April: Cooking

A lot of noodle meals this month as I try to clear the fridge before leaving town for seven weeks. A package of green vegetable noodles brought a touch of spring to the cold days. Bottom left was particularly spring-like with salmon. Top right was a kitchen sink bun with romaine, peanuts, cherry tomatoes, ham and fish balls. To the side: mussels with yellow peppers and chicken, fish cakes, cashews and cherry tomatoes.

Random miscellany: queso fresco with eggs and sweet potato chips, new to me yogurt brand Koru (liked the passionfruit flavour but not as creamy as my new favourite, Liberte), avocado with hard boiled egg on toast. 

March: Cooking

Looking at this month's photos the common theme I see is the use of ingredients from new suppliers I've found fairly recently with the noodles coming from a Korean grocery store I've seen for years but never visited before and the shrimp and chorizo coming from a new butcher/provision store that opened fairly recently.

My version of japchae with sweet potato noodles, green onions and Gulf shrimp. I've done a few versions of this recently since acquiring a large packet of the noodles. Really love the chewiness of the noodles. I've also found a regular source for Gulf shrimp so they're a weekly occurrence in one form or another. After some trial and error I've also mastered the art of slicing the shrimp sideways so they curl prettily when cooked.




Chorizo and mushroom stuffed green peppers topped with parmesan. I wish the chorizo was hotter but this was a tasty dish nevertheless. My first time cooking with parmesan purchased in a small end hunk.

Chocolate cake topped with yogurt, dried cherries and almonds. The cake is flavoured (not noticeably, unfortunately) with elderflower syrup. I bought a bottle after trying a lovely floral elderflower sparkling drink in New York, and have been trying to find new ways to use it other than adding it to sparkling water which is definitely on for summer.

I used the microwave potato chip recipe floating around the internet for these sweet potato chips. Amazingly they did become crispy and tasted just like potato chips. After all all those thousands of people on the internet could have been lying. No problem slicing the potato thin enough with just a regular knife. I'm torn about this recipe. It takes a really long time to make a tiny quantity (2.5 minutes on high for about 8 chips) but now that chips can be made at home, can I justify buying potato chips any more?

Vancouver Eats

A 10-day trip to the Vancouver International Film Festival allowed me to see some excellent films at an amazing festival, and enjoy some great Chinese food and patisserie, as well as try so many new things.

From left to right, top to bottom: Pistachio kirsch cake from Thomas Haas, self-saucing hotdog model outside my hostel, buffet lunch from Saravanaa Bhavan, hazelnut cake from Boulangerie La Parisienne, honey cake from T&T, cumin beef flatbread from Peaceful (TNT #23), oroshi hotdog from Japadog (TNT #24), cold handpulled noodles from Peaceful, cold spicy pickled cucumber and tofu skin from T&T, amazing croissant and Goyave et Fraises from Ganache Patisserie, pates from Oyama (TNT #25), Burmese tea leaf salad and satay from Bo Laksa King's Bubbles and Bits (TNT #26).

Not pictured are a Clover coffee from Caffe Artigiano (TNT #27) and poutine from Fritz (TNT #28).

March Food Holiday Wrap Up: National Noodle Month

No real challenge here as I eat a lot of noodles anyway. A few new combinations: peanut sauced noodles to clear put the last of the peanut butter, minced lamb and a vinegar-based dressing, noodles topped with Italian diced tomatoes and squid in squid ink (canned from the dollar store).

No food holiday next month, as while my usual diet would make National Soyfoods Month a doodle, I'll be in Turkey until May 1, and Turkish food is not filled with soy.

Weekday Dinner: Noodles with Mince "Meat" and Mushrooms

Wide, chewy noodles topped with a spicy melange of mushrooms and soy crumbles. Very moreish.

Weekday Dinner: Noodles with turkey, mushrooms and tofu

Flat thick white noodles with ground turkey, and diced mushrooms and tofu. Tossed with dark soy, black vinegar and sesame oil. Topped with coriander. Comfort food on an icy cold day.

