Day 23: Friday

I started writing something in the morning but work got in the way, so here we are, with photos again. I suddenly remembered that I have Google Photos; I think these were from Instagram and as you can see, food is never far away from my mind.

Day 18: Easter

This is not the Easter I know.

My mom spent an Easter with us once in New Zealand and we were looking for fish or seafood and we found squid at Pan N Save that still had ink- they forgot to clean it- and we had to beg and explain to the person at the counter that we wanted it that way.

I remember the long, quiet days when we were little which I didn’t mind; and when we were older, the purely social excursions to church for the Stations of the Cross, where you dressed up and checked out (and judged) everyone you saw. I think I was 13 or 14 and I got obsessed with penny-loafer shoes which I wore with no socks and pegged jeans. I did get them though how, I cannot remember (nor why I was obsessed with them in the first place) and wore them (with a white shirt ) to church to do the Stations of the Cross.

I was looking at my feet the entire time and to this day I can remember their satisfying click on the stone floors and how the new, stiff leather chaffed at my feet but which I didn't mind.

I bought the lamb online- butterflied and boneless South Island grass-fed lamb. For dessert, I thought of making the hot-cross buns we’ve been keeping in the freezer into a bread and butter pudding.

The stuff I would swap for lamb- charcoal-grilled bangus with squid cooked in its ink and vinegar; pan-fried tilapia with a squash flower salad dressed in calamansi and fish-sauce; steamed river shrimps with an egg omelet. And the best Easter Sunday lunch? Lechon.

But this is the Easter I now celebrate so…

Butterflied boneless leg of lamb

A challenge to barbecue because the entire length of it has varying thicknesses. What’s good about this though is that it can cater to different preferences; varying thicknesses means there’s a part that’s rare, medium rare and well-done.

Day 17: Nothing much

Found a few more clothes in the garage that I’ve barely worn; and they’re clothes that aren’t exactly cheap. Ugh I know- it’s some form of addiction- buying clothes. My mom has always said that I’ve gotten my vanity from Tatay…well. So I laundered them, did an electronic mail-out for work, tried but failed to find resistance bands that I thought were in the garage, and did exercises with weights.

Exercises- still something I haven’t been able to fully do, along with writing and drawing..life is hard!

I also read somewhere that the corona virus can travel up to 13 feet, and that samples taken from the shoe soles of medical staff working with Covid-19 patients tested positive; that if you weren't cautious, your damn shoes can be carriers of the virus!

Did roast pork-belly but I still have to find that fool-proof recipe for really tender- but not falling off the bone tender- meat. Used individual springform pans for scalloped potatoes and kumara and next time, I should just omit kumara. It’s just too sweet! Might try and do a spiced kumara pie or something next time.

Did trendy charred broccoli and realised that I should have blanched it before-hand; it was a bit too al dente and there’s a fine line between burnt and charred.

Scalloped potatoes

Charred broccoli

Roast pork-belly

Day 15: An essentially lazy day

This was a day-off, one of my days in lieu that i needed to get rid off. It was supposed to be rainy, even stormy but Auckland’s dysfunctional weather system was true to form. Tricked me to doing laundry and 2 hours later, in the middle of bawling over Youtube videos of child-singers and their sappy stories, I had to run outside to bring the washing in before everything was totally drenched.

I could have left it outside, but I have this belief that rain is essentially dirty; and that clothes that get drenched in the rain and later dry out, are dirty- contaminated. But that’s just me. I later dumped the clothes in the dryer and couldn’t be bothered hanging them back up.

But it was an otherwise lazy day. I did check my email several times, answered a few urgent ones. Our project manager rang my office phone line- it was off- like a million times- this woman who the other day, could barely talk with a throat infection that wasn’t Covid-19, but was severe enough that she declared she was taking a break. And now she was calling again. Totally ignored her.

