Tapsilog
When I was a child, tapa, tosino and longganisa weren’t usually part of our breakfast routine. I preferred pan americano or pan de sal, slathered with Dari Creme. If rice was served, it’s usually with reheated leftovers from last night, understandably unappealing to a child like me. I therefore never associated these cured meats and sausages with breakfast, until I went to college and saw all the little eateries offering tapsi and tapsilog, etc. on the ride to and from school.

For one thing, my mom has never liked the preservative and food-coloring-laden stuff, so red tocino, particularly, was out of the question. She either bought homemade tocino from enterprising housewife friends, or she made them herself. Ironically, because my mom has always been conscious about chemicals in food, Spam, hotdogs and bacon became eagerly anticipated breakfast items, on the VERY rare occasions that they made an appearance at the table. Fighting with siblings over these tiny bites (they were rationed!) was the norm.

Cold cereals never appealed to me, and I associated hot oatmeal with my grandma, who, being toothless, could only have soft foods for breakfast. For a breakfast beverage, my favorite was Milo, the granules dissolved in hot water, and evaporated milk and sugar added. Milo was even part of a ritual between my Papa and me: until the age of 6, he’d make me a cup at bedtime, then carry me in his arms while I drank it up.

Longsilog

But that was then and this is now. Our busy lives dictate that breakfast be easy and quick. Fortunately the demand for healthier products and choices are more extensive than ever. My kids usually choose hot oatmeal topped with a bit of maple syrup and/or some dried fruit/nuts, or organic whole-fiber cereal with a bowl of rice milk. Hubby and I have our cups of green tea. It is a breakfast that is short on time but not on love. My kids don’t/won’t feel deprived that I serve them this type of breakfast daily, as there is too much variety these days with which to get bored.

However, special breakfasts are much appreciated when they do come. On karate tournament or testing days (usually on the weekends), my black belts and black-belt-aspirants expect nothing less than a full American breakfast: pancakes, eggs, bacon and a glass of orange juice or a cup of coffee.

Tosilog

Not surprisingly, though, it’s the silog breakfasts that they really crave and get giddy about. Partly because they know I am trying to cut our family’s intake of red meat, but more importantly, because there is nothing like a Pinoy breakfast that has this much OOMPH in terms of flavor and mouthfeel and overall feeling of satisfaction.

Like my mom, I prefer our tapa, tosino and longganisa homemade. I also trim off most of the fat — with tapa and tocino, that usually works; they have enough exposed surfaces for flavor to seep in and come through when cooking. With longganisa, there’s a point where you can go overboard with the fat-trimming and much of the flavor and texture is lost. One good alternative is ground turkey, but then again, you need a bit more than 20% fat to avoid flavor loss. Garlic fried brown rice, to my surprise, is actually delicious, though my kids prefer regular white rice and not even sinangag to go with their tapas and tocinos.

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These cured meats, of course, are part of our Spanish-influenced traditions. In South America where Portuguese and Spanish food traditions abound, you can find parallels to our tapa and tocino, like carne seca, charque (jerky), carne de sol, and of course chorizos/chouricos and linguicas too. Even the platter presentation is the same — with the molded rice, the meats surrounding, the side of chopped tomatoes or some sort of fresh salad/salsa, and the fried egg topping. What I’m curious about is whether cows were brought over to the Philippines. I’m inclined to think that they were, but I’ve only found brief references to our cattle-raising history in the history books. I do know that our carabaos were exported to Guam, and that the Spanish enjoyed our kesong puti, made from carabao’s milk, during colonial times. Any thoughts or book recommendations?

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Thanks to Joey of 80 Breakfasts for graciously hosting this month’s Lasang Pinoy event. Hope you will all join us again next time!

I’ve been getting a lot of requests lately for the recipe, and I realized I had never posted it here, but at Beyond Adobo instead, as part of a multi-recipe post. Well, dear readers, here you go then. Just for the record, this isn’t traditional pandesal, but it has been a constant hit with my family and friends! So here you go….

Stef’s (Half) Whole-Wheat Pandesal Recipe

If you need any help or you’ve got comments/suggestions, please leave it here and I’ll get back to you asap! Enjoy!

These are Aisa’s gingerbread cookies, taken before Thanksgiving last year. We meant to frost them, but our sched went crazy with traveling just about this time, so we had to stick them in the freezer and just took them out to serve to folks when we were home. I hope to post the recipe in time for holiday prep this year.

A plateful of her cookies, set out for the realtors who came to be interviewed for selling the house.

I only got to make the mocha pecan balls this year, everything was just crazy. I missed holiday baking, but glad that Aisa was able to step in and bake a few recipes at least.

Yes, folks, it’s time for Lasang Pinoy 7!! Miss Joey over at 80 Breakfasts is hosting this month and if you’re still guessing what her chosen theme is, then you haven’t paid attention to her title. Of COURSE it’s all about breakfasts, this time Pinoy style. “Almusal” or “Agahan” (breakfast), as you know, is the most important meal of the day, and we share Joey’s love for it! Come join us for LP7. Entries have to be posted by the 28th of the month, and a round-up will be posted at 80 Breakfasts shortly thereafter. Wouldn’t it just be the coolest thing if there were 80 entries?

I know my kids will be thrilled about this — they have their own Pinoy breakfast favorites and though they were born and raised in the US they’ll pick Pinoy breakfast items over American or any other cuisine’s breakfast anytime. Must be the blood (or is it Spam?) running in their veins:)

Thanks again to Iska and Mike for this clever LP7 button!

