Sunday Night Dinner: Beef Salpicao

I've been wanting to try this dish for a long time and finally found a recipe from MarketManila.

I cubed about 500g of porterhouse steaks and marinated it for a few minutes in Worcestershire sauce and Maggi seasoning.

Next I chopped up a whole head of garlic. I then melted about 2 tbsps. of butter in about the same amount of extra virgin olive oil. When the oil and butter were hot, I dropped the garlic in and fried it for about a minute or two.

Next I put the beef and had it fry for a few minutes, in which time I seasoned with some salt and pepper, paprika and more of the Worcestershire and Maggi Seasoning.

I tried not to keep the meat at medium to medium rare as having it well done would toughen it too much.

The result: absolutely yummy!

( Next time I'd try to slice the beef into smaller pieces tough as I still had to cut it up even more for the kids. )

Australia's Worst Bushfires Ever

Ever since coming to Australia, I've since become very familiar with the term "bushfire". For us in the near suburbs of the big cities, bushfires are what happens to country towns.

But now, as the extent if Australia's largest and worse ever bushfires is being known, with over 130 people already deceased, bushfires is no longer what happens to other towns, it is what happens to all Australians.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone whose lost homes or loved ones to this horrific disaster.

Satellite Image of Australian Bushfires from NASA

Kid Funnies Part 29

Gee, I haven't been doing these in a while.

Anyway, we went to the beach a couple of weeks ago and I just had to share these photos. The kids were piling rocks and they struck some funny yoga poses. They were hilarious!




Of course, we had to do the obligatory jump shot.

First Heat Wave for the Year

I seem to be reporting this every year now but looks like it's the start of another bad heat wave here in good old Adelaide. We had the Australia Day holiday just passed, Chinese New year and the kids first day back at school. It's also the first day of what is shaping up to be a week of 40ºC days. That is HOT.

Although it's good we'd be at work and the kids will try to stay cool at schol, still, just stepping outside is almost enough to melt your skin right off. I exaggerate of course but still...

This week also started with Australia Day. We just spent it indoors and, after the long drive we did to Rapid Bay, we decided it was a good idea. Today was also the start of the new school year. The kids were so excited to get back to school. The boy was starting first grade or Year One as they call it while the girl was pretty proud to be in Year Three.

They had a good day today, something we knew they would have but we later heard from the boy that the girl got a bit upset and had a little cry. Apparently, she thought that we were picking them up straight after school but because of work, they had to go to after-school care. She calmed down soon afterwards but I guess she just forgot that we weren't picking them up today. Looks like the heat is also getting to her.

Victor Harbor Mini-Break

It was a busy time we had the last week. We just came back from a few days holiday at Victor Harbor, which is a town just a couple of hours drive away from Adelaide.

Before the holiday though, we actually had some visitors drop in from Sydney. It was quite unexpected but we were happy to see them despite it being a short visit before we had to head off on our own vacation.

Victor Harbor is a picturesque town by the sea in the region of South Australia called the Fleurieu Peninsula. It's a great small town which is a real holiday destination for many in Adelaide. We drove down and stayed a couple of nights there. We stayed at a small serviced apartment and spent the days enjoying the usual sights of Victor Harbor, from riding the Cockle Train to going to the Whale museum to riding the horse drawn tram to Granite Island to see the little penguins.

During the times we spent in the apartment, we actually had a movie marathon, taking advantage of the provided DVD player.
Ever since we bought the kids the PS2 game, "Lego Indiana Jones", I've been wanting to show them the first 3 Indiana Jones movies so they can appreciate at least where the game was based on. This was the first chance we had to sit down and watch it with them and they had loads of fun. We did have to close their eyes during the scary bits though!

Unfortunately, halfway through the vacation the little girl actually caught a little fever, perhaps because of the sometimes cold sea breezes. Good thing she bounced back right away and we were still able to enjoy the rest of our stay in Victor.

The last time we were in Victor Harbor was three years ago. We also came on a mini-holiday but we didn't stay overnight. This time we find that staying a few nights gave us a bit of time to take in most of the sights and the kids ( and us! ) didn't get too tired out.

Guess Who's Eight?

Guess Who's Eight?
Originally uploaded by chazzvid

The Barossa Valley

Last weekend we took a daytrip to South Australia's wine country, the Barossa valley. The first and only time we were there was when the girl was less than 2 years old, the first time we visited Adelaide. It tooks us almost 6 years to visit again.

