A little better…

If you’re thinking that I have not been cooking all that much these days, I must say that you are quite right. I don’t know if it is the same with other people but I do find that the older I get, the lazier I become.

However, I still cook something very often in the morning for breakfast especially when there is nothing much in the house to enjoy…and also when I find a lot of leftover rice in the fridge like this char siew (barbecued pork) fried rice that I dished out not too long ago.

…with thinly-sliced long beans, in place of the usual frozen carrot, peas and sweet corn, and egg.

Then there was this mee pok…

…kolo mee or kampua noodles style, tossed in oil that I had used to fry some thinly sliced shallots and garlic, light soy sauce and chopped spring onions plus a spoonful of my missus’ blended chili and garlic dip. Of course, minus the lard, there was that missing link but it was good enough for me and was a hearty, satisfying enough breakfast.

My missus had gone and bought 1 kg of the noodles and there it was, the whole bag of it sitting in the fridge so I took some to cook once…and I took some more to cook twice…

…in my very nice tossed-with-Bovril style and there was at least a third left. Gee!!! 1 kg of the noodles sure go a very long way so one can imagine how many plates those at the stall can dish out with that and at around RM2.80 a plate, imagine how much they can make in a day!

I did try my hand at frying some kway teow (flat rice noodles) too…

I loved the pad thai I had at Mary’s place…

*Archive photo*

…and I noticed that theirs was different from our local kway teow that is very thick, very white, not translucent and not so fine…

*Archive photo*

…That was why I asked her where she got hers and she said those would be the packet ones, available at the shops and supermarkets here…but she did say that some die-hards here are not all that fond of this type and would ask for our own local variety.

I did try one once, one of those dried Vietnamese pho available in packets – I think it did not have a colourful wrapper and no, I did not like it. It came across like flat bihun, the same as the dried kway teow that I bought once…and my missus bought again as she did not remember we had tried it before. Yes, a cousin of mine in Kuching liked a very nice one once, instant pad thai with the flat rice noodles and all the ingredients inside but it was very expensive plus I thought it was a bit too heavy on the msg so after I had tried it, I never did go back for more.

I’ve seen one with a red-coloured wrapper that I have yet to buy and try but the one I had this time around was green in colour – I did not take a photograph of it though nor did I check the details on the packet. It wasn’t too bad, a little better than the one I tried before but still, it was not quite there, not really like the nice kway teow in the northern parts of the country that I love a lot – some told me that they would call it hor fun but I wouldn’t know for sure.

I managed to find some prawns in the freezer – my missus bought them quite a while ago and thankfully, they were still very nice, very succulent and sweet, just that they were not all that big so they were not expensive like the rest. There wasn’t any taugeh (bean sprouts) in the fridge but I had some green vegetables that I bought sometime back and there was a bit left so I just used those, only the stalks though…

…as the green leaves were sort of withered and did not look all that fresh.

It tasted really good though the texture and everything of the kway teow wasn’t quite there, unfortunately. Perhaps I would try those in the red packets next time…and I must make sure that I remember to take a photograph of it. Old people have this tendency to be forgetful at times. Hehehehehe!!!!