• Xinjiang Noodle Dough Enchiladas. Really.

    With my crock pot full of fermenting cabbage this month, I’ve had to start re-thinking my usual culinary fall-back techniques of, well, throwing everything in the fridge into the crock pot and hoping for the best.  Since I went a…

  • Dragon-Baiting Roasted Chili-Garlic Wonton Crisps

    I spent most of last month under water in Thailand, thinking about what I’d do differently when back in Shanghai. Like Chinese New Year resolutions. I tend to have a lot of these big thinks when I’m in places where…

  • Awesome Slow-Cooker Spicy Shredded Beef Tacos

    I’ve been meaning to do a taco post for ages. It’s one of our dinner staples here these days. I’ve made beef tacos that were browned in the wok, then marinated in the jus from the de-glazing, sliced thinly and…

  • Brown Sugar Toaster Oven Christmas Cookies

    It’s Christmas Eve and I am sick again. This time I have a cold and managed to set a world record for most consecutive sneezes in a single morning. We attempted to remedy this at lunch by going out for…

  • The Infamous Mega-Carrot Cake

    As you may have noticed, I haven’t exactly written anything here for, um, a while. Which isn’t to say that I haven’t been cooking- oh no. No. I’ve been Little Miss Cooks-A-Lot this month as my parental units are in…

  • Not Your Grandma’s Bazlama: Turkish Wok Bread!

    As you probably already know (or don’t care), I lived in Turkey for 6 years before moving to China. For the first 2 years before I moved to Istanbul, I lived in a small city called Kayseri, on the edge…

  • Chicken Soup Cure for Sino Black Lung

    This was originally going to be my ode to caldo xochitl, the soup I first had in a tiny little cafe in San Cristobal de las Casas about 3 years ago. I should note that thereafter, I had it again…

  • Semi-Lucid Rice Cooker Apple Cake

    So I am sick again. This time it’s with a bronchial bark that frightens the neighbours and a fever that has made the past few days rather interesting, perception-wise.  Mind you, sometimes when living in Shanghai it is difficult to…

  • Potato Pierogies for the People!

    One of the unexpected things I’ve learned over the years of living in inconvenient places and having to improvise ways of making the comfort foods of my homeland is that the home made version is so much better than the…

  • Decadent Bourgeois Coconut Macaroons

    These ones were impromptu. I’d already had a plan for the day and it didn’t involve dipping things in chocolate ganache- though I am never averse to dipping anything in ganache if the opportunity presents itself. I was on a…