Glazed Pineapple Cupcake

I used the Duncan Hines Pineapple Cake Mix. I chopped up some pineapples from the can and stuffed it into the batter after I put the batter into each individual cupcake paper cups. I wanted to make sure that each bite of the cupcake there is also a bite of pineapple. One tip is to use the pineapple that is in heavy syrup. I tried to be healthy and used the the other one but the pineapple turned out to be a bit too sour.

I thought the cupcake was too plain and sour so I decide to put a glazed on it. I used some condense milk with the pineapple syrup from the can and cooked it for a little bit. Thanks Andy for the idea! The glazed turned out creamy with a bit of pineapple taste which was really good!

Review of International Food Festival '09

This Saturday, we had to run errands the whole day so we got to the festival around 5pm. We thought the crowds would die down during this time but it was still packed and filled with people. Food was everywhere and I couldn't wait to check out each stand! I was hunting for some cheap eats, street fair food and something spectacular but I didn't find anything that was spectacular.... The best thing about being at the festival so late is that the food vendors sell their stuff for cheaper because they want to get rid of the food. I got some two for one deals! yay! The first thing I spotted was Kyotofu! I've been wanting to check out their cupcake and I did...I got the chocolate souffle cupcake. It has a very rich chocolate taste and was very moist. I liked it but I prefer my cupcakes to be lighter....Andy wasn't impressed said it was just a really moist brownie. I won't say this place has the best cupcakes but I do want to go back to try more of their stuff! Who wants to go with me?

There was alot of Thai food stands at the festival. Most of the Thai place sold the same things like skewer stuff, pad Thai, noodles, egg rolls and etc. I notice Thai food was the cheapest food at the fair. How come all Asian cuisine are mostly cheap eats? Most of their stuff was $1-5 so I tried out a few of the Thai places, this was one of them...This place served different flavor popsicles...
This is a deep fried soft shell crab, the skin was soggy and cold so it tasted really bad... Maybe it would've been good if it was hot. so i tired soft shell crab somewhere else....it was cold but it was actually good. The soft shell crab was kinda of meaty and tasted fresh. some healthy choices... fresh fruit or smoothies.
This piggie was being grilled for the restaurant called Chimichurri Grill. We didn't try it but it sure looks good!
This piggie didn't want to get the piggie flu! We wanted to eat more stuff but everyone was packing. Now I wish we went earlier! I didn't get to eat the fair foods like funnel cakes and stuff like that but at this point I was kinda of stuffed from all the fried food. Oh well...

Since the weather is getting nicer, I'm looking forward to all street fairs and out door activities. That means more food everywhere!! YAY!

Bad economy = free drink!

Valentines Day Surprise!

For this vday, I'm going to be all alone. :sigh: I think this is the first time I'll be alone for vday in my 8 year relationship with my boyfriend. He went to HK and will be there for a month. It's going to be a very long month. I miss him soo much! We actually talk almost everyday. Thank goodness, phone cards are so cheap these days. One phone card is $8 and has 500 mins.

Just an hour ago, I was working at my desk and my phone rang. I saw it was a unfamiliar phone number and I picked it up. This is how the conversation went:

dude: I'm downstairs, can you come pick it up?
me: excuse me...who's this?
dude: I'm from sugar sweet sunshine, I'm downstairs your building
me: :shock face: okay, I'll be there.

I went downstairs and didn't see anyone. I called the dude back and asked him where he was. He was at another CBW building. I told him the correct address and he came. I felt bad so I gave him more tip. He gave me a white bag, it looked like it had alot of box in it and on top of the box there was a card w/ andy's childish handwriting on it. In the bag, there were 3 boxes = 3 dozen cupcakes!!!!! There were all different types of favor. There was more of the pistachio, one of my favorite favors.

I opened all the box and shared it w/ my coworkers. They loved it! It was so funny that my coworker Brenda, was going out for a meeting and walked out w/ a chocolate cupcake; she called a few mins later just to tell Isabel how good it was. So funny!

I guess I'll be eating and getting fat this vday! I think I'm just going to bake and spend time with my parents. My gf Maribeth might chill with me this weekend so I'm excited.

If you guys planning on spending a low key vday, you may want to go for the Papa John's heart shape pizza. A nice romantic movie, pizza and cuddling sounds really nice....

Happy Valentines Day everyone! Tell someone you love how special they are to you...

Part II: Birthday Surprise!

This week I attended a surprise birthday dinner for a very special friend, Nadia. Cecille told Nadia she wanted to take her out for her birthday but she didn't know Cecille invited all of us. Nadia tried to email us to see if we could all go. Cecille told us ahead of time to tell her that we were unable to attend so I told Nadia I had to work. I kept telling her I was sorry and that I would make it up to her. I also tried to make other plans with her so she wouldn't get suspicious.

