Ingredients

O, haha… in case you think I have lost my mind… it’s not so bad really. I just couldn’t resist to name this post after the official Thai title. Probably not so weird sounding if your Thai (I hope not at least) but if you’re anything like me you have no clue what this recipe is gonna be all about. Well, let me kill the suspense; it’s noodles with pork in soysauce. Suddenly it’s lost half of it’s exoticness…

I also have to warn you a little bit that if you are NOT a cat lover (or animal lover in general) you might find the photos here slightly appaling, but let me assure you that none of the food you see here has been consumed by anyone other then an animal. It wasn’t intended to be that way, but after Gizmo had her fair share of the food I sort of couldn’t have anyone else eat it anymore. It was my “test” food anyway so no harm done here.

And I know, I know, it’s not sanitary or wise but well, you know how it goes with old animals. You get a soft spot. Gizmo – as I am sure I have told you before – is suffering from a disorder of the thyroid gland which means she is not nearly weighing enough for her size. She’s barely reaching 2,8 kg and more skin and bones then fat. So any chance we get, she gets extra. Which means – ofcourse – that she is spoiled rotten. Don’t worry; I don’t normally let her get her paws in my food, but I just couldn’t resist the photo opportunity so I let her enjoy herself for just a little bit. And she loved the dish!

I have bought this great book last week which is called Bangkok street food and is sort of half of a travelbook and half of a recipebook. I totally fell in love with Thai kitchen when I was there years ago. At the time I was under the happy circumstances that I got to spend some more time in Thailand for work, so I have been to Bangkok a couple of times and I still love it. I mean; seriously, what is not to love about the Thai kitchen in the first place and then – on top of that – the foodstalls are just AMAZING. It’s the only country in the world where I feel safe to eat at a foodstall to begin with. I would not attempt to do that so easily when for instance in India. It’s just that our western stomachs are so terribly spoiled that we get sick easily. And I appear to have a rather strong stomach but still…

Obviously when eating from any foodstall anywhere; you have to use some common sense, so look around you before ordering anything. If they prepare the food in front of you and it looks relatively clean then you should be ok to eat it. But if it is already cooked and sitting in bowls, then walk along!

I did have some of the best Asian food while in Thailand and Bangkok in particular. It did help that we went along with our Asian colleagues who obviously knew where to go, but even if you don’t have that advantage you’d still find plenty of fabulous food.

But now on to this dish; it’s lighting fast and really the longest you will have to wait for is the cooking of the noodles. Which takes about 8 minutes to warm in hot water (so no cooking needed really)

Here is the full recipe (minus the cat) for those would want to give it a try!

Ingredients:

2 tbsp oil

2 cloves of garlic, mashed

200 gr porkmeat, in strips

1 handfull of ricenoodles, soaked and drained

1 qty chinese broccoli (I used bimi)

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 tsp dark soysauce

2 tbsp light soysauce

1 tsp oystersauce

1 tsp sugar

4 tbsp chickenstock or water

1/4 tsp white pepper

Heat the oil in a stirfry pan on medium high. Add the garlic and the pork and stirfry until the pork is getting some color. Add the soaked and drained noodles and the broccoli to it. Stir the egg through and mix well. Add the soysauce, oystersauce, sugar and white pepper and stirfry for another 30 seconds. Add some water or stock to make the sauce and add pepper to taste.

I can't reach the meat!!

Noodles

Did I tell you that I love Jamie? I did, didn’t I? O no… I can almost hear you thinking; not another rant about Jamie Oliver and how wonderful he is… lol… Well, I will not be doing that, but I will tell you that I think his Iphone app is just fabulous. I got the 20 minute meals for my Iphone and it is incredibly handy! And – most importantly – the recipes that are there to be found are great too. Or at least the ones I have tried so far (four down, many more to go) were incredibly tasty in that good old fashioned Jamie way..