At any rate, last Saturday morning we all piled into our good friends' car and drove up to see some of the most scenic country views and have a little tour of this picturesque area. The Barossa is world famous for many of the wines produced in the region and many tourists come to visit the area. There are many wine tasting and mini tours that come through the valley to see the wineries and the sites.

We started by going up to the highest point of the Barossa valley. From the top of Mengler's Hill we could almost see the entire valley with it's grape plantations and many wineries. We spent time playing around in the statue garden at the hill and we took a lot of wacky pictures too.



We then picked up a few supplies on our way to have a picnic lunch. Our friends were all prepared with their own cooker and we had an impromptu barbecue at one of the many parks around the area.

After lunch we went to Maggie Beer's farmhouse which was a foodie's delight. Maggie Beer is a well known cook and author who's made her home in the Barossa valley. We catch her show, "The Cook and The Chef" all the time and we were genuinely excited to see where they actually shoot the series. We also got to see a cooking demonstration using one of Maggie's favourite ingredients, verjuice. They were passing around some samples of verjuice to show that it was not only for cooking but you can actually drink it straight up. In fact, the boy quickly developed a taste for it and had 4 shot glasses worth of the stuff. Of course, we couldn't help ourselves but got a couple of bottles to experiment with at home. The farmhouse also had for sale a lot of the Maggie Beer range of olive oils, patés, terrine's and other stuff. I'm sure will make it a stop on our next trip back.



After the farmhouse we had a quick stop at Angastown to buy some dried fruit and candies before our last stop, the Whispering Wall. The wall is actually the dam that forms the water reservoir for the Barossa valley. It's buit in such a way that sound echoes from one end of the dam to the other. It's build to exacting measurements that if you stand on one side of the wall, you can hear exactly what someone else is whispering on the other side hence the moniker.




After the wall we headed for home. We all had such a great time and I'm sure we won't let 6 years go by before visiting the Barossa again.

More pictures at our Flickr page here.

Christmas Day 2008

Christmas day came and went like a flash. The wife and I didn't stay up too late the night before simply because we knew that the kids would be up and early just begging to open the presents. We even got to see the remnants of the milk and cookies they left out from Santa. Turns out that Santa is a messy eater, just like our little girl! :)

The kids wasted no time in unwrapping the gifts and I got to say, nothing really beats the smiles of kids on Christmas morning. The kids must have been good throughout the year cause they did get what they asked for from Santa, and much more besides because they also got presents from both sets of grandaparents!



The boy and girl spent the morning playing with their new toys while the wife and I spent the morning getting ready for Christmas lunch. As what's fast becoming our family tradition, we hosted Christmas lunch at our home again this year. This time it was just us and our close family friends. It was a simple lunch of prawns, a roast strip loin of beef and roast pork and potatoes and a salad with a cheescake and ice cream for dessert.



It was good to be with friends on Christmas day, and as it turned out, the lunch soon stretched into dinner with lots of laughing and singing(!) and eating along the way. We watched a DVD and ended up playing Singstar until evening. A full Christmas day if you ask me.

Merry Christmas 2008!

Thought that the above photo was too formal. Here's what we're really like!

'Twas the Night Before Christmas

It's Christmas Eve again!

I had the day off today while my wife had to to go to work at least for a half day to attend Christmas function. The kids and I still had to wake up early as there was still some last minute Christmas food shopping to do. We went out early this morning to the fish market to grab some prawns for Christmas. Being in Australia, prawns during Christmas lunch has always been traditional and because we had friends coming over tomorrow, the lunch just wouldn't be complete without the prawns.

The fishmarket was quite packed with people trying to buy their seafood. I had to drag the kids into the crowds, making sure they didn't get trampled on. Good thing that they really did what I told them and stayed in a corner just looking at the live fish in the market's tanks. Good thing too that we came in early as we were in and out in under 20 minutes.

Next we went over to they city where the wife was having another Christmas picnic at one of the city parks. The kids and I stayed at a nearby playground until they convinced me to rent a rowboat and go around the nearby lake! We actually did end up rowing and I can honestly say it was harder than it looked! At any rate, we went around the lake a couple of times before we finished and picked their mom up from her picnic around lunch time.

