My Unhealthy Addiction to Noodles

My journey to cooking more and eating less

The Childhood Pasta Creations

I’m not entirely sure when my addiction started, but I know I have always loved noodles and pasta with a certain passion. My mom has a similar addiction but she also is the one that started me on my pasta love journey. There are countless creations I can remember. from my childhood that my mother has made with pasta, some are recipes she borrowed from tasting them at different restaurants like a spicy chicken linguini, not to mention her two attempts at making Chicken Parmesan.

One of my favorite dishes that she has made over and over again, is a shrimp and chicken casserole made with her favorite penne pasta. This recipe starts on the stovetop and finishes in the oven. However much I like this recipe it’s one that I don’t often get because of the many steps involved in making it, and my dad’s sneaky shrimp stealing habits.

If there’s one pasta creation she makes often, and better every time she makes it is the west Indian boil and fry macaroni. This is a dish I believe that comes straight from Trinidad and Tobago where my mom grew up. It’s exactly as it sounds. You boil the pasta, as you would normally, and then you fry tomato and onion with clarified butter that comes straight from Trinidad, and you throw in the pasta, add cheese as you see fit, and add some scrambled eggs on top, and you get the perfect pasta. This is something I’ve had in a variety of ways with different types of pasta, and yet I’m always so surprised when someone outside, says they’ve never seen anything like it.

Every culture is different, and while I love pasta, I do have a preference for how I eat it. Just like my sister, who despises red sauce, I am actually somewhere in between both. Rose is often what I buy with shrimp not chicken in my pasta creations. Of course, everyone has their own preference, and I for one, have never tried gnocchi because I can’t seem to wrap my head around having a potato-filled pasta, even though, I’ve always loved Tortellini.

My Teenage and Young Adult love for Ramen

Like many of the people of my generation(millennials), we have always had a strong love for Japanese ramen. Japanese ramen is a noodle soup dish that consists of a Chinese wheat noodle made in some sort of meat broth, often flavored with soya sauce or miso, and topped with slices of pork, chicken, nori, or scallions.

Of course, the ramen from Japan differs greatly from the pack soups that many grocery stores sell as Canadian ramen. I probably have not yet had the traditional type of ramen, which is often made in pork or beef broth, that I can’t consume anyways. I think out of all the things I’ve ever made in my short life, Ramen was one of the first, and yes I have followed the instructions for the most part, but I do add my own vegetables and sometimes even add to the sauces in the only way that I can.

Ramen is always been a love of mine, even though I have a preference for the thin noodle over the much thicker noodles that people favor over in Japan and in the actual ramen shops that have popped up all over Canada.

West Indian Chinese Food

Similar to how I have found love for Japanese ramen but more of the Canadian style, my culture has created its own unique take to the Chinese food of the fast-food industry. I have always loved the way Guyanese make their own type of chow mein noodle, as that is the one that we most often use in our once-a-month fried rice and chow mein style Sunday meals.

While there are Guyanese-style noodles there are also the egg noodles that we make a lot less often, but is nonetheless just as awesome as the smaller noodles. My mom has always made these chow mein dishes in such a way that they have a way of melting in your mouth.

These are the noodle dishes I’ve always remembered and loved. My mother’s creations. While my dad has only one pasta creation which is lasagna and just as good, I have always favored my mother’s way of cooking because she has always had a way of cooking them with me in mind. Often when she does make the pasta dishes I will be in the kitchen alongside her, trying to figure out how to replicate her dishes, even knowing that I never can. At least not the way she does it.