Ok, I will stop now to not piss of any Jamie-hater out there. (and yes, I know you are there!) But you cannot deny the fact that the guy can cook. And I mean seriously cook. Good old fashioned home cooking! And this wonderful recipe is another great example of his art.

Dan Dan Noodles

It might not be the most photogenic dish out there, but it sure was tasty.

You see one of the downsides of owning your own business is that time tends to get away from you real fast (which I am sure everyone has actually) and before you know it you spend more and more time behind the computer and less time cooking lovely dinners. In order to still keep us reasonably well fed and to prevent us from running to the snackbar, macdonalds or local pizzeria all the time I try out really quick recipes and with really quick I mean anything below 30 minutes (not counting the shopping ofcourse) and I won’t complain if it takes – o, let’s say 15 minutes. Quick and tasty are the keywords here and bonus points if it is healthy too.

So this noodle recipe (and don’t ask me why it is called dan-dan noodles; I am just stating the name as given by Jamie… But I will share the recipe with you

Dan Dan Noodles (serves 2)

200 gr beef mince

2 tsp szechuan peppercorns

1 cube chicken stock

3 medium dried red chilies

2 garlic cloves

1 small bunch spring onions

1 lime

150 gr dried egg noodles (I used Udon noodles, as I love Udon noodles)

2 tsp runny honey

2 medium bok choi (couldn’t find bok choi, so I used paksoi…)

2 tbsp dark soy sauce

75 ml vegetable oil

Fill your saucepan with water and bring it to a boil, crumble in the stock cube and once boiling turn the heat down slightly and keep at a simmer.

Place a wok on a medium heat and crumble in the dried chilies. Toast for a minute or so. Add the vegetable oil, then pour all of the chillies an most of the oil into a bowl and put to one side.

Turn the heat up to high and add the beef. Stir-fry for 10 minutes or until crispy. Meanwhile peel and slice the garlic, Trim and chop the spring onion and grind the Szechuan peppercorns in a pestle and mortar. Cut the lime into wedges for later.

Tip the noodles into the boiling stock and separate them with tongs to ensure they don’t stick together. Cook according to packet instructions.

When the beef is done, spoon any fat out of the pan. Add the honey and stirfry for another minute until all the mince is coated and sticky. Pop the wok in the oven to keep warm.

Cut your bokchoi into quarters lenghtways and drop them in with the noodles for the last minute of cooking.

When your noodles and bokchoi are cooked, scoop out a cupful of the water to keep, then drain in the colander. Tip your noodles, bok choi and the cup of water back into the hot pan. Add your raw garlic, soy sauce, ground szechuan peppercorns and as much chili oil as you dare and give everything a good mix together. Cover with a lid.

Get your warmed bowls out of the oven and divide the noodles between them. Get your wok of crispy beef out of the oven and spoon the beef over the top of your noodles. Drizzle with a little extra chili oil then scatter each portion with chopped spring onions. Serve with lime wedges for squeezing over…. Mmmmmm…

Indian cucumbersoup with mint

Let me just start by saying that this is maybe not the most logical dish while in winter. It’s lovely and refreshing, but also… it is supposed to be eaten cold, so if you’re in a summery country right now, this might just be the soup for you. Or if you’re like me – trying to loose weight – it might also be a great lunch dish. I have to confess that I actually did not eat it that cold; you’re suppose to have it chilled for a while before eating it, but since the temperatures outside are still sort of below zero, I figured it would be ok to eat it lukewarm. (saved me the trouble of having to wait until it was cool enough as well. Impatient!!) I am also not sure how authentic Indian this would be, but I guess they call it Indian because it does have some Indian ingredients in there (cumin, cilantro, yogurt; which technically are not Indian ingredients but are just featured in Indian food a lot, right?) It’s a bit of a weird day today as Tom is working from home as well. That then tends to feel like we have a day off! We slept in a little (what better way to start the day then to snuggle up under the warm covers when it’s freezing outside??), then had breakfast in bed and then I figured I should get to work or we would lie in bed all day. I had to finish a weddingbook since the couple is coming tomorrow, plus I have to make a quote for a BIG assignment for foodphotography! Fingers crossed people!!

