Those last weeks of September just flew by, and I was kept busy by the remaining workouts of the Manila Throwdown, trying out Mystery Manila for the first time, and spending time with family and friends. Some of my best friends' birthdays are in September, as well as my dad's. For my dad's birthday, we hosted a small dinner at home for his high school buddies. Mom, Yaya V, Yaya Rose, and I started cooking as soon as I woke up. On the menu, we had steak, eggplant parmigiana, sardine puttanesca, sweet and sour butterflied tilapia, and mom and I experimented on deep fried apple pies. I was so excited for dessert that night, and was happy to hear that Macy enjoyed it! It went really well with this Silverlake Riesling that my mom brought home from Washington.
I'm actually not a big fan of apple pie, but this fried apple pie one with kesong puti ice cream was sooo good! š pic.twitter.com/RNmB2d0U8v
— Macy Alcaraz (@macysfields) September 27, 2015
My friend, Anna, had been so busy with her multiple jobs, that her husband wanted to get us involved in planning an early birthday surprise for her. Her post below sums up how it went, and seeing how happy that made her was more than I could ask for.
On her actually birthday salubong, she wanted to host a Mexican night. Chris, her husband, said that Anna had wanted a piƱata, and was wondering where he could get an inexpensive one. I volunteered to attempt one,... and got a little ambitious with a macaron peg for Mrs. Graham.
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| The finished product: a macaron piƱata in the colors of her Salted Caramel flavour |
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| Mini-piƱatas for each of my Girlies, represented by their favorite colors. |
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| Strung on a doorway, with Anna's Mexican table setting in the background. |
I made the mini-piƱatas with cups, based off a sample I saw on this Brit + Co article. As for the macaron, I had to wing it! If you want to see how I did it, keep reading below, and I uploaded photos, too. Unfortunately, I might've made them too sturdily (for fear of it not holding up) that when we started hitting and pulling them respectively, they didn't break! Overall, it was all such good fun, with very little help from the spiked punch and Bacardi. Anna served chili con carne, quesadillas, tacos, this new JalapeƱo-flavored Nova (I love Nova!) with Anapet's salsa. So grateful for these friends of mine.
