We had one of those meals that you just can't stop talking about yesterday. Yesterday, I had what I call the leftover brunch which means cleaning out the refrigerator of leftovers and eating them for brunch or throw them out.



This plate has sausage, liver pudding, eggs over easy, and rice topped with sausage gravy. Yummy, right? Also on the plate are sliced tomatoes (the last from our garden) and some leftover greens. Yes! The greens were really delicious with breakfast. Some people thought we were weird for having them with breakfast.

What put this breakfast over the top for my husband is the sausage gravy. I don't make gravy all the time so when I do, he just about looses his mind from happiness :)

Click here if you'd like to learn HOW TO MAKE SAUSAGE GRAVY.



Visit our other blogs:
Amoores.com
Cooked from the Heart - our new food blog
Our New Backyard - garden & photo blog
Found Not Lost - about all the things we 'find' worth talking about

Recipes to Rival is a food blogging event similar to Daring Bakers but instead of baking sweet stuff, the challenge is for savory dishes. I found out about the event last month when they had their first challenge which was Ratatouille. I had to cook it. Now only did it look delicious, it was also the recipe from the movie of the same name. How could I resist? :D

This second time around, the challenge is Thank George's Bank, a recipe from the Black Dog Summer on the Vineyard Cookbook. It is a dish comprised of fish cake, poached egg and hollandaise sauce. While the recipe was a bit daunting (aren't all challenges?), I found that after I did a run through of the entire recipe it got easier the second time around and I found that it really wasn't that bad at all! By the third time I made the recipe, I didn't even have to look at the recipe.

Check out the recipe and see what you think...



Visit our new blogs:
Amoores.com
Cooked from the Heart - our new food blog
Our New Backyard - garden & photo blog
Found Not Lost - about all the things we 'find' worth talking about

Here's another easy dish to go loco over, Loco Moco! It's a Hawaiian specialty and it's the gravy that does the trick. It's a very simple dish but the combination of taste, color and texture can drive your taste buds crazy for more.

Loco Moco is basically ground beef patties over rice and smothered in rich, thick gravy with fried eggs on top. Yummy!

Click here for the Loco Moco recipe.


Visit our new blogs:
Amoores.com
Cooked from the Heart - our new food blog
Our New Backyard - garden & photo blog
Found Not Lost - about all the things we 'find' worth talking about

Weekends at our house usually means breakfast. If it's the same way at your house, then you've got to try these fried potatoes for breakfast. They go well with whatever breakfast meat you decide to have with them

They are very easy to make, and I've finally found a way to cook them without burning the onions. I used to hate burning the onions before the potatoes could get brown and crisp. Here's my foolproof way of frying potatoes with onions...


Visit our new blogs:
Amoores.com
Cooked from the Heart - our new food blog
Our New Backyard - garden & photo blog
Found Not Lost - about all the things we 'find' worth talking about

Many people turn their nose up on spam but I think they just don't know what they're missing! I used to think it was a little on the salty side too, but now they've come out with a low sodium version and it tastes just right for me. Not bland, but just enough salt to keep it delicious. My favorite way of eating spam is simply pan fried for breakfast with rice and eggs. For this version, I decided to make a de-structured spam musubi for breakfast.

Read the rest of this post...



Visit our new blogs:
Amoores.com
Cooked from the Heart - our new food blog
Our New Backyard - garden & photo blog
Found Not Lost - about all the things we 'find' worth talking about

Want to cook the perfect bacon? Even better than the ones at the restaurant? Yes, I'm serious! It's better than any bacon I've ever ordered at restaurants!

Here's our perfect way of Cooking Bacon...



Visit our new blogs:
Amoores.com
Cooked from the Heart - our new food blog
Our New Backyard - garden & photo blog
Found Not Lost - about all the things we 'find' worth talking about

Shrimp and Grits is an old Southern favorite with as many variations as there are cooks. This is my simple version. It is great as a light supper or a filling breakfast. This was a quick and easy supper for me and my husband while we were by ourself last month.