So on to this soup; it’s quick, it’s easy and very tasty. You could very easily make this less vegetarian by adding maybe little bit of smoked bacon or smoked chicken (after the pureeing part though). I didn’t follow the recipe in terms of qty’s or measurements; just threw in what I thought would be good so just follow your own judgement when adding the spices.

Ingredients:

Cucumber, washed and seeds removed. I used about half a cucumber which would do for two people. Slice the cucumber in cubes

1 onion, finely chopped

ground coriander

ground ginger

ground cumin

ground piment

vegetable stock or use a stockcube and about half a liter of water

Yogurt

mint

You can also add fresh cilantro to it, if you’d like. The stock and the spices give it enough flavor on it’s own but feel free to add more pepper or salt if you want to.

In a medium saucepan heat the oil and fry the onions on medium fire for about 1 minute. Add the cucumberslices or cubes, add coriander, ginger, cumin and piment to your taste. Add 1/2 liter of stock or 1/2 liter of water and a stockcube and boil for about 8-10 minutes until the cucumber is soft.

Puree the soup in a blender or foodprocessor, add salt if you want and leave to cool. Once cooled of spoon the yogurt through the soup. I just added enough yogurt until it was to my liking, so just taste as you go along.

Serve with fresh mint.

PS…. I have lost already more then 5 kilo since beginning of the year!! Whoohoo!!

Szechuan stir fry

I was all excited when I heard from the lovely Ivonne from the Daring Kitchen that I would get to review a cookbook for the Daring Kitchen. The book she picked for me is called “Perfect for two; perfect meals for pairs” and it couldn’t have been more appropriate as Tom and I are with just the two of us and it is hard to find cookbooks that cater for two people only. Most recipes are really meant for families of four at minimum. Ofcourse that is usually not an issue as I can actually divide numbers into two… (Yes, I did go to school once, long long time ago!!)

But it’s nice to have a little cookbook that is actually meant for pairs. No dividing necessary; the recipes are perfect as it is! The book itself is full of wonderful meals and split into useful chapters with names such as “Romantic meals”, “One-Pot Dinners”, “Duo Desserts” and Simple, Fast, Easy Suppers”.

After all the highlights of our christmas time I was really not in the mood for Romantic meals at this time, but there are several gorgeous recipes there waiting for me to explore them so I will in the near future go back to those and let you know how I liked them! In the meantime I was most attracted to the fast and easy suppers and the one pot dinners. There is something wonderful about one pot dinners… Saves washing up and they tend to be convenient and perfect for weekday meals. I chose Szechuan-Style Stir Fried Steak with peppers, Onions and snow peas over noodles. If there is any ‘complaint’ about this book it is about the rather longish titles of the recipes.. I mean…. hello… do you really need to add every ingredient into the title??

Technically this was also not a one pot dinner. Since you will have to cook the noodles at some point, you really do need two pots, but ok, I will forgive Mrs. Strand that little inconsistency. The recipe was easy to follow, quick to make and – most importantly – scored very high on the taste factor. Both for me and for Tom (who can sometimes be a little more picky then me..) Since it is the beginning of the Newyear, I had to have at least one new year resolution and well, it had to be loosing weight. Not my most popular but I see a challenge in eating fabulous food and still being sensible in making my choices. You will never see me snacking on horrible shakes or counting endless calories (well, a little bit maybe) as I would not last without proper food for a very long time. But let’s just say that it is necessary to lose a considerable amount of kilo’s and this dish is relatively lean and at least feels very healthy. It’s also easy to adapt to incorporate leftover veggies or use less oil or basically change it to you liking.

