Last weekend, our genius super “yaya” Ate Shirley singlehandedly planned, budgeted, and prepared a family lunch at our house for twelve people (seven adults and five kids). She only had some help from her assistant, Ate Elsa, during the actual cooking and serving.

We feasted on:
- Native Chicken BBQ *
- Native Chicken Tinola *
- Ginataang Manok (native chicken in coconut milk and spices) *
- Pork Dinuguan (pork blood stew — dear non-Pinoys, trust me this is delicious!) and Puto
- Large Shrimp in Butter, Garlic, and Lemon
- White Rice; of course, this is a Pinoy meal, and I’m the only one in my family who eats brown rice
- Fresh Buko Juice
- Pandan Water (place a pandan leaf in the pitcher)
- Homemade Turon
- Arce Dairy Cheese Ice Cream

* The only thing we didn’t have to buy was the native chicken and malunggay, which we already had.

Sorry I have no pictures of the feast, I was too busy feasting! Anyway, even though she regularly whips up this kind of gastronomic miracle for our family gatherings— I’m still amazed, every time, at how she manages to produce that amount of wonderful, delicious Filipino food, with that budget! I was still eating leftover tinola and shrimp for the next few days (leftovers are awesome with fried rice!). Ate Shirley’s shopping list looked something like this:

- Pork for dinuguan
- Hipon
- Gata
- Kangkong & petsay
- Cooking oil
- Cheese
- Dahon ng sibuyas
- Luya
- Celery
- Kintsay
- Bawang
- Sibuyas
- Calamansi
- Kamatis
- Tanglad
- Sili, green
- Leeks
- Saging saba
- Turon paper
= P1,500

- Buko, P300
- Ice cream, P410
- Butter, P90
= P800

TOTAL = P2,300

The most expensive items were the shrimp, pork, and ice cream. Lesson learned: if we eat Filipino foods with local ingredients, with a high veggies-to-meat ratio, and less processed foods, then we can eat sustainably and also affordably! :) Healthy eating definitely doesn’t have to be costly. (And even when it is, it will still cost less than healthcare bills in the long run.) Also, we are super lucky to have someone like Ate Shirley who is not only an awesome chef and trusted “mayordoma” of our household, but also occasionally our chauffeur! :))