-wiped down the kitchen with a Dettol disinfectant and the smell reminded me of my Tatay’s (my mum’s dad) fondness for Lysol- that hospital-y, piney smell.
- Watched ‘The First Wives Club’ on Netflix. I have this thing with watching movies I’ve already seen; I skip through the non-exciting parts and finish the movine in 15 or 20 minutes.
- Went through my ‘shopping list’ again but I really shouldn't . I don’t need new pants, hoodies, these nice transitional henley shirts, a new winter jacket, a new pair of glasses. Actually I do, but I’m not convinced that they’re NOT essential.

For dinner, finally made a version of ‘laing’ that I’ve always wanted to do with neither traditional gabi/taro leaves or fish-paste (bagoong). And it worked. Swiss chard or silverbeet is similar to gabi and holds itself well when you cook down the coconut milk to that point where the sauce is thick. You still want that saltiness that you get from bagoong but I thought that more than saltiness, it’s that umami flavour you want and thought that anchovies would be the perfect substitute. And it was.

The one thing I would change would be the choice of pork cut- I used pork scotch which I didn’t render well. I would use pork belly the next time which I would pan-fry until crisp.

Essential 'laing'

Silverbeet, ginger-garlic-onions, pork, coconut cream and anchovies

Anchovies in lieu of 'bagoong'

Who knew it would work?

Just like the 'real thing'

..whatever that maybe….

Day 11: Productivity works best if you're used to it

This is an interesting article in the NY Times, (Stop Trying to Be Productive) because in a lot of ways, it’s true. Like I see a lot of fitness stuff (fitness influencers are having the time of their lives right now) and I think- good luck with that! Lucky for you with winter coming, you can hide those pounds acquired from all that panic-buying under your winter layers 😂.

My advantage is that I’m used to it. Before living in New Zealand, and back home in Pangasinan, I spent three lucrative years doing ‘freelance writing’ after quitting work at the Provincial Government. It was 24/7 and full on in front of your computer the whole day. I’d take a breather and finish at 6pm after which I’d either go out on my motorcycle or bicycle, or go drinking with friends. On weekends, I’d let the help rest and I would buy and cook anything I wanted for the family (my mom and my brother and his family). I really didn't go anywhere else and my circle of friends was small and I never did see them that often. I never deviated from that schedule though I went to the gym on and off.

When I got to New Zealand, it was more of the same and even more so because I don’t drive. Weekends are the library, or the mall, and making meals of course.

Probably the only thing that I miss is going to the supermarket because yes, I go to the shops nearly everyday. While I can plan meals seven days in advance in my head, there is a day when I suddenly don’t like to make what I had planned. A food ingredient, or a craving or a dish’s complexity would trigger it and I would reshuffle in my head, all the ingredients I have on hand and see if I need to get something I don’t have in my pantry.

Otherwise, easing into this is like slipping into your pajamas. Sure, I’d like to do more and be more ambitious like everyone else, but it’s really one chore at a time which I’m ticking off. People don’t realise that accomplishing even what seems to be the smallest of things is in itself, a big deal; eg. we would grab a paper napkin, or posted mail to use as a coaster when we’re in the lounge with drinks so we wouldn’t ruin the surface of this $800 coffee-table we bought a couple of months ago. Today, I went to the garage and hunted down these left-over ceramic tile pieces that we threw out, sanded the bottom and now they’re on the coffee-table as coasters- took all of 20 minutes. I finally also repurposed a plant-pot into a pencil and pen and finally got to organise all the drawing stuff I have still in their boxes; and as a result, out of their boxes, I was able to clear my desk and have space for other things.

I also cleaned the bathroom; sorted my shoes; looked up a site where we could buy lamb for Easter and vacuumed (you can never vacuum enough).

And yes, as I’ve planned, I was able to make an apple and feijoa crumble as well.

Being truly productive is using the time you have for things that really matter to you- and not from what you see or read from the goddamned Internet.

Day 10: Essential chicken

We went to the supermarket 30 minutes before opening just to make sure I would be at least one of the first five people to wait in line- turns out, 20 or 30 more people had the same idea and were there earlier than we were. A big burly Pacific Islander was literally supervising the queue as a bouncer would in a hot night-club and 10 minutes before New World opened, was picking out people in the line he judged as ‘elderly’ to get in first. Yes- in this new normal, senior citizens trump the young.

