Breakfast, and then some

Preparing breakfast for a couple of young ladies was never in the cards for any phase of my multi-hatted mission on Earth, or so I thought. But that’s what I’ve been doing for over a week now, since ye olde Circadian rhythm went out of whack — owing to a deadly combo of for-once severe jetlag, the “bahagat siyam-siyam” rains and floods, and the wee-hour live TV coverage of the London Olympics.

First, I kept staying up till sunrise. Then even when the fat lady sang at that combo’s last gig, I kept waking at 5 or 6 a.m. —remarkable serial phenomena, to be sure.

Even when I tried to rely on my proven antidote to the galling effect of flying across the Pacific from the West — glugging close to half of a favored bottle of spirits on the first night back (on this instance the Extra Viejo Dominican rhum provided by NY poet-novelist Bino Relauyo) — it didn’t work out this time.

Maybe I should’ve stuck to whisky? I tried that two nights later, and did enjoy full sleep for the first time — if you can call five hours of dreamtime full for a 20-percent discounter.

The long-in-the-tooth and short of it was that I was up daily in time to see my young ladies prepare themselves for school at ungodly daybreak. The daughter has to be taken to a university nearly an hour away; thank the god of big things like EDSA for a trusty driver. Before that he drops off the granddaughter a minute away. Actually she can walk to school in seven-eight minutes, but the monsoon was still upon us till late last week.

And so I found myself fretting as I brewed my first cup of coffee one early morning — fretting over what they usually had for breakfast when I was yet in my customary mode of harmless horizontal behavior till mid-morn.

Well, actually, it started with an inspired decision to serve myself some breakfast — something that’s usually in my daily snub list. Ah, found a packet of smoked tawilis in the ref. And just the right amount of bahaw still in the rice cooker. Fried the lovely golden fish in olive oil, pounded a clove of garlic for sinangag, did estrellado or sunny-side-up, and voila: a Pinoy agahan to die for.

But all that was after the girls had already scooted off, having seen to their respective needs by simply checking out the cupboard for cookies or crackers, or having bread with peanut butter or Cheez Whiz. Aww.

The next infernal daybreak, I resolved to be a man for others. And gee whiz, I haven’t stopped since — even if it means allowing a post-lunch nap to break into the cycle of sempiternal work. 

Thing is, I can’t do the same banana every day, or even twice in a row. Just not in my DNA. I rely on the spies of kitchen life to tell me what there is available, so everything can be hunky-dory variable.

Given the narrow window of about 10-15 minutes while they’re primping themselves in their school uniforms — after having logged off from the Net while yet in bed, thence taken a shower — swiftly do I have to conduct reconnaissance among the cupboards and couple of refs, and make a decision, thence launch into a creativity session in both the clean and dirty kitchens.  

I’ve made them French toast — with more than a hint of cheese. I’ve mixed one-and-two-thirds cup of water and fresh milk and heated that up and tossed in four heaping tablespoons of oat meal (don’t ask me which brand; a son has all of three kinds, from Aussie to SM bonus), then finesse it with a piquant touch: two tablespoons of marmalade.

Not your ordinary marmalade at that! But from a special jar (aww, shoot, forgot who paid tribute and handed it with an apology, for it was but in lieu of the real thing!) with the following label: Bowmore Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky 12 Years. No kidding! But it also has “Marmalade Coarse Cut” somewhere there. 

I mash and mesh the spoonfuls of marmalade with the porridge, add some brown sugar, and voila: the girls love it!

Then last Friday, having gotten up godawfully early at 5 a.m., I checked them an hour later and asked if they both had time for breakfast. Nods. Let’s see. Would you like… uhmm… ah, omelet? With ’shrooms? Yesss!

So, okay, here’s why I can’t yet join any boycott of Made in China products, much as I will offer myself for the front line in defense of our Kalayaan Island. (Lovely beach, by the way. Hope it doesn’t turn into something like Normandy’s.)

And I have nothing against canned stuff. ’Cuz you can’t always get everything fresh. And tin in a pantry keeps till that rainy day. And so I’ve favored Jolly Straw Mushrooms, from the Mainland, maybe even grown out of cadres’ night soil, unless I’m mixing up generations.

