The month is drawing to a close...

April is almost over, which means I've been scrambling the last few days to make my required number of recipes - 10! It doesn't sound like many, but for some reason this month's menu was difficult. We were gone for part of it, causing creativity to inspire the meal below - noodle bowls, which happen to be a frequent lunch for many of my Asian students:


I had said April would be focused on Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food. It turned into just the first two because, really, two entirely different types of cuisine were enough. The main reasons why the menu was difficult, though, I have decided were:

1) I had a really difficult time finding a variety of mushrooms around here - which was really quite surprising since mushrooms are very popular around here - and many recipes I wanted to try called for them.
2) I just wasn't willing to buy lots of bottles of new sauces. The new purchases I did end up with are oyster sauce, Chinese cooking wine, mirin, and dark soy sauce (yes, there are two kinds).

Here are the last two dishes from Asian April:

Spicy Shrimp with Udon Noodles

and

Hand-Hacked Pot Stickers.

You might notice that the potstickers are shaped more like egg rolls. One thing we learned this month is the roll-up method of egg rolls is the easiest to use when making anything with wrappers - wontons, pot stickers, egg rolls, you name it. But no matter how we rolled these, they tasted great!

Rapper John

Here's my husband. No explanation needed.



Oh, except that he made the video all by himself.

Oyster Sauce

In my last post I recommended a vegetable and said it was great with an oyster sauce mixture on top. In case any of you are interested in making that dish or are inspired to make some Chinese food because of Asian April, I feel that I must provide you with a few warnings tonight.

Oyster sauce - it's been an ingredient that I have stayed far far away from because of the first word in its name. However, it is a very popular ingredient for Chinese dishes, so after much careful thought (and self persuasion), I bought it. It has now been used four times in our kitchen and I feel that there are three crucial pieces of information about oyster sauce that you need to know:

1) It is like ketchup in a glass jar - ridiculously difficult to get out. In addition, its consistency is thicker than ketchup. In other words, do not plan on just pulling it out of the fridge - yes, it needs to be refrigerated - and pouring some in your wok like you would soy sauce. This will not happen. Here's how I propose you do it: keep it in the fridge upside down. When getting ready to cook, put it in a glass - still upside down - of hot water. After a few minutes, start the long task of getting it out with a utensil. Do this long before you need to use the oyster sauce.

This brings me to the second piece of information. When using the utensil to get it out of the jar, you will undoubtedly get oyster sauce on your fingers. 2) Do not lick any tiny amount of oyster sauce off your fingers. To say it more strongly, never eat oyster sauce on its own in any amount. If you do, this will surely destroy any pleasure you have in cooking with oyster sauce for the rest of your life.

Now that I've completely scared you away from oyster sauce, let me get to number three. 3) You will enjoy food that you have made with oyster sauce, as it tastes like you expect Chinese food to taste. Without it, the food just won't be right. Even if you have accidentally tasted oyster sauce on its own, once it is mixed with other ingredients, you will like it. So do not stay away from it out of fear.

Attention Broccoli Lovers

Here's a new vegetable for you: Gai Lan, also known as kai-lan, Chinese broccoli or Chinese kale. It's really quite delicious! The flower sections are kind of sweet, the leaves are a bit bitter, and the stalks reminded us of something between broccoli and asparagus.


We recently had it in the recipe "Gai Lan with Vegetarian Oyster Sauce" (we used non-vegetarian), from the magazine Vegetarian Times, on top of sesame noodles. Wonderful. The recipe called for boiling it, which you do with a slighted salted and baking soda-ed pot of water in order to help with the bitterness of the leaves.


Another great way to eat gai lan is stir-fried with ginger and garlic.

By the way, if you are one who truly loves broccoli - like everyone in my immediate family - and have been wondering about the magazine Vegetarian Times, April is the issue to buy and try out. They have an entire section of recipes that center around broccoli. Or the recipes will be available on VT's website in May.

He did it!

Yesterday was a big day. For almost two hours John stood in front of an audience of Trinity Western's faculty and students, defending his thesis. The result?


Many "Congratulations" and "Great job!" proclamations
for the rest of the day.

It wouldn't have been possible without this man,
John's advisor for the entire project.


Congratulations, John, on completing your master's degree!
I'm extremely proud of you.

Chinese Comfort Food

Asian April is coming along well. I am taking it a bit easier than Mexican March, with us having only tried five recipes so far. We ate this Lo Mein recipe last week. As we were eating it, John commented on how it tasted like Chinese comfort food and I have to agree. I also know I've been craving it since that night. Interested in trying it?

1/2 pound fresh Chinese egg noodles
peanut or corn oil
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 large onion, thinly sliced
1 1/2 pounds broccoli, tops only, cut into bite-sized florets
1 red bell pepper, cut into thin strips
1 Tbsp. minced garlic
2 tsp. minced fresh ginger
1/2 cup chicken stock or water
1/2 cup unsalted cashews, optional

Cook noodles according to package directions and set aside. Put 1 Tbsp. oil in skillet and turn on high heat. Add onion and cook until brown, about 5 minutes. Add broccoli and red pepper, cooking until broc is crisp-tender, about 5-8 minutes. Add garlic and ginger, cook for 1 minute, stirring almost constantly. Add noodles, soy sauce, cashews, and chicken stock. Toss to mix and reheat, then serve.