We plan to meet at Engeline's, a Filipino restaurant, by 7:45pm. And Cecille was suppose to bring Nadia there by 8:00pm. Some of us were running late so we were all texting each other, telling Cecille to stall her from going to the restaurant. Cecille and Jeri did a great job! When all of us arrived, we sat down at a big table and waited for them with the huge menu covering our heads. I bet the waiters and waitress were looking at us strangely. Then we heard them came in asking for a table. We sat there quietly, trying not to laugh and suddenly we heard Nadia said omg and came over to hug us. I guess when Cecille told her to sit at a table next to a bunch of people covering themselves with menus, that gave it away....Nadia's face = priceless!

After all the hugging and surprise we were all hungrily looking at the menu trying to decide what to order. I love Filipino food, I usually go to the Filipino restaurants near 69 Streets! I've never been to this restaurant before but I wanted to try everything! I order a few of my favorites, starting with my favorite Filipino desert (yes, I drink/eat it before my meal):

Avocado Con Hielo (avocado with milk and crushed ice) When I first had this drink, a few years ago, I was like gross avocado as a drink, wtf? But it turns out to be so delicious! The drink is so creamy but not very thick and the milk makes the avocado taste so sweet. The milk really brings out the avocado taste! This has become one of my favorite deserts:

Appetizers:

1) Lumpiang Shanghai: ground pork, shrimp, and vegetables wrapped in egg roll, deep fried, served with sweet and sour sauce. When you bite into these babies, the outside crust is crispy and hot and the inside is creamy! This is another one of my favorite and must have at any Filipino restaurant! We ordered 3 orders and finished it in no time!

2) Fried Calamari, the squid was dipped in batter, deep-fried and served with sweet and sour sauce. It was crispy and the sweet and sour sauce was a little spicy.

Entrees:
I ordered the Kare-Kare, a oxtail stew and tripe in peanut butter sauce with mixed tropical vegetables. I love this dish, thanks to my sister who introduced me to it! You probably thinking peanut butter in a stew? wtf? But the very nutty peanut taste and the stew being very creamy makes it awesome. The oxtail meat was very soft and tender, the meat slides off the bone. The portion from this place is huge! In the past, ordering from other Filipino restaurant, they usually give a smaller portion. I was happy because I ate alot and had some left to go!

Other people ordered the:

• Pork Barbecue (2 sticks): marinated pork slices in bamboo skewers
  
• Kalderetang Baka: stewed beef in tomato sauce with pepper and spices
• Nilagang baka: beef short rib with tamarind and vegetables in broth
• Beef Steak (Filipino Style) marinated beed with onion and vegetables

All of these were okay, the bbq on a stick wasn't as good as Ihawan (another Filipino restaurant I often go to) and it was more expensive. The meat in the kalderetang baka was very chewy but the sauce was very flavorful. The soup was kind of salty, very different from the Chinese soups which we put very little salt to preserve the natural taste of all the ingredients. The beef steak was pretty good, I think it was my 2nd best out of the entrees (my kare-kare was my #1).

After our meal, we sat around chatting and giggling. Me and Cecille was trying figure out how to surprise Nadia with her birthday cupcakes that we brought from Sugar Sweet Sunshine. We realized that we had a few problems:

• We didn't have a lighter to light the candle...
• How are we going to actually get the box of cupcakes from under the table and stick a candle on a cupcake without her knowing?

Me, Andy and Cecille slowly work our way to get all of these problem solved, team work baby! First, we try to signal Jen to ask the waiter for a lighter but she didn't get the cue. Cecille pretend to go ask the waiter for something and they gave her a big ass lighter used to light stoves but she hide it well behide her so Nadia (I hope) didn't notice it. Then I instructed Andy to slowly open the huge box of cupcakes from under the table. Apparently the boxed had alot of tape and was hard to open but he slowly teared it off! I slowly try to open the box of candles from under the table. I stick one candle on a cupcake that was the nearest and reachable which was one of the side cupcakes. Cecille saw it and start laughing, she whispered in my ear and told me I should've put the candle on the middle cupcake. We both started to laugh, at this point I wasn't sure if Nadia notice anything because she was siting right across from us and I thought we were being very obvious. Andy still holding the box of cupcake from under the table, I quickly removed the candle and put it in the middle cupcake and hoped that it was the middle one. After hassling with the candle, there was another problem. How the hell were we suppose to light the candle from under the table? We tried but we didn't want to burn the table so we just ended up whipping the box of cupcake out and start singing Happy Birthday to her!

We brought a variety of cupcake flavors: Sexy Red Velvet, Pistachio, Ooey Gooey Chocolate and Sunshine (yellow cake with vanilla buttercream). The cupcakes were so moist and yummi! I could eat a few at a sitting!

Good food, great friends, awesome night..... Happy Birthday Nadia!

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Engeline's, Restaurant & Bakeshop (Philippine Cuisine)
58-28 Roosevelt Ave.
Woodside, NY 11377
718:898-7878
MTA: 7 Train to 61 Street Woodside

Sugar Sweet Sunshine:
126 Rivington Street
(between Essex and Norfolk Street)
212-995-1960
MTA: J, M, F to Essex Street