You Say Tomato...

My apologies, loyal readers (the few out there), my blog postings have gone amiss due to too much fun. If there was ever any excuse, this has to be the best because who can argue with too much fun? Either I have not been home enough in the past few days to cook, or I just had too much else to do, so I have had nothing worthy to write about.

Today, however, the tides turned. Today I made a loaf of bread, lemon yogurt cake, salsa, tortillas, Mexican rice, and burritos. And I taught this morning, ran four miles, and tried to grade grammar exams. A full day despite only two hours of real, paid work. (On a side note, today is China Youth Day, so my students got the afternoon off to do whatever youth do. I wouldn't know; I'm not one of them.)


I was supposed to grade exams today. I got through ten. I made a cake instead. Which do you think is better?


This morning I intended to make spaghetti for dinner. Then the temperature neared seventy degrees and I did not feel like making sauce, so I shifted to omelets--easy, quick--until Turner sent a text saying he had eggs for lunch. Third time's a charm, right? I thought about the two cans of refried beans in the fridge and half bottle of Patron tequila--and our two months left in China--and decided to make burritos.


Yesterday I saw beautiful orange tomatoes still on their vine sitting outside our local fruit stall. I needed something to use them in, so I decided on an orange tomato salsa to go in the rice and bean burritos. I diced the tomatoes along with some hot Hungarian pepper, onion, and garlic. Salt and cumin rounded out the spices, and lime juice brightened everything. After the fresh salsa sat for awhile, I cooked it briefly in a frying pan: one, to save us from getting sick; two, to bring the flavors together a bit; and three, to take the bite out of the garlic and onion. The salsa added a note of freshness to the burritos.


For the rice, I made a cup of plain white rice in our microwave rice cooker. Once finished, I put it in a sauce pan and added a cup of onion and a bit of garlic I had browned in a frying pan, a cup of fresh diced tomatoes (tomatoes are rockin' this time of year), cumin, oregano, chili powder, and salt. The rice turned out moist and sticky, robust with flavors of sun-baked Mexico.


Turner and I whipped up a batch of burrito sized tortillas, made more difficult by the white russian I was drinking and Turner's beer-in-a-bag that he brought home (yes, it does exist).


We had grated cheese, cilantro, hot sauce, refried beans (re-refried by Turner in lard that he keeps in the fridge), and the Mexican rice to build into burritos.

The only thing that could possibly make the burritos better would be avocado. It's not too shabby when the only thing missing from our Mexican repast is a difficult-to-ship, expensive, finnacky fruit. The Patron made up for it, I suppose.


I ate two burritos. They were amazing.

A Chili Day in China

March's lion decided to rear its ferocious head in April. We woke up this morning to thunder and lightening, a cold wind, and steady drizzle. But, you know what they say, April showers bring... Why is spring so full of cliches? I think we try to wax poetic about all the new life budding, bursting, blossoming, and blooming around us. Today brought a nice dose of moisture to brighten up the brown landscape. It also brought cold weather reminiscent of February. Cold weather makes me think of two things--wool sweaters and chili.

I paid visits to both our little school store for vegetables (and got ripped off) and Jusco for less common items (like Tide detergent and cheese). I used to make chili and spaghetti sauce from cans of stewed/diced/chopped/etc. tomatoes. In the US, you can get them just about any way now except upside down. I've seen cans that even purport to have all the spices needed for chili or spaghetti sauce. While easy in a pinch and cost effective when tomato prices skyrocket in the winter, in China, these cans are a high-priced commodity, shipped in from capitalist countries overseas. With tomatoes available fairly reasonably year-round, I've taken to making sauces from a bag of fresh tomatoes. It's really just one extra step, cutting up tomatoes instead of cutting open a can, and saves you from chemicals, preservatives, and that can that's been sitting on the supermarket shelf for two years.

While the tomatoes simmer in their own liquid, I brown and season ground beef with salt and chili powder. Dump that into the tomatoes, then sautee chopped onions, carrots, and green pepper in some oil, followed by diced garlic once the onions have softened. Though not traditionally a chili vegetable, I think the carrot adds a nice non-acidic sweetness and lends some brightness and vitamins. If you like chili that is simply beef, or beef and beans, my recipe is not for you. It's chock full of chunks of vegetables and tomatoes.

Just before the vegetables are done in the frying pan, grind some fresh cumin seeds and toss those with the vegetables along with a good dose (I mean a couple tablespoons) of chili powder and some salt. It's best to warm the cumin and chili powder in a frying pan to enhance their flavor and aromas before submerging the spices in the tomato sauce .

Now that everything is happily bubbling away in the tomato sauce, forget about the chili for awhile. When you remember, or catch a whiff of that fabulous goodness, give it a stir. Once it's been simmering for about 40 minutes, it's time to get out the secret ingredients. I learned this trick years ago from my Aunt Georgene actually. We had chili at her home and it was fantastic! Her secret, which I've adopted, is to add a tablespoon each of brown sugar and cocoa powder. It may sound strange, but it will take your chili to the next level or even out of this world, and also deepen the red of the tomatoes.

After an hour or so, add a can of beans (or two, depending on how much gas your significant other/family can handle), any kind you like, though I usually use red kidney beans or black beans. Let these cook in for about 20 minutes and you're done. Chili is so simple and soooo satisfying, especially on a blustery day.


Turner and I like to mix in grated cheese and cilantro and have tortillas alongside for dunking. My grandma used to make a classic Midwestern dish of chili mac, adding macaroni to the finished product and a good helping of cheese. I like chili just about any way but have yet to find someone who makes it better than me. I think my mom comes pretty close though.

January Tomatoes

Chinese tomatoes are generally not of the variety that make you want to take a big juicy bite. See item A to the left, for example. On the other hand, the only pasta sauce available comes in a can and costs over $3.00, which seems like pittance to most Americans but is about an hour of work for us in China and a day’s toil for your average factory worker. A bag of tomatoes costs half that (though in the summer they are half this price and twice the quality). So, when choosing between chemical-laden, who-knows-how-long-it’s-sat-on-the-shelf sauce and fresh tomato sauce, we usually opt for the latter. The tomatoes we bought today (in about 5 degree plus -20 degree wind-chill weather) were less than inspiring, but they were all we could find.

The Chinese use tomatoes for one of two things: first, the large tomatoes are used in a few savory dishes, usually basics like “xi hong shi chao ji dan” or “tomatoes fried with eggs;” second, the small grape or cherry tomatoes are set out fresh for dessert alongside other fruit. I use tomatoes to make spaghetti sauce or chili, methods of cooking completely foreign to the Chinese because they entail cooking something for longer than 5 minutes. Luckily, we don’t have to pay for electricity, so we can leave our burners on for hours. I know it’s not environmentally friendly, but we walked to and from the grocery store, which must make up for leeching power from China’s grid.

So, I made spaghetti sauce with ground pork for dinner tonight. It didn’t taste authentically Italian, but it was awfully fulfilling after freezing my fingers off carrying home groceries. On a side note, the only Parmesan cheese we can find in Qingdao comes in a green tube. I would not use the stuff if I had any other option.