Rachel Ray, we have a problem.

i am not a kitchen person. but i had no choice but to learn to feed myself since i became independent 2 years ago. yes, i admit there had been a few freak "accidents" in the past but i honestly thought i'm way ahead of my rookie days and i'm now advancing in my quest to become THE next Rachel Ray (or Barefoot Contessa in the far, far future). but as they say, "maraming namamatay sa maling akala", or in this case, "maraming nasusunog sa maling pag-prito".

the first few "accidents" were cute. here's a few:

ADOBO is the first dish i've learned and is my perennial favorite because it's so easy to cook. can you imagine me messing up an all-Filipino adobo? hard to believe, right? just wait and see...

one time i put sugar in my adobo because i didn't have Sprite to counter the asim of vinegar. my adobo tasted like minatamis na saging. my roomie had to drain the sauce and made timpla all over again. even the 10 rounds of pakulo didn't do the trick - i could still taste the sugar.

but WAIT, there's more! :)

my first adobo was the most "memorable". my dear friend, Ich, gave me the recipe and i remember she was so ecstatic to teach me and was even very "detailed" in her instructions. her recipe was this, walang bawas, walang kulang:

"as for adobo...meat with garlic and a teeny amount of salt in sprite or if not available, water with sugar will do. boil until super little na lang ang sprite. add water, enough to cover the meat. boil. add 1 to 2 tbsp of vinegar, about 1 cup of soy sauce (tantsaha na lng oi). taste kung ok na sa imo panlasa. kung kulang sa parat, add salt na lng. boil until super tender. basta ang secret is maglaban ang lasa sa vinegar and sprite. add sugar nlng or vinegar whatever u think is kulang. ang katam-is ba or kaaslum. dapat magcomplement cla. tapos, wait ka na lng na little na lng ang water. sticky2x na ang sauce nya. yum2x."

so, being the masunurin girl that i am, i followed the instructions BLINDLY. actually, i was hesitant to put in a cup of soy sauce. but then i thought who am i to question the judgment of an expert, right? so i poured in a cup of soy sauce. what Ich didn’t know (or haven’t considered!) was that i'm only cooking for myself. i'm not feeding an entire baranggay. the recipe, i learned later on, was intended for a kilo of meat. and i was only cooking 3 pieces of chicken legs. THREE! so you can just imagine how a cup of soy sauce makes lunod the 3 pieces of chicken legs. and I bet you canNOT imagine the taste. i swear it's saltier than Times beach and Davao river combined. no matter how much sugar, water and Sprite i added, they could not counter the taste of the soy sauce. (sorry Ich i just had to blog this again. LOL).

so here's the infamous chicken adobo ala toyo:




PANCAKES are another story. i've made pancakes a lot of times - be it pancake-from-scratch or ready-to-cook. i couldn't find those pancake boxes in the grocery so i decided to make one from scratch like i've always done every summer when i was still young. but somehow, in a weird twist of fate, i ended up eating (and later on throwing) this:




that was 2 years ago. fast forward to present time.

if i can describe my food selections here in America in 2 words, it would be: greasy and pan-fried. sorry but i just don't have the time to cook, or make that, learn how to cook. my favorites are longganisa and ready-to-cook spring rolls (lumpia) - thank you Filipino store, you are simply the best! haha.

as i said, the first few kitchen fiascos were cute. but these are just SAD and PATHETIC.

LONGGANISA.



SPRING ROLLS.



the pictures say it all.

there are no scientific explanations on what happened here. i don't know, perhaps we'll just leave these as two of the world's unsolved mysteries. ;)


one thing i realized, i can never be a Rachel Ray and i still foresee myself as being kitchen-challenged in the next 20 years or so - that's why i NEED to marry a chef! haha.