The Sassy Lawyer & Pinoy Cook on food, family and home.
A new and better version of a recipe posted on Christmas Day in 2009 which, in turn, was a remake of a 2006 recipe. In the 2009 version, the sauce was made with a roux, corn water, cream and the broth in which the ox tongue was cooked. It was pretty good, it was a ... (more)
When you have good quality broth in stock, making soup is both a breeze and a joy. This very hearty yet meatless soup took a mere 10 minutes to cook, the ingredients prepared while the broth was being reheated. The secret is in the layering of flavors. While the broth is already seasoned and flavored ... (more)
While waiting for the pork shoulder to thaw, I made these crisp and tasty tuna and corn fritters for our snack. Or, perhaps, you can consider it a late breakfast. It was after 10.00 a.m., I didn’t expect the pork to thaw completely until around 1.00 p.m., and these fritters were just right to keep ... (more)
Almost anything can go into a farmer’s soup. The only caveat — they must all be fresh. Farmer’s soup derives its name from the practice of cooking soup with ingredients fresh from the farmer’s market. Or, if you prefer an even fresher version — with ingredients fresh from the farmer’s garden. Either way, there is ... (more)
It’s the kind of dish that has everything in it — meat, vegetables and herbs. What inspired it? Mexican staples, mostly. Fresh tomatoes and oregano make a classic combination; so do tomatoes and basil. Mexican cuisine uses a lot of pork and corn. I thought I put them all together and make this fast and ... (more)
The comfort of uncomplicated food. This soup is a simpler version of a dish that my father-in-law used to cook. It features white corn which, when simmered for a long time, thickens the broth as the starch is released. You can use your favorite greens, I chose spinach for this version. To serve, I topped ... (more)
I love Chinese style stir fries! They’re fast to make, they’re so pretty with the explosion of shapes and colors, and they’re perfect when you have only a small amount but several varieties of vegetables. The chicken had been fried earlier in the day so the stir frying part to complete the dish took less ... (more)
Over the weekend when the girls were home, Speedy and I went to the supermarket while they were still asleep. There were so many shoppers and the queue was so long that it was almost lunch time when we got back. Not exactly the time to cook anything fancy, so, I made this. I’m very ... (more)
A couple of weekends ago, we ate at a Cantonese cum Singaporean restaurant called Tao Yuan in Manila. It’s on the corner of Malvar and Mabini Streets in Malate across Pan Pacific Plaza Hotel. We loved the food, most of the dishes we ordered anyway, and I was supposed to write a review but the ... (more)
It’s Immaculate Concepcion Day, a holiday for many schools, including Alex’s which is not even a Catholic school. Go figure. Anyway, it means no one got up early and there wasn’t much time to prepare lunch. I thawed a pack of beef and by the time the ice had melted, I had about 15 minutes ... (more)
According to one of the Thai cookbooks I own, a dish called prawn and corn fritters is a popular street food in Thailand. I didn’t see anyone selling this dish in Phuket but that didn’t stop me from doing my version once I got home. Instead of prawns, however, I used leftover grilled fish belly. ... (more)
In the previous entry, I wrote about simmering the carcass of the roast duck and picking the meat to make soup and fried rice. I also mentioned that while most of the brown meat went into the soup, the bits of skin were reserved for the fried rice. I don’t know how you feel about ... (more)
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 »)
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