It's warming up

It's starting to warm up. The showers feel warmer and the pool is warmer. We continue to open the windows at night but will soon have to turn on the aircon

Notice how nobody pays any attention to the lines when driving

 Buko juice always looks so inviting and people rave about it. I know it is good for you but it tastes like I would think IV fluids would taste. Maybe that is because I read where during WW 11 when they ran out of IV fluids they gave the patients coconut water through IV tubes. You can get Buko in all different ways but I have tried it warm and thought maybe if it was chilled it would be better, but it wasn't. I have tried it sweetened, with condensed milk, with shavings of coconut, with milk and plain. You can buy it dressed up fancy, or out of a plastic cup, or straight from the coconut. I guess it is just one of those things I don't care for.

Halo Halo is another food I don't appreciate. Halo Halo means mix, mix. I don't like all the different textures. But it is greatly loved here. Elder Halladay loves it. I have put down the ingredients just in case you want to make it once it gets hot and you want to cool down.

Ingredients for Halo Halo

Prepared ube (purple yam)

Canned or sweetened jackfruit

Sweetened or ripe diced fresh bananas

Ripe mango, sliced

Cooked tapioca (perhaps soaked in brown sugar syrup)

Sweetened garbanzo beans

Sweetened mung beans

Milk flan (Spanish flan, with the caramel sauce)

Nata de coco (preserved sweet coconut)

Rice Krispies or pounded sweetened rice

Agar-agar gelatin (sea kelp gelatin) or firm gelatin (made with reduced liquid)

Cream of corn or corn kernels

Vanilla ice cream 

Sugar to taste (remember, almost all of the ingredients are sweet already)

Evaporated milk (recommended) or 2%

Shaved ice or crushed ice (very important)

 I made Mongo (mung)bean soup, which we enjoy. You would think that it being so hot we wouldn't like soup so much but it tastes good, probably because it is simple. I added these Malungay leaves also called a horseradish leaf to the soup from off one of the trees in the yard. It is full of antioxidants and supposed to be very good for you. People can be seen walking around with leaves in their hands from picking to take home and add to their foods. People come by the pool just to pick these leaves from a tree next to the pool. 

 I do love the shakes they make here. From Mango to Watermelon to this Jack Fruit drink. Sometimes they put what they call black pearls in their drinks which is really gelatin balls. I don't drink them but spoon them out. The drinks are very refreshing. Favorite is the Mango, the green mango which is a little sour because its from a mango that isn't ripe and I also really like the watermelon shake.

This Jack Fruit shake was really good too.