Summer's end

Ooops, I did it again! Been ‘out’ for quite sometime but no excuses ... just doing a li’l bit of this and a li’l bit of that, been here and there. I feel bad though, I neglected my nook.

Summer's over and I’m trying to ignore (at least for now) the fact that soon, I’ll brave the city’s early morning traffic again when classes resume.

And, I'm thinking, what better way to savor the last days of this much-needed rest than by enjoying the widely-popular Pinoy desserts: halo-halo and guinumis.  Summer, definitely, is never  complete without them!

Halo-halo ( literally meaning  mix-mix and culled from  the Tagalog word halo) comes in different versions. The most popular of these versions is a  refreshing mix of  nata de coco ( coconut gelatin), boiled kidney beans, caramekized banana saba ( plantains)  kaong (sugar palm fruit),  rice krispies or toasted pinipig  ( pounded glutinous rice), tapioca, evaporated milk and shaved ice topped with leche flan, ube 
( purple yam ) and a scoop of ice cream.

Dig in!  This type comes in  simpler form with only a few ingredients: a strip or two of  sweetened langka or jackfruit, a teaspoon of sweet kidney beans, nata de coco, tapioca and pre-mixed with evaporated milk and sugar syrup then topped with ube and toasted pinipig. 

XO 46 halo-halo. Just mix a little bit and enjoy!

Guinumis, almost like a halo-halo is prepared with tapioca,  gelatin, toasted pinipig,  
sweetened with pandan syrup and topped with shaved ice and  flavored with thick coconut milk. Perfect combination!