Healthy Desserts

Father's Day. Reynaldo Father's Day. I made salmon sinigang — the recipe he invented. The ritual since 2009 — the first one after his death — when I was twenty and could barely cook and made the soup wrong and ate it anyway. I made it correctly this year. The extra squeeze of tamarind. I called Mark and Joseph. The Reynaldo was in the conversation without being named. The naming would have been too much.

Lourdes is 74. She is in the kitchen. She is luminous.

I made halo-halo Saturday. The shaved ice, the ube, the leche flan, the pinipig. The dessert in excess.

I skipped the blog this week. Some weeks the kitchen is enough.

I stood at the counter eating leftovers in my pajamas. The standing was the small luxury. The luxury was the having of leftovers at all.

I taught a Saturday morning Kain Na class on basic adobo proportions for new cooks. Eleven people in the kitchen. Half of them had never cooked Filipino food before. By eleven AM the kitchen smelled the way it should smell. By noon they were all eating. The eating was the lesson landing.

I drove home Tuesday evening and the sun set at three forty-five and the highway was already iced at the bridges and the radio was on a station I did not recognize and I did not change it.

Auntie Norma called Sunday to ask if I had a recipe for a particular merienda from Iloilo. I did not. I said I would ask Lourdes. I asked Lourdes. Lourdes had it. The chain.

The light was good Saturday morning. I sat on the porch with a cup of coffee and watched the inlet for forty minutes. The watching was the small therapy. The therapy was free.

I read a chapter of a novel before bed each night this week. The novel was about a Filipina nurse in California. The novel was good. The novel was, in some way, my own life adjacent.

I checked email at the kitchen table while the rice cooked. There were one hundred and twenty unread messages. I closed the laptop. The unread can wait.

I drove the Glenn Highway out to Eklutna on Saturday. The mountains were the mountains. The lake was the lake. The body needed the open road. The open road did its work.

The salmon in the freezer is from August. Joseph's catch. The bag is labeled in his handwriting — "for Grace." I will use it next week.

I took inventory of the freezer Sunday. The freezer had: twelve quarts of broth, eight pounds of adobo in vacuum bags, six pounds of sinigang base, fourteen lumpia trays at fifty rolls each, three pounds of marinated beef for caldereta, and a small bag of pandan leaves Tita Nening had sent me. The inventory was the proof of preparation. The preparation was the proof of love.

I made coffee at six AM. The coffee was the start. The start was always the same.

I took a walk on the coastal trail Saturday. The light was good. The body was tired but moving.

Angela texted me a photo of the kids. I texted back a heart. The exchange took thirty seconds. The thirty seconds was the keeping.

The Filipino Community newsletter announced a fundraiser for typhoon relief in Samar. I committed to making three hundred lumpia. The number is the number. The number has always been the number. Three hundred is what I make. The math has stopped surprising me.

I cleaned the kitchen Sunday afternoon. I wiped the stove. I scrubbed the sink. I reorganized the spice cabinet. The cleaning was the small reset. The reset was the marker. The marker said: the week is over, the next week begins, the kitchen is ready.

I made the halo-halo on Saturday not because it was a special occasion but because I needed something that was entirely itself — all color and cold and sweetness at once, the kind of dessert that doesn’t apologize for being too much. After a week of salmon sinigang and freezer inventory and one hundred and twenty unread emails, the excess was the point. What follows is the version I make when I need the kitchen to do its best work: light where it can be, generous where it has to be, and not a single ingredient that isn’t earning its place.

Prep Time: 25 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 25 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

4 cups finely shaved ice (or crushed ice blended until snow-like)
1/2 cup cooked sweet red beans (kalupit or adzuki), lightly sweetened
1/2 cup nata de coco (coconut gel), drained
1/2 cup ripe mango, diced small
1/4 cup fresh jackfruit strips (or canned, drained)
1/4 cup pinipig (toasted puffed rice), for crunch
4 tablespoons ube halaya (purple yam jam)
4 small squares leche flan (each roughly 2 oz), homemade or store-bought
1/2 cup evaporated milk (divided, 2 tablespoons per serving)
2 tablespoons sugar syrup (1:1 sugar and water, dissolved), optional
4 small scoops ube ice cream or vanilla, for topping

Instructions

Prepare your components. Have all toppings prepped and cold before you begin — the sweet beans cooked and cooled, the fruit cut, the nata de coco drained. Everything should be within arm’s reach. Halo-halo is assembled, not cooked.
Build the base. Fill each tall glass or bowl halfway with shaved ice. Pack it loosely — you want air in there so the milk can seep through later.
Layer the toppings. Distribute the red beans, nata de coco, mango, and jackfruit evenly across the four servings, nestling each into the ice so they don’t slide off.
Add the signature elements. Spoon one tablespoon of ube halaya onto each serving. Place a square of leche flan alongside it. Scatter the pinipig last so it stays crisp.
Top and finish. Add a scoop of ube ice cream to each glass. Pour 2 tablespoons of evaporated milk over each serving just before presenting. Drizzle with sugar syrup only if your beans and fruit are on the tart side.
Serve immediately. Halo-halo waits for no one. Hand it to whoever is nearby. The mixing — halo-halo means “mix-mix” — is the eater’s job.

Nutrition (per serving)

Healthy Desserts — The Excess That Holds You Together