Vegetable Couscous with Moroccan Pesto

We are having a kind of "cook the book" week with a Food Network Magazine Great Easy Meals cookbook, which we received as a wedding gift. We've made two delicious meals on Sunday and Monday nights. Today, we thought to take a picture and let people know what kinds of truly great and easy recipes this book has in it.

Today's meal has vegetables, including carrots, zucchini, mustard greens, onions, green olives, and tomatoes. The vegetables are spiced with cinnamon stick and raisins, among other things. All is served on a bed of giant couscous. A pesto made of flat parsley, garlic, cilantro, and cashews. Mustard greens are our new favorite ingredient.


-吴碧芙

Owl done...

I have been looking for an owl cookie jar, having seen them basically everywhere except in stores lately: (1) in a collection of American Bisque cookie jars in the Waverly Bakery, (2) on the show Modern Family, (3) American Bisque, again, in a patient's apartment (right there on top of her fridge). These owls have been taunting me. Vintage owl cookie jars sell on Ebay for $40-$180, and the non-freaky, non-ugly ones happen to be more expensive.

A week ago, we were in the mall, on official wedding business, when something caught my eye in Macy's. At first, I just saw a rather cute owl-shaped serving tray...then some salt & pepper shakers...then a piggy bank...then a COOKIE JAR! On top of that, there was some kind of sale starting a few days later, and they would pre-sell it to me, to be picked-up on the sale start date.

Now, if you have an owl cookie jar, what kind of cookies would you put in it? I thought so too, but owl-shaped cookie cutters are (1) generally only vaguely owl-shaped, and (2) probably only available at specialty stores and online. An exhaustive search revealed some very cute options: one person used frosting to decorate cookies that she cut out with a tulip-shaped cookie cutter, but I can't find a tulip cookie cutter either. Other options are focused on shaping the dough. As soon as I saw one of those options, I remembered my Grama making them when I was little. Seeing the picture of them took me back to my exact feelings about the cookies when I first saw them: I refused to eat them because they had one cashew, standing for the owl's beak. I was convinced that the cashew meant that the whole cookie would taste like nuts.

The cookies are actually made with vanilla and chocolate dough, rolled into a cylinder and sliced. The eyes are peanut butter chips, although I considered using light-colored M&Ms. The beak, as I mentioned, is a whole cashew.


Having finished my last exam on Saturday (hopefully, provided I pass), this is how I celebrated the end of my academic obligations and my birthday, free of exam stress.

-吴碧芙

Lookie Cookie

This afternoon we finally frosted the Christmas cookies. We made a few very pretty snowflakes.


We have a cute vintage bird cutter, which I made into cockatiels.


Some had more fun than others...


-吴碧芙

Fancy Feasting

I feel a change in the tide. Although it's still cold outside, it feels like those Iowa City springs when I would eat cucumbers with salt for dinner, while my roommate and I admired the sky, aglow at sunset. In grad school, I walked some slightly brisk nights, with a tomato in my pocket, for a barbecue with some vegetarian friends. That was how I found out that asparagus is, in fact, palatable. My friend would barbecue it and brush it with Italian dressing.

As another sign of spring, last week I decided to try going to the gym downtown. This new gym, which so far has made my most obscure muscles ache, caters to a more sophisticated crowd than the free student fitness center and includes classes ranging from belly dancing to "Michelle Obama Arms." It's nice to get back into the swing of things.

When I say I want something 文大男 uses some magic and makes it happen. Remembering barbecues in grad school, I suggested a barbecue date. He owns an actual, real barbecue machine...uh, I mean grill...which makes him "very man," as we might say in China. We had Quorn chicken on the grill with BBQ sauce. I made Turkish marinated chickpea salad (middle), and he made some barley salad with onion, cucumbers, and artichoke hearts. (click to enlarge)


This weekend was our very productive "study date." Along with the date came your usual study foods, such as pizza, crackers and cheese, and fruit salad that I had a hankering for. The fruit salad had grapes, cantaloupe, strawberries, kiwi, and mango.


It looked like a rainbow, so we had to take a picture.

