MAJAraaaap!

It is a common practice among Filipino to share food to the neighbors whenever there's an event in the house. For instance, two of our neighbors shared some food to us last week, one is celebrating a kid's birthday and the other is commemorating the "40days" of an old woman who passed away recently. It is interesting that in both occasions, they prepared Maja Blanca, a traditional Filipino delicacy which is of Spanish origin. Perhaps because it one of the easiest to cook and only needs a few ingredients. 


It is said that Maja Blanca is adapted from Manjar Blanco or Blanc Mange, both of which are European milk-based desserts. 

Homemade Manjar Blanco
from www.hispanickitchen.com/profiles/blogs/the-versatile-summer-dessert

Manjar Blanco 

Blanc Mange

"Maja" means "pestle" in Spanish while "blanca" means white. My guess is that the name probably came from the process of getting the milk from the cooconut. Maja Blanca is also known to some people as Maja Blanca con Maiz or Maja Maiz because Filipinos have added corn kernel as an ingredient.


It's been a long time since I last cooked Maja Blanca. I learned the recipe from my aunt in Bicol who taught me how to cook it when I spent my vacation there in 2008. It's one of the best Maja recipes I've ever tasted, promise! Unfortunately, I lost my copy of that recipe. Thanks, to Ms. Google, I found one online and just made some adjustments to it.


For the ingredients, I used the following:


3 ½ cup coconut milk
1 can corn kernel
½ cup sugar
¾ cup cornstarch

Unlike other Maja recipes where the coconut milk is boiled first before putting the other ingredients, my Tita's recipe only involves mixing all the ingredients in a saucepan. Then, I boiled it under slow heat. Just a reminder, you have to constantly stir it so that it will not stick to the pan and also to prevent lumps.

After boiling, I poured the hot mixture in a mold and allowed it to set. I sprinkled cheese on top but you can also serve it with the traditional latik.

Share it with your family and friends because this Maja Blanca is more majaraaaap when shared with other people. :)

Hello everyJuan!

Welcome to a Juana B.'s blog (pun intended)!

I've always wanted to have my own blog. However, I've been delaying/procrastinating on this project. Well, let's just say that for the past years, I've been coming up with a lot of reasons aka excuses for myself.

(drum roll) Presenting Juana B.'s List of Reasons-why-I-do-not-want-to-put-my-own-blog:

1. I don't have anything to share because I'm such a BORING person. My whole life revolved around school and home when I was still studying. I didn't have any org or extra-curricular activities. After my classes, either I went to the lib or tambay muna with friends, then I went straight to our house. After I graduated, it's house-office-house naman. NO GIMIK. NO NIGHTLIFE. Define BORING, that's me Juana B.  So aside from school stuff, household chores, news programs, and my dogs, I don't have anything to blog about. Which leads me to my second excuse  reason.
2. I don't want to be a narcissistic and self-indulgent blogger. Tipong me, myself and I ang drama. Since I'm a boring person nga, I didn't want to end up with entries naman na "Today, I ate chorva" or "Today, I went to this chorva, and I make chukchakchenes with chenilyn". I told myself, if I'm going to have a blog, I'll make sure that my entries will be worth reading or else I'll just be adding up to the crap on the Internet. Ako kasi, I like blogs which are informative, or inspiring, or entertaining. In the same way, I want my blog-to-be to have sense. But it doesn't have to be super deep naman na ako lang ang nakakaintindi ng sinusulat ko. For the longest time also, I can't think of a theme for my blog which, at the same time, reflects my personality and my interests. 
3. I don't have time for blogging because I'm busy with schoolwork and house chores. Blogging requires time. That's something that I didn't have when I was studying. Dakilang estudyante sa umaga at dakilang kasambahay sa gabi ang drama ko non.We don't have a maid kasi soI helped my mom do the the house chores. So at the end of the day, I'm mentally and physically drained. I'm still a part-time maid but since I'm now part of the millions of unemployed Filipinos, I have more time for myself now. Chos! 
4.  I'm not good in writing down my thoughts and feelings. Yes, that's true. It's ironic because I took up a course where we did a lot of writing. I don't know but I've always preferred speaking than writing. For me kasi, there are certain emotions that cannot be captured by the written word. The intonation, volume and even the body language is very important to me. In linguistics, it's called paralanguage. A simple rising intonation can change the meaning of the whole utterance. This is the reason why I don't like texting also. I am always not sure with the meaning of the message. I am not sure whether the the sender is asking me or just stating a fact or if he's being sarcastic. Idagdag nyo pa yung mga kulang-kulang ang punctuation. One of my pet peeves yan!
5. I don't have the resources.  Lame excuse, I know, but I believed that resources are important to maintain a blog. By resources, I mean computer/laptop, Internet connection, and a gadget capable of capturing decent images. Okay, so I have a computer BUT our Internet connection sucks. My brother and I are sharing on this single plug-in Broadband so I can't be online as much as I want to. I don't have my own camera and my phone is soo low-tech. 

Lame as they may sound pero yan ang mga excuses ko sa sarili ko. But I realized, TINATAMAD lang talaga ako.That's all. Sabi nga ng Bio prof ko in high school, there is one disease which is most difficult to cure: "Tamad-titis". Hahaha! True, right?

So finally, this month I was able to cure *fingers crossed* this disease and decided to come up with this blog. Naalala ko kasi yung sabi ni Ate Vi in Sister Stella L., "Kung hindi ngayon, kelan pa?" If it's true that the world will end in 2012, kelan pa ako gagawa ng blog ko? Despite the long delay, I still believe this is the perfect time for me to have a blog. My contract has just ended and I'm still waiting for my application so I'm stuck at home and have nothing to do. I have all the time to write and write and write. I've also finally came up with a theme for my blog, something I am really interested in and passionate about. Plus, I finally have my own camera! Dugo at pawis ang puhunan ko para mabili ang camera na 'to! Hahaha! It's not a posh high-tech DSLR but I think the images that it can produce are good enough for blogging.

So my dear readers, despite my being new in this whole blogging world. I'll try my best to come up with a lot of interesting and informative entries about Pinoys and Pinoy (pop)culture. Yes, kaya ganyan ang title ng blog na to. We'll be talking about Juan and his Juanderful world, the Philippines (ooops, say it again like a contestant in the Ms. Universe pageant)! And syempre, I would also appreciate your JUANDERFUL COMMENTS!

Have a Juanderful weekend everyJuan! :)

Juana B.