But it didn’t take that long really, or maybe I’m just accepting of the fact that I had to wait my turn, and that I am fortunate to be living in a country where there are no food shortages- but where there are plenty of stupid people whose sense of self-preservation is skewed towards ignorant dismissiveness and the endangerment of others.

In spite of being inside my Zen bubble, it was still exhausting. And I still couldn’t find proper lamb, but did get ice cream, and would have to make do with frozen hot-cross buns turned into a pudding. Ahhh food. It’s all I ever think about and the only saving grace of the day would have to be the fact that what I made for dinner today is my absolute favourite.

Now this is essential food- singularly nourishing, simple and clean (always get the best organic, free-range chicken you can buy).

What you can do in 20 minutes (lockdown day 7)

Because we’re tethered to our (remote) phone system, you need to observe the usual breaks like morning tea (30 minutes) and lunch (also 30 minutes). So what can you do in 20 minutes?

Laundry

My mom always told us to keep our rice-bins (this is a Nespresso pod bin) full for good luck

Prep chicken for burritos

Have a quick lunch

Day 4: Lockdown (hunger)

My first thoughts when the lockdown was announced were; what am I going to cook? Do I have enough food supplies? Do we have enough freezer space?

As it turns out, only the 1st thought/question had a positive answer- I could cook anything I wanted. I didn’t want to make anything complicated, or have a menu heavy on the things that I wanted to cut down on like fats and salt. The thing is, you can never have enough food supplies and because I actually shop everyday, I couldn’t really stretch my foresight far enough; lists just don’t work. I was at the supermarket today and while everything was calm, I was in such a state that I couldn’t focus.

Shall I get squash? (pureed, roasted); almonds maybe (I’ve always wanted to try making almond butter); floury potatoes or all-rounders? Shall we do lamb, or wait when its closer to Easter? Should I get bone broth? Do I need dashi? Do they have fresh sage? Salmon fillets seem cheaper.

So no, there’s no such thing as enough food supplies and we actually need a freezer because even with two refrigerators, the space isn’t enough. We were organising to buy a freezer but didn’t get to in time when alert level 4 was announced to happen on Monday.

I don’t think I’ll survive a pandemic where the comforts we are fortunate to have would not be available. Doyet injured herself today making ‘ukoy’ for chrissakes 😅. That’s just us- we live to eat. Take the food away and I’ll just go to the nearest river to end everything.

Without the comfort of food, life is fucking pointless.

Spam Fried Rice

I actually don’t remember when I first had Spam.

First of all, there was Ma Ling Luncheon meat for the longest time and 555 which was more flour and filler than meat. To make the Ma Ling or the 555 go a long way, you cubed the meat and did an omelet. I do this for Spam on the rare occasion I have leftover rice which I always have when I cook rice, because isn’t it stupid and a waste of energy to cook just one cup?

The problem with the Russell Hobbs is that it pressure-cooks the rice so you end up with rice closer to ‘malagkit’ rather than the basmati it’s supposed to be; but that’s my theory anyway or maybe because my rice to water proportion is 3 cups rice and 4 cups water.

But I like it either way and soggy rice re-heats better anyway in the microwave.

I fry the rice with a tablespoon of curry, chilli flakes and sea-salt. I cook the eggs and cubed Spam separately and add them later when the rice is cooked- which because it’s soggy, never really separates. And if you have a good non-stick wok, you could keep stirring forever hoping the grains will separate, so I normally just stir for about 15 minutes.

I eat it with a lemon juice and a splash of Kikkoman; tastes better the next day too.

What did you eat during the holidays?

I still equate happiness and fulfilment with eating and it’s such a hard habit to break. Ideally I would’ve have liked to have eaten the following:

1. Sisig; probably have a huge batch in the fridge that you can have any time you want

2. Lechon; Doyet and Jong’s lechon-belly

3. Chinese ham

4. A black-forest cake

5. Pork barbecue

6. Peking duck

7. A ton of seafood (I did have my fill of oysters, crayfish and Alaskan King crab at a SkyCity dinner so..)

But everyone was busy, I spent too much on new devices on myself and I didn’t want to face the new year with a bunch of health problems so…

And then you realise, it’s just food.

