The Housewife Chronicles: Missing Home

There are just some days when I miss my family in Manila.  I miss sitting down to dinner and chattering with my sisters, mom and dad while eating.  Tarlac is my home now and I have my own family but I miss the comfort of eating mom's cook anything-inside-the-ref meals, the way special occasions have their own category of food and sitting around the dining table until we've finished all the little morsels of our favorite dish. 

My mom used to cook us glutinous rice balls (tang yuan) stuffed with either peanuts or black sesame during the Chinese New Year.  She boils it in a sweet soup of brown sugar, water and ginger.  We used to complain and give our mom a lot of grief for forcing us to eat these chewy round orbs.  Only when I got older did I appreciate how delicious they are: soft and chewy on the outside, nutty and mildly sweet on the inside with a hot gingery sweet broth.



I look forward to them now but haven't eaten some this year.  I just woke up one morning with an irresistible craving and decided then and there that I have to make some.  A few swift clicks of the mouse and I am armed with a recipe.  Luckily, I also have the ingredients at hand because of  prior cravings which included mochi, peanut noodles and lumpia. 

Toasted peanuts off to be pulverized.

Glutinous rice flour dough waiting to be filled.

Imperfect balls.

Broth ingredients.

Cooked tang yuan.

Bit one in half and almost burned the roof of my mouth off.  Yan ang nangyayari sa atat.

Hopefully, I'll be making some new traditions with my little family soon.