I made a great lunch box discovery today when I popped in to the Noodle Canteen franchise in Royal Oak, Auckland for a quick take-out lunch.
Having never been into a Noodle Canteen before, I was immediately impressed by the fresh ingredients laid out in the chiller cabinet for customers to see. Vivid green broccoli, plump prawns, crisp carrots and the many more prepped ingredients presented in a clean and tidy environment all pointed towards a franchise that took care and maintained standards.
Although I was craving noodles, the curry laksa caught my eye and I ordered that from the friendly young woman behind the counter before settling on a stool and chatting to a colleague while watching my lunch being prepared.
Back at the office, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality, freshness and variety of the ingredients in my laksa which included two types of noodle, at least three types of seafood and various julienned veggies.
The soup base was a rich orange liquor with a well-balanced flavour and warmth and the size of the portion was big enough to leave me still feeling satisfied and well fed some 5 hours later – no mean feat where my appetite is concerned. Although I have only tried one dish so far, that meal was certainly more than enough to encourage me to return to try others.
I was also amused to note that the Noodle Canteen web site, like Big Boy’s Brunch, is managed on WordPress.
Filed under: Buzz's Recipes
Over the last couple of days, I have been chatting with a great guy called Drew who runs a data recovery and computer forensics business on the East Coast of the US in an area where I used to work. Our chats brought back memories of good times I have spent and great meals I have eaten in that area. I can recall fun nights eating bar snacks in a Fairfax sports bar after long weeks in the office, weekend drives for exquisite seafood at a harbour-side table in Annapolis and meat and potatoes on St Patrick’s Day in an Irish bar in Baltimore.
While I like to eat healthy and try to watch my waistline, I must confess I am a complete sucker for ‘Americana’ food – those heart attack meals and snacks that are tightly woven into a Walter Mosley novel, a Scorsese film or your favourite US comedy show. Meals like a gooey cheese Philly steak sandwich, spicy buffalo wings with a pitcher of beer, crayfish and lobster tails piled high, Caesar salads with crispy croutons and spaghetti & meatballs with a shirt-staining sauce.
All this got me to thinking about a snack that would transport me back to those times without the expense and hassle of the 12 hour flight and the intimate attentions of Homeland Security and here’s one I found in my recipe file.
Crab and Avocado Melts
Healthy this recipe ain’t but a little of what you fancy (or all things in moderation as my Gran used to say) is nice now and again, so I have scaled back on the full-fat original where possible to lower the impact on your insides.
2 cups grated Cheddar cheese, mature for preference
1 can (6 ounces) crab meant, rinsed, drained and flaked
1/3 cup finely chopped green bell pepper
6 slices streaky bacon, cooked and snapped into chunks
1/4 cup light sour cream
1/4 cup light mayonnaise
Salt and pepper to taste
2 avocados, seeded, peeled and sliced
5 muffins or bagels, split and lightly pre-toasted
Combine 1 cup cheese, crab meat, green pepper, bacon, sour cream, mayonnaise and salt and pepper in a large bowl. Spoon crab mixture onto muffin halves. Top each with avocado slices and remaining cheese.
Grill until the cheese melts and your mouth waters.
New Stove
Originally uploaded by bignoseduglyguy
For a whole host of reasons too boring to mention, it’s been a very long while since I posted here. However, prime amongst those reasons was the fact that our electric cooker had become absolutely horrid to cook on and sucked all the joy out of preparing meals and baking bread. With a thermostat more temperamental than a Hollywood starlet and a ceramic hob that had more cold spots than a polar bear’s bum, it was impossible to bake bread with predictable results. Likewise, saucepans were either stone cold or hotter than a solar flare.
So you can imagine how much pleasure I derived from dragging that old cooker out of the kitchen earlier this week in anticipation of the arrival of our new stove. Our house, like many in New Zealand, is predominantly powered by electricity but, like many rural properties, had an on-demand water heater that ran on bottled LPG, requiring a contractor to swap out the bottles on a regular basis. Our desire to be able to cook on gas meant we were happy to discover that the gas company’s mains supply actually reaches our street, a fact we gleaned when our neighbour got connected. We ordered our own connection (which also requires basic planning permission) and waited a few weeks for the supply to be run from the street to the house. Once it permission was confirmed, we went out and looked for the gas hob/fan assisted convector oven combination we have always wanted – and today it was installed and hooked up!
After the requisite clean-down and test, I decided that the very best way to christen the stove was to whip up a classic omelette with a little grated blue cheese. After three years of cooking on electric (not including fires at camp and camping stoves during power cuts), it was bliss to dash off an omelette in under three minutes and eat it in under half that! As British Gas used to say in their ’70s TV ads, ‘Cookability – that’s the beauty of gas’.
