Linguini with Squid, Crab, Cherry Tomatoes and Breadcrumbs

This is a seafood pasta dish, with crab claw meat, flower cut squid, and yellow cherry tomatoes. The flavoured, toasted breadcrumbs on top add a great texture to the dish.

Carrot & Cucumber Sesame Salad

This is a cold, raw salad of carrot and cucumber, sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds, in a dressing of lemon, honey and sesame oil. Simple to do, very refreshing and perfect with dry, grilled or fried food. It's very healthy too, because it's completely raw and fresh!

My Mom's Hamburger Recipe

There are some dishes from my childhood that I have never forgotten because they evoke such warm memories. They're comfort food, the type you'd like to eat on a rainy day, or when you're tired, or very hungry, or you simply want simple food that satisfies.

One of these dishes is my Mom's hamburger. The patties are crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, flavourful and above all, moist. The ingredients are very simple and the magic ingredient, I believe, is that dollop of mayonnaise. When I was a child, we used to eat this with a sauce of native toyo (soy sauce) and calamansi (a small, native Philippine lime).

Now I serve it to my kids at breakfast, lunch or dinner, sans the toyo and calamansi. My children also take it to school for lunch.

I've dolled up the recipe a bit by making a mushroom cream sauce to drizzle on top or serve on the side. But most of the time, we just eat it "naked," and even without this fancy Western sauce, it tastes soooo GOOD!