Cooking Day With Micmic :)

At last! A cooking buddy! :)

I was really excited as the day began yesterday because my good friend Micmic and I had previously planned to cook in their house. :) He would teach me how to cook lasagna (the shortcut version and without needing an oven), and Caesar salad (the shortcut version also). So we agreed to meet at SM Hypermart Pasig first to buy the ingredients, then go to their place at Valle Verde 5. Being an early bird that I was, I arrived 15 minutes before our meeting time, and damn, I was very ecstatic to see all the veggies, fishes, and fruits Hypermart had to offer! My eyes were feasting on the array of colors! :) Also, I saw veggies I never knew existed, and to top it all, very weird-looking veggies, too! :D I even had to call my boyfriend just to tell him the colorful veggies and to shop there later that day. :)

The fresh salad garden section of Hypermart Pasig. :) I would like to applaud them for such a collection, theirs had the most variety (so far) from all the Hypermarts I had seen. :)

It's not what you think it is! hahaha. :D This is a butternut squash. It's my first time to see this odd-shaped veggie, I didn't even know it existed until then. Must try one... *evil grin* ^___^

More butternut squashes! :) I also saw a sorta-giant-garlic veggie. I think it's squash too but I didn't see the name. :D

Sweet beets! :)

Big, fat radishes. :D

Mini cucumber. :) My good friend Edgie and I had an inside joke about the pronunciation of cucumber: it's pronunciation KA-KAM-BER. :D I dunno, but it's hilarious for both of us. :D

Big salad tomatoes and tomatolets! :D

This is nice, really nice. :) Green and golden Zucchini. :D

Green Capsicum, green and red Jalapeños, iceberg lettuce! :) It was rare seeing Jalapeños here.

Japanese cucumber and red cabbage. :)

Fennel and Swiss Chard. I haven't tried both of them. :p

One of my faves, Butterhead lettuce. :)

And finally, red coral lettuce and green ice lettuce. :) Micmic called them "curly lettuce". :D

After secretly taking pictures of veggies (yes, I instantly became a veggie stalker that time), Micmic arrived and we then started shopping for the ingredients. Some weird and unique things we saw were the shrimp-eating-fishie and humongous mushroom:

It's nice that Hypermart dry market exists: I really don't like wet markets. :p I've always hated the feeling of walking on dirty ground and those mud scattering all over my white socks and legs. Anyway, after shopping for ingredients, we went back to their home and started the fight! :D

The Contenders:

Ingredients

and the cooks: Micmic and I :D

Micmic was really up to fight, haha! :D Anyway we successfully created our masterpieces:

Yummmmmm!!!! :D

Caesar salad without the dressing and Parmesan cheese. :)

Four layers of Bechamel and beef! :)

The "lataks" or excess ingredients in English. :D We also tried to arrange them. Still nice. :)

Whew! What a day! :) We had a blast. I hope there will be more cooking sessions to come. :) For the procedure on cooking shortcut versions of lasagna and Caesar salad, I'll just post them in a separate entry. :)

Tabemashou! :)