Author: Gel Jose

Manic Pixie Dream Girl Wannabe, Imagineer, Foodie, TV Addict and Lifelong Learner

Six indispensable mobile apps for the busy working mom

If there’s one thing that we working moms oftentimes lack, it’s time.  Given our fast-paced lives and the demands of work, family and (gasp!) other obligations, we usually find ourselves pressed for time, looking for a few minutes here and there to squeeze in some errands or to just enjoy some moments to ourselves.

Fortunately, we have our greatest ally right in our pockets.  More than just our means to contact our family or to touch base with old friends through social media, our smartphones can and do allow us to do so much with what little time or space we have.  All we need is to have the right apps for the job.

Banking Apps

Most banks already have their own mobile apps that allow users to check their bank account balances and transaction histories, make fund transfers and even pay bills online.  Imagine not having to line up at the bank or at bayad centers just to make sure the bills are paid.

I helped my new college girl get her own account at the bank that I also have an account in.  Now, I usually just transfer money to her account as her allowance.  This frees me up from having to make sure that I always have cash on my wallet for her allowance and other household expenses.

CamScanner

This app turns our phones into a scanner which allows us to keep copies of important documents with us at all times. We can even use the app to send PDF copies of the scanned documents via email.

I recently used this feature to avail of the birthday promo at Ramen Nagi.  Since we didn’t have a hardcopy of my daughter’s valid ID, I asked the restaurant manager if I could just email her the digital copy I have on CamScanner and she agreed.  It was quite lucky that I kept the scanned copy of her passport on my phone.

Honestbee

Some moms may consider grocery shopping as a form of retail therapy, but for me, it’s a tedious chore.  Just to ensure that our pantry is stocked with all the food and supplies my family needs, I would have to drive to the supermarket, find a place to park (I hate this part), walk around looking for the items I need, only to line up at the checkout lane and lug my groceries back to my car.

Honestbee eliminates all those hassles by enabling me to order my groceries online right on the app which a well-trained shopper bee will get from the nearest grocery store and a delivery bee will deliver to my house.  This gives me additional two or three hours every weekend that I can use to catch up on my reading, get some beauty sleep or spend time at home with the kids.

For moms like me who will appreciate the convenience that Honestbee brings, here’s another perk: sign up for Honestbee using this referral link and get Php500 off your grocery bill.

Plus, Honestbee now delivers food from nearby restaurants. If you don’t feel like cooking, you can just order via the app and a sumptuous meal will be delivered right on your doorstep.

Eatigo

Speaking of food, sometimes you just want to enjoy some good food (that you didn’t have to cook yourself!) or try a new restaurant but you don’t want to overspend. With Eatigo, you can book a table at the featured restaurants and even enjoy up to 50% off on your food bill.

The discounts I’m able to avail of via Eatigo have helped me discover new places to eat and enjoy with friends and family.  Register using this link and get a bonus of Php150 worth of rewards.

Amazon Kindle App

Being a book lover, I used to have shelves and shelves of books.  However, Typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana) struck and I was forced to leave my beloved tomes behind to be swallowed up by the floodwaters.  For a few months after that disaster, I used to get teary-eyed whenever I find myself near a bookstore.

Fortunately, Amazon.com popularized ebooks and published the Kindle app which allows users to view their Amazon.com ebooks via their mobile devices.  It even allows users to convert their personal documents and books in PDF formats into files that can be read by Kindle.

Now, I carry my entire library with me wherever I go, and when I feel the need to read to relax, I just take out my phone and start reading.

SKY on Demand

There are times when you wish you just can take you TV anywhere with you such as when you’re still on the road and the show you’re following is already airing, or during long road trips and the kids need a distraction from the wait (and you need a break from the constant follow ups of “Are we there yet?”).

With SKY On Demand, you can watch SKYcable channels using any mobile device and any internet provider. Just download the app and register your SKYcable account number. You will be able to view all the channels in your SKYcable plan or any pay-per-view shows you are subscribed to that are available on SKY on Demand.