While the book is meant for pairs doubling the recipe is as easy as dividing it in other cookbooks, so don’t let that stop you! Apart from great recipes the book also has some good tips for sharing the kitchen with your loved one(s), although maybe not all tips are very useful, they are entertaining at least… Tom and I cook together quite a lot, so we didn’t really need additional tips on that part, but it might be useful for people who are newly venturing into the kitchen together. To give you a taste of the book I will give the recipe that I made tonight here!

Szechuan-Style Stir-Fried Steak with Peppers, Onions and Snow-peas over Noodles

2 tbsp of canola oil

1 pound boneless sirloin steak, cut into 3 by 1/4 by 1/4 inch strips

2 tbsp of soy sauce

1/2 tsp of hoisin sauce

1/2 tsp of cornstarch

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes (I couldn’t find those so used some extra cayenne pepper instead)

6 ounces of dried udon noodles

2 tsp sesame oil

2 large cloves of garlic, sliced

1 large yellow onion, sliced into thin rings, then halved

1/2 red bell pepper plus 1/2 yellow bell pepper, seeded and cut vertically into 1/4 inch slices

1 cup snow peas, stemmed

2 tsp minced fresh cilantro

Heat 1 tbsp of the canola oil in a large saute pan over medium-high heat until sizzling. Add the steak and stir-fry until browned but still pink inside, about 4 minutes. With a slotted spoon, transfer the steak strips to a plate.

In a small bowl, combine the soy sauce, hoisin sauce, cornstarch (I used cornflour for lack of starch), 5 tbsp of water and the red pepper flakes (as mentioned I used cayenne pepper). Stir until the sauce is smooth.

Fill a medium stockpot with water. When the water boils, cook the noodles according to package instructions. Drain and toss with 1 tsp of sesame oil.

In the same saute pan you used to cook the beef, heat the remaining tbsp of canola oil and tsp of sesame oil for 1 minute over medium heat. Add the garlic and saute for 1 to 2 minutes or until soft, then add the onions, red peppers, yellow peppers, snow peas and 2 tbsp of water. Cook for 3 minutes, or until the vegetables are beginning to soften but are still crisp. Add the steak back in and toss for about 3 to 4 minutes, then add the sauce and toss until everything is completely coated with the sauce.

Divide the udon noodles between two bowls or large plates. Cover the noodles with the stir-fried veggies and meat and drizzle any remaining sauce over the top, garnish with cilantro and serve.

See the recipe with those scallops on the cover of the book? I will be making that next!!

O and before I forget; the winner of the giveaway for the book Dutch Delight is Peter from Kalofagas as picked by Tom at random!! Congratulations Peter and I will email you for address details so I can send the book!

I was pleasantly surprised and a little fearful when I learned that Jaden of Steamy Kitchen would be the host for this months Daring Cooks assignment. I have been reading Jaden’s blog for quite some time now and totally love it!! She is funny, writes great stories, makes beautiful photographs and well, the recipes are the ones you should try for yourself!!

The October 2009 Daring Cooks’ challenge was brought to us by Jaden of the blog Steamy Kitchen. The recipes are from her new cookbook, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook.

The fearful therefore was because I feared she would give us a recipe that would be incredibly difficult to make, but I was then – again – pleasantly surprised when I found out that the challenge would be to make Chicken Pho, a classical Vietnamese noodlesoup. I love Vietnamese food in general and I think noodle soups are one of the best inventions around! We went to Vietnam in 2007 and were blown away by the country, the people and the food. There is something about Vietnamese food that makes it so delicious. I’ve never been able to truly recreate the exact taste of the food you can get there, so now having the chance to actually use the correct spices and such, was fantastic.

I made the broth using cubes as I didn’t have time to make ‘real’ chicken broth, but I will for sure have a go at Jaden’s longer version when I am a little less stressed for time. But even with this broth the taste was absolutely amazing! We both totally loved it. The recipe was quite easy to follow and really doesn’t take a lot of time. Sure you have to wait untill the broth is done cooking and all the flavors have gone into the chicken and into the broth, but you can do other things in that time.

