We The Foodie People...Week 3: China

Well, leaving the British Isles wasn't as easy as we thought it would be! Instead of finding ourselves in China on Monday, we realized that we were taking the slow boat there...

Yup...with all of the 32 pie wedding chaos that went on, on realized that we had only actually eaten in our own home three nights that week! :( Such a sad discovery...especially since I had salmon marinating in the refrigerator for one of our B.I. meals. So, we decided to eat one more course before heading off into the land of rice and sesame oil.

Lilyana was pleased as punch! Why? Because that meant that her father would be grilling again!

I had my hands full in the kitchen preparing our Cheese Fritters, so I wasn't able to hang out in our back yard and snap pictures, so Ben grabbed the camera and took a self portrait. Isn't he cute?

YUM! I really do like salmon, especially when it's been grilled. For our very last meal in the British Isles we enjoyed Grilled Salmon with a Whiskey Butter sauce, Grilled Whiskey Beets, and Cheese Fritters over fresh garden greens...and yes, the greens were fresh and they came from our garden! After this meal, we both decided that we liked whiskey better in desserts...so we made Sourdough Bread Pudding with a Caramel Whiskey sauce.

The next day we found ourselves in China, which meat rice for dinner almost every night. Ben had a few requests this week, so after finding recipes for those, I set about to find other recipes that were all different. I was thrilled to discover that the Chinese people love garlic! Towards the end of our week in the British Isles, I was very tempted to throw some garlic into our meals...but I resisted the temptation to ensure that I was keeping the recipes as authentic as possible. When I cut into my first clove of garlic last week, I savored the smell and jumped up and down when I saw that the recipe called for not only one garlic clove, but FOUR!!!

Ni hao! Or "Hello!" Our very first meal of the week was Broccoli Beef, at the request of my husband. This was the first time that I've had broccoli since Lilyana was born, and I was oh-so relived to find that it didn't bother her at all! Hurray! More broccoli for me! This was personally my favorite meal of the week.

Ah! My little kitchen helper! It is really just too fun to have a little one in the house. Lilyana is using her voice more and more every day, and when she's awake she almost always has a smile on her face. She's even laughed a few times! I still can't believe how fast she is growing!

Kung Pao Chicken was next on the menu! This is one of my favorite dishes, though I would rather eat it without the peanuts...but we had to keep it as authentic as we could! Ben would have been much happier without the green onions on top, but he was willing to sacrifice his personal preferences, too.

This was another meal that forced me to ignore my dislike of certain flavors. During those long weeks of morning sickness, I consumed one too many ginger supplements, and even though ginger was one of my all-time favorite things to eat before getting pregnant, I have a hard time with it now. It's very sad, and I'm trying to get over it... So, aside from the ginger flavor in this meal, I really did enjoy the Stir Fry Ginger Beef. It had a unique combination of flavors...fresh cilantro, a slight taste of honey, the heat from the peppers, and the subtle hint of ginger.

For our last meal in China, we had some Chow Mein. Neither of us had tried Beef Chow Mein before. I always thought it was made with chicken. This was an authentic recipe, however, and Ben said that it tasted more like the Chow Mein he had at a non-Americanized Chinese restaurant that he's been to. Chow Mein is one of Ben's favorite Chinese dishes, which is why I saved it for the end. It's always fun to go out with a big bang.

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The end of our week in China? Yup...and we had ordered a Wok to cook with last week, only we sent it to the wrong address on accident and so we had to use a frying pan instead... Oh well...

Oh yes, she's MUCH sweeter than a doughnut...

We were going to be away on Saturday evening attending a wedding, so we didn't have dinner at home that night. We did, however, eat doughnuts for breakfast! That seemed like a pretty good Chinese breakfast to us! *grin*

Now we're on to the next week, and we're still having fun! Chinese food is good, but I'm glad we're done with it...the smell of sesame oil does get old after a few days....

We've been thinking about taking reservations for dinner...only we haven't come up with a name for our "restaurant" yet. Oh, you still need a recipe, don't you? How about...

Kung Pao Chicken

1lb boneless-skinless chicken breasts (cut into 1” pieces)

1 tablespoon cornstarch

2 teaspoons sesame oil

3 tablespoons green onions (chopped)

3 garlic cloves (minced)

½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

½ teaspoon powdered ginger

2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar

2 tablespoons Bragg’s Liquid Aminos/Soy sauce

2 teaspoons sugar

1/3 C dry roasted peanuts

Combine chicken and cornstarch in a small bowl and toss to coat. Heat sesame oil in wok over medium heat, add chicken and stir fry 5-7 minutes or until no longer pink inside. Remove chicken from wok.

Add green onions, garlic, red pepper flakes and powdered ginger to the wok and stir fry for 15 seconds.

Combine vinegar, soy sauce and sugar in a small bowl. Mix well and add the sauce to the wok.

Return chicken to the wok and coat with sauce. Stir in roasted peanuts. Heat thoroughly. Top with additional green onions if desired and serve over white rice.

My little sleeper....she does this a lot....

If you try the recipe above, please leave a comment telling us how you liked it! And don't forget to check back next week to hear about our week in Holland!