Cooking for the troops

For the past week, I’d taken to having my lunch at my desk at work. First it was spaghetti and meatballs, homecooked of course, and then the next day it was eggplant from our garden braised in sweet soy and also stirfried with mince, chillies and basil on steamed rice. Was rather inconsiderate of me, I think… the aroma permeated the air and got a few of my colleagues sniffing around. One even asked if I would take orders for Noon to cook some extra to bring in for her :)

I passed on the compliment to Noon, and we both decided that we’d take time out on the weekend to cook something up for my colleagues at work… to make up for the past week. Decided on Hokkien Noodles Noon-style!

First, 6 eggs in the wok scrambled lightly with soy seasoning and ground black pepper. Once cooked, set aside.

That’s Noon hard at work… and Sam and Rosie supervising.

We like putting lots of stuff into our noodles – seafood extender, fish balls, eggs and honey soy marinated chicken thigh pieces (works better than chicken breast because it’s more succulent and lends itself better to stirfrying).

Let’s not forget shiitake mushrooms and garlic. The shot on the right shows the sauces that Noon uses to season the noodles (not including the big tin of olive oil at the back – that’s not used for this particular dish).

So, after the eggs are cooked and removed from the pan, in goes the sliced onions. Season with a little bit of salt and let it sweat for a little bit before adding the finely chopped garlic. Adding the garlic too early will cause it to brown and possibly even burn.

Next, the marinated chicken pieces get added and left to cook through. We did this on high heat to let the meat sear and the sauce caramelise.

When the chicken is just about done, in go the shiitake mushrooms.

Left to cook for a little bit, the whole mixture reaches a darker colour. When this happens, it’s ready for the noodles.

And here are the noodles! In they go, along with all the sauces from before. Mixing it all up was a rather frenzied affair, Noon worked really quickly while I did the mixing for her. If I remember correctly, there was chilli sauce, fish sauce, dried chilli flakes, soy sauce, oyster sauce, sugar and ground black pepper.

The final product! All in all we cooked 3kgs of noodles, filled up an entire lobster pot of it, ready to bring in to work with me tomorrow morning. Noon held back on the chilli sauce and dried chilli flakes for this batch, she and I normally prefer ours a fair bit spicier. And so we cooked a separate batch for ourselves (and Alex – who said he was up to the challenge).

Took us slightly over an hour to prepare and cook the entire batch of noodles, 3kgs worth of the non-spicy variety, and a further 1kg of the hot stuff for ourselves. 4kgs of noodles, with lotsa meat, fish balls, and seafood extender – cooked in 3 woks. Yum! Hope it goes down well tomorrow. If my colleagues at work like it they might even post their comments :)

Sleepyheads

Title says it all.




Let sleeping dogs lie, eh? Nothing wrong with taking pictures of them while they're at it :)

Squirted!!

Sam and Rosie got squirted on their faces!

A few days ago, Noon and I came home early from work to take Sam and Rosie out to the park for a walk. We hadn't done that in a while and felt that we were neglecting their exercise (especially when they've been eating burgers and cake and ice-cream!).

So off we went, Noon had Rosie on leash while I had Sam. We brought along Rosie's favourite squeaky toy as well - one of those balls with a whistle-like hole that squeaks loudly when squeezed. Rosie loves nothing better than playing fetch with it, especially in the park where we can throw it as far as it would go and she'll rush headlong to catch it, squeaking all the way back.

We were in the middle of doing just that when this burly, bare-chested guy came into the park with his rottweiler in tow.

Sam and Rosie caught sight of them, and as always when they see another dog, they bolted and rushed over to have a sniff and hopefully to play.

Guess what happened when they got there? Mr I-am-so-macho-
I-have-my-shirt-off-and-I-have-an-awesome-dog baulked, and his rottweiler cowered. I was already off to get Sam and Rosie back on leash but quite obviously could not match them for speed. Before I managed to get to them, Mr Macho was squirting Sam and Rosie in their faces with his drink bottle in an attempt to get them away from him and his dog. It was a hot day so Sam and Rosie happily lapped up the water, it didn't prove a deterrent to them in any way.

I finally got there and got Sam to sit while I slipped his leash back on, and Noon was doing the same with Rosie. Mr Macho walked past and said snidely, "No need to apologise, just keeping being rude!" Took me by surprise... of course I was going to apologise, especially seeing how Sam and Rosie caused the guy so much distress. But I thought the first priority was to get our dogs away from him. Not like he or his dog were in any danger, Sam's tail was wagging so much it looked like it was about to fall off and Rosie was squeaking her toy the entire time!

Anyway, I did apologise and asked him nicely if he wanted to let his dog off to play with ours, reassuring him that ours were only playful and not aggressive in anyway. His response: "No, my dog doesn't play well with others". Well no wonder, I thought to myself, with an owner as anti-social as that!

I really don't get it. Here's this guy who was obviously trying to act macho, and who was quite burly I thought, walking a rottweiler. And he was afraid of labradors? Even one with a squeaky toy in its mouth? Can you see anything wrong with this??

Noon was quite upset at the whole incident, and I can understand. There was no need for sarcasm from Mr Macho, even if we were wrong to let Sam and Rosie off in a park that wasn’t a designated off-leash area. Funnily enough, we’ve even encountered such anti-social behaviour even at designated off-leash areas! Although to be fair, we’ve met many more dog owners who are happy to let their dogs romp around with ours at such places. People like Mr Macho are in the minority, I’m happy to say.

Anyway, here are some photos of them that we took before we cleaned up their faces…

Rosie with her favourite squeaky toy...


...and Sammy with his face all wet

Doggie burgers

Noon and I had Burger King for lunch the other day. Didn't want Sam and Rosie to miss out so we got them a double Whopper with cheese after we'd finished.

Told the guys behind the counter to hold the onions, of course. Onions are bad for dogs, causes their red blood cells to burst while circulating in the body. Also, chocolate is toxic too, causes the heart to beat irregularly. Death could occur within 24 hours following an overdose of chocolate.

For more information on foods that are toxic to dogs (and pets in general), check out this website.

Anyway, here they are waiting patiently for their burgers (sans onions).

It was their first burger ever, and Sam didn't quite know what to do with it. Waiting for Rosie to go first is always handy, and after he'd seen her scoffing her half he decided to have a go himself.

They both seemed to like it, came around sniffing for more after they'd both finished with their halves. Incidentally, I'd wanted to get them one burger each... but Noon had other ideas. Mommy didn't want her kids getting fat on junk food :)