Cooking in China...and a little baking too!

So this past week I was asked to go into Brian's work, they have a cafeteria that provides lunches (Traditional Chinese) but no Western food, so they asked me to come in and show the chef a recipe.  After hearing they don't have an oven, and knowing Brian prefers more Mexican food, I decided to make chicken fajitas.  It was a fun experience to go into the kitchen and cook with the chef, I had a translator with me that was able to explain the directions and ingredients.  In addition, she would translate the recipe for the future and I took photos of all ingredients at the store so they could purchase the next time.

Overall it was a good experience, there were very limited bowls, no measuring cups or spoons, and the chef had a cleaver for a knife!  The cutting board was a large block of wood, very thick and round.  The kitchen really had nothing in it, they prepare most of the food in a wok and they have a very large boxed steamer they seem to cook all the rice in large trays inside.  The thing was steaming like crazy so it was pretty hot in the kitchen while i was in there cooking.

Once we started to go through the recipe and the chef cut all the chicken, bell peppers, onions up we had to make the sauce and sides.  Little did I know they also didn't have a can opener so the chef used his cleaver to hack a hole in the middle of each can of corn and refried beans to get them open, it was quite a site!  I tried to catch a photo, see below.  The meal consisted of chicken fajitas, refried beans and cheese, and some corn with bell pepper.  I think overall the chef found it pretty easy to make and the guys seem to think it was flavorful and healthy (win-win)!

I heard of a place that you can go and bake cookies with kids, and then decorate the cookies from my Chinese teacher.  She gave me instructions as to where the place was and I spoke with my friend who also has a son the same age as Blake and we decided to make it an outing!  We went today to this bakery and were able to have the boys make and decorate shortbread cookies, and it was about $10 USD per kid!  This seems to be an uncommon thing in China to have a bakery that has western style cakes and cookies, and also that lets you make and decorate them!  It was a fun morning with the boys mixing up the ingredients and rolling out the dough.  There were lots of cookie cutters, unlike those at home they had a push button on them to make sure you got the dough out of the mold.  They had things from Cars characters, animals, random objects, and Christmas objects.

The boys had their clean hands and dug into this activity with all the cookie cutters they could get their hands on.  Once we placed all the cookies on our sheets they baked for maybe 10 minutes so the boys played a little and we were able to admire some of the cakes that had been decorated there and had their photos on the wall.  Might be something to go back and do without the kiddos!  The cookies came out and we were given frosting paint and brushes to decorate.  While both boys ate a cookie to test them out they had fun decorating them as well.  Blake is learning his colors more and has started to use the word "No" when he feels he doesn't want something so it was fun having him communicate which color frosting he wanted to use.  Below are some of the photos of the process and the yummy outcome!

After the bakery we had lunch with the little guys and then let them ride the Merry-Go-Round which they thought was very fun!!!

So our week was fun, no exciting new stories of crazy Chinese things I have run into but for good measure, here is a photo of a poor little boy sporting a Chinese mullet I happened to walk behind.  LOL  :)

In addition, I took a trip to Shanghai while Blake was in school to check out the baby market there.  No this is not where you go to buy/sell babies but for baby items.   Little did my friend and I know there wouldn't be much for our little ones we are expecting but mostly older kids clothes so not much to tell here.  However, we did run into this interesting Medicine Vending Machine I had to take a photo of and share.

And a new video from Blake's gymnastics, he enjoys running and climbing all over the place!