msittig's Xanga

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 16:55:15 GMT

We've been running low on groceries lately as it gets harder for Jodi to go out because of her big tummy. This has resulted in a few meals scrapped together with whatever we had in the kitchen, which has not been so bad because Jodi is quite talented in that area. A recent example:

Sliced and chilled tomatoes sprinkled with sugar, meat and lotus root balls covered with steamed rice, and a spicy pea-and-pork stirfry.

The last item goes great mixed together with steamed white rice and as Jodi would say is very 下饭, literally "down rice" because you end up downing a lot of rice with it.

Tonight before I go to bed I'm going to watch the Daily Show and dig into a couple of Shanghai Pies (British-style meat pies made with Australian beef) that are sitting in the fridge waiting to be warmed up in the oven. Yum.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 16:40:20 GMT

On Saturday we went to the house of the grandparents of one of the friends that Jodi found for Charlotte online. They are a pretty typical Shanghainese family, and this is the spread that they laid out for the large group of parents and babies that came to their house that day. Is this the kind of food you'd expect at a party?

Clockwise from 12 o'clock: a couple kinds of fried and very fragrant fish, frog legs, Pepsi, Shanghainese shengjian buns, chicken wings, steamed jujube cake, watermelon, KFC family bucket, more watermelon, Thai rice crackers, homemade sushi, a mix of steamed rice/corn breads, various kinds of pressed and marinated tofu, boiled soy beans, boiled taro root, slices of lunchmeat sausage, something I can't remember that involved peanuts, and boiled chicken pieces.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 09:02:08 GMT

Meet dinner:

Monday, July 14, 2008

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 04:54:22 GMT

Dinner a couple of days ago, by Jodi:

A simple and delicious tuna salad with tomato and kidney beans, eggplant fried rice, and chicken legs marinated in a cummin-based marinade.

Brunch the next day, when we were both feeling very lazy:

Light green pepper and hot dog omelet with lots of cheese, and uncut oatmeal (we both prefer instant, actually; uncut is better for cookies) with generous helpings of raisins, brown sugar, butter, milk and, for me, sprinkles.

Until next time, happy cooking.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:05:56 GMT

On our anniversary trip to Xitang we ate some pretty good food. Here's a sampling of lunch and dinner on the first day:

From top to bottom: absolutely delicious thick-skinned wonton in a meaty duck broth; wok-fried 马兰头, a leafy green vegetable particular to the area; bite-sized dumplings of rice and fatty pork steamed in bamboo-leaf wrappers. Missing from this picture is another dish of nondescript meat chopped finely with vegetables, wrapped up and fried in a thin Vietnamese spring-roll-like wrapper. This meal was eaten on the deck of a small double-decker boat permanently moored in a Xitang canal. At the table next to us a young girl went around the table several times repeatedly and with gusto 干杯ing (toasting) everybody in her extended family.

Clockwise from the top-left: salt and pepper fried pumpkin pieces, probably the best dish in this so-so meal; cucumber slices in vinegar; chunks of water chestnut wok-fried with soy beans; rice, of course; and small river shrimp fried in oil and soy sauce. Not shown in this photo was the green mung bean "soup" that Jodi got as a dessert, which was yummy. This dinner was eaten outdoors at a restaurant dining area on the edge of the main Xitang canal, lit up by Chinese lanterns and serenaded by an old couple singing folk songs in the local dialect.

Monday, July 07, 2008

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:32:34 GMT

Tonight's dinner is the first I've made in a long time. It hit the spot on this hot summer evening. No pictures were taken, but the menu was as follows: gigantic salads of lettuce, tomato, green pepper, carrot and kidney beans topped with olive oil and black pepper; two kinds of potato salad, plain for Charlotte, and added hot dog and pickles for Jodi and I; toasted French bread buns with butter and Ikea berry jam; and ice water or apple juice to drink. Plums for dessert.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 22:10:19 GMT

Jodi's mom went back to Hunan a few weeks ago. This means that we're cooking for ourselves once again. Here are some of the fruits of our labor (click the pictures to get detailed descriptions of each individual dish):

This was our first homemade meal after Jodi's mom left. Jodi made the Chinese dishes, I made the salad, and the soup was leftovers.

I wanted to make a dish with Shanghainese deep-fried dough balls (mianjin) so I made a Chinese lunch:

This day we wanted a fast lunch: BLTs and coleslaw.