Leftovers: Water-boiled Beef

Repurposed leftover Sichuan water-boiled beef (shui zhu niu rou)into lunch on New Year's Day as a topping over noodles. The beef came from a local Cantonese restaurant that recently added a few Sichuan dishes to the menu, so wasn't as spicy as I would have liked, and the beef was over-tenderized.

Weekend Cooking: Rice Noodles

Not too attractive but delicious fried rice noodles with pork and soy bean sprouts. The sprouts added just the right amount of crunch. Basic sauce of fish sauce, dark soy sauce and sambal oelek.

Dried rice noodles in soup (yellow curry paste) with soy bean sprouts, surimi, cuttle fish balls and topped with coriander. Spicy and delicious.

Weekend cooking: curry and bun

It's been a while since I've made this chickpea, onion and chicken curry. Tasty and spicy with a methi paratha.

My version of bun with cucumber, tomatoes, green onions, fried shallots and fish balls. Light and cool on a hot humid day.

NSW: Day 4

Breakfast: coffee, toast with cheese and hardboiled egg, apple
Lunch: radish "cake", broccoli, ham omelet
Dinner: bean thread noodle soup with fish balls and cucumber

Snacks: coffee, candy, popcorn, brownie, peanuts

Weekend meals

Fish and chips with my first roast potato wedges. Delicious and healthy.
Soup noodles with brown rice noodles, enoki mushrooms, romaine lettuce and milkfish balls.
Canned hummus makes a good cupboard staple for those times when you need a quick lunch. Too bad this one was a bit dry and tasteless, despite adding pepper and some olive oil as suggested.

Rice noodle soup trio

Top left: rice noodles with kimchee, fishcake, scallops, cuttlefish balls and mushroom.
Bottom left: rice noodles in tom yum soup with tofu, tomatoes and coriander.
Bottom right: rice noodles with spinach and cuttlefish balls.

Weekend Cooking: Dry Noodles

Dried noodles with kailan, mushrooms and pork.

Weekday Dinner: Comfort food

Top: Congee with flounder, spring onions, pepper and fried shallots.
Middle: Bean threads with cucumber, tomatoes and fish cakes.
Bottom: Bean threads in soup with mushrooms, spinach and fish tofu.

Weekend meals

A long weekend so more time to cook than usual.
Clockwise from top left:
Tom yum bulgar with black beans and tomatoes.
Panang curry with hardboiled egg, edamame and spinach. Very spicy!
Fried rice noodles with chives and sausage. So moreish.
Bean threads tossed with soy sauce and sesame oil and cold cucumber and egg tofu.

Lunchboxes

I generally bring lunch to work everyday. These are some recent lunches.
Whole wheat pita with canned salmon and celery, raspberries and vegetarian shrimp (purchased).
Dried noodles with fried tofu and choysum.
A mini-buffet of raspberries, fried tofu (purchased) and beans stirfried with mushrooms.
Multigrain rotini with canned salmon and cool crispy celery, tossed with Thai basil chilli paste makes a cool pasta salad lunch.

Weekend Cooking: Noodle Soup and Salmon and Pancakes

First, a rather bland looking noodle soup with fried tofu, mushrooms and greens. Next up for dinner, reheated pancakes with salmon and beans.

Weekend Cooking: Soup Noodles

Hup Loong curry maifun

This used to be one of the most frequent dishes in my meal rotation when I lived in South Carolina, but the increased availability of prepared foods and fresh noodle options here have made the need to cook the dried beehoon and sauce for this dish less than appealing. Still a great meal though and I'll be cooking it more often now that I've rediscovered it. This iteration contains beehoon, onions, coconut milk, fishballs and tofu, though for some reason mine never comes out as red as the picture on the packet.

Weekend Cooking: Two versions of egg noodles

Tofu puffs (cooked in yellow Maesri curry mix with coconut milk) atop fresh noodles with mini portobello mushrooms. Delicious as the puffs soak up the curry mix completely.

This photo looks a lot better than the one above, but actually tasted a lot worse, due to the pre-cooked Tyson BBQ chicken breasts. The chicken added a ketchupy sweetness to the egg noodles with cilantro that no amount of pepper could conceal. The chicken was pretty mushy too. Too bad I have a lot more chicken to use up.