Shrimp and Grits recipe:

This recipe earned me the Rockin' Girl Blogger award from the Feisty Cook, Dexie. Although I've described the recipe in this blog previously, I've never really given a recipe since I don't ever measure when I'm making this. This time around though, at Peggy's request, I decided to measure out the marinade.

Continue to the Pork Tocino recipe.

The girls are off to summer at grandma's house so it is just me and hubby at home again. Sometimes when we are feeling particularly lazy we cook an egg dish for a quick supper and since I am still trying to clean out the fridge of odds and ends, we decided to have this for a light supper. I only had one Japanese eggplant left in the crisper, and not much other vegetables to pair it up with so eggplant fritata it is.


Since Japanese eggplants are relatively mild and thin skinned, I simply sliced them and quickly pan fried the slices in a bit of olive oil. Set them aside and scramble about 4 eggs and season with salt and pepper. Heat a couple more tablespoons of oil in the skillet and pour the egg mixture in. Let the eggs set about halfway, then place the eggplance pieces on top of the egg. I also had some left over chopped tomatoes so I just threw those in too. Carefully turn the omelet over and cook on the other side. Serve.

Tip on turning a whole omelet over: After the egg has set half way, meaning the bottom is fairly cooked but the top is still runny, slide the omelet onto a plate. Holding the plate in one hand, carefully cover it with the skillet facing down, quickly flip it over, remove the plate and return the skillet to the stove.

BRUNCH = is the meal that is not breakfast, not lunch, but something in between.

Whether I knew it or not, I've always been a 'bruncher' because I've never been an early riser nor organized enough to have a decent breakfast at the appointed time. Brunch is more the time when I take my first meal; that period sometime after 9am but before noon.

Peggy at What's Cooking in Carolina asked, Breakfast or Brunch?

Well, ever since I moved to North Carolina, I've totally embraced Southern cuisine. Well, I would probably embrace any cuisine, but hey. A girl's gotta eat. So in our kitchen, breakfast usually means Southern or Filipino breakfast. So please indulge me as I re-post for this meme, a previous post I made last year about Southern vs. Filipino Breakfast:

My husband loves breakfast, and since the girls went on summer vacation, we have been indulging too much. We've even had breakfast food for late dinner! We got us some true blue country ham, which reminds me of tuyo (salted, dried sardines), strangely enough, because of it's saltiness, and it's strong smell. It smells a bit like funky feet, but if you can get past that, which really, it dissipates as it cooks, is really quite delicious.

On this day, since we had plenty of green tomatoes, we decided to have some fried green tomatoes along with liver pudding (another southern specialty) and country ham, of course accompanied with buttery grits. Yummy cholesterol heaven!

The ham is so salty that I parboiled it first and threw out the first water, added a bit more and boiled it down until all the liquid has evaporated and the ham started to sizzle and take on some color. After the ham has browned, my mother in law used to deglaze the pan with coffee, producing what they call red-eye gravy which is then drizzled over the grits. I like frying rice in the same pan and getting that good country ham flavor all over the fried rice.

I have also taken a liking to fried green tomatoes which is simply dredged in flour and fried. We couldn't wait for the tomatoes in the garden to ripen, so this was a great way to have a sampling.

In contrast, this is my hubby's favorite Filipino breakfast meat, tocino.

This was my first attempt at making tocino at home, and it wasn't too bad, if I do say so myself. I simply marinated thin slices of a boston butt pork roast in apple cider vinegar, soy sauce, brown sugar, and black pepper. No coloring, so this doesn't have the usual reddish color, but the flavor was good. I cooked the tocino over low heat until all the liquid evaporated and the marinade started to caramelize and take on that golden color. Tip from my dad: cook it slow, don't over cook it, and you will have a tender tocino. It worked!

If you'd like to see more breakfast dishes, check our archives here. I tag everyone who reads this post and loves breakfast or brunch to tell about your favorite things to eat for breakfast or brunch. If you're into the liquid brunches, that's fine too ;-)

How many ways can you do egg? Probably too many to count. The egg is probably the most versatile food product there is. It can go from delicate to hardy, from simple to sublime as easily as water pours from plastic to crystal and vice versa. Eggs can be served for breakfast, lunch and dinner, even dessert! Not many food items can claim that. So is it any wonder that my photobucket, upon review is peppered with diffent versions of egg dishes?