The first time I tasted tabbouleh it was not at the hands of a Lebanese chef, or even a Lebanese. It was a Filipina who was co-owner of a Mediterranean restaurant in St. Louis, Missouri’s Central West End. Hubby and I were dating at the time, and out on a Friday night, we were hoping to walk into a nice restaurant and have dinner. But dining at CWE (unless you wanted a quick bite like pizza or Subway) usually meant you had to have a reservation, which we didn’t. Your other options, of course, are the numerous holes-in-the-wall, but who knows which were good and which weren’t? Back then I didn’t have Google to query for restaurant recommendations, and while our group of friends were adventurous diners we pretty much stuck to Asian food when we got together. At any rate, there was this restaurant in the basement, at the corner of Euclid and Forest Park Parkway, that has changed ownership so many times in the 13 years we lived there, there was no way to tell what cuisine it would offer when you go. We walked in and was surprised to find a Filipina manning the kitchen. Actually, she was all alone, serving
as both waitress and cook. The menu was a mix of Mediterranean and Filipino offerings (what an unusual combination). Being Filipino, we were naturally more inclined to try our native dishes, so we ordered Lechon Kawali. They were out. Item after item, we asked, and the answer was, “we’re out”. (To be honest we almost left without eating.) Vivian, however, must have sensed our growing annoyance, and asked if we would like to try some Mediterranean dishes instead. We asked her to surprise us, which she did. While we I chatted away, Vivian worked in the full-view kitchen… I admit I was more interested in the boyfriend then or I would have volunteered to help. Talk about missed opportunities!

I don’t remember much anymore of what else we had that night, something grilled, I think, but the one thing that stuck in my mind was the tabbouleh. When she brought it out I thought — what’s this, chopped parsley? Which of course, a large part of it is. I was suspicious, but one bite changed my mind. Two hours later we were still at the restaurant, Vivian now having pulled up a chair and were regaling us with restaurant tales (bad and good). It turned out to be a lovely evening, punctuated by the delicious food prepared by a very capable cook.

No, the restaurant didn’t survive. Not surprising since it was empty that night we were there, and was hardly ever packed the few times we passed it. At the time the Mediterranean diet was hardly known, and most restaurants at CWE were still Italian, French or Chinese. A shame, but lucky for us, we got introduced to this wonderful dish. Like many a beautiful woman, it gets better with age, so be sure and allow it ample time to develop and merge its full flavors and textures. Whoever thought of starting the raw food fad must have done so while dining on tabbouleh.

My recipe comes from Clifford Wright’s Mediterranean Vegetables, though I fiddled with it so much I should just claim it as mine. The main difference between this and most other tabbouleh recipes is that the bulgur is not soaked in hot water, but in cold. I should call our Lebanese friend and ask him how he prepares his tabbouleh…. maybe I will, one of these days.

Just realized my cookbook has been packed away, so I’ll post it when we get to Cincinnati. For now, here’s what I put in it: 1/2 cup bulgur wheat soaked in cold water for 10 minutes. Drain well, squeezing out excess water if necessary (Mr. Wright recommends cheesecloth, but I was out so I used several layers of paper towels instead). While bulgur is soaking, chop up a bunch of parsley — I must have used about 2 cups minced, and his recipe calls for 6. Next time I’ll use 4:D. Some mint — about 3/4 cup. I hated having to buy mint for this recipe when I have them in abundance in the garden at summertime! Then tomatoes and red onions, chopped fine. When bulgur is ready, toss with lemon juice first (he said 4 lemons but mine were really large so I used only 2, which I think is plenty; I’ll use less next time). Then toss with the rest of the ingredients, salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste, and of course, extra virgin olive oil. He calls for quite a hefty amount, 1 cup or more if I remember correctly, but I only used about 1/4 cup or so. The whole thing is tossed and left to sit for 4 hours. Boiling the bulgur briefly or soaking in hot water would hasten the process, of course.

Lots of tabbouleh recipes out there, if you’d like to try it. Here’s one from Joe at Culinary in the Desert, which he makes with quinoa. Here’s Debbie’s. And here’s one that I can’t read, but the photo looks scrumptious.

This is my baon (packed meal) for the 10-hour drive to Cincinnati, which starts in a few hours. Can’t wait to get cooking on a real stove again!

Hummus is one of my favorite healthy dips, and ever since a Lebanese friend introduced it to us when hubby and I were dating, I can’t get enough of it — the creamy combination of garlic-olive-oil-chickpeas-tahini is unforgettable. It really satisfies like no cheese dip will, and I’m a cheese-lover! Years later, hummus would often be the main attraction at our homeschooling group’s monthly gathering. There it would sit in a bowl at the center of the table, calling out to everyone to have a bit. We would oblige, and tortilla chips from Garden of Eatin’ passed all around, to serve as transport from bowl to hungrily waiting mouth. My recipe has always been the simple one — just chickpeas, garlic, lemon juice, a touch of cumin, salt and pepper, tahini if I had some in the pantry, then topped with a bit of olive oil and chopped parsley. Today, however, I decided to try Dean Ornish’s recipe in Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Disease. Since it has a slew of other things I thought it would be the more exciting version, but it’s actually a bit of a disappointment, rating 6 on my scale of 1-10. Good enough for a dip, but for eating with a spoon (which I’ve been known to do), I still prefer my tried-and-true. The recipe does not include olive oil, so I added a bit at the end just to balance off the flavors a bit more. It is also somewhat on the sour side, so if I ever make this again I’ll reduce the tomato puree to 1/3 cup or get rid of it altogether. I did like the extra kick from the onion, but I *missed* my tahini. Hummus is one of those dishes, I realize, where “leave well enough alone” applies.

1 25-oz can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed (or cook your own from dried beans, using bay leaves in the cooking water)
3/4 cup chopped onion
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2/3 cup tomato puree
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3/4 teaspoon salt
Minced flat-leaf parsley for garnish

Puree everything in a food processor or blender except for parsley.

Transfer to a bowl for serving and garnish with minced parsley.

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