It’s been a year since I became a stay-at-home mom. In the past nine months, I’ve been preparing daily meals for my teenage foodie. That means waking up early in the morning to prepare breakfast, school lunch, and morning snacks. While he’s in school, I have almost the whole day to think about what to prepare for family dinner.
Preparing my child’s meals was something I did occasionally (only during weekends and holidays) in the past almost 13 years. During those years that I was a working mom, my child had always been under the care of a nanny. I’m grateful to God for those years because He’s always been faithful to our family. Nonetheless, I’ve always had this mom guilt of not being able to spend quality time with him. I believe it’s not uncommon for working moms to feel that way though. Thus, as a new season of my life unfolded, I make it a point to do things I’d always wanted to do for and with my child. And because food is my love language, I make the most of every opportunity I get to serve him delicious (and hopefully, nutritious) food.
As an update to my last blog six months ago, I’m sharing here again some highlights of the first half of 2026 in our little kitchen. As always, it’s a challenge to choose which ones to highlight because (for me) everything is special.
Christmas-y January. The first month, at least the first week, was still a bit festive. Coming from the holidays, we still enjoyed some leftover food and prepared new dishes using leftover ingredients. Some of these were fruit-and-chocolate medley burnt Basque cheesecake from Christmas and our first-ever bibingka cheesecake from New Year. We also had some charcuterie, homemade queso de bola pimiento spread, several cheesecake variants, and some ube halaya.
Sweet February. February was a cheesecake month in our kitchen as we had lots of cheesecakes for celebrations, such as V-Day, birthdays, and meetups! The Ubeserye Part 2 as well as the special birthday menu for our teenage foodie also made this month extra special. The month ended with me attending another WOFEX event — learning from and getting inspired by some experts in the food industry.
Intentional March. The month of March kicked off with me and our teenage foodie baking treats for the hubby. I made strawberry burnt Basque cheesecake for him while our teenage foodie prepared chocolate-caramel Biscoff lava mug cake. Since he’s born on a leap year, his birthday celebration was moved to the first day of March this year. It’s funny, but I honestly still get confused about it!
March was a busy month in our kitchen as we were able to cook and bake a lot. We also tried making our first-ever chicken-mushroom risotto and Dubai chewy cookie (with kataifi pastry and pistachio sauce all from scracth). We also had strawberry and blueberry muffins, Hawaiian pizza, four-cheese sourdough focaccia bread, chicken arroz caldo, blueberry and chocolate medley cheesecakes, avocado sourdough toast, and (again) queso de bola pimiento spread.
Indulgent April. April was also a happy month with lots of sweet and savory treats for family and friends alike. We had chocolate medley, chocolate-blueberry, and queso de bola cheesecakes. We also tried to make Guimaras mango sticky rice for the first time. It’s such a joy also to be able to get really good and fresh strawberries to top our classic burnt Basque cheesecake.
Soulful May. What really makes May always extra special is Mother’s Day celebration. Sweet and savory treats gave color to our little kitchen table during this month.
A labor of love was poured over the aim of trying to perfect that Dubai chewy cookie for the second and third time because our teenage foodie wanted to give some to his friend as a gift. I used the store-bought kataifi pastry this time as I finally was able to buy some. I didn’t achieve the ‘perfect’ look as shaping the marshmallow dough was really challenging. To compensate for all the effort, I rewarded myself with a store-bought version of this viral chewy cookie.
Ginataang mais (sweet corn porridge in coconut milk) is a childhood snack I really missed. As such, I prepared one for our teenage foodie to try for the first time. He loved it!
Mother’s Day wouldn’t be complete without cakes. I made strawberry cheesecakes and Guimaras mango cheesecake for family and friends. I didn’t bake one for myself because my boys treated me to a good dinner at a restaurant. I got a free Mother’s Day sweet treat!
Chill June. The month of June is somewhat relaxed. I baked and cooked when I felt like doing so — no pressure, no rush, no need to perform. I wanted to be intentional recently and I had a lot of personal reflections, too.
To celebrate Father’s Day, we had ube-parmesan burnt Basque cheesecakes for a couple of friends. And for the hubby, we just had a mini cake which our teenage foodie requested to be decorated with Guimaras mango cubes. And because we had ube halaya, we baked ube-cheese ensaymada and salted egg cheese ensaymada. We just couldn’t get enough of ube so this Ubeserye also included our ube-cheese pandesal and ube-mango oatmeal. Of course, we didn’t just have sweets this June. We felt we needed to ‘go healthy’ so we had some pan-seared salmon and roasted veggies, pork and mushroom veggie stew, and cheesy kimchi fried rice. The latter was specifically requested by our teenage foodie.
Being in this season of my life is a blessing that I am learning to embrace and be grateful for each day. My mind may at times run out of meal ideas and my hands may get tired of the chores, but my heart will never run out of love for my ‘not-little-one-anymore’. He may have already grown much now, but he’s still the same child who loves to eat and whose smile still gives me pure joy every time he’s served a meal.
Cheers to all moms and dads! ❤️