-吴碧芙

Kitchen Witch

Perhaps in some ways uglier than my mom's kitchen witch, the one I sniped on ebay finally arrived. I hung her up over the sink. Since then, my cooking has been going well. This weekend I made veggie chili that 文大男 said was absolutely amazing. I added the secret ingredient: Lard (just kidding).


My mom's had little felt feet and a dark blue dress. Her face was grey with a long nose. The new-fashioned ones have cute names like Tiddly Tabitha and pretty faces, with kitchen gadgets hot glued to their dresses. I was deathly afraid of witches as a kid, but not of the kitchen witch, although I thought it was kind of weird to hang it over the sink like that.

-吴碧芙

Cue the Halleluia Chorus

This time I tried hand mixing, turned the oven up about 10 degrees, used a bigger scoop, and made sure my pan was cool. Mine look different because I also added blended oatmeal, but they spread and baked evenly, at least on one of my pans. The other pan yielded the less spread, dark bottomed cookies, even though they were better than Trials 1 and 2.


Although I'd like to try again, I think I better take a cookie detox first.

For those who wondered if "Big Cow" might be insulting: It was between that and Da Niao (Big Bird). I'm assured by my distinguished colleague that Da Niu is a real name--the Chinese equivalent of Aloisius, in that, yes, it's a name, but old, rare, and kind of weird.

-MsLin

Secret Cookies

I went to DBF for a personal lesson in cookie making. From the softness of the butter to the size of the cookie scoop, I tried to notice things that he did differently from me. Not much that seemed relevant was different. I observed every moment, and noted, in my mind, what he did. He didn't do the hokey pokey, burn incense, or pray to the cookie gods. Yet, the result was way better than mine. Compare:


So, I may have to face the music on this one: cookies are not something that I can make really well. Yes, I made a new batch when I got home tonight. I even mixed it by hand, but it doesn't look like his dough, so I'm already sure it won't be as good.

Today, after much suspense, I successfully sniped a kitchen witch on Ebay. As the time ticked down to 30 sec, I placed my bid and won. It is ugly like my mom's, and it has a green dress. I'm hoping that this will solve my cookie problems.

We also gave DBF a Chinese name: 文大牛, which means Big Cow (Da Niu) Wen. :)

-MsLin

If at first you don't succeed...

DBF has the best cookie recipe. He's made some for me, and they are the perfect amount of chewy, with a flavor of store-bought ready-to-bake dough cookies, without the store-bought preservative flavor. So, I asked for the recipe, including the secret ingredient, which he has developed. He emailed me the recipe, and I tried to make it yesterday. They turned out horribly (left cookie). After 8 min., I saw that the edges were crispy and the middles were raw. The end result was a cookie with a gooey center and lacy dark edges. They were inedible. He's out-of-town, so I called to ask what I could've done wrong. After some conversation and internet inquiries for "cookie problems," we finally arrived at the truth of the matter, which was that he had typed "1 tsp. soda," but the actual ingredient is "1 tsp. baking powder."


I tried the right recipe this morning. They didn't turn out like his, but a vast improvement (right cookie). And now we know what happens if you use baking soda instead of baking powder. I feel like I should get a girl scout badge for this little experiment.

-MsLin

Bring on the Spice

Since moving, I haven't been impressed with the selection of Chinese food in SD. SD "spicy" is Asian "mild" at best. I just missed some things, especially Chinese hot pot. On Saturday, we checked out the secret Chinese store, where we found lots of goodies, including "real deal" chili oil, frozen lotus baozi, sachima, tofu skin balls, and spicy hot pot mix.

After a veggie stop at a regular grocery store, we were ready to cook. A little gas burner, enameled iron pot, water, spice mix, and veggies made this Chinese fondue. Between coughs and with our eyes watering, we commented on how wonderful it was...and how spicy. Compare to the Chinese Hot Pot in a previous entry.


The really BIG find was prickly ash or numbing pepper. At the secret Chinese store, I decided to ask the owner because we hadn't found it by just wondering around. She didn't speak Chinese, but she took me all over the store and showed me black and white peppercorns, frozen Thai peppers, and finally (what looked like) numbing pepper in a bag. I added some to the hot pot, and it was definitely the right thing. (click images for larger views)


-吴碧芙

Fire Dragon Fruit

My parents are on tour. Coming back from Texas, they took a turn over to my place, bringing me a "fruit truck." The most wonderful and exotic fruits, which they remembered I liked from when they visited me in China. I have lots of pomelos now. I have a yali pear and fragrant pears.

