool on the end and you sit on top of the board so it won't move. Then you rotate the coconut halves over the blade and it makes shredded coconut. It gives you quite the arm work out. LeAnne and I tried for a little bit but after all our hard work....we had very little to show for it. So Roy finished it up for us. ;)

After the coconut is all shredded, you put it into a bowl with some water and begin to squeeze the coconut. Then you strain out the water into a seperate container and then add more water and repeat the process until the coconut can be squeezed no more. Then Ta-Da you have Coconut milk to mix with any dish to make it taste MORE amazing!

So those are just a few of the amazing things we have had since we've been here. It seems as though EVERY meal time is the opportunity to try something new and delicious. As of now, our only "fear" is not fitting into our pants when we get back home ;)

 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things." ~Matthew 6:31-32 

Haddie FINALLY came near me today!! It was such a happy day!!