As any mother would say, simpler is better. And nothing beats the stress-free cooking of a SCRAMBLED EGG. I added a handful of French fries to add an appeal to my 4 year old son, Colby, who loves fries.

SCRAMBLED EGG WITH FRENCH FRIES

1 teaspoon unsalted butter or cooking oil
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon milk
salt and ground black pepper to taste

cooked french fries

Either heat the butter or oil in a small nonstick skillet over medium heat.

Crack the eggs into a small bowl while the skillet heats. Use a fork to whisk in the milk until almost uniformly yellow.

Pour the mixture into the skillet, tilting it so that the mixture coats the bottom. Then use a rubber spatula to lift the fluffy bits off the pan’s bottom.

Tilt the skillet to bring more of the unset egg into contact with the hot surface. Season with salt and pepper.

Add the cooked French Fries on the half side of the egg.

Lift the other side, covering the side with fries. Cook for another 10-15 seconds.

Gently scoop the scrambled eggs with fried fries on a serving plate and serve with rice or bread.

CREAMY CHICKEN MACARONI SOUP is commonly known as SOPAS and is Filipino favorite soup dish for breakfast or merienda. It is an all-in one meal in a bowl. Macaroni pasta for your carbs, chicken chunks for protein, carrots and red bell as your veggies and milk as creamer for your vitamins and minerals.

SOPAS or CREAMY CHICKEN MACARONI SOUP

3 tbsp. cooking oil
2 heads garlic, peeled and minced
2 medium onions, peeled and finely chopped
½ kilo chicken breast, finely chopped
½ kilo elbow macaroni (or any pasta will do)
2 liters of water
1 large carrot, peeled and finely chopped
3 medium red bell pepper, unseeded and finely chopped
1 small can evaporated milk
3 tbsp. Knorr Cream of Chicken Soup
2 Knorr Chicken Cubes
salt and pepper

Heat a large soup pot over low heat. Swirl in the cooking oil then add garlic and onion. Cook slowly, stirring often about 4 minutes.

Add the chopped chicken. Raise the heat to medium-high. Stir constantly until chicken turned white.

Add water. Bring to a full boil.

Add elbow macaroni. Raise the heat to high, stirring often until macaroni is cooked.

Add cream of chicken soup, chicken cubes, carrots, red bell peppers and evaporated milk.

Season with salt and pepper. Cook for a couple of minutes and serve your Creamy Chicken Macaroni Soup while hot.

MEATY SPAGHETTI

Spaghetti noodles

3 tbsp. butter
1 tsp. garlic, minced
2 medium onion, minced
1/2 kilo ground beef
500 grams spaghetti sauce
200 grams tomato sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
water
salt

pepper

Cook spaghetti noodles according to its cooking instruction. Set aside.

Melt butter on a skillet.

Sauté garlic and onion.

Add beef. Saute for 5 minutes.

Add spaghetti sauce and tomato sauce. Bring to boil over medium heat.

Add water to your desired consistency.

Cook until meat is tender. Stirring constantly.

Season with salt, sugar and pepper.

Place cooked spaghetti noodles on a plate and top with meaty spaghetti sauce and cheese.

Breakfast is a must. Then, it should be, like what I mentioned, quick and fast. I do not wonder why eggs define the morning routine. I have this devotion for eggs – my fridge is always packed with at least half a dozen of eggs. Eggs supply almost all essential amino acids and provide several vitamins and minerals like vitamin A, D, E, B6, b12, iron, calcium and potassium. They are also the cheapest single-food to provide humans with protein.

It is easy to make good SCRAMBLED EGGS. They are the most favored breakfast recipes. It is fast, simple and quick and can be eaten with a bread or a cup of rice.

SCRAMBLED EGGS WITH WHITE ONIONS

cooking oil
3 large eggs
1 medium white onions, peeled and chopped
pinch of salt
pinch of sugar
pinch of black pepper

Beat eggs in a bowl. Do not overbeat for this will make your scrambled eggs a bit rubbery.