This app was a God-send to me when my husband and I had to pick up my daughter from her Community Development class on the Sunday when the Pacquiao vs Matthysse bout was going on. I was able to watch the bout while waiting in the car and later while eating lunch in our favorite Korean restaurant. If it weren’t for SKY On Demand, I would have missed the historic moment when Manny Pacquiao scored his first knockout victory in nine years.

Life for us working moms may be hectic and hard but with a little know-how and the help of our trusty smartphones, it can be made easier and more enjoyable for us and our loved ones.

What apps couldn’t you live without?

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

The mobile apps mentioned above are available in both iTunes and Google Play.

This post contains affiliate links.

Disclosure: I work for SKY and part of my job is promoting its products and services, especially the content it provides to its subscribers. I consider being able to share my love for TV shows and movies and the experience of watching and talking about them with like-minded people some of the biggest perks of my job.

Recipe: My Mom’s Kare-Kare

Most Pinoys are fiercely loyal to their mom’s adobo. Not me, though. I can appreciate, even like, versions of adobo other than the one I grew up with.

My mom’s signature dish that remains unmatched in my opinion is her kare kare. Oh, yes! Here is where my loyalties unequivocally lie.

The irony is that when I was a kid, I didn’t even like kare kare. I found the idea of eating parts of animals other than the meat and skin unthinkable (and you should see the ingredients while they were still uncooked!). I also found the orange sauce weird, used as I was then to the brown hued sauces of adobo and mechado and the lightly-tinted broths of nilaga or tinola.

Then the time came, right around high school, when my palate began to mature and I started to develop a taste for the unusual, that I decided to give this dish a try.

Ooh, those bits of meat and cow innards so tender they melt in your mouth! That bright orange peanutty sauce that can already be considered a viand even if just accompanied by veggies (sarsa pa lang ulam na)! Put those together in a heaping spoon with steaming white rice and my mom’s home-made bagoong (shrimp paste) and I’m in heaven.

I recently made my mom give me this recipe (she had long ago given up trying to teach me to cook the more traditional or effort-laden dishes) by saying that her granddaughter, #ExhibitA, should start learning how to make it by now.

Ingredients:

  • 1 kilo beef cheeks
  • 1/2 kilo beef tripe and intestines
  • 1/4 kilo ground peanuts (Note: you can substitute this with peanut butter but try to find one that’s sugarless)
  • 2 tbsp flour
  • achuete (annato) seeds
  • 3-5 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 2 small onions, chopped
  • 1 small bunch of pechay (Chinese cabbage)
  • 1 small bunch of sitao (string beans), cut into 2-inch slices
  • 4 eggplants, sliced
  • 1 small puso ng saging (banana flower bud), sliced
  • salt and pepper

Procedure:

  • Clean and boil the beef cheeks, tripe and intestines separately for 15 minutes in a pressure cooker.  Chill overnight in the refrigerator and scoop out the fat that forms on top.
  • In a small pan, lightly toast the flour, then remove from heat.
  • In a casserole, saute garlic and onion, then add meat, tripe and intestines. Add a bit of the water used to boil the meat. Add the toasted flour and crushed nuts, then stir the mixture.
  • Add in the banana flower, string beans, and egg plant.
  • Soak the annato seeds in hot water.  Strain and add to the stew.
  • Stir the mixture until thickened to your desired consistency.
  • Add the Chinese cabbage and season to taste.

Serve hot with freshly cooked white rice and bagoong.

This recipe serves 6 at 570 calories per serving.  That’s quite a lot but you don’t get to eat this everyday anyway.

Want to learn more about Filipino cuisine? Check out these books on Amazon.com!

Want to try some recipes today? There’s no need to leave home to shop for ingredients.  With Honestbee, just order your groceries online and you’ll get them delivered right at your doorstep at your preferred time. Use this referral link and get Php500 off for a minimum spend of Php2,500.  You can download the Honestbee app on iTunes or Google Play.

