Back Pulver

Okay, so my mom asked, "What's a 6 pack of baking powder?"  Here's some photos.  The name for baking powder is "back pulver"...I think it's German.

Front view of the 6-pack of baking powder envelopes

Six little envelopes which hold 3 1/2 tsp. each, packaged together in cellophane.

Enough baking powder for 6 recipes of pancakes.

My husband just said, "You're blogging about THAT?"  Yes, I'm crazy.

One of These Things Doesn't Belong

Remember the old Sesame Street song, "One of these things is not like the other..." And the viewer was supposed to identify what the difference was in the items presented?  Well, here's the same idea.

Below are three different Tsagaan Sar heaving boovs.  I will write more about Tsagaan Sar in another post.  The layers of bread are the heaving boov.  There are also Mongolian and Russian candies as well as dried curdled milk products nestled within the tower of bread.

Our teammates, Pam and Susan, present the heaving boov which Kevin created on the eve of Tsagaan Sar this week
(Tuesday evening).

Today, we visited the home of one of our teachers who takes our teachers' workshop (Jargal in the blue shirt).  Her college-aged daughter (far left) comes to our home almost weekly to practice English and study the Word with us.  Their heaving boov tower is 5 layers high with many goodies interspersed within.

Next, we visited Jargal's mother's home (less than a U.S. city block away).  She had the "Queen" of towers with 7 layers and a bakery cake displayed on top.  The foil-wrapped chocolate candies were pretty tasty with our Soo Te Tsay (Milk Tea which is milk, tea, a little bit of salt, and sometimes some fat from the mutton or some butter). 

So, you decide: Which one DOESN'T belong!?!

Delicious, Warming Soup

Yellow lentil soup with star anise and Thai galangal (purchased in Thailand last year) with delicate chunks of cooked squash

We have really enjoyed soup a lot this past several weeks.  I've made chili/beef back soup, turkey rice soup, chicken/carrot/pasta soup, and broccoli cheese with potato.  The discovery of homemade tomato soup has made any possiblity of future Campbell's canned tomato soup pretty uninteresting. 

I consider onions a necessity in making just about any soup.  I start with olive oil and chopped onion.  Garlic would be a nice addition, but Kevin can always smell it when I add garlic, and he really dislikes that good stuff.  So, being the "good wife," I avoid garlic...well, most of the time!

So, as the olive oil and onions are simmering away, I chop up any meat which will be added.  That goes in next.  Beef and chicken are my only real choices here.  I could branch out and get camel, horse, goat, or lamb, but why ruin a good stew with those?  They just aren't our favorites.  When making any soup with chicken, I consider at least one leg and thigh a necessity.  The marrow in the bones makes a better broth.

Next goes in any vegetables.  The standards seem to be carrots, potatoes, or broccoli.  I like celery, but it's pretty rare to find around here.  Later, at the very end of cooking, spinach is a nice addition (3-5 minutes of cooking time).   After the vegetables cook a short time with the olive oil, I like to add several cups of water and a bouillion cube.  Is this cheating?  I don't know, but it sure makes a good soup base!

Tomatoes are nice in some soups.  And, like I said, I really enjoy the tomato soup I've discovered in the Wycliff Cookbook.  Saute some onion (of course!), then, make a roux, then add basil, tomato juice with no sugar, 3-4 fresh tomatoes (I just wash them and gently dig out the center core and plop the whole tomato into the mix.  Let this simmer for awhile, stirring often, and then pull the tomatoes back out, peel them, and dice them up, returning them to the pot.)  At the very end, add salt, a couple small spoonfuls of sugar (if desired), and a cup or two of milk.  Just warm gently and eat!

As you can tell, I've fallen in love with soup.  I make large batches so we can eat it for at least three meals, since we eat almost all lunches and suppers at home.  I'm making myself hungry just thinking about this!  

Soup...it's a pot full of comfort. It's what warms us from the inside out.  And we've been needing that lately with daily temperatures in the negative range.

