Kare-Kare and Halloween at the Disney Parks

Kare Kare is a Filipino peanut flavored stew and... was one of my Dad's favorite dishes. My Mom & Grandma usually made this with oxtails but... you can also just use regular stew meet if that suits your tastes (you won't have to wrestle with the bones as much :-).

Ingredients

2 lbs oxtail (or real stew meat if you prefer)

2 eggplants sliced (1/4 inch slices)

5 long string beans, cut into 1.5 inch pieces

3 cloves garlic minced

1 medium sized onion chopped

3 tablespoons oil

1/2 cup soy sauce

5 cups water

1/2 cup peanut butter

Directions:

In a skillet, saute the garlic and onions in hot oil until they start to get brown

Add the oxtails to the skillet and saute for another 10 mins

In a large pot, bring the water and soy sauce to a boil

Add the skillet contents to the large pot, bring back to a boil, then simmer for 60 minutes

Add the string beans and eggplant to the pot, bring back to a boil, then simmer for another 15 mins

Stir in the peanut butter and simmer for another 15 minutes

hardcore Filipinos usually eat this with a little bagoong (shrimp paste)... and... sometimes they add tripe (uhg, pig stomach lining... has the texture of chewy fat... but hey, to each their own...)

That's it! Enjoy!

Halloween at the Disney Parks

Halloween at the Disney parks is big. Both Walt Disney World and Disneyland go all out to make Halloween "not so scary", but still exciting, for everyone...

The following is Walt Disney World's commercial for Halloween:


and here's a fast forward vid showing the Magic Kingdom getting prepared with the fall decorations:


WDW holds a Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party every year:


The WDW halloween parade is pretty trippy and is called "boo to you":


And WDW also has a "Villains Mix & Mingle" show:


haha... if you plan a WDW trip for Nov 1st 2010 through Nov 9th 2010, you can go to both Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party and Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party!

The Disneyland Halloween commercial keeps with last year's cool and funny take on a "disney villain" theme:


Last year in October, my wife's niece (Tina!) celebrated her birthday at Disneyland. This was the first time we were able to experience Disneyland during the Halloween season and we were awed by how decked out the park was. It was also cool seeing a bunch of little munchkins running around in costume (some in Marvel Mickey get-ups, cuz Disney happened to have aquired Marvel last year)...


It was really cool what they did to the Haunted Mansion, decking it out in a Nightmare Before Christmas theme:


another attraction that they tweaked for Halloween was space mountain (ghost galaxy):


Halloween Screams, their Halloween fireworks show, was just plain awesome... but... it was really really packed so... you had to get there early, to get a good spot with a clear view of cinderella's castle:


and here's Disneyland's "Halloween Time" vid, that sums it all up:


updated: here are some new vids from this year's disney related halloween activities:



Disneyland's happy haunts tour:


Disney Entrance and Main Street Giant Pumpkins (Go Giants! #WorldSeries):




How to carve pumpkins like the Disney Parks:



what follows is random (haha) and has nothing to do with kare kare or halloween at the disney parks...

RT @RehgallgMij Truths For Mature Humans

1. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.

5. How the heck are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

6. Was learning cursive really necessary?

7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on # 5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

10. Bad decisions make good stories.

11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.

13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to.

14. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.
15. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

16. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lite than Kay.

17. I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Bad Part of Town" routing option.

18. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

19. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear or understand a word they said?

20. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters!

21. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

22. Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

23. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time!

24. The first testicular guard, the "Cup," was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974. That means it only took 100 years for men to realize that their brain is also important. (Ladies.....Quit Laughing.)








i repeat (from a previous blog entry), this is cool:

Leche Flan and Former Disneyland Attractions (yesterland)

ok, for those of us raised in Filipino American households, let's face it... the best'est dessert in the whole wide world when we were kids was, what else... Leche Flan!!! haha, when they used to take us to those Filipino weddings, i remember make'n a run to the buffet table in the hopes that there'd be platters of the stuff just ready for the taking (and remember getting scolded, often, to stop bogart'ing the stuff)... Anyway, this one's my wife's recipe...


Ingredients

7 Egg Yokes

1 Can Evaporated Milk

1 Can Condensed Milk

1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

2 Tablespoons Sugar


Pans: (you usually can find these at those Asian Grocery Stores)

Double Boiler

Oval Leche Flan Pans


Preparation:

Mix egg yokes, evaporated milk, condensed milk and vanilla extract in bowl

Heat 2 tablespoons sugar in oval leche flan pan, until lightly carmelized, coating the bottom & sides of pan

Pour egg mixture in leche flan pan

Boil water in double boiler until steam appears

Put leche flan pan in double boiler

Cover, lower heat & steam for 15 to 30 minutes

After 15 mins, insert toothpic and see if it comes out clean, if not check again every 5 mins

That's it! Enjoy!

Former Disneyland Attractions

I actually have a memory of Disneyland from when I was about 2 years old... I remember clinging to my mom, scared $#|+|_3$$, as they put us in a cage in some type of cave... haha, it was the skyway to tomorrowland (1956–1994) or... to fantasyland, not really sure which way we were going...


Do you know the zip-a-dee-doo-dah animatronic characters that are a part of Splash Mountain? They were re-purposed from a show called America Sings (1974–1988), that used to be where innoventions currently is (in tomorrowland). The building used to be called the Carousel Theatre, where the audience would rotate around the center of the building, when it was ready to view the next skit:


Prior to America Sings, the Carousel Theater held General Electric’s Carousel of Progress (1967–1973) which, btw, is still a live attraction in WDW:


Another funky attraction that my wife & I road when we were teens, was the Mike Fink keel boats (1956–1994 and 1996–1997). I was thinking, this is kinda stupid... My wife remembers having to sit with your knees bumping into the folks on the other side of the boat. The boat operator (aka cast member) kept making fun of everyone and everything around the rivers of america:


The country bear jamboree (1972–1986) was an "E Ticket" attraction (meaning it was one of the good ones) and lots of folks were wondering why disneyland decided to retire it. oh well... haha... i have an MP3 of the show that i listen to when i'm jogging:


One ride that folks usually got on just to kick back and take a little rest was the people movers (1967–1995), the lines never seemed to be long. WDW just re-opened that attraction but it looks a tad different than the original retired attraction:


here's what the original attraction looked like:


what replaced the People Movers, but has also been retired, is the rocket rods (1998–2000):


One of the formerly retired attractions was Michael Jackson's Captain EO (1986–1997, 2010-present), but it's back now, to pay tribute to him after he passed away:


when it was retired, it was replaced with honey i shrunk the audience (1998–2010), which is now retired because of Captain EO coming back (haha, confusing):


another one i'd like to comment on is the adventure through inner space (1967–1985), which was replaced by star tours. we took my wife's niece on this when she was a toddler and we convinced her that the ride really really shrunk you when your omnimover traveled through the eye of the microscope:


To see a full list of other attractions that have been retired, click here... another good reference is http://www.yesterland.com.

oh... and this has nothing to do with flan or rides but... i've never seen this before... (haha... random)