This is definitely, definitely a recipe that we will be making again and again. Tom especially liked the fact that he could basically add the things he wanted at the table and having all those little bowls filled with fresh greens on the table made it look very… well, very asian I guess…

Servings: Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

For the Chicken Pho Broth:
2 tbsp. whole coriander seeds
4 whole cloves
2 whole star anise
2 quarts (2 liters/8 cups/64 fluid ounces) store-bought or homemade chicken stock
1 whole chicken breast (bone in or boneless)
½ onion
1 3-inch (7.5 cm) chunk of ginger, sliced and smashed with side of knife
1 to 2 tbsps. sugar
1 to 2 tbsps. fish sauce

1 lb. (500 grams/16 ounces) dried rice noodles (about ¼ inch/6 mm wide)

Accompaniments:

2 cups (200 grams/7 ounces) bean sprouts, washed and tails pinched off
Fresh cilantro (coriander) tops (leaves and tender stems)
½ cup (50 grams/approx. 2 ounces) shaved red onions
½ lime, cut into 4 wedges
Sriracha chili sauce
Hoisin sauce
Sliced fresh chili peppers of your choice

Directions:

1. To make the Chicken Pho Broth: heat a frying pan over medium heat. Add the coriander seeds, cloves and star anise and toast until fragrant, about 3-4 minutes. Immediately spoon out the spices to avoid burning.
2. In a large pot, add all the ingredients (including the toasted spices) and bring to a boil.
3. Reduce the heat to medium-low and let simmer for 20 minutes, skimming the surface frequently.
4. Use tongs to remove the chicken breasts and shred the meat with your fingers, discarding the bone if you have used bone-in breasts.
5. Taste the broth and add more fish sauce or sugar, if needed. Strain the broth and discard the solids.
6. Prepare the noodles as per directions on the package.
7. Ladle the broth into bowls. Then divide the shredded chicken breast and the soft noodles evenly into each bowl.
8. Have the accompaniments spread out on the table. Each person can customize their own bowl with these ingredients.

Now on to the wonton wrappers…

I had only ever made dumplings once for a Daring Cooks challenge, way back in June but that involved making our own wrappers, so I was happy that for the dessert wrappers we could use storebought wonton wrappers.

So I went to the local toko to see if they had wonton wrappers and upon my question the girl behind the counter says ; no, we don’t sell those… I ask her if she knows where I would be able to find them and she tells me she doesn’t know… to then proceed to tell me that she does have wonton ‘sheets’… which are – in fact – the wrappers I was looking for… Now where did that go wrong in the translation… ?

It was funnier when it happened, haha…

Making these was really easy. I opted to go for a sort of little pouch rather then the shape that Jaden had made. The reason for that being that I wasn’t so good in getting rid of the air inside the wonton’s with fabulous effects once you put them in the oil. They puffed up to enormous heights! So far that I was afraid they would pop open! I liked the shape of these little ones much better and they tasted fabulous too.

The only thing I found was that you have to eat them straight away. An hour after baking they become a bit too chewy, while fresh they are wonderfully crunchy. I could have been a little bit more creative with the filling, but due to time constraints wanted to stick to the chocolate suggestion from Jaden.

This is so easy to make however that I am sure I will be making those again in the future!

All in all a very successful Daring Cooks, with two fabulous recipes that are both going to be repeated and repeated and repeated!

Chicken, lemon and ginger stirfry

After a long and lazy morning I had to go to the studio as I was having a workshop to give. I don’t do a lot of workshop but every once in a while I have a workshop on how to take photos of cakes. I know it sounds a bit weird, doesn’t it? But it’s one of those things that just came into being by a spontaneous action and have let a life of it’s own from there on. Obviously the main customers are people that love to bake cake and I am talking serious cakes here; weddingscakes, but also beautifully decorated cupcakes or whatever cake you can think of. For some it’s a hobby for others it’s a profession. But what they all want is to take better photos. Keep in mind that most people are having point and shoot camera’s and other then the button where to turn it on, they really have no clue on how the thing works.

