Noodle mania...

Ever since we came back from our trip from Malacca, I have not posted the stuff that I had cooked. Of course, it is mainly one dish meals and not a 5 course meal. On Monday I made spaghetti  with tomato base. It was really simple and tasty. I started off with a can of campbell's pasta sauce and I added some chopped chicken breast to it to make it like a Bolognese. Since I am a sucker for vegetables, I added celery,onions, garlic and bell peppers. Usually, I would have added tomatoes but I didn't have any on hand so I omitted it and I also didn't feel like using canned mushrooms since I was just cooking for two. My hubby loved it so much that he ate the remaining sauce on its own... Something he has never done before. :) For me, I piled on the Parmesan cheese... I just love strong flavours!

On Monday night while waiting to be picked up by G, I wandered into NTUC and bought some fish cakes and udon noodles. I have never tried udon before but always been so fascinated by it, so it was a really good opportunity to do so. So on Tuesday I made my own version of udon noodles with fishcake, cabbage, green vegetable, onions, garlic and straw mushroom. For seasoning I added a Knorr cube (I think ikan billis), pepper and soya sauce. It turned out pretty good I must say!

    

Recipe for Spaghetti with chicken tomato sauce

Spaghetti for two.

1 can of Campbell's tomato pasta sauce (I have tried with Prego and other brands..)

1 onion, diced

3-4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 stick of celery, chopped

1/2 a bell pepper, chopped

1 can of mushrooms (optional)

1 tomato, diced (I didn't use it here, though normally I would)

a handful of pitted olives, diced

Salt and pepper to taste

some dried rosemary, oregano and basil, according to ind. preference

Method:

1) Saute onion in olive oil. When it is softening, add the chopped celery, bell pepper and garlic.(You can add tomatoes at this instance too) Cook until the vegetables are soft. I also added some of rosemary, oregano and basil for it to cook with the vegetables.

2) Add diced chicken and olives. Let it cook through until the chicken starts to turn white. Add in the pasta sauce and simmer for about 10 mins. Adjust the seasoning and herbs according to taste.

3) In another big pot, boil enough water to submerge pasta. When the water is boiling, add some salt and oil. Add spaghetti and cook until al-dente. 

4) Serve cooked spaghetti with some pasta sauce and top it with some Parmesan cheese.

Udon With Vegetables

1 packet of Udon noodles (enough for two)

A few cabbage leaves, finely sliced

One packet of enoki mushrooms (chopped into three)

A few leaves of kai lan

One onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, minced

3 chilli padi

Fishcake, sliced

1 cube of Knorr ikan bilis stock

Some pepper 

Soya sauce

Method:

1. Saute onions, garlic and chilli in some oil.

2. Add enough water to make soup for two. Let it come to a boil. Add ikan bilis stock cube and fishcake.

3. Add udon and vegetables at the same time (so that the vegetables don't cook for too long and lose nutrients). 

4. Add seasoning to taste. Top off with some spring onion and serve.