St. Andrews

A weekend trip to St. Andrews and St. Stephen.

Asian Beef Noodle House

A tofu salad dish, with a large serving of vegetables and fried rice vermicelli.

The chicken pho (noodle soup). It tasted great with hoisin sauce and hot sauce :)

The one and only Vietnamese restaurant in Fredericton. It has been around for more than two years now. They serve a few Thai dishes too. It's a great place (or rather, the only) place to get your Vietnamese/Thai fix, but for the serving size and price that you're paying for, you could get way better deals in bigger cities. Thus, I'm too big of a fan of this restaurant. Please don't get me wrong, they offer good service and complimentary chinese tea, but I'd rather spend my budget on restaurants I haven't been in town.

There's a Vietnamese restaurant in the Chinatown of Montreal that I really enjoyed, and certainly looking forward to my next visit.

Steak Feast I

Hmm...what am I gonna have for today's supper? I found this sirloin tip steak from the meat market for a good deal. Without second thought, I've decided my supper menu--sirloin steak, salad, mashed potatoes, and my favourite Campbell cream of mushroom soup.

It was an absolutely random recipe. A good try!

First of all, let's prepare the steak.

Ingredients:
2 tsp light soya sauce
1 tsp dark soya sauce
2 tsp cooking wine
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/4 tsp salt

Directions:
1. Keep the marinated steak aside for 30 minutes.
2. Preheat the toaster oven to 400F.
3. Cook the steak for about 10 minutes on each side.

It was a well-done steak before I managed to stop it from being cooked further. I was anticipating a medium rare. Oops! Too bad...try again next time ;P

Next, we have mashed potatoes.

Ingredients:
2 medium potatoes
1 small onion
1 tsp light soya sauce
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp white pepper
1 tsp dried basil
Dash of red chili powder
2 tbsp margarine
2 tbsp whipped dressing or mayonnaise

Directions:
1. Prepare a pot of boiling water.
2. Peel and cut the potatoes into small cubes.
3. Dice the onion into small pieces.
4. Cook the potatoes in boiling water on high heat for 15 minutes. Add onion into the boiling water and cook for another 10 minutes on medium heat.
5. Drain water from the pot. Mash the potatoes and onion efficiently with a hamburger press (use a spatula if you don't have one).
6. Add light soya sauce, salt, margarine, and whipped dressing according to taste (adding some milk will give a richer taste too). Mix thoroughly.
7. Add black and white pepper, dried basil and red chili powder.
8. Ready to serve.

Umm...what else are we missing? The gravy! Again, a simply random recipe for gravy.

Ingredients:
1/2 small onion
1 1/2 tbsp corn starch
3/4 cup water
1/2 beaten egg
1 tbsp cooking wine
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 tsp dark soya sauce
1/2 tsp light soya sauce
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp white pepper
1/4 tsp black pepper

Directions:
1. Dice the onion into small pieces. Fry the onion in a sauce pan on medium heat till brown.
2. Dissolve the corn starch in water. Pour in the corn starch mixture. Let it boil on high heat, while stirring it occasionally.
3. Keep it on medium heat once it's boiled. Add the beaten egg, oyster sauce, salt, dark and light soya sauce. Stir well and cook the egg.
4. Add salt, cooking wine, white and black pepper according to taste.
5. Let the gravy simmer on low heat till thicken.
6. Serve it on the steak.

* The above recipes serve as a reference. The amount of ingredients used may not be exactly the same. So how? Try it out according to personal taste!

Last but not least, the creamy mushroom soup! It's quite self-explanatory. Simply refer to the directions on the can. You can either add a can of water or milk (gives creamier texture) to cook with it. Mushroom soup was a nice treat in the family for either supper or just a late night "snack" when I was little. Dad used to prepare it during a few occasions. Once it's cooked, stir in with dash of Maggie seasoning and white pepper. It's the best soup ever that will warm your heart! And not to mention, fog up your glass too with its hot steam! Yumm.... a memorable taste from childhood. *What a little girl I am*

Nasi Paprik

What is nasi paprik (a.k.a. paprik rice)? Also referred to as nasi pad prik, it is a fried rice dish with paprika sauce which is known to be of Thai origin.

Ingredients:
1 sachet Maggie Nasi Paprik
2 cups uncooked rice
1/2 lb ground pork
10 stalks green beans
1 medium carrot
1 beaten egg
1 medium onion
1 tsp light soya sauce
Dashed of white pepper
Sliced cucumbers
Tomato ketchup (according to taste)

Directions:
1. Cook the rice and let cool.
2. Marinate ground pork with dashed of pepper and light soya sauce. Leave it aside.
3. Cut the onion and carrot into small cubes.
4. Saute the onions till brown on medium heat. Add the ground pork and cook.
5. Pour in the cooked rice and mix in Maggie Nasi Paprik seasoning. Add dashes of white pepper.
6. Fry the rice until fragrant. Add the egg and cook.
7. Serve with sliced cucumbers.

One thing is missing here-tomatoes! Additionally, nasi paprik is usually served with sliced chicken meat as opposed to ground pork. It's just my little modification to come out with something different, as I always do ;)

The Junk Yard

Junk yard? Well, I wish it fills up my yard ;) Typically known as the "junk food", this brings back my *sweet* memories as a little kid. I used to save up my pocket money to purchase these yummy treats (in secret, shhh....)!

(From top left) Tomato-flavoured Twisties, flavourful dried fish fillet, cheesy Cheezels, prawn-flavoured Mi-mi snacks, candy-coated chocolates in the shape of an "8", creamy chocolate sticks, crunchy Apollo chocolate wafers, colourful jellies, chewy "rabbit" candies, "black & white" bubble gums, Cloud 9 and Crispy chocolate bars, as well as assorted candies (lemon candy sticks, Hudson, Hacks etc.)

Proudly presenting to you, my yummies harvested from home! They look tempting, eh? Stop drolling :)