Recipe "Beef Lo Mein" from The Best Recipes in the World, by Mark Bittman

BC's Mormon Temple

Over the past year we've watched the building of the first Mormon temple in British Columbia. Non-Mormons are not allowed to enter any temple after dedication, but any new temple is always open for tours the month before. We toured the one in Langley this morning.


The first thing we noticed was most everyone else's dress. The website had said "Make sure to dress modestly", so we decided to not wear jeans to show respect. Most people, however, were dressed in suits and dresses. Oops.

I had always assumed it would look like a cathedral inside; you know, a large sanctuary with ornate architecture all around. Well, it was nothing like that. When you first walk in, there is a reception desk, like in an exclusive office building. If you have your "temple recommend," you are then allowed to go into the many rooms located behind the door behind that desk. The rooms include instruction rooms, sealing rooms (where weddings take place), reception areas, and changing rooms for baptisms for the dead, endowments and weddings. To find out why they need the changing rooms, read about the Mormon temple garment here.

No expense was spared for this building. The granite was from Brazil, shipped to China for the cutting and smoothing, and then shipped up to British Columbia. The entire outside was covered in this granite, even the doors. John noticed that the rain gutters were actually located behind the granite (inside the wall instead of outside), with ornate metal spouts visible at the bottom of the building. The floor of the bride's preparation bathroom contained a beautiful mosaic. The decor was very North American - makes sense since it's a North American religion.

In addition, there were many connections to the Old Testament. Two obvious ones were the fence surrounding the building which seemed to create a temple court of sorts (just one though, instead of an outer and an inner) and the baptismal that is round and sits on the backs of twelve oxen, which alludes to the "sea of cast metal" which held water in the temple courts outside (1 Kings 7:23-25).

Touring the temple was an interesting experience. Now we know what is inside those buildings that are forbidden to us non-Mormons.

National One Sock Day

Canada has a holiday called "National One Sock Day." Long ago, when Canada had just been founded, there was a great divide between the rich and the poor. The rich were extremely wealthy and the poor were extremely poor, so much so that they couldn't afford socks. One day a year the rich would take off one of their socks and give it to the poor. All day long both the poor and the rich would wear one sock so that it was not obvious who was rich and who was poor. Canadians today honor their forefathers by still following the practice of wearing only one sock on April 1st.

At least that was the teachers and staff's story on the first morning of April. When I explained this to my upper level students, one of the students immediately took off one of his socks but the others were skeptical or apathetic. So at the end of class, I spoke to them again, "You know, as an American I think National One Sock Day is a bit silly, but I know this is a very important day in Canada as their ancestors are honored in the act of wearing one sock. So, even though I think it's ridiculous, I am wearing only one sock. I would think about this and wear only one sock today as well. All of ESLI is actually getting together at 10:50 to take a school photo of National One Sock Day to put on the website to show we care about Canada. I recommend you think about this and take one of your socks off."

Then I had my beginner students. It was obvious they thought I was crazy and weren't even considering what I was saying. But when we left together for the photo, they saw other students with only one sock and then darted back into our classroom to take off one of their socks.

Here's the photo. It was taken before we teachers and staff yelled "April Fools!"

Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

Spring has sprung, and that means the tulips are blooming in Mount Vernon, Washington. We headed south on Monday and saw this:


It's pretty interesting to drive down a road and suddenly see a large pink or purple field in the distance. In the morning we were also able to see the Olympic Mountains, as seen below far above (and past) the field of daffodils.


I, of course, needed to get in amongst the flowers a little bit! Some of them smelled heavenly but most had no smell. Typical tulips.


Here are our favorites of the day - the Pink Impression tulip (above), the Pheasant Eye daffodil (below),


and a tulip named Seattle.


Aren't the colors absolutely stunning?


Call me crazy but the sight of a field after all the tulips had been cut was the prettiest I saw all day.

Easter Egg...rolls

No traditional ham & potato meal for us today; instead it was (Chinese) stir-fried pork with asparagus and homemade egg rolls. Believe it or not, egg rolls are not difficult to make.

First, you need your inner ingredients - mixed and sauted.


Next, roll the mix in an egg roll wrapper - can be homemade OR purchased at a grocery store near you.

John adds, "If you have worked at any fast food joint and thus wrapped any type of fast food, roll the egg rolls in the same way you'd wrap a fast food sandwich."

Finally, fry them in the hot oil for 2-4 minutes and voila!

For those of you who have Fry Daddies sitting in some lost closet of your house, you now have a great reason to pull them out.

Asian April

New month means new menu. We're doing Asian for April. There's no way I could give Asian cuisine a fair chance in 30 days, so you should know that "Asian" means Chinese, Japanese and Korean this month. Yeah, yeah, I know it would be better to call it "Chinese, Japanese, & Korean April," but I'm trying to go for alliteration people.