Wednesday Catch-up

Wednesdays are one of my catch-up days. Monday and Tuesday are full of classes and lesson prep, and then I get a breather (until Wednesday evening when I teach my second section of grammar). Yesterday, I went for a run, swept the floor (you can't imagine how much dust accumulates--think godzilla-sized dust bunnies), and intended to go grocery shopping. When Turner got back from class, he decided taking a nap was a better option. I didn't make it to the grocery store, but I was able to pick up what I really needed from our school store: sugar, peanut butter, tofu, vegetables. My first culinary chore was to use up an old lemon, some eggs, and yogurt. So a yogurt cake it was!

Too bad it flopped...again! It's still tasty but really dense.


I think this may be a case of needing fairly exact measurements of flour, eggs, and oil. Since I don't have any measuring cups, I usually make an educated guess at what is a cup or a cup and a half. Thirds of a cup start getting tricky.

Dinner was to be quick and easy, since I had to leave for my class a little after 6pm. I marinated some tofu (or doufu in Chinese) in soy sauce, fresh ginger, and sliced chilis for a couple of hours. When you want to buy tofu in China, you don't look for individually wrapped packages. At larger stores it is sold near the deli or prepared food counter. At our school store, the vegetable lady also deals in tofu. She has one large block--think 3 feet by 3 feet--and will cut off however much you want. I asked for about 50 cents worth and got a piece the size that comes packaged in the US.

For a vegetable, I bought some youcai (oil plant), which looks and tastes like baby bok choy but is actually a rapeseed plant.I sliced the tofu into cubes and then fried it in some oil for about twenty minutes until each side was golden brown. The greens went in the wok for a couple minutes. And I made Peanut Sesame Noodles to go with everything.

I wonder if the Chinese would enjoy a meal like this...


I found it very satisfying, though Turner complained about how many dishes and pots I used to make such a simple dinner.