Romi Garduce: Karinderia sa Bahay – My Home-cooking Culinary Journey

Cooking is fun, and with the right ingredients - could be healthier for you. Fun experiment with paella and bell pepper rice. Buying this paella pan made me cook so many paella and jambalaya dishes!

I advocate active lifestyle and fitness. But we know that true fitness requires superb health. And no matter how fit one seems to be, health could be invisibly suffering. I’ve seen colleagues and heard athletes who all seemed to be in their top shape, suddenly died due to undetected or hidden sickness.

At high altitudes, I’ve seen healthy people suddenly becoming unhealthy and unfit – the lack of oxygen exposing their true health. And I’ve concluded a long way back that without solid good body, one wouldn't have true, long-lasting endurance and fitness...

And the capacity to climb big mountains! Literally and figuratively.

And as cancer seems to run in my family blood – I also became more 'conscious' of my personal health and specifically on what I eat.

Now food is the primary ‘input’ we give to our body. (For this post, let’s not talk about emotional/social, mental or spiritual health as it will lengthen and complicate my food topic). And we all know that bad food or wrong nutrition causes bad performance in the short-term, and bad health in the long run. And debate of what is good and what is bad will be long and endless – so I’ll stick with the basic ‘known’.

My culinary journey is a continual experimentation of cooking to discover new things that better comply with my own requirement on nutrition or health, sustainability, or quality of life (i.e. in terms of what is ‘good-tasting’ and reducing preparation time and cooking effort).

So here below is my “Karinderia Menu” – with the what’s and why’s:

Carbs, Salads and All-in-one Recipes

Seafood Paella, Pineapple fried rice with meat, Jambalaya using left-over rice

All-in-one recipe saves time and pot washing effort. Caution: I've read that mixing meat types is not good for digestion. Red meat takes a while to digest, white animal meat (like chicken or rabbit) takes lesser digestive time and even less for 'soft protein' like white fish or egg. To be safe, limit meat type in one dish to just one or of the same type (ex. white fish, chicken and rabbit, beef -lamb-or goat, pork, duck, squid and shrimp, etc.)

Pasta is easy to cook. Whole wheat and veggie-based versions are easily available in groceries. Simple olive oil-based saute type will do, but adding usual pasta sauce (pesto, tomato-based, etc.) is but an easy final step to add. I've read that eating too much white rice is 'not healthy' (rice feeds cancer cells for one, and offers 'fast sugar').

Adding any veggie on the side is a good cooking (and eating) habit! Scaled and finned fish are said to be healthier and safer, so less on the crustaceans and bottom-dwellers like 'Dory' and catfishes.

Bell pepper rice. Adding 'beauty' adds to a good appetite. Besides, bell peppers are loaded with magical sick-fighting nutrients. I first saw this in Cyma restaurant and copied it, but without baking (I steamed it with pre-cooked rice, as I don't have an oven).

'Wet canton' noodles are sold cheap in the groceries. Better than preserved instant noodle type. Very easy to prep (hot water bath) and cook (I simply mix with my saute or stir-fried base, plus leaves at the end (kale, spinach, etc.)

Veggie-based pasta plus vegetables! Cauliflowers and Broccoli are said to be good in fighting cancer (mainly prostate).

Imitating a Japanese or Korean flat omelette.

Eggs are good source of protein. Organic eggs (from chicken fed with natural food) are healthier and if you're used to it, can be taken in raw. That's my usual 15-peso 'energy bar' equivalent when doing sports. A hundred ways to cook or use them in recipes. The flat omelette offered go-grow-glow combination when mixed with potato and starch ('go' carbs), optional meat (grow), and veggies ("glow" vitamins).

"Pasta-lad". A recent experiment mixing fern salad (without dressing) and Mackerel spaghetti (aglio olio).

Was in a hurry so I created an appetizer of romaine with chicken ham. "Mix Veggie when you can"

Salad with fish bagoong dressing? Why not!

Protein and Meat

I'm not a fan of any special diet other than the usual 'balanced diet'. In fact, I still have my doubts on things like Keto or Paleo. Ketogenic is a 'usual' experience if one is climbing and staying long at high altitudes (when the body stops digesting complex food like protein or even fats due to lack of O2, and naturally extracts nutrients from the body). Paleo is both doubtful and unsustainable. Meat production (esp. cow farming) has been contributing large amount of methane in the atmosphere so in a way - anti-environment.

I believe that diet is individual and should be based on your body's intolerance or sensitivities, lifestyle and-or age, availability and environmental factors (where you live), among other things. Lately, I've been significantly reducing my red meat intake as I've observed that my digestion is becoming slower (perhaps lack of body-punishing sports?). I've also read that red meat is associated with a lot of sickness in your more senior years. And so, I think it's good for younger bodies when it needs to grow or strengthen muscles, but a risk if one ceases to grow or has significant activity reduction.