For me that is the fun part and also sometimes the frustrating part. There is a lot of terms in photography such as shutterspeed, iso or aperture that have become almost second nature to me. But I am now talking to people who look at me as if I’m speaking Russian all of a sudden.. I usually do a very short bit of theory (you have to know where to find the buttons after all) and then we start by actually doing it. Which is usually the part where something clicks and they start to understand what I am talking about. And honestly I keep it simple; daylight only and some basic reflectionmaterial and the use of exposure compensation. Works miracles everytime!

Anyways…when I got home I felt like making something fairly simple and quick, so I picked another recipe from Donna Hay Magazine; the chicken with ginger and lemon. Ofcourse I forgot to get myself some veggies and stores were closed by the time I figured out I was veggie-less, so hence no vegetables here… I think this is definitely a dish with potential but the basic version was to salty for my taste. Although part of that could be due to the fact that I had to recalcute the qtys from four to one and I have been known to not really follow the recipe guidelines here, so maybe it was me. But the oystersauce that was in it, is quite salty, add chickenstock to that and well… overall too much salt. But as I said definitely a great base recipe which will be good with lots of other things.

Catch of the day

Now I thought it would be fun to share the photo that I received last night of one of the fishes that the guys have caught in Norway. I did tell you that the previous two fishing trips (in France) they didn’t catch a thing right? Well, it seems that this trip is certainly making up for that, because last night alone they caught 21 fishes!!! Wow…. This poor thing is one of them… Not sure what it is, except big..

It sounds like they’re having a great time and that good. I hate it when they come home unhappy… What’s the fun in that right?

So here is over to the recipe for the chicken:

1 tablespoon of vegetable oil

2 skinless chicken filets, trimmed and thinly sliced

1 lemon, sliced

4 cm ginger, grated or minced

2 gloves or garlic, minced

1/4 cup (60 ml) oyster sauce

1/4 cup (60 ml) chicken broth

1/2 cup of Thai basil leaves

Heat a wok or large non-stick frying pan over high heat until hot. Add the oil and heat until just smoking. Add the garlic and ginger and cook, stirring for 30 seconds. Add the chicken and lemon slices and cook, stirring for 1-2 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. Add the oystersauce and chicken stock and cook for 1-2 minutes or until the sauce has thickened slightly.

Remove from the heat and add basil to serve. Serves 4.

Happy Easter!!!

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!

Where did they hide the eggs this year??

Now it doesn’t happen all too often that we have absolutely nothing planned for an entire two days, but these two Easter days are a lucky exception to that rule… So we started our day of with sleeping in late and then Tom made a lovely easter breakfast in bed for me. The weather was not especially nice, not after yesterday where we actually sat on a terrace outside for the first time this year! It was ok though but we decided to stay the day indoors and just relax a bit and catch up on emails, read blogs and stuff like that (well, that is what I did. Tom played some kind of game on the computer…. )

For dinner we had an easy one from Donna Hay’s chicken book; Chilli cashew chicken noodles. It was simple and nice enough for a quick meal!

Chilli cashew chicken noodles

I just took a quick snap handheld so nothing fancy, but it shows the content of the dish! The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:

2 tbsp peanut oil

2 onions, sliced into wedges

4 large red chillies, seeded and chopped

1/4 cup (55 gr) of sugar

1 red capsicum (bell pepper) sliced

3/4 cup roasted unsalted cashew nuts

2 tbsp fish sauce

2 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp lemon juice

200 gr dried thick rice noodles, cooked and drained (I used Udon noodles)

1/4 cup of cilantro (coriander) leaves (which I forgot to get as you can tell from the photo)

Heat a wok or deep non-stick frying pan over high heat. Add the oil, onions, chillies and sugar and cook for 2 minutes. Remove from the pan and set aside. Add the chicken and cook, stirring, for 4 minutes or until the chicken is golden. Add the capsicum, cashews, fish sauce, soy, lemon juice, onion mixture and noodles. Cook, stirring, for 4 minutes or until heated through. Sprinkle with coriander. Serves 4.

