PICKLES AND MORE

When we pursue our passion with a vengeance,  it may seem to others that we are over-doing it and the usual comment is : " hey, you're angry".   

Well, I'm making pickled veggies again but I'm not angry.   I'm just feeling passionate on pickling at the moment because I found a way to eat my veggies without the hassle of preparing them for every meal.  

Today I just made a variety of pickled veggies to choose from whenever and whichever I'm in the mood for.  They go well with anything, pork, chicken, beef or fish; it works as an appetizer too and eating them fills me up easily so I eat less of the main course which has definitely more calories. 

Today, I pickled the following veggies

Bitter gourd, cucumber, turnips, small shallots, and daikon radish.  

Jim helped me peel them.  He cut off the shallot leaves and peeled the bulbs to be pickled. 

I sliced bitter gourd diagonally after I removed the seeds and scraped off the white portion with a spoon, that part is so bitter.  

I put salt to the sliced bitter gourd and daikon radish and let them sweat out the tangy juice, then I squeezed further.  I then rinsed and squeezed three more times to remove the salty taste. 

I chose the Japanese cucumbers to be pickled because they normally have less seeds.  However I found that some parts still have significantly big seeds.

Notice that I started to take off the part with big seeds.

When all the veggies were sliced, 

I sterilized the mason jars and put the veggies in. 

The usually mixture of two cups each of vinegar and water, 3/4 cup white sugar and 1/2 tsp salt is brought to a boil and poured over each jar.  As soon as they cool down, I covered the jars tightly. 

My final products.  

I still have kangkong and carrots left over from yesterday.  I just added the excess turnips in the carrot jar. 

THE HOMING SEASON

You maybe wondering what this blog is all about, am I into birds now?  No, no, in fact I already have a title in mind for this topic but Jim reminded me of the homing doves, and I totally agree with him on the analogy, hence the title. 

Did you know that the homing pigeon has the remarkable ability to find its way home repeatedly over extremely hugh and disorienting distances?  Yes, competitive pigeon racing has recorded distances as far as 1,800 km or 1,100 miles.  

Well, I could say the same to humans, especially Filipinos who live abroad.  No matter how far and wide they found jobs, they always manage to come home occasionally.    They are tagged as the "Balikbayans". " Balik", meaning go back and "bayan" is country. 

Every year in late November to mid-February Filipinos living abroad, be it in the United States, Europe, the Middle East or just in the neighboring Asian countries come home for family or class reunions or simply for vacation.  They are the so-called balikbayans. 

They choose these period because of the cold weather and escape the freezing winter where they presently live.  Majority that come home regularly are retired citizens because they have the time and the money for travel and leisure.  Younger ones come home occasionally but not as often while others have to wait for many years due to residency concerns in their country of work. 

Balikbayans are seen in beach resorts in the countryside where they enjoy the sun and commune with nature.  They frequent the malls and love filipino delicacies; they bring their families to lunch or dinner and meet up with friends in restaurants around town where their friends back home have raved about as something to see.  Oftentimes, they squeeze in a weekend Asian trip along with their families. The younger ones are more inclined to go to the beaches in Boracay and Palawan; the most talked about beach resorts that made it to the top five best in the world.    

This season, we had our share of balikbayan visitors; relatives from abroad,

my sister and brother-in-law from Florida, 

Jim's brother,  his wife and daughter from Vancouver 

Jim's former colleague and BFF with his wife from San Francisco, 

my college Besties and their spouses from California and Las Vegas.   

Of course, my son and younger daughter and their families flew in for Christmas but I would not count them as guests. 

If I were to count friends who came home from all over the world for our high school grand reunion in my hometown this year, I'd say that there are a lot of them.   Many of them expressed to see me personally but due to heavy traffic navigating around the metro, and too many commitments during the holidays to meet up with friends and relatives, it was not at all possible. 

It's the middle of February but the weather is even getting better, if I may say so since I love the cold, but not the freezing cold.  For the balikbayans still in town I'm sure that they are also enjoying the weather especially in Baguio and Tagaytay. 

PICKLES

Today, I decided to make pickles.  I got inspired after I had lunch with my college Besties at Bulgogi Brothers BBQ Restaurant last Sunday.  We all fell in love with their side dish of pickled kangkong (water spinach) that we kept asking for more.  

Maybe I am getting fascinated with kangkong lately that I often use it for sour broth and just the other day, I stir-fried kangkong with tofu in oyster sauce. 

Today I made kangkong pickles. Along with daikon radish and carrots.  I thought I had singkamas in my crisper that I could combine with the carrots, unfortunately I've used it for spring rolls earlier, so I'll do that next time. 

kangkong in bunches, carrot and radish

I sliced the carrots in long julienne and the radish into thin slices.  I cut the kangkong stalks, leaving the small leaves at the tips and saved the lower stalks as well. I can use the big leaves later with tofu and oyster sauce just like I did two days ago, please see picture of the dish below:

I put salt in the radish until it sweat to remove some of the tangy juice then washed three times to remove the salty taste. 

I washed the kangkong stalks and poured over the boiled pickle mixture.  Two cups each of vinegar, water and sugar with 1 teaspoon salt mixture was boiled and poured over the veggies already in Mason jars. 

I waited for the jars to cool down before I tightly covered them. 

There were a lot of kangkong so I put the remainder in a bigger mason jar. 

 

They will last two weeks in the refrigerator unless we consume them before then.  They will go well with fried fish, chicken or pork but tomorrow, I will prepare Korean BBQ to go with these pickles.