Chinese Thanksgiving
Ni hao! Warm wishes to all family and friends reading my blog! I realize that Thanksgiving was yesterday (both here in the future and there in the past), but I got caught up grading my student's final examinations (part one!) and didn't update... Shame on me. But, lucky you, I've got pictures this time. Wahoo!
Jeff and I had a celebration with the other English teachers on Sunday wherein we had chicken, mashed potatoes, salad, and various other attempts at American Thanksgiving cuisine. It was lovely, and quite delicious. I enjoyed it all quite a lot. And, sadly, forgot my camera. But no worries. You've all seen food like that before. In fact, many of you have just had some to eat.
Thursday, as you know, was Thanksgiving. Jeff and I decided to celebrate it by cooking up some "traditional" Chinese food. After all, I had watched the Freshmen cooking and thought I could do a fair imitation. So, while Jeff was in class teaching, I set to work preparing our meal. The first dish I cooked (I only have the one wok, so it's one dish at a time) is made from flowers. I have no idea what kind of flowers they are. But this is what they look like.
After peeling the stems from the main part of the flowers (which takes forever!), I fried them up in the wok using oil (butter isn't common 'round these parts), MSG, and some salt. I probably didn't need to throw the MSG in, but we still had some left, an' I figured it'd be fun. Anyway, they cooked pretty easily. They burned a bit when I got impatient after preparing the next dish to go in the wok, but...well, they looked pretty.
After the flowers, I prepared a beef and carrot dish. I really need to learn how to cut carrots thinner. This is a really good dish, for the carrots make the meat somewhat sweet. Of course, I added pepper flakes. I've learned to cook in Hunan, after all. Here's a picture of the finished dish:
I cleaned the wok quickly and chopped up some pork and peppers. This is a really easy dish to make, and quite delicious. I added more peppers for a real kick (I think we're pretty used to spicy foods now) and woked it up. Ha. That should totally be a word.
Jeff came home from class, so I sent him out with the task of getting desert and drinks. He came back with cookies and some other random Chinese foods we hadn't tried yet that looked sweetish. When he got back, he helped me finish with the pork and peppers and then started slicing potatoes as I steamed up some rice. The potatoes have vinegar and salt on them. I think I was supposed to wash off the starch before cooking them...but they wound up tasting pretty good anyway.
Once everything was all cooked, we set it on the coffee table in our front room and I took this picture. It tasted like pretty authentic Chinese food, I must say with some pride. The flowers taste a lot like a mixture of green beans and asparagus. I like 'em. And both the meat dishes were delicious. We had a lot of leftovers, but that's traditional for Thanksgiving as well!
I hope everyone else had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I can't wait to come home and see you all!
Erica
posted by Erica @ 5:18 AM
3 Comments:
Wow! Sounds like a lot of work! You'll have to try cooking up some of that chinese food when you get home! :D That would be awesome! I'm glad you had a great Thanksgiving! And no worries about not posting. You got to it! Can't wait until you're home, too! Even if I won't be around. At least our hours will be closer to the same so we might be able to talk more often.
That all looked yummy. Strangely enough I was eating a bowl of Chinese leftovers as I read your post. You should figure out what those flowers are called. Maybe we can try hunting them down here in the states. We will all have a Chinese party. Yay! Glad you are still safe. Tell me if you find any postcards.
I am so impressed!! Will you make us some authentic food when you get back?? By the way we are all missing you and Jeff so much. I took pictures on thanksgiving of the family. I am planning on blogging in the next few days!!! I also took pictures of Christmas lights at temple square and Lydia's new pet crabs! I need to get on it!
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