If you’re in the US and an Amazon Prime member, sign up for a free trial of Amazon Fresh to get your groceries delivered to you.

Social Enterprise Drives First Harvest Nut Spreads

I discovered two new nut spreads while I was shopping for baking supplies at one of my happy places, All About Baking in SM City East Ortigas: First Harvest’s Coco Sugar Peanut Spread and Peanut Crunch with Rice Pops. At first, I was attracted to their packaging: it looks quite premium and artisanal. Upon closer inspection, I was happy to discover that First Harvest is a homegrown brand.

First Harvest Peanut Butter

The production and sales of First Harvest’s offerings provide employment and skills development to the mothers in the Gawad Kalinga village in Angat, Bulacan. All ingredients used in the products are grown or sourced locally and prepared into these artisanal nut butters using traditional methods, and without the use of artificial preservatives. Furthermore, the enterprise’s profits also helps fund college scholarships for local youth.

Being a peanut butter aficionado, I just knew I had to try these out. The variants below are the ones stocked at my nearest All About Baking outlet.

Coco Sugar Peanut Spread (Php160/250g)

First Harvest Peanut Butter

First Harvest Peanut Butter

It has a smooth and creamy texture that spreads well and evenly on white bread, perfect for my son who likes his peanut butter just so. Churned with less oil and made using coco sugar as sweetener, it is a relatively healthier nut spread at 50 calories per 2 tbsp serving.

Ingredients: Peanuts, Coco Sugar, Canola Oil, Iodized Salt

Peanut Crunch with Rice Pops (Php170/250g)

First Harvest Peanut Butter

First Harvest Peanut Butter

I prefer some texture in my nut butters so this crunchy variant is a winner for me. Sweetened with honey and made crunchy with pinipig bits, it goes well with wheat bread. The additions that give it a sweeter taste and a popping crunchy texture do take their toll however; a 2 tbsp serving is at 170 calories (but it was worth it!).

Ingredients: Peanuts, Rice Pops, Canola Oil, Iodized Salt

These nut spreads are of high quality, comparable to imported products that I have tried recently. I had to expend some effort to remix the nut spreads before applying them to my toasts due the separation of the oil from the rest of the mixture. I didn’t mind, though. That’s the consequence of not using artificial stabilizers, etc.

First Harvest Peanut Butter

And since the products are made with much love by the nanays of a rural community, I wouldn’t mind supporting them by regularly buying First Harvest nut butters so I can help spread the love to my family. (I even hounded the staff of All About Baking to inform me of when they restock their First Harvest Peanut Crunch.)

If you like peanut butter whether as a spread or as an ingredient for your culinary masterpieces, do give First Harvest a try.

I’m looking forward to trying out the original First Harvest Peanut Butter (the one sweetened by honey instead of coco sugar) and the brand’s Salted Coco Caramel (a twist to my childhood’s classic coco jam).

FIRST HARVEST

Address: GK Enchanted Farm California Street, Brgy. Encanto Angat, Bulacan Philippines 3012

Mobile: +63 90538-24447

Instagram: @firstharvest

Twitter: @firstharvestph

Facebook: FirstHarvestFoods

E-mail: inquire@firstharvest.ph

TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s “Good Omens” to be released in 2019

The creatively twisted minds of two of Britain’s greatest modern fantasy writers produced Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (or more commonly known as just Good Omens). The fruit of a very successful collaboration between Neil Gaiman (“American Gods,” “The Graveyard Book,” and “Stardust“) and Sir Terry Prachett (“Discworld“) published in 1990, Good Omens is a quirky and entertaining novel that tells of the coming of the Apocalypse. The book is chock-full of humorous situations: from a witch’s super-accurate predictions of her execution, the birth and childhood of the AntiChrist in the English suburbs, the coming together of the Four Horsemen, and the mad antics of the legions of Heaven led by Aziraphale the Angel and Hell led by Crowley the Demon (both of whom happen to treat each other as friends) as they prepare for the endtimes.

