Green Curry!

In my adult life, I've lived mostly in large cities: Milan, Wuhan, Nashville... I love being able to eat all sorts of international foods and be around a mix of cultures.  Monduli is quite different.  If I want to eat out, there's chicken and french fries or chips mayai (basically a french fry omelet).  That's really about it as far as options.  There's a bit more in Arusha (Chinese, Indian, Greek, pizza), but not everything, and I don't get the chance to eat out there much anyhow.  I don't mind cooking, but I do miss easily having a wider variety.  So, I've been trying out some new recipes. 

One of the foods I particularly miss is Thai food, which is not available even in Arusha.  However, I found that curry pastes are available!  I bought green curry paste (a mix of all the spices) and coconut milk, and made some pretty good green curry!  It's not really all that green looking, but it tastes good.  I put chicken, mushrooms, broccoli, and bell peppers in it this time and ate it with rice.  Green curry is one of my comfort foods, so I'm really excited that I can now make it at home! 

Gravy and Biscuits

Every now and then, it's good to get a taste of home.  I don't make gravy and biscuits too often because I really don't need to carbs, and bacon is pretty expensive here.  I had a quiet, chilly September Saturday night, though, so I made some.  It didn't turn out as good as I'd hoped; my bacon wasn't fatty enough to really give enough grease so the gravy was a bit bland.  Still, it was nice to have a truly southern meal!

In the biscuits above, you can see the one I pinched to try the raw dough.  Whenever my mother and I were every baking biscuits, we'd always pinch a bite of the salty dough.  Do any of you do that?

You can see a bit of my kitchen here.  I have a built-in range on the counter, but it's not hooked up to gas.  I also have the freestanding stove, and I really didn't need both just for one person.  The freestanding one has an electric oven, one electric burner, and three gas burners, and is hooked up to a small gas cannister that I can lift myself.  The built-in one would be hooked to a large outdoor gas can about three times the size of the one you can see.  So, I chose the freestanding one to have the oven and because I can call a boda boda (motorcycle taxi) to go pick up a new gas canister for me, while the big one would require a car and two people to move it. 

Cooking Night with Micah and Veronica

I love Chinese food, but I can't cook it (to tell the truth, I've never really tried, since eating out is quite cheap here).  So, when I cook, it's American or Italian food.  I'm still in the process of readjusting to cooking in China and taking stock of the available ingredients, but I already know several favorites that work just fine here.  However, I rarely want to bother with a big meal just for myself; I'll just eat peanut butter and crackers alone. So, Micah and I have cooked together twice now--the first time, we invited our friends, the Myers, to eat pasta and garlic bread with us; this time, we invited our waiban (the person from the foreign affairs office in charge of us foreign teachers--she's the one we call when things go wrong), Veronica.  

Not all Chinese people really like American food, but Veronica loves it.  It's fun to cook for someone for whom nearly anything you cook will be a novelty; there are several western restaurants here, but most are expensive and besides they are all either a pizza place or a steak place, which leaves plenty of things out.  I made meatloaf and glazed carrots, and Micah made broccoli with a lemon sauce and deviled eggs (he makes them differently from the usual recipe--I usually don't care for them, but these were really good).  We found some french bread at Carrefour the day before, and that turned out to be authentically good. 

Overall, it was one of the best meals I've had recently; I'm looking forward to the leftovers after I buy more ketchup for the meatloaf (it's good, but would be so much better with just a bit more...).  I really do enjoy entertaining in my home; good thing, as I'm doing a lot of it these days.