Season with salt, sugar and black pepper. Set aside.

Heat cooking oil in pan or skillet over medium heat.

Saute chopped onions for only minute so onions would still be maintain its crunchiness.

Pour the mixture into the pan. Count from one to ten, then work gently if you want your scrambled egg done as a whole or slowly stir the mixture to make portions.

Cook according to desired consistency. Some want soft scrambled eggs and others want them dry and hard scrambled eggs.

Gently scoop the eggs onto a serving plate and serve while hot.

On the other hand, a complete Hotcake Mix is a ready mix for a time, money and energy saving to a perfect flipping hotcake for a satisfying breakfast or for a wholesome snack.

ZESTY HOTCAKE

1 pack of Maya Hotcake mix
1 egg
3/4 cup water (less 1 tbsp. water)
2 tbsp. oil

1 tbsp. fresh orange juice

Beat egg in a bowl. Add oil, water and hotcake mix. Add in fresh orange juice. Stir until slightly lumpy. Do not overmix.

Heat pan or flat skillet over low fire. Grease pan with a bit of oil or butter.

Pour batter according to desired size. Cook until bubbly and turn to cook the other side.

Serve hot with butter, pancake/hotcake syrup or honey or jam.

February is not just a season to celebrate the romantic spell of Valentine’s Day but the time of year to feast with the abundance of tomatoes. Tomatoes are sold in the wet market for only 5 pesos per kilo. Yeah, you read it right, FIVE PESOS per kilo. Some vendors actually even sell the over-ripped ones for only 3 pesos.

I arrived home from the market, Royce asked me, “Hindi ba OA ito? (Are you not over-acting?),” while holding 2 large plastic bags of tomatoes. Well, I was kind a triggered with the low price so I bought a lot, a lot really. You cannot blame me. With its cheap price, everybody will surely love tomatoes. Tomatoes are eveywhere – inside a sandwich, a side dish, an ingredient to a sautéed vegetable, a complement to a stew, an aid to a salad, a grace to a starter, a cause for a pasta, and many more.

Since our fridge is filled with tomatoes, I cooked GINISANG KAMATIS (Sauteed Tomatoes) to give space for other veggies. Tomatoes are rich in lycopene which is one of the most powerful antioxidants to prevent cancer. They are also loaded with vitamin C, A, iron, magnesium, potassium, riboflavin and thiamine. Some say it is a fruit and some a vegetable. Whatever that is, tomatoes are loved throughout the world specially if it sold for only 5 pesos a kilo.

GINISANG KAMATIS (SAUTEED TOMATOES)

cooking oil
1 kilo ripe tomatoes, quartered, seeds removed
1 tsp. garlic, minced
¼ cup onion, chopped
2 eggs, beaten, seasoned with salt and pepper
2 tbsp. alamang or shrimp paste (optional)
Salt to taste

Saute garlic in cooking oil until light brown. Add onions.

Add shrimp paste. Cook for about 2 minutes.

Add tomatoes. Stirring constantly. Saute until tomato peels curl.

Add beaten eggs, still stirring constantly to prevent from burning.

Add salt, depends on your taste.

Remove from fire.

Serve with fried fish and steamed white rice.

A couple of extra carrots, from my Fresh Vegetable Dip, were in the fridge. I pity them for not being consumed yet. Subsequently, I thought of taking them out, peeling them, grating them and baking them for Pineapple Carrot Muffins.  This is an improved version of the first Carrot Bread I posted.

I usually do the baking around 5am and spend about an hour in the kitchen. I leave most of my baked goodies at home for my Royce and Colby but I make sure I bring some for my officemates. They will surely tease me after reading my blog that I baked again and didn’t bring some.

