Hit Spaghetti, No. 1 Chicken Lollipops

Yesterday, my niece Ashley celebrated her first birthday. Of course, her mom, my cousin Viera, slaved herself off for months preparing for her unica hija's party.

The concept of the whole party was a luau. She made invitations with grass skirts on them. She had music that reminded people they were on a beach. She had a grass skirted table and standees that looked like they came from Lilo & Stitch. Even Barbie on top of the cake had a grass skirt on! Of course, what's a beach party without swimming? Even if it's just in a pool!


Everyone came in costume and wore leis. However, she wasn't very strict with the menu. She prepared everything (children's) party people wanted: pancit, fried chicken lollipops, lumpiang shanghai, hotdogs with marshmallows on skewers, chocolate cupcakes, pichi-pichi, kutsinta, sorbetes (minus the mamang sorbetero)and the all-time party favorite, spaghetti.

Viera was expecting 50 to 60 guests, so I was tasked to make spaghetti for all of them. Yikes! The last time I made that much spaghetti was nearly 10 years ago!

But OK, it's a dirty job and someone's gotta do it.

First, I cooked 4 kg of spaghetti according to package directions, and set them aside for a while.

Then I sauted 1 head of minced garlic and 250 gm onions, minced in half a cup of oil. Then I added 1 1/4 kg ground pork (preboiled and drained) and continued stirring until meat was brown.

I added 4.5 liters (yup, that much) sweet-blend tomato sauce and about 2 liters water. I wanted to put more than 2 chicken bouillon cubes, but there wasn't any more than 2 so I just seasoned the sauce with salt & pepper and sugar until I got the taste I wanted (which wasn't much really. I just wanted my spaghetti to taste like my favorite, McSpaghetti!).

I then dissolved 250 gm of corn starch in 1/2 cup water and used this to thicken my sauce. After a few minutes of stirring, the sauce was ready.

Then I tossed my cooked pasta into the sauce and viola! Life-of-the-party spaghetti!

Oh, by the way, I toyed around with the chicken lollipops, too. For 4.5 kg of chicken lollipops, I mixed together 1 tsp garlic powder, 2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp white pepper. I used this as chicken rub and kept the chicken in the freezer until they were ready to be fried.

I also mixed 1 cup bread crumbs and 1 cup pancake mix and used this as breading. I placed the chicken in zip-lock bags, put some breading mix in, sealed the bag and tossed the breading with the chicken. Afterward, I asked some of the tita's to deep fry them for me.

As of this writing, the spaghetti had been wiped out, even the two trays we brought back home. The chicken? Gone before I could even say, "Happy birthday, Ashley!".