I know.
But frankly, I'm hungry.
THE CONTEST IS THIS:
WHO CAN SUBMIT THE MOST RECIPES
HOW TO SUBMIT RECIPES:
HOWEVER YOU WANT!
Leave them in the comments, drop me an email (j.hrncirik or jujunewton at gmail), facebook me, whatever. It can be the full out recipe or just a link to a recipe (but not a link to a website... unless it's an "American Cooking in China" website)
THE CATCH IS THIS:
THE RECIPES MUST BE SHANGHAI FRIENDLY
(meaning that they must be things that I can cook with the ingredients we have available.)
THE PRIZE!!!!!! .... of course there's a prize:
A CHINESE SURPRISE
(No, not chocolate. We all know they don't have chocolate here.)
SOMETHING COOL AND CHINESE-Y
(ok but not super huge... sorry, we're poor grad students... but as cool as possible)
**CONTEST ENDS SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22nd**
More about THE CATCH:
1. Remember we DO NOT HAVE an oven.
2. We also DO NOT HAVE a crock pot.
3. We DO HAVE access to most fruits and vegetables. The only thing I can think of is that lettuce is really expensive (but they have cabbage).
4. Forget about recipes that have anything super tasty like CHEESE! Right! This country does not eat sweets and does not eat dairy!!!!!!!! And yes, I have gone over a month without CHEESE! How am I still alive? It's a miracle and a mystery. They DO HAVE milk though.
5. They also DO NOT HAVE canned stuff. However, I have found tomato paste.
WHY am I doing this instead of looking for recipes myself?? The truth is that this is kind of a trail/weakness of mine. I do LOVE food but I have never been good at knowing what to make for dinner... I have been trying. I just know that some of you are better at this than I am and you probably know of a dozen recipes off hand.
Even if you just send one it will save us from another night of rice and soy sauce. =)
***Clarification: When I say they don't HAVE cheese and those sorts of things what I really mean is that the people here don't eat those things so they are not easy to find, common place, affordable. It is said of Shanghai that you can find anything in this city if you know where to look and if you are willing to pay for it. So saying they don't have cheese means that they don't eat cheese so if you want to buy it, you can, but it will cost you. They sell the really small blocks of cheese that we have back home but it will be anywhere from 6-9 dollars a pop, depending on the store. If we had an awesome job we may not worry about buying cheese once in a while but it's just not possible for us now. I'm sure there are Americans who buy and eat cheese just like they do at home and don't think twice about it and would think we are silly for not splurging. Most of the foods we are used to eating and seeing at home are not affordable for us. So I'm a bit dramatic but hopefully this makes sense.
