What's on your Media Noche menu?

This is the first time ever that I am forced to come up with a decent media noche menu for the family, since last year and all the years before that, my mom was tasked to do it. Now that I have my own family, I find that dealing with the responsibilities this time of the year is not easy. I mean, I don't even know how to cook extra special food for the holidays, for chrissake. We survived the Christmas because the relatives were here and they mercifully saved me from the horrors of cooking but they already left yesterday. Not that I am sad. I think I'll be cleaning my way until the New Year's eve with all the mess that they made. LOL. *Sigh*

Anyway, so the first order of business would be to make a list of what to include in the menu. My criteria is that I SHOULD know how to cook it reasonably well or it is bought ready-to-eat. Th first criterion pretty much narrows down the choices to like ten recipes. Hee hee. So far, I have:


Spaghetti - Svet's favorite, because of the hotdog, mainly.

Fried chicken - hubby's request. When he sees chicken, he never thinks to cook it any other way. Just jollibee-ish fried chicken.

Hotdogs and mallows on stick - My youngest sister's favorite. She ate like thirty of those last Christmas. It's a wonder why she's still not sick of it.

Inihaw na liempo (grilled pork belly) - My sister's request. She's into anything grilled these days.

Red wine - It's traditional for us, so it's an obvious inclusion.

Sweet ham - Another traditional food on the menu.

Yema cake - MY choice. I am CRAZY over a local bakeshop's (Danes) yema (stiff sticky melange of yolks and condensed milk) cake.

Sinigang na baboy (pork in sour broth) - The ONLY dish that my one year old niece eats with rice.

Lumpiang shanghai (Filipino spring rolls) - Another personal choice.

That's about it at the moment. Nothing fancy, as my mom is in charge of that department so we will be counting on her for that. Of course we'll have lots of round fruits at the table, as it is also tradition, plus lots of bread. Svet'll be dressed in all sorts of polka dots you can imagine, because my mom insists on it (it is for good luck, I suppose). I'm considering queso de bola (small, spherical Edam cheese) since it is also a traditional media noche food, but no one in the family is too fond of cheese so I think it'll be a last choice.

Care to share what's on your media noche menu? Maybe I'll decide to cook something outside my comfort zone for once. I don't know. I hope the mood strikes. But either way, I am ready for all the delicious food that will be served on our tables so I say, bring it on!