Metro Manila renains under quarantine - this July, it has mostly been a General Community Quarantine (GCQ) so things have not been as tight or strict as they have been from mid-March through May. People have already been allowed to eat in restaurants, get haircuts, and generally move around the city more easily than during ECQ and MECQ. That said, I still haven't had a haircut nor eaten out. For food, I buy a lot of take-out or I have food delivered. When I do, I normally get food good for 2-3 days so that I can reduce the numbers of times I have to go out or order. As a result, I haven't cooked as much recently as I did during the early months of quarantine. The only non-breakfast food I cooked in the last month was Beef with Mushrooms in Cream Sauce.
My friend posted a picture of her beef with mushrooms in cream sauce that she prepared and it reminded me that this is a dish that I really love but haven't eaten in a while. I asked her if she could share her recipe with me and she did. I gotta say, this is hands-down the best dish I've cooked in my life so far! It was the most perfect first attempt at a dish I've achieved. Every other first attempts I've cooked have had some issue - lacking flavor, being too salty, or having too much wine LOL - but this dish was really good. I honestly would've been proud to serve it to my friends or family. I will certainly make this again.
I also got my first-ever non-stick frying pan. A friend purchased a lot of cookware from Masflex recently and she highly recommended their stuff. Since the start of ECQ, I've been thinking about getting a non-stick fryin pan since I find it really hard to clean my stainless steel pans when I cook breakfast food. I saw that Masflex's 20" Radiance Non-stick Induction Frying Pan costs P540 which I felt was pretty affordable. I decided to get one for myself and I tossed in a 26" pan for my family. I've been using my new purchase almost everyday to cook breakfast and I'm really loving it because food doesn't stick to it, making it so much easier to clean. I also don't need to add any oil when I cook anymore which means my food is just a tad healthier. I can't believe it took me this long to get a non-stick pan!
Speaking of breakfast food, Spam 25% Less Sodium has been out of stock for the last few weeks). I decided to try a couple of other variants - Spam with Bacon and Spam with Cheese - but I don't really like them because I find them both too salty! I'd go with Spam Lite or even the normal Spam but neither have been in stock either. Hopefully, the supermarket where I buy my groceries will have Spam 25% Less Sodium in stock again soon.
What I'm also really missing now is playing board games. I used to play board games at least once a month and now, I haven't played since February. I've gotten to play some online games with friends, such as Jackbox, and I've also had my fair share of virtual hang-out and e-numan sessions with my friends during the quarantine. Nothing beats actually meeting up with people but this will have to do for now. I continue to hope that a vaccine and/or a cure will be discovered soon and that we reduce the number of Covid-19 cases in the Philippines.