On the way back we stopped at bakery to have some delicious meat pies for lunch. The kids ended up getting milk shakes as well so they had a full on meal. In the afternoon we got the kids to go down for a nap because we planned on going to church in the evening. We got to the 6:30PM mass early and we were glad we did. The church got real crowded real fast which was a good sight to see. We finished around 7:30 and we still had time to come home, cook a simple barbecue dinner and got the kids washed up and in bed by 10PM.

Not before having them put something out for Santa and his reindeer though, a couple of cookies, a glass of milk and a carrot!

Anyway, the kids have been really good this year and I can safely say that Santa doesn't need the added incentive to get them what they want for Christmas. ;) So, to coin a phrase, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night!

24-hour ban on electronic games

Now that the kids are on school holidays, I could not help but notice that they seem to spending most of the time at home doing one form of video game or another. Its either an internet game, a computer game, a game from the video console (playstation or wii). And when daddy comes home from work, they rush to greet him at the door, only to grab his IPhone for more games! We hear it on the news all the time, kids becoming obese due to these video games keeping them on the couch. Although the kids are far from that, even considered underweight, I did not want them to become couch potatoes.

So I had an idea last night, I dared them not to play any of these electronic games (or what the kids call 'screen games') for the next 24 hours. It started at 7pm, just before bedtime. We started just talking in the living room, singing christmas carols. Then, at bedtime, we proceeded to make up stories until about 9pm.

The next day, they were staying home with me. In the morning, I got them involved in baking, by mashing up the biscuits for the cheesecake crust. That was a very loud, yet fun activity for them. After that, i put on a DVD of a movie they wanted to watch while I baked the cheesecake. After that, we had lunch and they started making christmas crafts. The boy even made a gift for all of us, behind closed doors as he wanted it to be a surprise! The girl also spent some time getting all our pillows on her bed, and just read a couple of comic books.

In the afternoon, they brought out the LEGO and we all started to work together to build up this vehicle. We took turns, 10 minutes each, to complete the task. I even gave them a deadline to work with, like by the time daddy gets home. After about 30 mins, we noticed that some of the pieces we missing. Too bad, we could not make the car as specified on the manual. But they did come up with another design using their imagination. We also had time to play outside while I took out the laundry. that was really great!

It was about 5pm when daddy did come home, they took a bath while i prepared dinner. By the time we finished dinner, it was nearly 7pm and they could not wait any longer. We got them to clean up the living room a bit more, and then we did our countdown .... 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 ..... its video game time! its 730pm now and all my 3 kids (including hubby) are in front of the TV again, playing video games as usual.

It was fun family experiment, glad to know the kids can survive without electronic games if needed. I'm happy to know they are not as addicted to electronic games as I expected. The only downside to it was that more mess was made by baking and crafts, meaning more cleaning up to do. Still, for me, a good outcome. Maybe I should try this 24-hr ban on electronic games again, say on a monthly basis?

'Twas The Weekend Before Christmas

And we all got sick. Not really, just myself and my wife. Good thing we recovered right away because Christmas is just around the corner.  Can't believe it's been a year already and we're celebrating Christmas all over again.

The kids are now on school holidays and are enjoying the break. Next year they will move up a grade level. The girl will be Year 3 already and the boy is raring to go to step up to Year 1. They go their end of year school reports the other week and they got really good remarks from their teachers. We're so proud of them of course ( and I have to write that because the girl is sitting next to me reading every word I type!)

Seriously though, we are so very proud of them and quite happy to know that they are still enjoying school. Although right now, they seem quite content to be on School Holiday mode.

Because we got sick we didn't do much this weekend, trying to recover and store up energy for the Christmas week. We are inviting our friends over for Christmas lunch and it is now becoming an almost tradition with us. We're still fretting over our menu this close to Christmas. But, not only do we have to plan Christmas, the girl is also being makulit and we have to plan for her birthday as well!!

( Not True! :) - B )
-->( Yes True! :) -N )

Although we didn't do much, we did do some things. We actually bought a Wii a while back. Now, all of us are enjoying this early Christmas present. We even bought a Wii Fit, which is actually being put to good use. Not that we're seeing any results yet but having a video game that gets you up and about and sweating is a huge step up for all of us.

Hasselback Potatoes

Hasselback Potatoes
Originally uploaded by chazzvid

I've seen this recipe for Hasselback Potatoes done on TV a few times before and I decided to try out for Sunday dinner. The wife bought a cut of beef for roasting and we served it with these potatoes and some veggies. We found a recipe for roast beef served with garlic mayonnaise.