This was a left-overs lunch, with leftover spaghetti sauce on two kinds of pasta and a simple salad:

Jodi usually makes dinner. Soup is good for breast-feeding mothers.

Combining our favorite fallback, omelettes, and using our new blender to make smoothies. Also, cinnamon sugar toast:

Again, semi-leftovers as old spaghetti sauce becomes pizza sauce. We even used left-over curry as sauce, and it was delish:

This was a "let's cook whatever is left in the kitchen" lunch, and it was pretty darn good:

This Alfredo sauce turned out really bad; I'm not even sure I'm going to try it again:

This was the second part of an experiment with quick-boiling vegetables. As good as Bifengtang? Nah, but close:

A simple dinner by Jodi with more soup:

This was yesterday's simple lunch (dinner was IKEA), my first time cooking eggplant:

Bon apetit!

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Sat, 06 Jan 2007 14:48:14 GMT

Wow, it's been a long time since I've written in the food blog! So here's a quick summary of the past few months.

Since last September, the pressure had been mounting. I started school with a host of new responsibilities, we found out that Jodi was pregnant and she had to suffer through morning sickness, and things mounted such that it was really getting stressful to prepare food and keep the house clean every day. Just as I was at the end of my rope, subscribing to housekeeping tip e-mail lists and scouring for simple recipes-for-two on the web, Jodi's mom surprised us both with an offer to come out and live with us in Shanghai for a while.

So for the last couple of months we've had a live-in mother, which mean lots of from-the-hearth Chinese food. Not much on the spicy side, because Jodi can't handle it due to the pregnancy, but lots of rice, soups, and home-made cured meats (yum).

For Christmas eve, we went to an awesome party at Megan's house. The food there was amazing. Megan and Adam prepared a mountain of skewered meats and veggies to be BBQed, people brought sushi, salads, pastas, pecan pies, cornbread; chocolate truffles, cakes and breads from House Of Flour in Pudong... wow! We contributed a tropical fruit salad and lots of Jello jigglers!

For Christmas, we ate at home. Chinese food. And then went out to see a movie.

OK, finally here's a couple of pics. First off, Jodi discovered that we can use our oven to cook sweet potatoes. Now we're having them every other evening. I'm... getting used to them.

This morning was the first morning that Jodi's mom wasn't here, and a Saturday morning. Jodi made me a surprise breakfast that left me very surprised:

Yes, she put a hard-boiled egg in our Cheerios. She thought it was the best thing since sliced-bread. I was polite about it.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Sat, 02 Sep 2006 06:42:45 GMT

I've written before about the flavor 麻 (mā). It's the numbing sensation of the mouth that you get from eating Sichuanese peppercorn. Up until yesterday I thought I knew 麻. But I was wrong.

Jodi heard about a Sichuanese restaruant right outside the Henan M Rd metro stop called 渝信川菜. It's a fancy, labyrinthian place tucked up on a fifth floor a half-block off Nanjing E Rd, but the place was packed. We spent a little over USD 20 on three dishes: 水煮鲶鱼 (catfish discs boiled in a broth of oil, hot peppers, and peppercorns), 芥蓝菜 (Cantonese kale), and the kicker: 麻辣鳝鱼 (mālà Chinese yellow eel pieces with Chinese celery and bamboo shoot).

The eel was so, so 麻 that we couldn't even finish the whole dish. Before I knew it, I felt like my lips were about to bloat up to twice their size. As I drank water (ineffective), the liquid rushing past my lips gave me a strange tingly feeling like nothing I've ever felt before. I've crunched down on a peppercorn or two in the past so I'm familiar with the flavor, but the overwhelming sea of 麻 that my mouth was drowning it, that feeling of numb tingliness, was a whole new gastronomic sensation.

We brought the left-overs home and are snacking on it today. Better in moderation!

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Sun, 27 Aug 2006 15:32:07 GMT

APPLE-CINNAMON OATMEAL

One apple.
One teaspoon of cinnamon
One and a half cups of oats
Three cups of water
Optional: milk, butter, brown sugar

Cut the apples up into pea-sized pieces. Toss apples and water into a pot. Bring to a boil.

Pour in oatmeal. Cook two or three minutes, gradually stirring in the cinnamon, until it reaches the desired consistency. Cover and let sit for a few minutes.

Pour into bowls. Stir in the optional milk, and garnish with butter, brown sugar, and a dusting of cinnamon.

Serves two hearty eaters.