Roast Beef

Albeit, a bit too done to our liking, I can finally say that we’ve perfected roasting a 2 kilo scotch-fillet roast

Little things

Grazing is in

Roast Chicken

New Zealand has great poultry and a roast chicken is satisfying on a lot of levels

Ham

I wasn’t meaning to get one, but I couldn’t resist something half-price even if it’s just your ordinary supermarket chain cooked ham on the bone. Perfect for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Dinner

Does walking an average of 8kms a day justify eating pizza?

Reading: Nutrient Dense Food on a Shoe-String Budget

I was calm today when we went to the Queen Victoria Market. The only time I audibly gasped was when I saw a stand selling bratwurst on a good-sized baguette and with sauerkraut that reminded me of insipid atchara. I’ve been here three times so it wasn’t at all startling to see mounds of antipasto (six kinds of olive, octopus, apricot stuffed with sweetened mascarpone), french pastry, cured meats and pale-pink langoustine cooling on beds of ice. I had the bratwurst and then $10 worth of what locals call chicken ribs (which is really a chicken’s scapula, the meat on which is part of the breast) which has a bit of crispy, rendered skin and a good enough sliver of meat). And it wasn’t even 9:30am.

But I tell myself, I’m on holiday and of course, normalcy goes out the window.

And that’s good because at some point, you’d really want to go back to the normalcy of ‘normal’ food. It’s cost-effective (I got a $20 sliver of truffled manchego cheese) and healthy (the last time I had greens was four days ago). In the afternoon, rummaging through a clearance book centre I found what I thought was a good $3 deal for a cookbook or any book for that matter. Nutrient Dense Food on a Shoe-String Budget by Arabella Forge won’t win you Master Chef, but that’s the whole point of real cooking- simplicity, flavour and practicality (guess how I could buy that Gucci bumbag I’ve been eyeing? Yup, by savings from preparing basic meals, a compromise which to me, is a win-win).

Basic in this sense, means the right kind of food; unprocessed, fresh, nutritious and cheap.

Looking forward to:

1. Making my own DIY bacon

2. Shifting shopping sources to local farmer’s markets

3. Stricter food planning

4. Making natural sauces

5. Baked apples stuffed with mince and peas

6. Making kim chi

7. Making lemon curd cheese

8. Pickled salmon (yum!)

Plum Cake

I’m not much of a fruit-person really but it’s hard to ignore fruit when they’re growing everywhere; and Kiwis don’t generally care if their yard is carpeted with fallen fruit just rotting away. So what to do with a bagful of plums from Jong’s garden and from the neighbours at Wattle Downs? Make a plum cake.

This recipe- and there are a million recipes for this cake- is from Chelsea Sugar’s Recipe Club Bake-Off winner and uses almond meal which I think gives this cake (and fig cake which I’ve done before) a lighter, airier texture which I like.

• Ingredients:
  10 dark red plums
  3 Tbsp white Sugar
  300g butter
  1½ cups white Sugar (I only used 3/4 cup)
  3 eggs
  Zest of 1 orange (I didn’t have an orange so didn’t include this)
  1 tsp vanilla essence
  ½ cup milk
  1½ cups flour
  1 cup ground almonds
  1 tsp baking powder
  Icing Sugar for sprinkling

• Method

  Preheat oven 180°C and grease a 26cm tin. Cut plums, discard stones and put into a bowl with 3 Tbsp sugar. Set aside.
  
  Beat butter and sugar until creamy. Add eggs one at a time and then mix in zest and vanilla. Stir in milk, flour, almonds and baking powder.
  
  Spread into prepared tin and then place plums over the top. Bake for 1 hour.
  Sprinkle icing sugar on top when cool

The best eats of 2018

All the best meals and food items for 2018 in photos because why not- you’re a compulsive photo-taker of your food since 2003!

