Cooking

Since moving to China we have had the challenge, I mean joy, of learning to cook for ourselves. 

Food is fairly inexpensive here in Xi'an but unless you are accustomed to the flavors, you might find, as we did, that most of the food here does not fit our tastes. I was particularly underwhelmed when we arrived, thinking the food would be better than back home. Finding this to be untrue, we have learned how to cook a variety of things. 

In addition, it is particularly hard to find many things we would consider 'normal' back home. Nothing in Xi'an in semi-home made. There are no boxed dinners or canned food. Everything we make must be made from scratch. So we have gotten very creative this year. Here are some highlights of our cooking adventure.

Pork and veggie stir fry is an easy dish for beginners. You can find tons of veggies and pork as well as garlic, onion and soy sauce. Pair it with some rice and you are good to go.

Mexican food is almost non-existent in Xi'an so we learned to make our own tortillas from scratch. 

Rachel has created a few dishes like simple ground meat on potatoes. Apples make a great side dish.

Bacon can be very tricky to find and we pay a premium for the type of meat we would actually call bacon back home, but its well worth it because it can be used to flavor many dishes.

Once I got a toaster oven, biscuits and gravy became one our favorites. So much so that last year we had a breakfast Super Bowl party and shared with some of our friends who had never had it!

Spaghetti sauce isn't impossible to find, but for some reason it is too sweet. We have opted to make our own and since canned products also don't really exist, we start with fresh tomatoes and cook them down to a sauce. It would probably be better if I blanched them and peeled them, but that is too time consuming so I just cook them skins and all.

After all these things, I still prefer to just order pizza or go grab fast food! I'll share more food posts later!