Oh My Gulay!

When I was a kid, I hated veggies. For me, it felt so yucky and I just couldn't muster up the strength to swallow it. Until I went to college, the room I had was full of canned goodies my Mom scoops up in my bag to bring to our boarding house, in case I'd be too lazy to go to the cafeteria to eat. My friends eat at the nearby kiosk and they get to eat ampalaya with egg and pinakbet, but I always order adobong chicken or afritada. I really don't like vegetables.

I HATE Veggies!

NOT!

Not until I realized I could die not having it. When I got married, I learned to whip things up in the kitchen and that includes those green leafy vegetables that once felt ultimately yucky in my tongue. I have learned to make my own version of pinakbet (though not as good as my Dad's, my Mom does not cook so well, *grin*). I have forced myself to eat green leafy veggies especially malunggay, saluyot, pechay, cabbage and root crops like carrots and potatoes.

Today, my day is incomplete without having a dose of them in one of my meals. It fully satisfies me too knowing that my children, after seconds of encouraging, would eat them. Aside from some veggies I have really never loved, like the sitaw (string beans) and the talong (eggplant), I have learned to be responsible for my health, I eat veggies now and I encourage people to do the same. What with the Big C and other diseases you can get from today's generation of foods, it is best to take precaution. I don't need to enumerate what vegetables can do to our health because I trust that those reading this post already know the reason why we should eat GULAY.

I also thank my Dad because of his small farm here in our province (South Cotabato), we can always get fresh organic veggies available in his garden.

Here are some pics of what is in my Dad's garden.

bell peppers... ding dong

my father's ampalaya garden, look at all those ampalaya hanging...

me, picking pipino from Dad's garden

bell pepper over tomatoes

tomatoes!

Dad's garden also includes squash, eggplants, and okra.

Okay, so that made me busy last Christmas, also, Dad decided to have his mango orchard harvested, so we were busy preparing for the food the harvesters will eat. The people helping us harvest the mangoes gathered roughly ten thousand kiloes of the green mango.

Here's some pics of the Christmas harvest.

I'm drooling, makes me wanna go peel a green mango, get some bagoong (shrimp paste) and toyo (soy sauce) as sawsawan. Go ahead, help yourself for some.

Oops. But promise me you'll eat your veggies! Haha!

Hmmm, I see, you're salivating there, wipe it off please, teehee!