Western Style Breakfast

Western Breakfast

This morning I pan fried some sausages, a few eggs, potato hash-brown, and toasted bread for breakfast. I had bought a bag of Italian sausages from Save-On-Foods last night and had already planned to cooked them for breakfast. We have been enjoying simple home cooked breakfast for quite a while now, so a change in menu would be good reward for the kids. Every morning, we would rush through the early hours and have everybody's breakfast ready in less than twenty minutes.

Hash brown, Sausages, and Eggs

So, usually if we do not wake up early enough, the breakfast would be cereal and milk. Between my wife and I, we would usually prepare two meals within that small window of time. Breakfast to be consume at home before we go out and lunch to be packed for later. We are firm believers of healthy home cooked meals. Besides that, it is a good way to inculcate healthy eating habits in our kids and a encouragement to them to save money by not spending on meals outside.

Full Breakfast

Just like the breakfast I prepared today was quite heavy, so we would probably skip lunch and just eat more fresh fruits during lunch time. Anyway, since we had no plans to go out and we were staying home to catch up on some work for the day, it did not matter at all. I initially wanted to add a canned of bake beans or chillies but felt that the sausages, and the hash browns were going to be heavy enough, so I skipped the beans. The Italian sausages, as expected was good. There are a few more sausages that I have kept in the freezer. May be for the kids to take to school for lunch on one of the days.

Simple Indonesian Style Instant Mee Goreng

IndoMee Mee Goreng

We had instant noodle for breakfast today. We woke up slightly later than normal and cooked a few packs of the Indonesian IndoMee for breakfast. By the way, IndoMee is widely distributed in Vancouver among the Asian grocery stores. Instant noodles are common in most homes, especially among ethnic Asians and they are so convenient. It was the Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese and Koreans that made the instant noodle popular. There are so many varieties of instant noodles in Vancouver.

Favorite Instant Noodle

But the best ones are still the ones that reminds us of the familiar taste of our former homes. Among the Malaysians, we still prefer the Malaysian instant noodles like those that has the Malaysian curry and laksa flavours. I have also bought some mee goreng flavours and have them stocked in the food cabinet. Other than that of the IndoMee brand the other mee goreng which we like a lot is the Ibumie brand. Than, there is this craze for the Sarawak Laksa instant noodle among some Malaysians.

Familiar Taste of Home

The other notable Malaysian brands available in Vancouver are the ever popular Maggie instant noodles with its multiple assortment of flavours. But there are also Maggie instant noodles from Philipines and India which has flavours different from the ones we are so familiar with. Then, of late there are so many Malaysian instant noodles flooding the shelves of the grocery stores. I guess, the demand must be good. Either Malaysians are instant noodle junkies or all the instant noodle junkies loves the Malaysian instant noodle

flavours.

Fried Wonton and Herbal Soup for Dinner

Herbal Chicken Soup

Got home a little later than usual yesterday because of the heavier traffic congestion on the highway. I guess it must be the long weekend ahead that is causing everyone to go home at about the same time. In fact, I am also looking to the long weekend too. Before leaving the home for work, I had already started cooking the herbal chicken. I put the whole chicken into the slow cooker with a pouch of pre-packed herbal ingredients into the slow cooker. Added about two litres of water and turned the knob to slow cook.

Stir Fried Chinese Spinach

When I got home from work, I immediately added half cup of red jujubes into the soup. My grandmother and my mum used to tell me that the jujubes were good remedies for the eyes. I do not know how far it was true but jujubes are used in Chinese cooking a lot because it provides a very unique taste and flavour. I also braised a bunch of Chinese spinach and stir fried them with oyster flavoured sauce and some shrimps. This is a simple vegetable recipe which I think every home cook that cooks with Chinese cuisines know.

Fried Wonton Dumplings

After that I wrapped some wonton dumplings with fish paste and shrimps. For flavour, I added a spoon of oyster flavoured sauce, a few drops of sesame seed oil, and half spoon of chicken essence into the fish paste and shrimp mix. Once I had enough wrapped wonton, I fried them in hot cooking oil. It took me less than an hour to get dinner ready and another few minutes to wash the woks, the pots, and other utensils. I like to make sure all the cooking utensils were kept neatly away before starting dinner.

Special Fried Squid Tentacles

Fried Squid Tentacles

This is one of the most difficult and messy cuisines to cook. Not that the recipe or the cooking methods are difficult but the process of cooking this fried squid tentacles really messes up the kitchen. Frying squid in hot cooking oil tends to pop and splashes cooking oil everywhere. The cleaning up takes more time than the eating. There are a lot of moisture in the squid, so when frying this liquid escape into the hot oil that causes the splashing.

Fried Squid

No matter how we control the stove heat or fire, the splashing of hot cooking oil will happen. We will drip the squid as dry as possible and then coat with a mixture of corn starch, bread crumbs, pepper and salt. If we want to reduce the splashing, use a small pot instead of a wok. But this tends to slow down the cooking process and usually takes twice as long to fry the same amount of squid. That is the reason why we only fry squid once in a very long time.