PINEAPPLE CARROT MUFFINS

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
1 2/3 packed light brown sugar
3 pcs. eggs
2 cups carrots, peeled and grated
1/2 cup peanuts, toasted and chopped
1 cup crushed pineapple

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Grease muffin pans with butter or margarine and lightly floured. Covering all sides of the pan.

Mix flour, cinnamon, baking soda, bakign powder and salt in a bowl. Seat aside.

In a separate bowl, beat sugar and eggs. Stir in carrots and crushed pineapple.

Gradually stir in flour mixture just until blended.

Add peanuts.

Pour batter into muffin pans.

Bake Pineapple Carrot Muffins for 20-25 minutes.

2 tbps. cooking oil
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
1 clove onion, peeled and minced
1 small cabbage, touch core removed, cut into 1 inch strips
1 can sardines in tomato sauce (I used hot)
salt

Heat oil in a wok. Sautee garlic until golden brown. Add onion, stirring often until softened, about 2 minutes. Add sardines. Cook until sauce thickens. Add salt according to taste. Add sliced cabbage. Stir often until cabbage is half-cooked. Remove from fire. Remaining heat will allow the cabbage to be fully cooked. Serve with white rice.

We have always heard the saying: “Eat your breakfast, it is the most important meal of the day.” And some may think, I often skip breakfast but I don’t feel anything different! Well this article may tell you to think again.

In every day’s hassle and rush, a good number of us people tend to succumb to the habit of skipping breakfast. A student rushing to school so not be late for the exams, or a teenager who wants to speed up on a diet and decides to avoid the morning calories, or a working individual who’s about to be late for work, or even a housewife who wants to a get things done in the home before getting a descent meal – all of us have at one time or another sacrificed the rice and the egg so to speak.

Whatever reasons it may be, it ideally should not be an excuse for not eating breakfast. The more we skip the morning meal, the more we create health problems in the future. For example, no breakfast for a student would badly affect his memory due to hunger. The brain needs a supply of glucose for its functioning, and breakfast fills the blood glucose levels. Blood glucose is the brain’s fuel. Early in the day, the student may become fidgety and irritable, and may have a hard time concentrating and absorbing the lessons for the day.

Some of us working people stay up late and get up late and have no time for breakfast. A sip of coffee, tea or hot choco may be enough for some. Still, others prefer to have nothing at all and can manage until lunch. But being forgetful of things, inarticulate in communication, and lack of concentration may results from not eating in the morning. Researchers from the Weight Control and Diabetes Research Center of the Miriam Hospital and Brown Medical School in Rhode Island, U.S.A. say that those who are more possible to skip breakfast and frequent fast food lead to an increased risk of weight gain.Not eating breakfast may cause for a greater level of hunger which causes overeating in the middle of the day. So before skipping breakfast, think about it. Would it do you more good than bad to omit the word breakfast in your vocab’, when omitting the word and its meaning may lead to diabetes, heart disease and other deficiencies. I guess when we think about it, it is better to prevent than to cure.

One quick fix meal we can make in the morning in the good old Chocolate Rice Porridge or Champorado in local term. A “yummy, mommy” statement rewards this simple and budget-friendly breakfast. I used the native Calasiao cocoa tablets for a more bitter sweet chocolate experience. But if you don’t have this in your kitchen cabinets, any chocolate powder can do.

1 cup malagkit (glutinous, sticky or dessert rice)
6 cups water
1 bar of native chocolate tablets
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. vanilla
2 cups milk, divided into 2
ground cinnamon powder

In a saucepan, bring water into a full boil. Then add glutinous rice. Constantly stir to avoid burning. Cook rice until it is transparent and tender. Add chocolate tablets, sugar, cinnamon powder and vanilla. Boil for 5 minutes then add half of the milk. Pour champorado in individual bowls, swirl milk on top and serve.

1 can pure foods liver spread
1 pouch mayonnaise

Combine. Spread 2 of the bread slices evenly. Heat on an oventoaster for 3 minutes. Leaving in for another minute will make the bread crispier.

Serve while hot.