My Salad Dressing

Squeeze out the juice of a medium lemon into a bowl. Add three tablespoons of honey (depends on your taste). If honey is not available, white sugar will do. Add a dash of black ground pepper and 1 teaspoon of extra  virgin olive oil. Mix well.

The honey I use at home for cooking and other dishes or just to sweeten pancakes and breads is guaranteed pure harvested from a beehive found in a forest in the province of Sarangani.

The singakamas I bought from Barangay Saravia in Koronadal, South Cotabato at 80 Php per bundle of string (had 12 pieces medium sized) and the iceberg lettuce I bought from the vegetable stalls in Bukidnon at 30Php per kilo became a good combo. This was my breakfast then this morning. My husband and kids ate with me too.

Apareja's Buko Halo-Halo in South Cotabato

It's one of our favorite stops whenever we wind down along the road. Located at Barangay Saravia, Koronadal (Marbel), South Cotabato; 5-10 minute drive from the city proper of Koronadal or 45 minutes to one hour from General Santos City (plus the traffic and speed limit) is where this very famous buko halo-halo of Apareja can be found.

They just cut a portion of the top of a young buko to make a bowl good enough to hold a serving, the young coconut meat intact and spoonfulls of minatamis na saging (boiled banana in sugar/glucose syrup), candied chewy jackfruit meat, dices of boiled sweet potatoes, a scoop of ice cream topped with leche flan, some nata de coco and kaong sprinkled with corn flakes and garnished with additional grated young coconut meat - ah is love love love love! There's not too much ice. I think they only place half a cup of crushed ice. So what you will be eating isn't the ice but the goodness treat inside the green coconut! Now this is the true halo-halo and not just ice!

Last year, per serving costed 65 Php but as of today or I don't know when did they start hiking its price, it's now 80 Php per serving.

I'm talking about real halo-halo here. Again, not ice! This I highly recommend a must try! Only in South  Cotabato! Only in Mindanao! ^*,

Aside from this buko halo-halo, Barangay Saravia has more to offer. On the sides of its road you can find stores selling singkamas, suka pinakurat, suka tuba, snacks, sweet potatoes, bananas and other farm produce.

It's always fun in South Cotabato!