One of the most exciting was the fire dragon fruit. In China the meat was white with little black seeds, but the taste is the same. Last Easter, I tried to use the bright skin to dye Easter eggs, but they turned out light grey and ugly.


I was squealing as I cut open one of them for breakfast this morning. The birds probably thought I was crazy, but that wouldn't be anything new for them.

-吴碧芙

在 南大口塔 有 柚子!! (South Dakota has pomelos!!)

红色的 柚子!! (Red pomelos!!) I went to HyVee to get some Election Day food (read: beer...just kidding). I usually check for pomelos, not really expecting, but hoping, to see some. Today I saw some! I wanted to buy out the store, but I just bought two.


For those who are pomelo newbies: The first time I had a pomelo in China, I was visiting a colleague who had some students visiting her. They handed me a section of pomelo, and I ate it as it was. I pleasantly said how good it was, when in fact, I thought it was terribly tough and like eating leather. The problem was that I didn't open the white "skin" that covers each section. On the picture, you can see one portion which is pink and shiny, while the other portion is white and veiny. You want to eat sections from which the white veiny part has been peeled off. With my colleague and students, I was relieved when I watched someone else eat a section, peeling off the skin. I started eating a few sections at every meal, and pomelos became my favorite fruit. I thought it would be quite some time before I could eat one again, but SD went beyond my expectations.

-吴碧芙

Di San Xian Three Fresh Earth Vegetables

One of the dishes we love at the Banyan Tree restaurant is called Di San Xian (literally "Earth Three Fresh"). The three fresh Earth vegetables are potatoes, eggplant, and green peppers. My distinguished colleagues went to the restaurant earlier this semester to have a "cooking class" to write down some of our favorite recipes.


Di San Xian is one of my most favorite Chinese dishes, and I didn't try it until I came to China. When I made it at home, I didn't have all of the ingredients. The basic seasoning is from fresh ginger, garlic, salt, soy sauce, and sesame seed oil. I almost forgot about the cooking oil, lots and lots of cooking oil. It's good as a treat. My pic looks quite similar to the restaurant, although without corn starch, the flavor soaked into the vegetables instead of making a sauce.

-吴佩芙

Zongzi Party: Part Two

In the evening, when the zongzi were finished, the students brought about eight or nine rice cookers and pots, all filled with soup, to the student cafeteria. In the afternoon, my student had asked me what kind of soup I liked. I said that if there was meat in the soup, of course, I probably didn't want to eat it, especially if it was pork or chicken. I suggested fish, but she said the smell of fish soup would not be very good. I agree with that, but if there must be something dead in the soup, fish is the most tolerable. So eventually there was a solution to make one pot of vegetarian soup.


About five of my students were there, so they talked to me and wanted to tell me the story of Duan Wu Jie. It was the first time my student had ever made vegetarian soup, and the first time many of them had every tasted vegetarian soup. They seemed surprised that it worked and had a good flavor.


The three vegetarian zongzi that were tied together were found, after a brief period of frantic worry. I had only put rice and split mung beans inside, but they were good.

-吴佩芙

Zhongzi Party: Part One

My students in the Law School organized a party to make zongzi (English: "rice packets") for the Dragon Boat Festival, and they invited me to join them for making zongzi in the afternoon and to eat them, along with soup, in the evening.

I've made zongzi before with Dan's parents two years ago in SF, and I was quite touched by the story of the holiday. It is said that a poet, who was loyal to the ancient Chu state, was banished for opposing an alliance between Chu and the state of Qin. After 28 years, Qin took over the Chu capital. Because he had been against the alliance, and because he loved his country, he committed suicide by drowning himself in the river. The local people, who loved him, threw zongzi into the river, so that the fish would eat the food, instead of his body. The dragon boat races are said to originate from the idea that the people went out in boats in order to retrieve the body.


