Quick Fennel salad

There's nothing particularly inventive or special about this salad. It is, however, a nice change from the usual lettuce with veggie blah or even fruit/cheese blah. I don't buy Fennel every day, it is a pretty strong flavour and so must be used with purpose. Usually I would combine it with orange and red onion. This time I had neither, so it was time to improvise with what was left in the fridge. That turned out to be green grapes and a few old strawberries.

Fennel and grape salad

So I pulled out the mandolin, mostly because I like to use it more than because I really needed it. Although, with fennel the thin pieces are better than thicker big pieces. Cut the green grapes in half, diced the strawberries, and finally tossed with a generous splash of sherry vinegar, the juice from half a lime, and a sprinkle of sugar.

Next time: would experiment with different fruits

Me: 8/10
SO: 5/10 (she thought the fennel was past its prime, I thought it was still ok)
SSO: 4/10

Our comfort food, part 2: Sausages and Potatoes

No, this isn't fancy home-made sausages. It also isn't roasted garlic and rosemary potato wedges, or Hasselback potatoes. It is breakfast sausages, with boiled potatoes that were going soft and needed to be eaten. And the third key ingredient - a can of creamed corn.  This is 8/10 on the low-brow scale (yes, there is plenty of room left on that scale - think Kraft Dinner with cut up hot dogs, for example). But it is also something we grew up with, and so have a fondness for. It is comfort food, and at the same time somewhat of a guilty pleasure. 

Sausages and Potatoes

Of course when we eat it, it sort of gets all mushed up together but that would make for a pretty gross photo. I would usually throw a rather large pat of butter on the potatoes along with generous salt and pepper. Start to finish in 20 minutes, and could do it while sleep walking. The potatoes can be peeled and cooked in about the same time the sausages take to cook.  Throw the plates on tv dinner trays and watch Jeopardy....Perfect. 

Mr. Noodles Pho

I think most everyone has tried, and possibly consumed, many instant noodle packages - probably through college and into bachelor/bachelorette days. We even have a dish we make once a month or so based on the noodles. Other than that, there isn't much to recommend about them other than cheap price. So much to my surprise, browsing the grocery store the other day I came across a new Mr. Noodles food item - a soup bowl, supposedly instant Pho.

Now, I'm instantly skeptical. There are many good pho restaurants in Ottawa. Over the past 15 years or so, my colleagues and I have regularly tried a large variety of them, one of our number even created a blog dedicated to our amateur reviews of pho. So while not experts exactly, we certainly knew a bad soup from a good one.  But it's all about expectations, right? So I bought a couple of them and one day tried it out.

Mr. Noodles soup bowl with spice packets

First thing to notice, it comes with 4 little packets instead of 1. There is a spice package, one with little bits of dehydrated veggies, and two tiny ones with hoisin and Sriracha. And when I say tiny, I mean probably 1 tsp worth. The instructions actually say to heat in the microwave, but I'm not sure I wanted to try that so i just boiled some water and poured in the bowl. After a few minutes, a good stirring up of the noodles and contents of the packages got it looking ready to eat.

Mr. Noodles Pho soup bowl.
Might as well eat like you do in a restaurant.

To me it tasted exactly like the other regular instant noodle packages, except a bit spicier thanks to the Sriracha. But on the whole, not to bad for $1.49 or whatever it was.