Here are a few of my favorite ways with eggs:

Click here or on the photo for the Stewed Apples recipe.

This is what I had for brunch today. I would like to introduce, to Weekend Herb Blogging this week, Ampalaya (momordica charantia) or bitter melon. Like it's name says, it is bitter. Bitterness is a taste that is often underappreciated in most cuisines but as my grandmother used to say, with your palate as in life, you can't appreciate the sweetness until you've had a taste of bitterness. It is certainly an acquired taste. It is learned. I used to spit this stuff out as soon as I tasted it. She taught me to learn to like it by first giving a bit of the bitter stuff then telling me to chase it down with some water. Then she would say, "did you notice how the water tastes sweeter?" It did! Pretty soon I learned to like bitter melon and appreciate it's flavor. Now that I'm older, I also appreciate it's nutritional value and medicinal advantages. See the links at the end of this post for more information.

I found a pack of Ampalaya seed early in the spring and I immediately grabbed a pack. I followed the instruction on pre-soaking the seeds before planting them after all danger of frost had passed. I figured it would fare well in our growing region since we do have some hot summers which it supposedly prefers to grow in. I was a bit disappointed when only one plant came up; but I have become delighted with this one plant as it proved itself to be quite prolific. Have a look in our backyard for photos of it's first baby fruit. It's had many more since.


This is how it looked while it was sauteeing, before the eggs were added. Don't you love the colors?

INGREDIENTS:
1 med/lg bitter melon, sliced thin
1/2 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped fine
1/2 cup cherry tomatoes, quartered
2 eggs, scrambled
Salt & Pepper, to taste
Oil

Heat about two tablespoons of oil and saute' the garlic and onions until fragrant. Add the tomatoes and bittermelon and continue to cook while constantly stirring until almost dry and the bitter melon is cooked. Season with salt and pepper and add the scrambled egg. Slowly stir until the egg is cooked through. Remove from heat and serve.



Still need convincing of the benefits of Ampalaya? Visit these links for additional information:
What is Ampalaya?
Links to more information on Ampalaya.com

Thanks to Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen for conceptualizing this event and also hosts it this week. Visit her site for the roundup of all participants this week.



Filipino Cookbooks

Lasang Pinoy as hosted this month by ChichaJo of 80 Breakfasts explores breakfast food. This months it also happens that I'm kicking off a brand new topic on poverty on Blogkadahan.com. As I was getting my posts ready, I realized how inter-twined the two topics were; at least in my personal experience anyway. I often mention my grandparents in my writings not only because I love them but because not only do they seem to be the source of many of my childhood memories it seems they also are the source of my traits and idiosyncracies. Frugality being one of those traits.

As a child, I heard people say that farmers living in the provinces are poor. My grandparents were farmers and lived in the province, but for some reason I never thought them to be poor. There was always food on the table, and they always seemed happy. I took it for granted then, but I pause and think about it now especially when I am walking around the mega supermarket with a cart full of meats, produce, and every possible food items unimaginable by my grandmother. My grandmother always had a large household made up not just of her grandchildren when we visit during school breaks, but she regularly had at her table any number of relatives, distant cousins, nephews, nieces and sometimes just town mates who they employed to work in the house and the farms. I always wondered how she fed all those people with so little. When I started feeding my own family, and marvel at how much three girls can eat, it finally dawned on me the little tricks my Lola used to stretch a chicken or 4 eggs to feed 10 people.

Breakfast usually consisted of whatever food is left over from dinner the night before. Once in a while though, especially if her hens have been generous, she would serve eggs for breakfast. She didn't invent the torta by any means, but she sure utilized the technique every chance she got. She didn't ever serve an egg sunny side up or over easy, she couldn't afford to give each person an egg. Instead she utilized various means of stretching an egg. That means adding either tons of tomatoes and onions, adding a can of sardines, or in this case, potatoes. I happened to have some left over ground beef handy so I threw those in too.