"Walang kamatayang" pork barbecue

I will eat pork barbecue until the end of time. We were thinking of getting pork barbecue already prepped for New Year’s Eve. There’s a Filipino shop in Takanini that does it for the Otara markets and you can order in advance for $1 a stick

It's a Dumplin world

Dumplings got big in 2018 with heaps of frozen selections in the freezer aisle of supermarkets. The best are those made from scratch at the Asian food-stalls in East Tamaki; pillowy white, either steamed or boiled, the burst of flavourful broth as you bite into them is always a pleasant surprise.

Meatballs

Pork, beef, chicken..we’ve had all sorts. Versatile, they’re also incredibly easy to make

Ice Cream

So who cares if they’re selling off Tip Top? Sure, it has some great flavours (I love Gummy-Gummy Gum Drops), but it’s time to educate your palate to something more global like Haagen-Dazs, Ben & Jerry’s, or something local that actually can be global like Duck Island ice cream. It makes it worth it driving all the way to Hamilton for a tub.

Chicken Nuggets

There are chicken nuggets and then there are BP Cafe’s nuggets on steroids (I hope not lol). At a dollar each, they’re meaty, hefty and chickeny.

Beef bourguignon

You don’t need Julia Child’s cooking talent to make a pot. In spite of the posh Frenchy name, it’s as homey and easy to make as adobo. Only one special requirement- choose the wine carefully

Berta's Ribs Day

It’s the most coveted invitation to the best ribs in town that nobody’s ever heard of. I hope we get invited again next year.

Doyet's baking

Delicious breads, buttery-cinnammony rolls- and then Jong needed to cut down on carbs and it all came to an end. One day…

The mighty cauliflower

It only took me tries to actually duplicate the one we had at a restaurant in Palmerston North- what you’re looking for is a tender, flavourful head redolent with butter and herbs and sitting ever so nicely atop a mash of your own choosing

Feijoas

The fruit of summer always makes me crave for guavas

Turks chicken sausages

Can’t get enough of them- pan-fried, grilled or steamed, they don’t have that denseness you sometimes get with sausages where the ‘meat’ is actually fillers and extenders.

Stuff I've eaten in the last 7 days

A pound of shrimps

Growing up, shrimps were so expensive that you almost always shared them with someone else. So on occasion, I indulge on a pound’s worth pan-fried with butter, garlic and a sprinkling of pepper-flakes just to remind myself that I could.

A bowl of instant noodles

All from a cup at .99 cents and bulked up with cabbage, left-over pork, and a whole egg for those nights when you can’t be distracted from Netflix

Scalloped potatoes

This is indulgence. This could possibly be a stroke waiting to happen if you ate all of it (I didn’t). All it takes is about 6 large potatoes, one bottle of cream and 100 grams of butter to create a magma-like surface oozing with creamy, buttery curd and silky-smooth slabs of potato that melt in your mouth

Chicken tenders

Chicken tenders are my go-to choices for food places that actually only offer them as sides. And they are ridiculously easy to make even in the office if you have baking paper and a George Foreman grill…and yes, the broccoli rice was just alright>

Adobo/Binagoongan

When you put pork pieces with vinegar, onions, garlic, pepper and a couple of bay leaves you can, midway through the cooking, decide whether to turn it into adobong puti or binagoongan. I’ve been craving the salty-umami blast of bagoong so binagoongan it is.

Best Meals I had in 2017

If food was the enemy (health wise), it was also the saviour; a good, satisfying meal is confirmation that life is far too short to be spent being always cautious (photos taken using the iPhone 7plus). 

Pork barbecue

I had this just after New Year's 2017 in the Philippines and it brought back memories of all the weekends when we would treat ourselves with charcoal-grilled pork belly, so good that my mother couldn't resist having a piece in spite of her constant reservations against fat and cholesterol. I swear that there is something about Philippine pork- taste, fat to meat ratio- that makes it far superior to anything we've tried in New Zealand.