And while I was trying to be quick about taking the photo; Gizmo kept getting in the way. She jumped on the table everytime I was about to snap a pic as you can tell from these two photos!

Gizmo getting in the way!

Lemon and chilli chicken noodles

I wasn’t planning on shooting our evening meal but due to a slight form of miscommunication it turned out I had to eat alone as Tom was going to his grandma first. She had a bit of a nasty accident involving grandpa and a car… I won’t go into the details but it’s not pretty (not in a lifethreatening way though!) and hopefully she recovers soon!!

I was leaving through some issues of “Olive” this morning looking for inspiration on what to eat for the evening that would be quick and healthy and preferably light. Now during most weekdays I find a meal has to be quick. I just doesn’t make sense if something takes 2 hours to cook as I never know exactly when Tom will be home and I hate for the food to go to waste, plus that after a long day of work, I like the cooking to be done quick. Ever since I am now my own boss I also cook a lot of stuff during lunch, so in terms of cooking hours… enough is enough. Haha…

See the steam rising from the bowl

I just love noodles and asian food in general (just bought the new book from Ching-He Huang, called “Chinese Food made easy” which I believe is a series on the BBC. Can’t wait to make something out of it!!

What I cannot stand by the way is that there is apparently a foodchannel on tv, but we cannot get it. We do have digital tv with all sorts of completely useless tv-shows (such as fashiontv, with endless parades of fashionshows, reality tv (don’t we have enough of those on regular tv), 25 different sports channels (???!!!WHY??) so why can we not have foodchannel on there?? Isn’t food the thing that the entire human population keeps going? So it should be there in my humble opinion.  Where was I?

O yes, quick and easy; I found this chicken noodle recipe with lemon. Now Tom is not so fond of lemon but I am so sometimes he just has to suffer… You know how Jamie Oliver just throws a lemon in almost anything he does? We watch cooking shows together as we both like to cook and then every time Jamie gets a lemon, we joke about it… Which is very funny, but not if you write it down.. O haha… sorry, that is just a lame story!!

Back to the noodles; I figured I would take a photo of it since no one was waiting for it, but me. What I love is that the light is already so much better now! I took these shots at 6.14 PM and it was still light! In fact it is still light now and it is already 7. Light is fading fast now though, but it was a lovely sunny day and I even did some gardening work in the afternoon already!

I keep getting sidetracked from my noodle dish though… I changed a few minor details in the recipe to suit whatever I could buuy. The recipe called for mange tout, but I had never heard of it and looking it up on the internet it turns out to be some kind of bean, but obviously not one that you can find here, so I used sugarsnaps instead. It’s a lovely and very tasty dish and absolutely done within 20 minutes, so if you’re in a hurry you could still make this dish!

Yammie noodles

STICKY LEMON AND CHILLI CHICKEN NOODLES (Adapted from Olive, march 2009)

(serves 2* 20 minutes)

Udon noodles 100 gr (if you’re really hungry take a little more as it is not so much)

skinless chicken breast 2, cut into strips

Cornflour, 1 tsp

oil

spring onions, 4, shredded

sugar snaps, 50 g, shredded

red pepper 1, sliced

soy sauce, 2 tbsp

lemon, 1, juiced

honey, 1 tbsp

chilli sauce, 2 tbsp

* Cook the noodles following the pack instructions. Toss the chicken with the cornflour and some seasoning. Heat 1 tbsp oil in a non-stick wok or large frying pan and stir-fry the chicken until golden. Scoop the chicken out, the add the veg to the pan, keeping back some spring onion, and toss for a couple of minutes.

* Add back the chicken and the lemon, honey, soy sauce and chilli sauce, plus a splash of water, and bubble for a few minutes until you have a sauce. Toss with the noodles and sprinkle over the remaining spring onion to serve