Saturday, November 25, 2006

You can't beat a cheese sandwich

Eating Chinese food, for nearly every single meal of the week, is something I have found difficult to get used to. Apart from the odd chinese takeaway I might have had when I lived in York, or the even less frequent Chinese meal I might have had back in Hartlepool, I hardly ever ate Chinese food in England. Mother dearest might knock up a stir-fry now and then, or I might eat a Chinese curry from ASDA every once and a while, but other than that - nope. Give me a Tikka Massala over Chicken Chop Suey any day of the week.

We do have McDonalds and KFC's, everywhere as it happens. But I like to stay away from them as much as I can, which is usually until I am hungover and crave a greasy burger. So, as for the purpose of this post - my constant search for ingredients that I can knock together into meals I like when I am in England. Our first foray into cooking came in the form of beans on toast. Everyone's favourite, not least of all mine. This was the case until I spilt my glass of water all over my portion. Next came a fry-up, which you can see from the pictures on this blog, turned out very nice indeed.

Last week, Brock, Zach and Hilary put together minced beef chilli with mashed potatoes and a load of bread. I was in heaven! It was an almighty stodge fest, I left my manners at the door and woofed it down like never before.

My main problem is a lack of cheese and milk in Shijiazhuang. There simply isn't any. Other than UHT milk which is horrid, you can't get your hands on any. So when we went to Beijing, I was delighted to be told that there was cheddar cheese for sale. My order was placed with Meredith and when we returned home, I bought a loaf of bread. The result, a cheese sandwich, with a yoghurt and a glass of orange. I was in heaven:-




I have now purchased a tin of corned beef, an onion will be added tommorow and for lunch I shall be eating a corned beef and onion sandwich. I can hardly contain myself.

P.s. My kingdom for a Melton Mowbray pork pie with HP sauce!

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