Shakshuka. Poached eggs over veggies and tomato sauce.
The Sassy Lawyer & Pinoy Cook on food, family and home.
Foreword: For those who read this blog for the photo tips, all photos in this entry were taken with an aperture value of 2.2 to create the bokeh effect. I love jade. But there’s the ultra expensive jade and the less expensive jadeite. When I saw these handpainted jade (jadeite, I’m sure) eggs in Singapore, ... (more)
Health buffs used to draw one list of food to stick to and another list of food to avoid. Under the first list are fresh food including vegetables, fruits, eggs and dairy products. Under the second list are processed food including canned meat, frozen processed meat (chicken nuggets and the like) and cured meat (ham, ... (more)
Phelps lends a new spin to the phrase “Breakfast of Champions” by starting off his day by eating three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise.
He follows that up with two cups of coffee, a five-egg omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar and three chocolate-chip pancakes.
A 4,000-calorie breakfast, no less. Well, I’m no athlete and I’m certainly not on a quest for an Olympic gold but if there were Olympic Games for cooking, I’d enter this dish and be hopeful for a gold.
Not, not a hidden Mickey. A hidden egg. There’s an egg under the cheese in each of these two slices of bread.
Traditionally, a poached egg is used to make this breakfast dish. The poached egg is placed on a piece of toasted bread and topped with a slice of cheese. A few minutes under the grill to melt the cheese and the result is a tantalizing breakfast that takes the boredom of out plain bread, egg and cheese. Honestly, there’s so much that a cheese can do to transform an ordinary dish. In fact, add cheese to just about anything and the most picky child will likely declare it to be yummy.
How to make these omelet cupcakes:
Preheat the oven to 375oF.
Lightly brush 10 cupcake tins with vegetable oil (I used silicone cups so I skipped this part).
Chop a large onion and 2 bell peppers. Saute in a tablespoonful of vegetable oil until they start to turn soft, about 3 minutes.
Beat 6 eggs in a large bowl. Stir in a jar of well-drained sardines in oil…
Breakfast can’t get more traditional than this — traditional American, that is. Ham and eggs, served separately, or stirred together along with chopped onions and potato cubes. It’s a breakfast that is rich in protein and carbs that any active person will appreciate.
For Olympic athletes who are looking for that extra boost, however, a traditional breakfast may sound too tame…
Things like deer’s penis may sound out of this world for Westerners but in Asia where cuisines and health cures range from plain to exotic, there’s nothing unusual about such things…
It sounds simple enough: you buy bread, eggs, some cold meat and vegetables from the supermarket and you use them to make sandwiches. But the dilemma starts right there at the supermarket. White bread or whole wheat bread? Whole wheat bread or multi-grain bread? The problem extends to your choice of eggs and vegetables. Organic or not?
In a generation obsessed with health, we are told that white bread should be avoided because it increases the risk of cancer and contains the kind of carbohydrates that make us fat.
But what is white bread exactly and why has it become anathema to the health conscious?
I don’t enjoy my bangus (milkfish) unless it comes with the belly. To be more precise, the fat in the belly. I’ve been scouring the web for health information on bangus belly fat and found nothing. There is an article in Medscape Today, however, that mentions a study that says fish fat may help fight against Alzheimer’s Disease.
The traditional version of this classic fish, egg and rice breakfast uses bangus marinated in vinegar, garlic, salt and chili peppers. I find it too strong for breakfast. I prefer the fish lightly salted…
I grew up at a time when eggs for breakfast everyday was not unusual. Sometimes, we even had eggs for our mid-afternoon snack. It was a shock to read decades later about the not too healthy effect of eating eggs everyday. What was even more shocking was finding out after that that the “bad image” given to eggs was not even that accurate. According to the latest studies, it is okay to eat an egg once a day. It did cross my mind that, perhaps, the period when eggs received so much bad press was the time when makers of “instant healthy breakfasts” were pushing their products hard to the public.
It’s really funny when I hear people argue that ordering chicken nuggets, or a MacChicken sandwich, is healthier than ordering a burger. At the very least, burgers are made with ground beef and you can see the beef. If too many extenders are added, you can taste and see them. Not as easy with chicken nuggets since they are coated in batter and breading. And once dunked into those highly flavored sauces, what chicken flavor is there left to taste? And after I realized that chicken nuggets were not made from chicken fillets but, rather from processed chicken meat to which a lot of fat has been added to keep them moist, we stopped buying them and I started making chicken nuggets at home. Okay, they’re still fried but, at least, we know what exactly we’re putting in our mouths and stomachs.
Asian breakfast. Fried rice that has everything in it — seafood, vegetables, eggs and rice, of course. Cooks in 15 minutes, minus preparation time. To save time — precious, precious time especially during the morning rush — I use frozen shrimps which has been shelled and cleaned. You can buy them in supermarkets. The tuna that I used for this fried rice is a whole fillet, the kind used for sashimi. Carrots and beans go well with fried rice since they retain their texture and shape despite the tossing and stirring. Broccoli florets, cauliflower, peas and mushrooms are also good choices.





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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