Creamy Bacon Linguine with Asparagus

Creamy bacon linguine with asparagus

Most weekday nights, I cook a dinner for one, for myself. And because it's difficult to cook dishes with rice (The Chinese Style) for one, I normally settle with western food, i.e. salad, sandwich, pasta etc.

I love creamy pasta, even knowing they could contain higher percentage of fats. I try to give myself some leeway, by telling myself at least I prepare the sauce, not using the pre-made ones.

Ingridients (for one):

1. A clove of garlic
2. Two slices of bacon (I chose streaky)
3. Pasta of your choice (in this case linguine)
4. Ten stalks of asparagus (I could have chose kangkung to save my pocket if I live in Malaysia!)
5. 50ml of Cooking cream 
6. Cheddar cheese (as much as you like)
7. Salt and pepper

Methods:

1. Cook the pasta to Al Dante (as suggested by the package).
2. Meanwhile, cut the bacon into small pieces and fry on your non stick pan. I do not add any oil as I am already using streaky bacon. If you chose back bacon, you may want to fry on some butter for better flavour.
3. Chop the garlic and prepare your asparagus.
4. When the bacon is almost done (almost crispy), throw in the garlic.
5. Cook the asparagus with the pasta at the last half to one minute of the pasta. 
6. Meanwhile, add the cream and shredded cheddar cheese into the pan and stir. Let the sauce simmer and thicken.
7. Drain the cooked pasta and asparagus and run them through cold water immediately to stop cooking further. Asparagus is crispy and tasty to cook within a minute. (I always keep my mobile phone around, the timer comes in handy)
8. Add the pasta into the pan and stir to make sure the pasta is coated with the delicious sauce. Flavour with ground pepper and salt.
9. Serve the pasta into the plate. Top the pasta with the asparagus.
10. Ready to eat :)
11. Oh wait, please take a picture and Instagram! :P

As simple as that, all done in 25minutes even a noob like me. 

Chickpea Sandwich (Totally Vegetarian!)

I'm a carnivore in nature. I love to eat meat (vegetarians please do not condemn me). It will be such a torture for me if you were to prohibit me from eating pork (belly!), steak, lamb chop etc.

That doesn't mean I do not eat vegetables, I do. But full vegetarian meal, well, that happens only a few times a year normally.

Chickpea Sandwich

I like chickpeas. I have some leftover from my Christmas Eve dinner, so I was googling on the web one day to decide on what to do with the chickpeas. And I found this.

I've made some changes according to what I have at home.

Ingredients (for 2 servings):

1. Half can of chickpea
2. A quarter of onions
3. A teaspoon of mayonnaise
4. Half table spoon of lemon juice
5. Parsley (as much as you like)
6. Salt and Pepper (to your taste)

Method:

1. Chop the onions and parsley.
2. Mash the chickpea. (I have never thought chickpeas are that hard to mash. Do use a deeper bowl to prevent the round little things fly out from the bowl)
3. Mix all the ingredients well.
4. Lay some lettuce on your bread (toasted bread makes even better sandwich)
5. Lay the chickpea fillings generously and serve!

To make my meal more interesting, I did add some asparagus (with cream and cheese sauce).

Chickpea sandwich with asparagus

I made 2 servings, so I get to keep one more in the fridge =)

I used muesli bread from Sunshine as that is what I have left in the kitchen. You can use wholemeal bread, or walnut bread... Or anything I would say, but I personally think white bread will not taste so nice.

I think this may be a good meal for those on diet!

Ayutthaya, Another UNESCO Heritage Site (checked)

My sister's life long ambition is to tick off every single UNESCO Heritage Sites in the world. This is why we are not going to Bangkok without visiting this ancient city, and take a picture in front of the UNESCO sign. She will not let us skip this part of the itinerary! :P

The ruins

It reminds me so much of Siem Reap, the temples and ruins, the colors of the bricks, the headless Buddha statues... This place was destroyed by the Burmese back in 18th century and Siamese Kingdom has moved out from there ever since. And never rebuilt.

Buddha head in the tree

This Buddha head is said to be found from the ground in one of the excavating events. It is so precious because there are only a few left in the ruins now, the archeologist placed this at the tree and the tree grows around it, protecting it ever since.

