The Sassy Lawyer & Pinoy Cook on food, family and home.
What makes a dish a salad? If the ingredients, cooked or raw, are tossed together but not cooked together after they are tossed, then you have a salad. The term salad encompasses a wide array of dishes — from starters to side dishes to main courses to desserts. Most are drizzled with a dressing but the dressing is not always a vinaigrette. A salad does not necessarily have to be made exclusively with raw vegetables nor does it always have to include vegetables among the ingredients, it does not have to precede the main course and it is not always a cold dish.
The avocado was supposed to go into sushi but I cooked all the Japanese rice we had to make oyakudon. Sam looked at the lonely avocado ruefully, suggested that we make a salad with it then she commandeered my computer to search for recipes. But I didn’t need any recipe. I knew exactly how I ... (more)
When I first came across this spinach recipe in The New York Times health section, it was labeled as an appetizer. The recipe itself was not all that simple — the dressing had to be boiled and reduced. Wondering if there were simpler versions, I searched around using “Japanese spinach sesame seeds” as a key ... (more)
When you need to reduce the amount of salt in a dish, what do you do to make sure that the flavors don’t fall flat? You add things that are rich and flavor and aroma so that you don’t miss the salt at all. In an earlier version of this pearl potato salad / side ... (more)
Does a salad always have to be served on a salad plate and eaten with a salad fork? If bread forms part of the salad, does the bread always have to be in the form of croutons? As far as I am concerned, the answers are no and no. I like variety. So, a couple ... (more)
If you ask me what my favorite salad green is, I’d tell you it’s arugula. If you ask me what my second favorite salad green is, I’d say lettuce. If you ask me what kind of lettuce, I’d tell you any kind except iceberg lettuce. If you ask me what other vegetables I want in ... (more)
Alfalfa is a flowering plant that belongs to the pea family. In the West, it has long been grown for cattle feed. In Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine, alfalfa has been used for centuries to treat many health disorders. From Herbal Supplement Resource: Alfalfa has a long history of use in China as an appetite stimulant, ... (more)
Breathe new life into your macaroni salad by using pasta spirals, combining chicken with shrimps and adding lightly toasted sliced almonds. Don’t look too impressed though. It’s really just about getting creative with leftovers. Yes, seriously.
After spending almost the entire afternoon managing the traffic to and from the grocery and bakers’ supplies store, and my house, and still managing to sneak in a very late lunch, I got a text message that I would have some unexpected guests yesterday. These people are friends and family but their every visit to ... (more)
Yesterday, I had lunch with girl friends from law school, the conversation — hilarious all the way — ranged from unsavory characters to disillusionment with the justice system to domestic help issues to coffee makers to, of course, food. Speedy joined us for the last hour or so of our get-together and, somewhere between funny ... (more)
Last summer, fellow blogger KK offered to send me seeds of vine tomatoes. She did. But because the typhoon season came early this year, I postponed planting the seeds. Speedy saw the packet one day, planted the seeds and, before I knew it, there was a vine growing. But tropical typhoons are no joke. As ... (more)
I would have made lumpiang ubod (heart of palm spring rolls) but that … »»
Spicy, aromatic, rich and, best of all, fast. This is an express version of … »»
Ditch the canned fruit cocktail with the rubbery content that is 90% chewy … »»
When my in-laws came over on Sunday, they brought a huge bunch of suman and … »»
After a quick trip to the market, Speedy checked his Facebook account, … »»
Still experimenting with alternative methods of cooking, after using the … »»
If you're looking for the easiest cocktail drink recipe ever, you just … »»
A simple, easy and very tasty pasta dish that you can cook in one pan. … »»
I can't resist a good recipe when I come across one. I was browsing food … »»
Casa is Spanish for house. CASA is also an acronym for Connie, Antonio, Sam and Alex. We are all surnamed Veneracion. We all love to take photos -- of anything that catches our fancy. It's a family obsession.
This is a journal of how we live, eat, learn, play and have fun. Work? Work is part of playing and having fun. Seriously.
In 2003, a time when I hadn't heard of the term "blog", I started a recipe website at cooking.houseonahill.net using a now defunct content management system that ran on ASP. Ok, never mind the geek talk, I'm sure you're not interested in that. The contents easily multiplied and, in 2004, I moved the food site to pinoycook.net. Always unhappy with the fact that the dot com versions of houseonahill and pinoycook weren't … (click here to read all »)
It has a graham cracker crust and it is baked but at a lower temperature … (more...)
If you Google "melon cocktail", you'll find that there are two categories. … (more...)
According to Tastefully Done, age means deep fried and dashi, of course, is … (more...)
Okra has a bad reputation in our house. So bad a reputation that I'm the … (more...)
When I first came across this spinach recipe in The New York Times health … (more...)
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