I'm amazed at how these parties happen. There is always too much food or too many extra ingredients, or some ingenious substitutions. Today we had too much filling for the amount of leaves we had. We ran out of stems needed to tie the zongzi together, so we ended up using regular string. We were set up under the awning outside the student cafeteria. The students had arranged for one of the cafeteria booths to cook them when we finished making them.


One of the boys was the expert, and he showed me how to make the triangle zongzi. When the leaves would rip, or tying them seemed impossible, the girls passed the zongzi to him to fix or tie. Because different provinces and different families make different types and shapes, we ended up with many creative shapes and sizes. Mine were the smallest ones.

The three I made were vegetarian. My student looped them together with string, so we would know which ones they were because I don't want meat, and nobody will want my meatless ones.

-吴佩芙

Life is a Bowl of Waxberries

I haven't seen waxberries (yang mei) anywhere else than China. I've bought them preserved, but yesterday I found them outside the Main Gate and Mr. Handsome's fruit stand. They are made up of tiny pieces, huddled around a large pit in the center. Intensely tart and a little astringent, they also have a delicious undercurrent of sweet.



Mr. Handsome himself is not actually handsome, but a pretty good and honest fruit seller. I asked how much the waxberries were, and I was completely surprised to see them there. He told me the price and added that they were hen hao chi, that is, very good to eat. He always says everything is hen hao chi.

-吴佩芙

Jiaozi Party

Some of us didn't go away for May Holiday. We found other things to do, like baoing jiaozi and grading at the Bread Diary. The best and most impressive was the jiaozi with carrot vegetarian filling. Although the first attempt at making jiaozi took 3 1/2 hours for my distinguished colleague, myself, and my Chinese tutor, they turned out awesome. The carrot filling took the longest, as we had to grate carrots, boil the grated carrots, squeeze all of the water we possibly could out of them, and then further chop them.



We learned three different shapes: triangle, round, and frilly. After shaping them, we boiled them, and, to everyone's surprise, none of them split open, and they were delicious.


Watch out, I'll be making jiaozi when I get home, but hopefully I will get much faster.

-吴佩芙

La Jiao

It's Friday again, which makes me think of chocolate milk and delicious food. I woke up, washed my hair, checked email, and went on a mini-quest to find la jiao, bananas, and broccoli. In the end, I got what I believe to be a close semblance to la jiao, bananas, leaf lettuce, carrots, bok choy, and fresh water chestnuts.

Fresh water chestnuts are the thing I will miss most from China. When I see a bowl of them, ready-to-eat, at the vegetable stand, I can't resist buying a few handfuls. They are sweet and crunchy, and the canned variety tastes nothing like the fresh. The ACC hotel dining room makes the best water chestnut dessert. It's made from shredded water chestnuts and a few peanuts, fried in the form of a big flat patty, and sprinkled with sugar. Come to think of it, I haven't had water chestnuts in a stirfry or in a salty dish, ever since I've been in China. Truly, Heaven must be filled with fresh water chestnuts!

La jiao is usually translated "hot sauce," but Chinese hot sauce is really in a league of it's own. Jalapeño peppers and wimpy picante don't compare to the type of flavor la jiao can provide. For one thing, the pepper affects a different part of your mouth, and, if it's really good, it will contain "prickly ash," a Szechuan pepper, which comes in buds that numb your mouth when you bite them. When we were in Dengfeng, we ate local cuisine, which had the most prickly ash I've ever eaten. It was enjoyable at first, but then I was actually starting to feel worried that the numbness wouldn't go away.


I ended up getting the famous "Unhappy Woman" brand, which I don't know the real name of, but it has a recognizable yet unhappy woman on the label. It was a mini-quest because I had to walk to East Gate to get it, and then I had to ask what it was in Chinese, and interpret the Chinese answer. I saw one of my students on the way back, and she translated the ingredients for me. She said it would be too hot, but that's quite all right with me.