I first read the book in the late 90’s and I did think the story would translate well onscreen.

A film adaptation was in fact planned in 2002 in which Robin Williams and Johnny Depp were set to star as Aziraphale and Crowley respectively but financing fell through.

A radio dramatization was aired in BBC Radio 4 in 2015, wherein Gaiman and Pratchett had cameo appearances.

Nearly two decades after first reading the book, I’m thrilled to find out that a TV adaptation is finally in the works, starring no less than Michael Sheen (“Underwold: Rise of the Lycans,” “Midnight in Paris“) as Aziraphale and David Tennant (“Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” “Broadchurch“) as Crowley.

This TV series couldn’t have come at a better time, being the new Golden Age of Television, and judging from the recent success of the TV series based on another Neil Gaiman novel, American Gods.

The 6-episode series will be released on Amazon Prime in 2019, followed by a conventional broadcast on BBC Two.

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Take a sneak peek into the beginnings of your favorite influencers with LikeToKnow.It

Ever wondered how your favorite IG mavens got their start? The print offshoot of the app-based shopping service that makes the Instagram pics of many Instagram influencers instantly shoppable, LikeToKnow.it: Stories from the Influencer Next Door, delves into how these IG stars got their start.

Photo by Daria Litvinova on Unsplash

Collated and curated by editors of LikeToKnow.it, the stories contain interesting narratives of how these influencers were able to turn their passions – which range from fashion, beauty, food, interior design and homemaking – into thriving online businesses. Common themes among their stories that their fans can learn from are:

Passion for their area of interest.  These enterprising folks are tuned in to their passion, building expertise and credibility in their respective fields, and are motivated to share their favorites to the world.

Support from family and friends.  Building an online presence, especially on one’s own, is never easy, but with help and encouragement from their loved ones, they were able to pursue their dreams.

Great financial and personal rewards.  Having built their following and established their expertise, they are able to enjoy financial freedom.  Some are earning enough to support their families that their spouses quit their jobs to help them with their online business.  Others share their feeling of gratification at being paid to do what they love while spending more time with loved ones.

Photo by Igot Miske on Unsplash

Featured influencers include fashion mavens Molly Sims (@mollybsims) and Courtney Kerr (@KERRently), lifestyle gurus Liz Joy (@purejoyhome) and Kelly Larkin (@kellyinthecity), food and nutrition bloggers July Bauer Roth (@paleomg) and Tori Wesszer (@fraichenutrition), among others.

Photo by Chikeun Park on Unsplash

The stories, accompanied by gorgeous shots of influencers doing and sharing what they love best, will give readers a tantalizing inspiration to get started on bringing their own dreams to life. Note, though, these Q&A-type narratives are by no means comprehensive and do skip most of the early struggles and sacrifices that most businesses go through.

LikeToKnow.it: Stories from the Influencer Next Door, published by Greenleaf Book Group, will be released on September 18, 2018 and is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com!

Thanks to NetGalley and Greenleaf Book Group for the advanced reader copy.

This post contains affiliate links.

Photo Credits: Ewan Robertson, Daria Litvinova, Igor Miske and Chikeun Park on Unsplash

Love books and reading? Try Kindle Unlimited on Amazon and read from thousands of ebooks available in the Kindle Unlimited catalog. of Get your first month FREE.

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Book gives tips on how to help kids appreciate healthy food

With all the fast food, microwaveables and sugar-laden fare easily available in malls and grocery stores, kids these days might be missing out on both the nutrients and flavors that healthy food brings. Earlier generations benefited from home-cooked meals and the time devoted by homemakers to acquiring fresh ingredients but today’s busy lifestyle sees families turning more towards food that is more convenient than truly nutritious.

