Successful Pasta Experiment # 1: Spicy Sardines and Sweet Corn in Oil Pasta

No cream in the house for Filipino Carbonara. My dad's allergic to tomato sauce. No tuna or salmon. No bacon or pancetta. No eggs. I couldn't find most of the top-of-mind ingredients for pasta in the kitchen. But I still had to whip something up for dinner. Good thing I found a bottle of olive oil, some canned goods in the store room, a couple of sweet corns from Pampanga, and the usual garlic and onion bulbs in the dirty kitchen.

From the above mentioned finds, I was able to make a quick, easy and delish pasta dish!

Ingredients:

2 cans (5.5 oz) 555 spicy sardines sliced

2 large sweet corns

3/4 cup olive oil

1 bulb onion

6 cloves garlic

0.5 lb spaghetti noodles

a dash of pepper

Get everything ready. The onion sliced. The garlic chopped. The sardines, sliced into bits, dried from the sauce. The sweet corn kernels taken from the cob. Bring water to a boil and then throw in your pasta noodles. Take note of the boiling minutes labeled on your noodle packaging. You would need to start the countdown once you pour the noodles in the pot.

For the sauce, toast the garlic and sweat the onion in 2/4 cup olive oil. Once the garlic has turned golden brown and you can already smell the sweet fragrance of onion and garlic, send in the sardines and the corn kernels. Sprinkle some ground pepper. Mix them all together with the noodles, and pour the remaining 1/4 cup of olive oil, you'd get something like this!

It was my first time preparing and eating this type of pasta today. My take: The addition of cool corn kernel bits was a pleasant surprise. It's sweet taste was a perfect contrast to the spicy sardines. My advice: add some parmesan cheese or keso de puti if you are feeling pinoy.

Bon Appetit! (In Tagalog: That's it, pancit!)

Goodbye, Desserts. :(

Who says stress makes you sick? It is mostly true for me if stress is turned upside down or right side up. What I mean is, when STRESSED is spelled the other way around, that's when I get sick. When you get DESSERTS.

I remember when I was still working in Jollibee, a fast-paced quick service restaurant company, my team would handle several projects simultaneously. Sometimes we would work long hours on weekdays and even on the weekends. I remember getting sick once. I missed that one day of work not because I lacked sleep nor because I got too tired, but it was because of the bowl of Hershey Kisses wrapped in silver foil and luscious beads of grapes lying untouched in front of me and my boss. I took one, and another one, and another one until my throat got painful. Colds started coming. My voice became like that of Fran in the Nanny. And the temperature starting rising. My mom took me to Ong Sian, a Chinese Herbal doctor in Manila who gave me some leaves, twigs, grasses and insects to brew. I know it's eww.

Then, there was this one Sunday afternoon when my mom, aunties and I went to the Fort to try out this new doughnut place called Krispy Kreme. I bit on their classic honey-glazed doughnut. Surprisingly, it did not have the bread texture. It was very soft and moist that I felt it was already melting in my mouth. I knew that one doughnut had approximately 360 calories. But because it was very light to eat, too smooth to chew and to swallow, I took another half. Then my throat started to feel the tingling sensation again. Guess what happened next? Of course, I had to visit (nobody other than) Ong Sian again.

Just last Sunday, we had a reunion in my grandma's place. My grandma prepared her famous lumpia (a healthy Chinese appetizer that has a mix of shredded carrots, tofu and meat wrapped in a very thin flour covering), sotanghon (vermicelli), lechon (tender pork meat) and plates and bowls full of fruits to welcome the bountiful Christmas and new year. I took a bite on each but kept a portion of my stomach for the dessert.

I ate the gift someone gave to my grandma. I saw the box with green and red stripes behind the dining table. Inside it were chocolate brownies with sprinkles of mini molded hearts and Christmas trees on top. I opened the box and the dark brown rectangles became all the more alluring. They resembled the healthy-and-not-so-sweet dark chocolate bars. They had dark brown (almost black) glaze on top that was too tempting to resist. And so, I took a bite. The glaze was very rich and smooth. It wasn't that sweet at all. The body was puffy like a sponge cake and it wasn't crumbly like the brownies hastily sold elsewhere. I told myself I'd just eat half (mind you, it was a big bar of 2"x5"). But my sweet tooth, couldn't resist. I ate ONE AND A HALF PIECES! Leaving the other half saved me some guilt.

What happened next? Nothing much, I just got sick again. Throat hurt again. Voice became hoarse again and visited the dreaded Chinese doctor again. Writing this entry is my way of reminding myself (and you who are empathizing with me) to be a better steward of the body. Don't give in to your sweet tooth! There are other ways of dealing with stress, boredom or simple cravings. Binging only gives temporary relief. It will lead you to Ong Sian, to several dialyses, to an endocrinologist, or worse, to your death bed.

Bye for now, I have a thesis proposal to finish. No more desserts for the stressed. Oh well, who needs extra calories and unwanted pounds anyway when you have a cup of Ong Sian's greenish-brown earthy juice. Cheers!