Start The Day Off Right!

Heh. I find it weird how yesterday's image of the weather still seems accurate. It's been mostly cloudy, but as I was driving around, I did see the sun break out a few times. Maybe meteorologists can actually do their jobs. I 'unno. *shrugs*

Today's the second day of my "Thirty Thousand Trial," and I'm just typing and typing away so that I can get my thousand words for today's entry. While things may seem a tad forced for the next month or so, it doesn't mean I'm not enjoying it. After all, I miss this - the whole "writing a whole bunch of things" deal I do (or used to do). It flexes my brain matter and may end up getting me a new idea or so.

But enough on that - let's talk about other things. Like... food!





So this morning I ended up giving myself something I haven't had in ages. Guess what it was? If your answer wasn't related to the word "breakfast," then you seriously need to go cook yourself one right now.

I woke up and told myself I wanted a good start to what could be a good day. (It's hard to foresee the future, y'know.) So I yawned and stretched, got out of bed, and walked to the kitchen and decided to make some food for myself. Wasn't that hard to do, really. All it was was the following:

• Spam cooked with my custom "sweetfire" glaze
• eggs served sunny-side-up
• garlic toast with bits of onion

Granted, the reason why I don't usually cook myself breakfast is that it takes a while to do and it's even more of a pain to clean up afterwards (for some reason it takes longer for me to wash the dishes down than it does for me to eat and enjoy my food). But hey - I got fuel in my stomach (it's somewhat close to wearing off right about now, so it's a good thing I cooked a lot of it for my dinner tonight) and it's really making sure I'm alert and energized to tackle whatever comes my way today. I'm happy with that.

Anyway, back to the food. Some of you are wondering how it is that such a simple breakfast meal can look so appetizing. (You know you want some.) I mean, I could have just cooked up some eggs, warmed up a slice of ham, and made some simple toast and called that breakfast. There's just one problem with that: I'm Josh Blanco, and I don't believe in "boring food." Yes - the simplest of dishes can still fill the body with nutrients and fuel, but am I experiencing something exciting in my mouth? No. And that's where I decided to cook something better than the plain dish I suggested earlier in this paragraph. Ick.

For the Spam, it was simple to cook - slap pan on oven, set temperature to medium-high (or high if you're feeling brave enough to cook fast at the risk of charring), Spam, done. Of course, that's the easy way out - while Spam is good on its own, it can still feel bland for some people. I thought so, too, and so I decided to use my "sweetfire" glaze on it.

Now, what is that, you ask? It's a relatively simple sauce mix I made up to fit a rather unique taste. If you've ever had Filipino food, you might have noticed that some of the more savory stuff can sometimes be sweet and spicy. (This is true of other styles of cuisines, but most of the Filipino-based dishes I've tasted have a sweet-and-spicy variant.) I don't know if it's a racial thing or not, but Filipino cuisine preferences tend to lean towards a mixture of sweet, spicy, and salty flavors (as far as I know, at least). So I asked myself one day a few months ago, "How can I bring that kind of flavor to boring meat?"

So I experimented on various slices of meat and used various sauces and spice combinations, and when it came down to it, the final contender for my "sweetfire" glaze was a simple one: cayenne pepper sauce and honey. Now, I'm pretty sure I'm not the first person to come up with combining these two. Some other chef probably did. However, in the very unlikely event that nobody has done this before: TRY IT AND BE AMAZED. The trick is the fry your meat and apply a small amount of cayenne pepper sauce and honey on each side. Do it just right, and when you eat it, you'll taste the honey-sweetened meat and then end it with a short kick of spice (that for some strange reason doesn't linger).

The eggs served sunny-side-up is fairly obvious. Crack the eggs into the pan; sprinkle some black pepper over 'em; let cook until done. Nothing too fancy here, which makes me wonder how Sunny Gurlukovich could screw 'em up so badly. (I mean... it's eggs! Snake has a point when he says "I don't remember the sun being so flat." o.O) However, they ended up being flavored by the leftover "sweetfire" glaze and what not when I used the pan to cook the Spam, so it got a subtle boost there.

As for the toast? Feh - anyone can toast bread, slap butter on it, and call it "toast." Most people do that with toasters, and to be honest: I think that's lazy. This is why I prefer toaster ovens for toast - you have complete control over how toasted you want your bread (I prefer mine lightly toasted - where it's crispy enough to be considered "toasted" with a light, light brown coloring). That, and toaster ovens allow for the safe cooking suggestion of slapping ingredients and spreads on your bread BEFORE cooking it. Making that garlic toast was a simple process. I buttered the bread slices, got a bit of mashed garlic and minced onion (powdered works fine, but it's nothing compared to fresh-cut/mashed), and spread it on the bread. Then, the toaster oven! Why pay for loaves of garlic bread when you can make your own out of simple ingredients like that?

Voila! Breakfast... is served! Just add some ketchup and you're good to go!

And that's the story behind a simple-yet-flavorful breakfast. If you get the urge to try this out yourself, then awesome - you're on your way to getting out of a boring breakfast!





Well, that's going to be it for today. Until the 'morrow, everyone!