In Taste Buds: The Magic and Fun of Sensible Food, author Nicolette Francey Asselin shares food-based wisdom gathered from her childhood memories and her medical practice. This booklet is the fourth installment in a series of health books released by Getwell.org. Among her notable pieces of advice are:

Avoid using dessert as a reward. This implies that the meal already laid on the table is not the best.

Keep meals simple. Time- and effort-intensive dishes for weekday meals are neither practical nor sustainable given today’s busy lifestyle.

Involve the kids. Getting them to participate in meal preparation – such as chopping vegetables or fetching tools or ingredients – will help them develop an appreciation for the effort that goes into getting a good meal on the table.

Asselin also included a few simple recipes of healthy dishes that she grew up with such as roasted vegetables, ratatouille, a basic vinaigrette for salads and muesli, among others, as well as instructions on how to pickle or ferment foodstuffs at home.

This is a short book and I think she could have expounded more on some sections such as how to balance meat, poultry, seafood and produce in the weekly menu or how to enjoy healthy food outside the home through quick and easy meal preparation strategies.

That said, this book can provide an adequate impetus to start cooking and eating healthier.

Taste Buds: The Magic and Fun of Sensible Food, published by CorpWell Publishing, is available in Kindle format on Amazon.com.

Thanks to NetGalley and CorpWell Publishing for the copy of the ebook provided in exchange for an honest review.

This post contains affiliate links.

 

Want to start cooking fresh and healthy? There’s no need to leave home to shop for ingredients.  With Honestbee, just order your groceries online and you’ll get them delivered right at your doorstep at your preferred time. Use this referral link and get Php500 off for a minimum spend of Php2,500.  You can download the Honestbee app on iTunes or Google Play.

If you’re in the US and an Amazon Prime member, sign up for a free trial of Amazon Fresh to get your groceries delivered to you.

Love books and reading? Try Kindle Unlimited on Amazon and read from thousands of ebooks available in the Kindle Unlimited catalog. of Get your first month FREE.

No Kindle device? Download the Kindle App ebook reader for FREE to read your favorite books anytime and anywhere.

No time to read? Listen to your favorite books instead while you drive, run, shop, and more.  Try Audible for free for 30 days and get two free audiobooks.

Country songstress Martina McBride shares recipes close to her heart in upcoming cookbook, Martina’s Kitchen Mix

In her cookbook to be released this fall, Martina’s Kitchen Mix: My Recipe Playlist for Real Life, country superstar Martina McBride shares her passion other than singing: cooking meals for her family and friends to enjoy.

McBride’s recipes reveal her predilection for entertaining and family gatherings centered around good food and great stories.

Having grown up in a Kansas farm, McBride is no stranger to the kitchen; even at an early age, she began helping her mother in preparing meals with fresh-from-the-field ingredients. Over the years, her travels as a country music singer has exposed her to more gastronomic influences, particularly the use of organic foods and healthy diets, which she has applied to her home cooking.

I like the book’s mixture of recipes and family insider stories, particularly the tweaks that McBride does on the recipes which she labeled “Adlibs.” The book is by no means a strict stick-to-the-recipe cookbook – even the author improvises from time to time! It really does welcome the reader to McBride’s kitchen and some aspects of her life. Plus, the food styling on the gorgeous photos that accompany some of the recipes are really superb.

Some of the ingredients may be expensive or hard-to-find here in the Philippines, but home cooks can draw inspiration from the recipes for their own culinary masterpieces.

Martina’s Kitchen Mix: My Recipe Playlist for Real Life, published by Oxmoor House will be released on October 30, 2018. It is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.com.

Thanks to NetGalley and Oxmoor House for the advanced copy of the ebook in exchange for an honest review.

This post contains affiliate links.

Check our Martina McBride’s other cookbook:

Love books and reading? Try Kindle Unlimited on Amazon and read from thousands of ebooks available in the Kindle Unlimited catalog. of Get your first month FREE.

No Kindle device? Download the Kindle App ebook reader for FREE to read your favorite books anytime and anywhere.

