Since the March 2020, I have always enjoyed sleeping in on Sundays, lazing around for a while before I wake to exercise and hear online mass. Then, we have lunch around 12 noon or later.

Now that I live alone again, I do the same things I do but I prepare my meals a little earlier than usual to have brunch around 11am. 

Cooking is not something that I normally do, so I made a decision to plan meals in advance (although they are flexible), from buying the produce and consciously making an effort to integrate as much vegetables in the dishes and having fruits as dessert. Since I do my grocery once every two weeks, finding fresh fruits and vegetables that last more than three days and keeping them in pristine condition the longest time possible are tricky. My fresh vegetables of choice are eggplants, tomatoes, okras, and potatoes. I have frozen carrots, green peas, and sweet corn that come in one pack and canned mushrooms. I have sufficient supply of the staples like oil, salt, pepper, garlic, onions, and egg. 

With my supplies ready and my beautiful old rose cookware cleaned, I find cooking not as taxing as before. I actually look forward to doing it, especially on weekends. After all the peeling, chopping, dicing, and smelling like garlic and onion, I am excited to present my food into something that I can enjoy looking at as well. 

The following are some of the Sunday (and also Saturday) meals I have had in the past couple of months:

This pasta with tuna and mushroom was the first one I cooked for brunch. It was dry because I decided not to add a lot of sauce because I wanted it to taste natural and healthful. Hahaha. 

I had another go at this pasta and it looked and tasted better the second try. I decided to add sunny side up egg just because. I sprinkled chili flakes and pepper on top of the egg. I toasted the bread using the pan. That is why they looked so pale. Hahaha. And I am not a fan of burnt toast, so it worked fine for me.

The following week, TR and I prepared pancakes. Lots of them. Enough to last us the entire day. Hahaha. The pancakes were not fluffy but they were okay. 

Okra, tomatoes, carrots, green peas, and sweet corn simmered in rich coconut cream to make this beautiful and colorful dish that looks like Christmas. 

Sometimes, with some of the vegetables going bad, I am left with fewer options. This time, I had frozen carrots, green peas, and sweet corn, and canned mushrooms. So I cooked them with some chicken balls. Paired them with rice topped with roasted garlic. 

When I cleaned the cupboards and arranged the contents, I found that I had some rice flavoring that I bought in Japan last year. It was perfect with the leftover rice I had and one beaten egg. I fried a katsudon and added sliced tomatoes. 

I prepared chicken fillet with sweet and sour sauce (the sauce needs improvement), mixed vegetables (potatoes, carrots, green peas, and sweet corn) and diced ham, and rice. I put too much pepper in the mixed vegetables and it was almost inedible. Ugh. 

Because I had no bread, I decided to make pancakes! I bought chocolate fondue (I have no idea what I will do with it, really), so I decided to pour some of it in half of the pancake batter. The result was surprisingly good. Hahaha. The regular pancake was decent and the chocolate pancake was a little succulent with pronounced chocolate flavor. 

I had ready to cook sisig in the fridge, so I heated it, sliced salted egg and tomatoes, paired them with white rice, and started my Sunday with lots of calories!

My officemate celebrated her birthday recently, and she delivered some food to the house. I cannot claim that I cooked the next three meals because I did not. Hahaha. 

The first one was lasagna. I reheated it, toasted some bread (I know they are very white, but they are toasted enough for me!), and sliced from papaya for breakfast. 

The second one is roast beef. I also heated it and steamed some okra drizzled them with shrimp paste. I had a whole mango that I bought during the week from an ambulant vendor near our office. Let me say that this was the heaviest meal featured here.

The third and last one was smoked pork belly (there were two of them, but only one made it to the plate at the time of photo taking). Of course, with sliced tomato. Hehe. 

Just this Sunday, I prepared arroz caldo with chicken balls (I had no chicken breasts!), sliced a boiled egg and placed it as gently as I could in the middle of the caldo, and topped it with roasted garlic.