The beef turned out quite well although a bit on the dry side. The garlic mayonnaise really went well with it. For a test run, it wasn't too bad. We wanted to try it out the recipes first because we wanted to serve this during our Christmas lunch with friends. Maybe next time we'll get a better cut of beef too.

Christmas Picnic

We spent the morning at my wife's office Family Christmas Picnic. It was good to be out and about on such a nice day. The kids were quite happy to play around the park and we caught up with some of my wife's friend and officemates for a typical Aussie barbie.

The kids had fun playing frisbee and badminton and got acquainted with a few kids of my wife's officemates. They even got to play Twister outdoors!

At any rate, it was a good time. We actually stayed to the very end and were one of the last people to have left. After all that activity the kids would be semi-tired and resting by now. No such luck, they're still up and about and being as kulit as usual!

Anyway, here's a couple of shots when we visited the Magic Cave a couple of weeks ago. We actually went to the Magic Cave three years ago and I took a couple of photos. We can't believe how much they've grown!






In fact, I was digitizing a lot of old videos recently and we could see a few videos from when the kids were still small. It's amazing to us how we can still remember them so tiny in the videos and we can't imagine how they could have grown up so fast.

The Newest Vidal

Welcoming my nephew, the newest Vidal. No name yet, hope my brother names him soon. I don't want to call him baby boy Vidal all the time... :)

Welcome Paolo Nero C. Vidal!!

Goofing Around

Goofing Around
Originally uploaded by chazzvid

Just a random shot of the kids goofing around. They're eating a chocolate sundae from Mcdonald's and were showing their chocolate covered smiles. :)

Garage Sale!

Garage Sale
Originally uploaded by chazzvid

We've been accumulating so much stuff over the last few years. Most of it is clothes and toys that the kids have outgrown. About a few weeks ago we decided to go ahead and have a garage sale to at least try and get rid of some of it.

I advertised in the local paper and the wife and I spent over a couple of weekends to sort and lay out stuff we were going to sell. On the day, we had our friends help out with putting up some signs around the neighborhood as well help man the sale.

There were quite a few early birds who dropped by to have a browse even while we were still setting up but there weren't so many throughout the day. Even though we advertised it we didn't really end up getting rid of a lot of stuff. We think it's probably because our house isn't exactly on a main road and it takes a while to find the street we live in.

We did sell a few things at the end of the day but not enough to really clear out our ever messy garage. We ended donating some and packing up a couple of larger boxes to send back to the Philippines for our relatives.

It was fun though and maybe we'll have another crack at it. Maybe after a few more years of accumulating stuff. :)

Start Trek Trailer Online!

Here you go, the Star Trek trailer is now online. May is such a long wait...

Official Start To Christmas

It's been a while (again) and I know we haven't been updating our blog. I guess real life just catches up.

Anyway, it's officially Christmas season down here in Adelaide. We went and watched the annual Adelaide Christmas Pageant last week. The Pageant sort of kicks off Christmas down here. It's a big parade that winds across town with floats, marching bands, and lots and lots of clowns.

We don't usually go and see the pageant every time and we usually skip a year or two. This year we promised the kids we would go see it and see it we did. We left home early as the pageant was slated to start at 9:30. The kids also wanted to get there early because they wanted to take part in a record breaking Mexican wave which aimed to get everyone to do the wave from one end of the parade route and back. Unfortunately, I heard that the Mexican wave wasn't successful because there was a break in the wave somewhere.

At any rate, because we were relatively early, we were able to get a good spot but unfortunately the weather wasn't the best for parade watching as the wind and some rain picked up a little bit. Nevertheless the kids were excited anyway and stood enjoying the floats and the bands. The kids loved the bands but they were really just waiting for one person: Santa!


Santa was on the last float so as soon as he arrived and waved to the kids, we made our way out of the parade. We decided to stay for lunch in the city and did a bit of food shopping.

When we got home from the pageant, we put up the Christmas tree which is our usual Christmas tradition after the pageant. We've had the tree for a few years now and I can really see how small it's gotten when the kids stand next to it. I guess it's time to get a new one because by next year these kids might just be taller than the tree now!

Pictures From The Dentist's

This is me being a lazy blogger... :) Last week's pictures from the dentist.