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Poignant recollections of the Holocaust in My Real Name Is Hanna by Tara Lynn Masih

In 1941, a family of Jews live comfortably in northern Ukraine town of Kwasova, integrated with neighbors of other faiths. The eldest girl, Hanna Slivka, has just turned fourteen when the Germans invaded then Soviet-occupied Ukraine, determined to rid the shtetl of Jews. She, together with her family and other Jewish friends, were forced into hiding, first in the forests that surround their town, and second in underground caves believed to harbor evil spirits.

Inspired by real events that occured during the Holocaust, the story in My Real Name is Hanna is a retelling of Hanna’s childhood to her daughter. Being a recollection of memories of one of the most terrifying real-life events in history, it has a poignant tone that imbue the narrative with emotion and tension. The narrative is further interspersed with both Ukrainian and Jewish folklore – the making of Easter pysanky eggs, using wax to scry for one’s future husband, and the giving of birthday gifts to ward off evil for the year – making the story even more personal and grounded in that location and within their community.

In her debut novel, Tara Lynn Masih chronicles the intensifying hardships of Hanna’s family in particular and the Jews in general. It starts with restrictions on the food they can buy, the businesses they can engage in, until later, Jews are seized and made to travel north to the work camps. Some Jewish Romaninan prisoners, as revealed by the family’s informants, were made to cross a deep river and were either drowned or shot in the back when they made it to the banks, all while classical music is being played on the Gestapo’s gramophone.

Masih’s novel couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time: today, there are voices spewing words of hate about other groups of people, and the appeal to intellect and rationality has given way to emotional outbursts over real and imagined slights.  The author explains that given her young adult audience, she did leave out “some of the more nightmarish events.”  But what she did leave in are heart-wrenching enough.

Even more heart-wrenching are the actions of the people who helped Hanna’s family despite great personal danger: from the neighbor who gives them crosses to place on their door to hide their Jewishness during a raid, to the people who served as their contact to the outside world while they were in hiding.

As the novel ends, the family survived but to get their visas and be on their way to freedom in a new country, they needed to change their names.  This is why the retelling to her daughter begins and ends with her real name, and with it, the acceptance of what has happened before and since.

Masih’s story is brilliantly told with a relatable and sympathetic narrator.  The events described are grounded in history, and all the more horrifying because of it.

My Real Name is Hanna, published by Mandel Vilar Press, will be released on September 15, 2018. It is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.com.

Thanks to NetGalley and Mandel Vilar Press for the advanced read.

This post contains affiliate links.

Love books and reading? Try Kindle Unlimited on Amazon and read from thousands of books available in the Kindle Unlimited catalog. Get your first month FREE.

No Kindle device? Download the Kindle App for FREE to read your favorite books anytime and anywhere.

No time to read? Listen to your favorite books instead while you drive, run, shop, and more.  Try Audible for free for 30 days and get two free audiobooks.

Recipe: Thai Peanut Sauce

I admit: I did have my doubts about the Smoke & Fire Peanut Butter that Fix & Fogg sent me to try out. I was intrigued at the concept of a smokey and spicy peanut butter ever since I heard about it; I just didn’t know what to do with this variant.

Fix & Fogg is a maker of small batch peanut butter based in Wellington, New Zealand. Its peanut butter variants have just become available in the Philippines, stocked in retail outlets like All Day Supermarkets, Cartel Deli, Earth Origins Marketplace and Power Plant Market, as well as distributed online via websites such as Beauty MNL, Gerald.PH and the Green Grocer.

While I have recently grown to appreciate some spicy food, thanks in large part to my passion for Korean dishes, I usually shy away from these as my palate gravitates more towards sweet and/or salty food.

Fortunately, my daughter, #ExhibitA, was feeling adventurous and volunteered to cook dinner while incorporating this peanut butter into the recipe. So, last Friday night, after a long day at the office, I came home to a culinary masterpiece courtesy of my darling baby girl.

