A second on your lips, forever on your hips!

I find this quote truly, truly applicable. lol.

Those are mars and snickers ice cream bar, by the way.

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Tofu and veggies

Mother Nature is the true artist and we are just the cooks.---Marco Pierre White

Though partly hidden, there's carrot in this dish! God made veggies colorful and we are the ones who can make it appear like a work of art!

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Salad

“What is more refreshing than salads when your appetite seems to have deserted you, or even after a capacious dinner - the nice, fresh, green, and crisp salad, full of life and health, which seems to invigorate the palate and dispose the masticating powers to a much lorger duration.”

-Alexis Soyer 19th century French chef.
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At McDonalds, you normally get grilled chicken caesar salad with 3 cherry tomatoes, a slice of cheese-shreded and a pack of your choice dressing. I got 8 tomatoes, 3 layers of cheese and 2 packs dressing some weekends ago! :D Burp!

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At home with smoked fish

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I grew up in a rural area where fish is abundant, with fish as part of a daily meal. It has been an inside joke that if we are to eat more fish, we'll grow scales and fins. :)

There's milkfish (bangus) in sour soup (sinigang) and skipjack tuna (tulingan) in a stew made by cooking them in water with vinegar and salt (pinangat). There's tilapia stuffed with tomatoes, onion and celery and deep fried inside a foil (pinaputok na tilapia) and grouper (lapu-lapu) in sweet-sour sauce (escabeche). There's dried fish of different sorts that you eat with rice...dipped in vinegar with garlic. Then there's round scads (galunggong), black scabbard (espada), spanish mackerel (tanigue), milkfish again, tilapia again fried and eaten with rice complimented with any of the following: diced tomatoes and onions in soysauce (toyo), fried eggplant with shrimp paste (bagoong), a mix of vegetables - pinakbet, munggo and the likes and of course the classic dip; calamondin (calamansi) squeezed on fish sauce (patis). 

The list goes on but a blog post won't be enough for all of them...I like fish best when smoked (tinapa). My mom would especially pack tinapang bangus for me when she visits us in Quezon City (circa 2001).  I was never familiar about the place so I could only go as far as SM North and Cherry Foodarama. I doubt they carry tinapa in their food section. If they do, I was so reliant to my mom that I didn't bother looking.

Now, being 12 hours away from our dining table I often crave for smoked fish..I'm happy once in a while getting smoked mackerel in the market- whose cost I wouldn't spend on often. Then, there was an elderly Filipino who sells tinapang bangus for 10Euro. I buy one if I chanced upon him at the mall but he hasn't been there for years...I crave even more.

William Camden once said “The sea hath fish for every man.” - I take that as one which becomes a favorite, I think the sea gave me a number of them, it's just that with smoked fish, I feel a bit closer to home.

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Salami Pizza

"A world devoid of tomato soup, tomato sauce, tomato ketchup and tomato paste is hard to visualize. Could the tin and processed food industries have got where they have without the benefit of the tomato compounds which colour, flavour, thicken and conceal so many deficiencies? How did the Italians eat spaghetti before the advent of the tomato? Was there such a thing as tomato-less Neapolitan pizza?"
-Elizabeth David (1913-1992) 'An Omelette and a Glass of Wine', 1984

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Home delivered salami pizza saves me when I'm too late for cooking! :)

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Salmon-Parsley Pasta

"No man is lonely eating spaghetti; it requires so much attention." -Christopher Morley

Two weeks ago I received a whole 5 kilo salmon right in our kitchen. Well, it's more of bought because I paid 50€ (60$/2,999Php) for the whole of it. This is really a steal considering such expensive fish. I usually get salmon cuts for sushi at 20 a kilo! And since it was delivered at home, I do not need to worry about losing the freshness. So I got salmon stacked in our freezer, enough to feed us through a whole winter month. (Reminds me of bears happily catching their salmon by a river!) :D

Since the kids love salmon, they won't be bored eating it as sashimi, in a soup, grilled, baked or in pasta. This is one of the simple dishes I prepare with salmon. I think I had this featured here before but with a different twist. This version has 2 or 3 more added ingredients. (lol)

Ingredients:

salmon fillet, skinned

pasta of your choice

cherry tomatoes, halved or pressed

low-fat crème fraîche

chopped fresh parsley

orange zest

salt

ground black pepper

Procedure:

Cube salmon and dust with salt and pepper. Sear the pieces and set aside.

Cook pasta per package directions.

Drain pasta and toss in tomatoes and salmon.

Mix in crème fraîche, parsley, orange zest and pepper to taste.

Top with as much salmon pieces as you want.

As the quote above says, eating spaghetti or pasta for that matter requires much attention. Add salmon to it and you need to double the concentration savoring the flavor. :)

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Cinnabon!

The belly rules the mind. ~Spanish Proverb

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For some months now I've been getting good deals from Dailydeal.at. It's a website that offers consumers discounted prices for certain products. They are also perfect as gift coupons. I have bought mostly deals for restaurants, skin treatments, hair salon and photo printing. I have yet to buy a fitness deal. :D I hope they offer that soon...

The very first one I used was for Cinnabon's opening at the 22nd district of Vienna. The mall where their new branch opened is just some minutes away from us. I took a special trip there today with the little boy, it's opening day after all. The deal was: I paid 5€ for a 10€ worth of products.

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(my actual coupon, gotta love how those rolls look!)

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(A not-so-in-the-mood little boy.)

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What's left of the strawberry Chillata, a caramel pecanbon and a classic cinnamon roll.

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As for the quote, it was so true for me especially today. :D I just can't resist what my tummy is saying even if my mind says no. lol.

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