I lost my memory stick/thumb drive/jump drive, whatever you want to call it. I've had some students on the "search and recover" job, like little ants, since Monday, but we probably won't find it. All I can think is that I might have left it in my classroom last Thursday. So on Monday, my students checked the lost-and-found, put up internet messages, and signed ad sheets that are hanging around campus. One of them knows someone who works in the student union office that has lost-and-found, so they put the word out too. However, it's seeming unlikely that I will get it back. Fast forward to Thursday this week: My students are going to hook me up with a student agent who deals in computer parts. Many students have mad hook-ups, and they can get things to sell on campus, which the other students find to be very convenient, better quality, and cheaper than buying at Wal-mart. I'm waiting for a call today from my student who will be the language mediator between me and the agent. It all sounds very under-handed, but that's how things are, and it's totally legit.

-吴佩芙

Mei you Mayo (mei you="don't have")

I look outside into what looks like the Swamps of Sadness from The Neverending Story, where the hero Atreyu meets Morla the Ancient One. The weather can't decide if it wants to rain or not. So we see an incredibly thick haze with heavy air and the occasional drop of rain. I walked to the nearby village with one of my colleagues, and we were constantly putting up our umbrellas, then putting them down. The air was so thick that it also felt warm, so we ended up carrying our warm clothes by the end of the trek.

In the village we ate a common Chaoshan delight, which we call "big noodle" for lack of a better term. The premise is that the dish is one big layer of soft dough. A scrambled egg is poured over the dough and then whole thing is cooked, either on a flat grill or in a kind of special oven with layers of jellyroll pans that pull out like drawers. They the whole thing is folded up with some green vegetables, and soy sauce and preserved vegetables are sprinkled on top. I prefer some peanut sauce too, but the place we went to today didn't have it.

We walked around the village for a bit. We didn't find anything that we needed. Many of the stores are still closed from whatever holiday just happened. I DID find some Hellman's mayo, though. It's has both the Hellman's and Knorr labels on it, but I don't know if it's the good stuff.

I had three choices: light blue label, dark blue label, and yellow label with pictures of pineapple on it. All of them had sugar, so I chose the dark blue label because of the resemblance to Hellman's and because of the pics of veggies on it, which suggested savory instead of sweet. Buying things in China is always an adventure.

-吴佩芙

Hot Hot Pot

There's hot, there's really hot, and in China, there's "I can't feel my face" hot. Tonight we went to have hotpot for the second time. We liked it so much the first time, and we got the hang of how to order more efficiently. I also remembered how to order broccoli, which was a nice addition to the variety of ingredients. This time we got the "ying-yan"-shaped pot, with non-spicy on one side and Uber-spicy on the other side. This served the purpose of keeping the spicy side vegetarian, while Mom and Dad had non-spicy with chicken.

Hotpot is from the Northern parts of China, and I usually describe it as "Chinese fondue." Choose your soup, choose your ingredients and cook while you eat. We (in the two times we have gone) are partial to the peanut dipping sauce. When you take the cooked food out of the soup, you dip it in the sauce just before you eat it. The peanut sauce is mild with just the right mix of salt, and it tastes good with the spicy soup as well.

When I say "I can't feel my face," it's because of a special spice called "prickly ash." We can get it sprinkled on top of mapo tofu, and mixed with spicy green beans at the Banyan Tree Restaurant. Biting a prickly ash releases a wave of numb buzzing over your mouth and sometimes to your chin and cheeks. Quite frightening when I first experienced it, I've learned to relax and enjoy the sensation.

We also fulfilled our code violation for the day (but it was worth the risk):


-吴佩芙

There and back again

I'm back from a whirlwind trip to Hong Kong. It was my first time in HK, and after being in China for 3 months straight, I was like a country bumpkin in the big city for the first time. "Wow, look at all the people waiting for the light before crossing the street!" "Wow, look! There's no garbage on the roadside." "Wow, look! Nobody is spitting on the street!" "Wow, babies in diapers!" HK has EVERYTHING. In HK you can buy ANYTHING: things that I had resigned myself to requesting when my parents come to visit, things I had resigned myself to living without because they would be too heavy in my parents' suitcases. So, I bought refried beans in a can, muesli, dry chickpeas, oat bran, and Beth's gingersnap cookies (they have Beth's cookies, holy crap!).

On the first night, we had Mexican food and margaritas. The next night we had Indian food. The next night we had bar food, which ended up being hard cider and fried noodles for me. It was good though. I got a sandwich at City Super for the ride back. All food that we can't get in our normal environment.

-吴佩芙