She basically pan-fried a half-kilo of porkchops seasoned with salt and pepper in olive oil. Then, she set about making a Thai peanut sauce based on a recipe from Epicurious, adjusted due to availability of ingredients and to taste.

Fix and Fogg

Ingredients:

Procedure:

  • With the motor running, drop the ginger and garlic clove into your blender. Blend until the ingredients are finely chopped.
  • Add the peanut butter, soy sauce, lemon juice, sugar and water, then blend until smooth. Add in more water by tablespoonfuls to thin the mixture.

This recipe yields 2 cups of the peanut sauce, equivalent to 8 servings, with approximately 47 calories per serving.

You can make this sauce ahead of time. Place in a container with a lid then chill. It will keep for 3 days. Bring to room temperature before serving.

It went well with the pork chops, adding a citrusy zing and a spicy bite to the viand. The sauce may also be used as a salad dressing or as an accompaniment to lettuce wrapped minced chicken.

Want to try this recipe today? There’s no need to leave home to shop for ingredients.  With Honestbee, just order your groceries online and you’ll get them delivered right at your doorstep at your preferred time. Use this referral link and get Php500 off for a minimum spend of Php2,500.  You can download the Honestbee app on iTunes or Google Play.

If you’re in the US and an Amazon Prime member, sign up for a free trial of Amazon Fresh to get your groceries delivered to you.

Disclosure: Fix & Fogg provided product samples for me to review.  Reactions and opinions about the product are my own.

Recipe: Oatmeal Peanut Butter Breakfast Balls

It is a cliche already but breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It fires up your metabolism and gets you going for the rest of the day.

However, in the rush of morning chores and preparations to leave for work or school, family members seldom have the time to prepare and eat breakfast. Fortunately, I came across some recipes for Oatmeal Peanut Butter Breakfast Balls on Pinterest that seem easy to prepare in advance over the weekend and just take out and serve for a quick breakfast before leaving the house.

Another lucky break for me is getting a Super Crunchy Peanut Butter among the sampler jars that Fix & Fogg sent for me to try out.

Fix & Fogg is a maker of small batch peanut butter based in Wellington, New Zealand. Its peanut butter variants have just become available in the Philippines, stocked in retail outlets like All Day Supermarkets, Cartel Deli, Earth Origins Marketplace and Power Plant Market, as well as distributed online via websites such as Beauty MNL, Gerald.PH and the Green Grocer.

I tweaked the original recipe: substituting instant for rolled oats, replacing walnuts with some chopped cashew nuts that I bought from Antipolo, using semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of the regular ones and taking out raisins (because I’m not too wild about them).

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup instant oats
  • 1/3 cup honey
  • 1/2 cup Fix & Fogg Super Crunchy Peanut Butter
  • 1/2 cup chopped cashew nuts
  • 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla

Procedure:

  1. Mix all ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.
  2. Using a small ice cream scoop, scoop up the mixture to form domes. (I had to firmly pat down the mixture into the scoop to get some properly shaped domes. If the mixture is not tightly packed, it will easily crumble once you take it off the scoop.)
  3. Freeze for an hour or until the balls are firm.
  4. Store in airtight resealable bags inside the chiller.
  5. Take out the balls you plan to have for breakfast a few minutes before serving (like while you’re still making your coffee).

Recipe yields 22 breakfast balls. Each ball has approximately 87 calories.

My little boy tried one and he immediately wanted another!

Want to try this recipe today? There’s no need to leave home to shop for ingredients.  With Honestbee, just order your groceries online and you’ll get them delivered right at your doorstep at your preferred time. Use this referral link and get Php500 off for a minimum spend of Php2,500.  You can download the Honestbee app on iTunes or Google Play.

If you’re in the US and an Amazon Prime member, sign up for a free trial of Amazon Fresh to get your groceries delivered to you.

Disclosure: Fix & Fogg provided product samples for me to review.  Reactions and opinions about the product are my own.