Headless statues

The complete statue at far

Tourists and the ruins

The ruins (waited so long for it to be cleared from crowds)

It is said that each of the deceased King of the kingdom is buried under a stupa. So each stupa you see in the site, representing one deceased King from the past. At least that is what we heard from the tour guide from Taiwan tour group.

Much to my sister's disappointment, there is no UNESCO sign, anywhere in the ruins, not outside the ruins, nor the entrance. No where to be found. That makes her collections incomplete. Visiting is one thing, keeping a copy of evidence is another. Maybe she will have to be back when they finally put up a sign.

I am slightly disappointed too, because Ayutthaya is one of the most mentioned attractions, one of the most recommended, but the restoration and preservation of the site is not as well done as Siem Reap. Maybe that is why the entrance ticket for foreigners are only 50baht.

After the fruitful sunflower farm trip and ancient city, we're all hungry. It's been hours since we first had a proper meal in our stomach so my sister told the driver we want to have boat noodle.

The name of boat noodle comes from the time when vendors are selling them in the boat along the canals and rivers. Along with the development in modern days, the boat noodles move to the land.

Boat noodle

The serving of boat noodle is so small, we all had two bowls each. Like any other Thai food, it is sour and spicy, always appetizing! I've ran some checks, it seems like there is cinnamon in the soup too.

Our driver also taught us the Thai way of eating the noodle, which is to go with the deep fried pork skin! Healthy eater might be turned off by this, but our family adore this so much, my parents have to buy one pack to snack along the way.

Boat noodle with deep fried pork skin

Ayutthaya is our last stop of the day. Our driver wanted to buy Roti Sai Mai home for his kids, he told us his kids love it. We've heard about it too, so we decided to try them as well!

Roti Sai Mai

The skin and the fillings are sold in separate packet (50baht a set that can feed more than 6 person). The skin, which is very similar to our Poh Piah skin is slightly salted in taste. While the fillings, resemblance of Long Xu Tang is extremely sweet. They are not delicious to eat separately, but when paired up, they're just nice and fragrant. There must be santan in it too.

This concludes our day trip out of Bangkok.

冲着太阳花海去～

再次展开我们一年一度的举家游，这一回我们好不容易说服了父母一起到泰国去。

如果同一般游客在曼谷看庙宇，有点说不过去，况且曼谷的庙宇我和姐姐都去过了，已经有点“显”，我们就到曼谷附近的Lop Buri寻太阳花海去。

太阳花的季节，介于11月至1月之间，至于看不看得到，真的是运气。要是天气不好，太阳公公不出来，太阳花海就不漂亮了。要是农夫们已收割太阳花取太阳花籽，那么也就没有太阳花看了。所以啊，追踪花海往往是一件很看运气的事。（这一方面，本小姐多半没运气。飞到荷兰这么远，什么郁金香都没有，真可怜）





看这么大片的太阳花海，又不付钱是一件幸运再更幸运的事。我们抵达Lop Buri的时候，路边的太阳花多半被收割。我们在车上只能默默祈祷，会让我们碰见没收割的太阳花海。我们雇用的司机先生人还真的很热心，担心我们失望而归，沿途停车几次问问路人，哪里还有每首歌的花海。

在他不放弃的精神下，我们找到了！

而且，巧遇好心的农夫，我们不用付钱都可在太阳花海之中，玩了一个小时。有些太阳花长得可大，稍微蹲下就可以躲起来不让人看见。我们就这样“不见了”姐姐好几次。

从花海出来，我们全身都是花粉。衣服上、裤子上、鞋子上、鞋子里、袜子里，统统都是。所以啊，千万别穿黑色或深色的衣服，占到花粉就太显而易见了。



Lop Buri不难去。曼谷每天都有火车到这城镇，只不过用的时间相对的多。如果在泰国的时间比较多的话，可选择用火车。要不然，象我们偕老的，就雇用一部车子，两个小时可抵达。省事又省力。交通资料，请点击这里。

真后悔没早点认识这个地方，要不然拍婚纱照可好看。

还没有拍婚纱照的朋友，想到国外，又不想花费太多，可以考虑太阳花海和Ayutthaya一日游。