Wonton Soup

The next cuisine for dinner was something simpler since we had spend the extra time cleaning the kitchen. We decided to cook a pot of wonton soup. We wrapped the wonton with a mixture of fish paste, minced pork, and marinated with a few drops of sesame seed oil and oyster flavoured sauce. That took a quick ten minutes to cook while the earlier fried squid tentacles took us about an hour to cook and another thirty minutes to clean the kitchen. The soup I boiled pork ribs for base and added some black pepper. Then, garnish with chopped spring onions.

Korean Noodle in Plain Chicken Broth

Noodle Soup

My wife decided to cook noodle soup for dinner after her grocery shopping. She had gone to Foody World Supermarket in Richmond earlier in the day and bought some Korean noodles which was one of the items on special offers in the supermarket. We shop at Foody World Supermarket regularly since they opened for business a few months ago. Generally, their prices on the average are slightly lower than most other competitor supermarkets.

Korean Noodles in Chicken Broth

But once in a while some of the individual items that are carried in Foody World Supermarket may be cheaper else where too. So, we actually checked the prices first before deciding to purchase. Normally, there are only a few places where we shop for basic stuff like T&T Supermarket, Carley Meats in Chinatown, and Kings Market in Burnaby. Then, depending on the weekly offers, we may drop in at Save-On-Foods, Walmart or Safeway. When we buy in bulk, we shop at Costco Wholesale.

Home Cooked Noodle Soup

Anyway, back to the Korean noodle in chicken broth. The noodles where first blenched in hot boiling water and then placed in the serving bowls. The ingredients like fish cake, shrimps, imitation crab meat, and meat balls were also blenched after the noodles were done. The broth were prepared using pork ribs and chicken stocks. Other than chicken stocks, wonton soup powder can also be used. I usually boil enough broth for five bowls of soup and throw in some vegetables into the boiling broth. Once the broth is done, serve the noodles and the ingredients with the broth in the bowls.

HONS in New Westminster for Dinner

Fried Beef Strips with Sweet Soy Sauce

We dined out at HONS Wuntun House in New Westminster yesterday. Both my wife and I was busy at work and only got home at about seven in the evening. So, we decided to go out for dinner instead of cooking. This Cantonese restaurant is always reliable as they are opened for business seven days a week and hardly closes. It has been quite a while now since the last time we dined here about three months ago. Think about it, I kinda missed the great Cantonese cuisines here.

Tofu in Clay Pot

Well, we arrived here at about eight in the evening and the diner was still full house but we did not wait long to be shown to a table. This restaurant is always busy with patrons unlike their neighbours. Every time we dine here, we ask the same question. Why are the restaurants next to HONS always empty? How are they sustaining their business? May be they do well for lunch. But we have been here during lunch time too and they were also empty.

Stir Fried Boneless Chicken and Shrimps with Mixed Vegetables

I think it is all about serving the right cuisines at the right price. HONS always have cheerful waiters and waitresses to greet their customers. The ambiance in the diner is pleasant and bright. Also the waiting time is short, even during peak times. Once the order is in, it takes less than fifteen minutes, longest during peak times, for the first cuisine to be served. And in order to significantly shorten the waiting time, customers are furnished with well written and presentable menus with clear images.

Honey Garlic Pork Spare Ribs

As many times as we have been dining in HONS, it is easy, there is no stress figuring out what we want to order. Their well planned menus even have suggestions for first timers. We always remember what are the cuisines we were going to order when we step into the diner even before we get to the table. So, dinner yesterday was a four course dinner with Stir Fried Beef Strips, Tofu in Clay Pot, Stir Fried Boneless Chicken and Shrimps with Mixed Vegetables, and Honey Garlic Pork Spare Ribs. Like always when we dine here, the kids picked the cuisines.

Barbecue Chicken Satay

Barbecue Chicken Satay

We had chicken satay at home for dinner yesterday. Initially, I just wanted to cook some rice and do yong chow fried rice with homemade sambal belacan but my wife had already marinated some chicken meat with a mixture of paste made up of lemon grass, ginger, turmeric and salt. She had already prepared the marinated chicken meat and allowed them to sit in the fridge from as early as eight in the morning.

Chicken Satay

So, the next thing to do is to skewer all the chicken meat on bamboo sticks. I have one of my kids do that while I started the grill to barbecue the chicken satay. It took about an hour or so to skewer and barbecue the chicken satay but it only took us, the whole family, about thirty minutes to finish eating the chicken satay. We had bought a canned of satay peanut sauce from Chong Lee Market and used that as the chicken satay dip.

Ready to Eat Chicken Satay

As for carbohydrate, we cooked some nasi hempit or cooked compressed rice stuffed in banana leaf wrap. We only ate the chicken satay, the compressed rice and sliced cucumbers for dinner. I myself only ate about five sticks of the chicken satay and a small portion of the compressed rice which was good enough. The kids ate about twice as much as I did. And at the end, because we had barbecue so much chicken satay, the kids decided to take the leftover chicken satay to school for lunch the next day.