Vegetarian is in

Two years ago when I first tried these products, the taste was far from satisfactory. Eating a meat substitute always felt like I substituted my life for something that was just a sad and bland imitation of it. Surely, I thought, vegetarians must always be half-miserable even if they wouldn't admit it? But two years on and the quality has leap-frogged expectations. Sure, the texture is never a duplicate of the real thing, but that's the whole point- it has evolved into something that can stand on its own, texture and flavour-wise. Meat will always be meat, but a nutty, deeply moreish black bean and beet-root burger (this one from the Bean Supreme range) is truly something else and deserving of being included in your repertoire of dishes. 

Amano

There is something about Italian inspired dishes that I sometimes shy away from like pasta dishes with uninspired, one-note sauces with generic meat. But Amano wields a gentler, finer hand on Italian pasta and stew staples and using seasonal and local New Zealand produce. Dishes are simply plated with no superfluous bullshit; you can eat everything that's on the plate. 

Three courses

When we were in Richmond for a week-long work-do, we had dinner thrice at this restaurant called Three Rooms and couldn't help but feel a bit numerological; the restaurant had three dining areas, offered either two or three courses at $30 and $35 respectively from a selection of entrees, main and desserts that had six dishes each. Startlingly cheap prices aside, the quality of the dishes was even more startling. Servings were generous, meats perfectly done and side-dishes never an afterthought or a mere decoration. 

The year of the burger

Burgers have become a destination in themselves and the number of burger places in Auckland with the word burger in their names and one other word descriptor (Better Burger, Murder Burger, Burger Burger etc) has all of us confused. But you can't confuse the taste and while Better Burger is our default go-to, The Burger Bar at St. Kevins' Arcade on Auckland's K'Road is reserved for those cravings when we want something a little bit more for our money, and at $15, this 1/3 lb behemoth stuffed with oregano beef, bacon, spinach and kale and lashings of homemade aioli and tomato sauce is a bargain. 

PappaRich

After having lived in New Zealand for over nine years, I am now able to tell if a South-East Asian person was Vietnamese, or Thai or Singaporean. But dishes not so much which is fine, because with cuisine other than our own, seeking them is often dictated by price and taste. We love Indian for example, but it has become so generic that you don't really put in the effort and the expense of going to an Indian restaurant- you just buy the food to go. Malaysian cuisine has the advantage of multiple ethnic influences and the PappaRich chain of restaurants serves an array of that which captures the largest customer base possible. When a branch opened at the Sylvia Park shopping mall, long queues were standard for the next couple of months and the smell of curries and noodles was so intense, it permeated the neighbouring shop spaces. Obviously I always go for the Nasi Lemak or the Hainan Chicken, but I've always mulled, but never tried the bread dishes- Hainan bread served in slices and in sweet and savoury variants with just condensed milk on top or with boiled eggs. Isn't that bizarre???

Fried chicken forever

We found Wow Chicken and Donburi on High Street while looking for donburi. But they didn't serve it on weekends and only had the Korean deep fried chicken which we felt was a  little steep at $32 for less than 10 pieces. But we were hungry so chicken it was- and WOW lol. There is fried chicken and then there is Korean fried chicken. We waited for like 20+ minutes so it must have been made from scratch. It tasted fresh, the coating unlike any other that I've tried and was the perfect balance of crunch and moistness. It felt like it was part of the chicken and not an extraneous component of it. The chicken was served with pepper and salt and cubed cold radishes that were the perfect tangy palate cleansers.

The search for the best siopao

It will always be Rubi's siopao in Dagupan City for us, forever. But you never stop looking for a fairly good substitute. I found this at a Chinese run bakery next to New World in Manurewa. The buns are the closest to Rubi's, fairly bigger than a regular-sized human palm (like mine), pillow-soft, and filled with an adequate amount of filling that is neither too fatty or gristly. And I always get them first thing in the morning when they're obviously freshly made. Nothing is more awful than pork buns that have been sitting in a pot the whole day and heated repeatedly. 

Chicken wings forever

The year 2017 will also go down as the year when I literally ate my weight in chicken wings. While the chicken wings from Pizza hut is my current go-to, I wouldn't mind replacing it with Hell's free-range ones served with cola BBQ sauce- if it was only a little bit cheaper and accessible. 

