Food for thought: Halo-halo

Happy Thanksgiving Canada!

Hi Everyone, I hope and wish you all in Canada a Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving!

Today, I will talk about Halo-halo which is the famous Filipino all year round treat. Halo-halo means “mixed” in Philippines. Basically, it’s all mixed fruits, sweetened treats like leche flan, ube halaya, sweetened bananas, sweet corn, pinipig or even rice crispies together with shaved ice and condensed milk. And don’t forget your toppings, you can top your Halo-halo with your choice of your favorite ice cream like mango, ube and green tea or jackfruit and ube halaya.

Halo-halo is great for summer especially when it’s really hot! But for me and my children, it is always a great treat no matter what’s the season, Just earlier today, I made Halo-halo at home.

Making Halo-halo is very easy. There’s no specific recipe for it. You can make it without any recipe since it’s mostly mixing fruits with shaved ice and milk. However, you can always make it with preserved bottled sweets which are available from Filipino or Asian supermarket.

You can use fresh cut mixed fruits or combine fresh fruits with preserved bottled sweets or the bottled pre-mixed Halo-halo Mix. Since there’s no specific recipe and there’s no way you can get this wrong, instead of posting a recipe, I can provide you with a list of what you need. But some ingredients are optional if you’re watching your calories.

• condensed milk
• regular milk, coconut milk, almond milk or any of your choice
• fruits
• shaved ice
• ice cream for toppings and optional

For bottled preserved sweets:

• Pre-mixed Halo-halo mix
• Nata de Coco – red, green and white
• Sweet Kaong – red, green and white
• Ube halaya
• Beans

For milk, you can add any of your choice. Just like at home, each family member has preference when it comes to milk and sweetness. Like myself, I like coconut and almond milk and slight sweetness. I like the smell and taste of coconut milk. However, my daughter likes condensed milk with coconut and almond milk. What I really meant, it’s really up to you especially Halo-halo could become heavy when you’re using preserved bottled sweet mix.

For shaved ice, I used my blender to crush ice. You can add milk when crushing the ice especially if your ice cubes are too big for the blender blade or you can use ice from grocery stores or you can make smaller ice cubes. Using smaller ice cubes is recommended if your blender is not a heavy duty one.

Since, I am not publishing the Halo-halo recipe, please feel free to comment or send me an email if you have some questions. But believe me, you’ve got this!

Enjoy! Stay safe….