Why, there’s also shitake in can, and it’s almost as good as the fresh or dried stuff, especially when mixing with tofu (and oyster sauce and Lea & Perrins “Wooster”-shire sauce and HP Original BBQ Sauce Classic Woodsmoke Flavour) for the granddaughter who’s trying to go vegan and she’s only13!

I say trying ‘cuz I always tempt her out of it with burgers. Okay, chicken burgers, from Good Burger, which also has the vegan variety.

In any case, there’s also Sunblest Golden Mushrooms, also from that bullyboy China, but then I also keep some SM Bonus ’shrooms in can for when our Kalayaan is attacked, maybe, you never know.

In any further case, so there I go with the Teflon pan and extra virgin olive oil, scramble three eggs and put in Japanese mayo and whip it up some more then sauté the cut-up straw ’shrooms and add a bit of the leftover bangus sisig then the egg-mayo mix and ladle back and forth and presto! Tsalap-tsalap daw my ’shrooms omelet, say both the daughter and granddaughter before they go off to school.

So there, I know I’ve shared only three oh-so-simple not-so-secret recipes that all you guys can replicate for your youthful constituency that are still dependent on you for a gamut of breakfast treats other than all the usual “-’logs.”

But boy am I glad for the long weekends ahead, which means I won’t run out of ideas yet for varied fast-breaking dishes to be mustered in 10-15 minutes!

And so you won’t feel short-changed that I’ve held out on other pre-school fare that I’ve recently whipped up for my girls, here’s a bonus recipe for when a bahagat pummels us again. And this my girls also liked, loved, as well as the boys among my growing constituency of mouths to be fed (besides four cats and a dog). Oh, also all my matronly friends on FB who got inggit when I posted a pic of the dish on my Wall, and asked, demanded, pleaded, for an accounting.

Nothing better than sinigang sa pakwan for lunch or dinner on rainy days, mind you. So here it is, as excerpted from the orig published a couple of years back in Food mag:

“Long-Winded Recipe for Three-Way Sinigang sa Pakwan”:  

I learned this recipe from Jackie Aquino Gavino, former vice chair of the MTRCB of which I am a member. Let it also be said: I swear by Knorr’s Sinigang packets. Measured just right in proportion to the usual liquid, for me it makes for quintessential sinigang, without the occasional tartness of fresh sampaloc or kamias jus. And certainly doing away with all the time and effort, let alone the recyclable waste space that it’ll take in the preparation of the souring agent.

In any case, one lunchtime at MTRCB, Jackie came with a fiambrera of her sinigang na baboy. It had enough of the native gabi I always associate with sinigang, and love to mash together with soup-drowned rice. Jackie’s sinigang I found extraordinarily delicious, with its sour broth tinged with a delicate sweetish taste. She explained that instead of using water, she allowed chunks of yellow watermelon to provide the liquid for the eventual broth.

Capital idea. I tried it immediately at home, while sticking to my usual mixed fare for sinigang. When yellow watermelon isn’t available, the red will do just as well. Here’s the recipe that has since evolved.

Cut about 1.5 kilos of pakwan into chunks. Do away with any seeds. But include the greenish-white flesh close to the rind. Lay these all as a first bed at the bottom of the pot. Place lots of ripe red tomatoes as the next layer, followed by a kilo of beef short ribs that have been stewed for a first hour of softening in the usual water. Next to be layered on is a kilo of pork belly cut into the same size as the beef and watermelon chunks — about two-three inches long and two inches wide and thick.

Start the stove on high, then reduce to a simmer as the pakwan chunks start to melt and the tomatoes begin the sangkutya process that provides the initial sourness.

Half an hour later, add the native gabi and quartered onions. Keep simmering for another half-hour, during which the following are added to the stew in calibrated sequence (tantyahan): round strips of labanos, siling haba, okra, sitao, and the Knorr’s Sinigang regular packet, up to one-and-a-half or two packets. The last to be added are of course the kangkong stems and leaves.

What you get is a delicious, delicately sour-sweetish, red-tinged broth with some pakwan pulp bits and lots of thinned tomato. With strong Thai patis or fish sauce, this sinigang sa pakwan is always rousing and filling, if not to die for.

Further happenstance evolution has involved adding a kilo of fresh corned beef to the short ribs and pork belly — at about the same time as the pork — so you have a choice of three kinds of meat to juggle with serial bites, accompanied by mashed gabi and rice nearly swimming in sinigang sa pakwan broth. 

Bring it on, rainy days!