Cooking in China

 

Cooking meals in China has been more difficult than I had planned! 

 

There are many little grocery shops in our little bubble that have a variety food.  There is (of course) a variety of ingredients for cooking Chinese dishes, a lot of imported European foods (German chocolate - yum!), and many imported American foods as well.  So the problem I'm finding is that just because they have a certain ingredient one week, doesn't mean they will have the same thing next week :) 

 

For example:  One of our family staples is Enchiladas.  I have a quick, easy recipe that everyone seems to like.  The key ingredient in this recipe is green chilies - they are not good without the chilies!  I was so excited to find cans of green chilies on one of my first shopping trips!  A few weeks later I was making a dinner for a friend and planned on making these enchiladas.  So that afternoon I ran to the store and could not find them anywhere!  So I ran to the next store - nada.  One more store - nope!  So now when I see them in the stores, I buy them all :)  Cream of Chicken soup was nowhere to be found the whole month of November, weird.  So I learned to make it from scratch.  Much healthier anyway!

 

 

 

The other problem is that buying foods we are used to are pretty expensive.  You thought everything in China would be cheaper?  So did I.  I was wrong!  Besides paying $12-14/gallon for milk, this pretty little can of green chilies cost me $4.00!  I think I can get the same can in the states for less than $1.00.

The solution is learning to try new things!  We still eat our comfort foods (almost costs as much as eating out!), and we also eat out a lot more than before because it's not that expensive.  We also eat authentic Chinese once or twice a week that our Ayi cooks for us (more on her later - can you say - awesome perk to living here?! Google Ayi and you might find a mom's picture of a little piece of heaven).