POTATO AND GROUND BEEF TORTA

4 Eggs, scrambled
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 medium sized potato, finely cubed
1/2 cup cooked ground beef
Salt & Pepper to taste
Oil

In a bowl, scramble the eggs and season with salt and pepper. In a skillet, heat about two tablespoons of oil and sautee the onions until fragrant then add the potatoes. Stir continuously until potatoes are cooked through. Add the ground beef and stir until warmed over. Remove the potato/ground beef mixture from the pan and add to the bowl of scrambled eggs. Return the skillet to medium heat and add 2 more tablespoons of oil. When heated, pour the egg mixture into the pan. Cook over medium low heat until the egg is almost cooked through. Carefully flip over and cook the other side.

One trick I learned from a friend on flipping a perfect torta is to cover the skillet with a plate wider than the pan, flip the pan onto the plate so the torta is now on the plate uncooked side down. Return the skillet to the stove, and slide the torta back in to cook the other side. Comes out perfect every time!

My husband loves breakfast, and since the girls went on summer vacation, we have been indulging too much. We've even had breakfast food for late dinner! We got us some true blue country ham, which reminds me of tuyo (salted, dried sardines), strangely enough, because of it's saltiness, and it's strong smell. It smells a bit like funky feet, but if you can get past that, which really, it dissipates as it cooks, is really quite delicious.

On this day, since we had plenty of green tomatoes, we decided to have some fried green tomatoes along with liver pudding (another southern specialty) and country ham, of course accompanied with buttery grits. Yummy cholesterol heaven!

The ham is so salty that I parboiled it first and threw out the first water, added a bit more and boiled it down until all the liquid has evaporated and the ham started to sizzle and take on some color. After the ham has browned, my mother in law used to deglaze the pan with coffee, producing what they call red-eye gravy which is then drizzled over the grits. I like frying rice in the same pan and getting that good country ham flavor all over the fried rice.

I have also taken a liking to fried green tomatoes which is simply dredged in flour and fried. We couldn't wait for the tomatoes in the garden to ripen, so this was a great way to have a sampling.

In contrast, this is my hubby's favorite Filipino breakfast meat, tocino.

This was my first attempt at making tocino at home, and it wasn't too bad, if I do say so myself. I simply marinated thin slices of a boston butt pork roast in apple cider vinegar, soy sauce, brown sugar, and black pepper. No coloring, so this doesn't have the usual reddish color, but the flavor was good. I cooked the tocino over low heat until all the liquid evaporated and the marinade started to caramelize and take on that golden color. Tip from my dad: cook it slow, don't over cook it, and you will have a tender tocino. It worked!

This is a recipe I used to make for breakfast potlucks at work and such, before I got married. It's great 'cause you have the option of starting it the night before and putting it together in the morning.
I haven't made it in a while since my husband does most of the baking now. But since I had some blueberries in the freezer, I thought I'd try out this recipe again and see how the kids like it. I made it for our Sunday brunch last week.



2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 cups frozen or fresh whole blueberries, unthawed
Crumb Topping (recipe at bottom)

Into a large mixing bowl, measure the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir well to blend.
Into another bowl or large measuring cup, combine eggs, milk, butter and lemon juice. Stir the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients until blended. Pour mixture into buttered 13 x 9 inch baking dish. Sprinkle blueberries evenly over the batter.
TIP: If you roll the blueberries in flour before doing this, they won't sink to the bottom as much.
Sprinkle with the Crumb Topping and bake at 375 degrees F for 40 to 50 minutes. Serve warm.

CRUMB TOPPING
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
4 Tbsp. soft butter or margarine
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and stir until mixture is evenly blended and crumbly in appearance.

TIP: To prepare in advance, blend the dry ingredients the night before. Cover and let stand at room temperature. Combine the liquid ingredients and make the crumb topping. Cover both and refrigerate. The next morning mix the batter and assemble the cake as directed.