Still, for non-vegetarians - it would be a journey to keep experimenting on what's good for you...

Crispy Goat Pata experiment. Goat meat or chevon is said to be healthier (less sat-fat and more protein) compared to chicken, pork or beef per gram of serving. Also more expensive than these 3.

Goat skin sisig. Still healthier than the pork sisig version

Pinoys use a number of fruits to flavor dishes particularly Sinigang sour broth. Other than tamarind or ilonggo's batwan, Santol is also used for 'paasim'. This one - Sinantolang Manok, is pleasantly sour-and-sweet.

Goat in Olive oil. Pre-cooking goat meat takes time (60 to 90mins with ginger to remove odor), but once cooked - easy to prepare for the final dish. This one took less than 10 mins to make.

Squid is cheap and easy to find. In fact, it was said that after all the fishes are gone - only jelly fishes, urchins and SQUIDS would fill our oceans! So eat them now to help our fishes survive :) Squid is not seen as healthy so eat in moderation, they do provide good protein and are very easy (and fast) to cook. This one's a simple saute.

Did a lot of experiment with whisky flavoring. This one's "drunken lamb". I didn't taste the whisky flavor though perhaps given the lamb's stronger taste?

Goat pata 'humba' or 'pata tim'. Usually, goat skin is separated but I like keeping them in most dishes as they carry more flavor and taste (and yes - a bit of sat-fat).

Intrigued by the resto-bar's dynamite - so I tried my ground beef (non-cheese) version. I didn't like the oil-drenched wraps, but it's cool to pick-and-eat with beer.

'Sunog na Isda' :) It only looks bad. I imitated Jamie Oliver's pesto fish. This one used malunggay (moringa) pesto, pan grilled to imperfection! The inside is fresh and soft though.

Adding good fish in our diet is always healthy. This one is blue marlin. Cooking all of these in a single pan (grill/ no oil) saves time and effort.

Kalde-callos! I tried making callos by using caldereta flavor. 'Not bad'.

'Mediterranean Chevon'. My 'default' dish for goat: olive oil, bell pepper, garlic, bay leaves, pepper, olives, veggies.

Triple-Black Drunken Shrimps. Black olives, black pepper and black label :)

After a travel in Iloilo (last Dec 2019), I started using annatto (atsuete) in my grilled recipes. It seems better than my usual pan grill flavor (i.e. I pan grill first with soy sauce, lemon juice and garlic, cook it until dry, and add annatto-infused olive oil). Behind is another Jamie Oliver's reco on purple cabbage. Raw, hot water bathed, dressed in vinaigrette. Crunchy!

Native duck inadobo-grilled using Annatto-infused olive oil. Duck meat is 'red meat' and also takes time to cook. It's seen as 'unhealthy' or less healthy than chicken or beef given its high saturated fat content. But it's a good alternative meat than just eating 'the usual'.

My first rabbit meat experiment. It's surprisingly easy to cook, and tastes like chicken. This one (right) -I mixed with chicken balls. (2nd left-hand sauce if my meat-beans nacho dip).

It's not as bad as it looks. :) Rabbit roasted using BBQ sauce. As white meat, it was easy to cook. Rabbit is said to be healthier than most red meat (less in sat-fat), but its new branding is sustainability. This animal reproduces fast, and are typically foragers (like goat) thus easy to maintain or grow.

Salmon is healthier than most fishes given its high unsaturated fats and omega fatty acids. And easy to cook (this one's pan grilled in less than 8 mins). But note that farmed salmon (not wild catch) is said to be non-eco friendly given their x4 intake of 'other fishes' as food. I.e. eating 100 grams of salmon is like consuming 400 to 500 gms of non-salmon fish. It is also said that aqua-farmers started using unnatural food or medicine causing its fats to be unhealthy (similar to carp/tilapia/bangus in fish pens).

Sinigang (sour-broth) na Lamb. Lamb doesn't have to be roasted all the time. Soup dishes with veggies are usually healthy recipes.

Sinigang na roast beef. This is more a 'recycling effort' similar to lechon paksiw. Re-use, recycle right?

After watching a TLC show featuring an Indian chef - I tried a few of hers. I learned (from that show) how to make 'Okra fries' (split okra, flavored with a bit of turmeric and salt, with a bit of flour). But this one's lentil soup (actually - yellow mongo) with frozen-ready chapati, and grilled 'things'.

Squid stir-fry and paella. The problem in home-cooking is that - you'd eat a lot when the food is good!

Steamed herb chicken. Who doesn't know how to cook chicken?!

Lean ground beef with okra - easy to do, easy to cook, lovely to eat. Limit red meat intake for good health and better environment.

Roasted chevon (goat meat) 2 Christmases ago. Pinoys typically think 'kalderata' when you mention goat, but there are hundred ways to cook and enjoy it.