My Adobo

I'm getting used to making adobo in smaller batches by just using breast-meat. Simple and satisfying, adobo keeps well and saves you on days when you can't be bothered cooking or buying something from the take-away.

Sisig

We went to the Auckland Night Markets over the weekend and a Filipino food stand was back selling beef kaldereta, laing/Bicol Express and pork sisig. I got the sisig ($7) and didn't really care about the kaldereta or the laing. I don't want to brag, but our family does better Filipino food than most; the kaldereta didn't even have olives.

But it's not easy making sisig so I grab any chance I get to buy it ready-made. It's not always guaranteed that it's made according to how I normally like my sisig. As it turned out, the sisig I bought could have done with a few other additions, but the familiar chewy, sticky texture was there along with that porky-sour-creamy taste, and that's just what you need really when you don't have the time to make it yourself. Heck, I get so desperate sometimes I even buy the canned sisig from the Asian store.

The great thing about sisig is that it comes with so many tweaks and I actually like them all- toasted, so that you get the crispy bits that stick to the pan; slightly moist and gelatinous punctuated with the nutty creaminess of the pork brain (gross to some, but the taste is sublime); intensely sour from a dousing of vinegar; or even westernised with slashings of mayonnaise.

I remember $2 pig-heads at the butcher in my first two years in New Zealand- you bought one, seasoned it, roasted it in the oven, chopped it all up as fine as you can, added onions (I would use both red and white) and seasoning, and grilled it just before serving. Obviously it's great with rice, but I can honestly eat it in spoonfuls just by itself, hot or cold.

I ate mine mixed with a kale and savoy cabbage salad.

Sisig with kale and savoy cabbage

plopping an egg in the middle of the sisig

sisig teppanyaki style

sisig as pulutan is the best

How do you start...

..the day when this study says skipping it could be good for you (okay, fine; Huffington Post is not exactly a credible source) and some would say that the effects are exactly what I'm looking for- lowered blood pressure and cholesterol.

Eggs

Good for you today, bad for you tomorrow, I've stopped caring. Cheap, filling and nutritious, I've bought into the whole free-range thing simply because it's cheaper now and I wouldn't feel conned if it turns out that there's nothing beneficial about it at all.

Poaching versus frying

I haven't mastered it yet, but weekends offer enough time to make the effort for poaching.

Shouldn't be eating bacon

But wait- I'm on cholesterol medication so it should be fine. Kidding. I've reduced it to just twice a month.

Could 'cereals' be healthy?

As I grew older, I tended to favour the savoury over the sweet. The only concession that I make for a sugary breakfast with cereal or granola is when the product promises substantial amounts of protein. Still, this brand is 18% sugar so I don't have it often

Shake it away

A smoothie a day keeps the hunger at bay. Sometimes.

Cafe breakfast

Filipino breakfasts I miss

Tapsilog

Boneless bangus

Tuyo and eggs

Alaminos longganisa

Brekkie

I have about eight more days to go before my next blood-test for cholesterol and in the last couple of weeks, I had bacon only once. I also cut down on my eggs because it felt weird just having eggs without bacon. For me, this is the best breakfast combo- sure, I'll throw in a pancake or two or fresh white toast on occasion, but I'm happy with just the two.

I almost always cook the bacon in the oven without additional oil, and I never salt my eggs; it comforts me a little, these little nods to health. You only live once, so I say, do it moderately. Nothing is worse than being an extreme health nut and getting cancer or a tumour anyway, because it happens. 

So lately, I haven't been eating breakfasts at all save for my usual morning espresso and would have my first proper meal of the day at lunch, usually at 12:30. And I feel just fine. I've heard that this sort of 'fasting' may actually be beneficial. I also like the feeling of a tight, taut and empty stomach.

But I need my fibre, my complex carbs and my proteins and this morning I finally took a closer look at the cereal/breakfast aisle and saw all these...mmmmm..options

It used to be boring, bland oatmeal- not anymore.

Another anti-cholesterol option

The one thing I hate about granola is that it's hard on the teeth

Raw, raw, raw

I still think cereal has way too much sugar