Healthy Treats Found on a Recent Scavenger Hunt

Yep, that's right...a scavenger hunt!  That's how I feel about grocery shopping nowadays.  In America, I had my three to four stores that would have our usual groceries and I knew right where to get each item.  Here, the items stocked at any one time can change from day to day.  Last year, we couldn't find oatmeal in any of our usual places.  There's times when I can't find tomato juice.  And, recently, we haven't been able to find coffee at a decent price and we're getting low on what we brought.  So, it's always fun to find a favorite food item; it truly feels like a game of scavenger hunt! 
An American friend told me about these gala apples at an outdoor fruit stand the other day.  I went over there and just bought three, still hesitant that even though they looked good, they might be mushy.  The price for these three apples came to the equivalent of $1.90.  Is that about the U.S. price right now?  The fruit did not disappoint!  Mmmm, mmmm!  I ate the first apple, cold and crisp, right out of my hand.  Kevin came home and I told him about my delicious find and he had one, too.  Then, the next day, I cut the last apple up for us to share and my slices transported peanutbutter to my tastebuds.  Too bad this apple stand is a half hour away!

The same day, I found this tea...a flavor we enjoyed last year, but I hadn't been able to locate again until now!

It's the little things in life that can make a day brighter!

A Preoccupation With Meat

My most recent meat purchase which was the "back" of a cow.  The white center part is the backbone.  After I butchered this piece, I had several pieces of very tender steak which were snug up to that backbone.

So, it might seem that I have a preoccupation with meat.  I really don't.  I just think it's fascinating how our way of getting meat here is so different than in the states.  Remember, we could also buy a whole leg of lamb, a goat head, a large hunk of some animal which gets thrown into the trunk of the car.  We've seen all of this.  When it gets super cold outside, people also hang bags of meat out their windows to utilize the free freezer outside.  This is seen especially on the college campuses when mom and dad come from the countryside after a butchering and give their college students some hunks of horse or lamb. 

Here's my take (at home) on an Outback Steakhouse meal: a crisp green salad with thousand island dressing, a tender steak which has been marinated and broiled with tomatoes on top, french bread, and (far right, barely visible in the photo), cheesy potatoes made with plain (sweetened) yogurt instead of sour cream...kind of strange, but it's what I could find.

As we sat down to this meal, Kevin asked, "Have I forgotten something?  Like, is this our anniversary, or are we celebrating something special?"  I said, "We're celebrating that I finally found a good cut of meat!"

Khorkhog From Start to Finish in Pictures

Warning: if you have a strong stomach, you may want to read the post below which includes the actual death sentence and butchering of the sheep.  If blood and death of an animal bothers you, please don't read through and look at the pictures!  I was squeamish as I watched the whole process, but made myself watch this Mongolian tradition, knowing I might not ever get to see it again.  Even looking at the pictures makes me feel a little "whoozy"!  So, be forewarned...and read on if you're just extremely curious!

To begin with....our organization's team went out to a nice ger camp.  If you don't know what a ger is, look it up online.  If you've been reading my blog all along, you know.  "Ger" is the Mongolian word for our Americanized word "Yurt".  "Ger" rhymes with "hair".  This camp will hopefully be the location for our August orientation/training, as well.



In August, we will have the choice of staying in these gers, or
a rustic hotel on the grounds.




The ger camp from the top of the hill.  Take notice of the distant hills.
What a refreshing change from the high buildings in the city with all the honking horns and spitting pedestrians!







Here we are, refreshed after a day in the countryside!  We couldn't resist posing
in front of one of these neat little ger homes.  Many people in the countryside live in homes
such as these year around.  There are even gers in the city, and some of our friends and
students live in gers.



To ease into this process...I'll show you the cute picture of the sheep.  Of course, this only makes the
process more difficult, because you get attached to a dear little face.  This is the "start" of the
khorkhog process...a fattened sheep.



This is the master of our khorkhog butchering.  He untied the sheep, marched him over to this tarp on the ground,
and had him laid out on his back all within about 10 seconds (too fast for me to capture a picture!).  The lamb was truly
a picture of a quiet lamb, being led to slaughter.  I was amazed that there wasn't a noise from the sheep.  He
willingly let the master slice his stomach open.  Here, as he lies on his back, still alive, the master takes a very sharp knife, makes a slit down the middle of the stomach, reaches in to snap off an artery, and the sheep slowly bleeds to death, bleeding into his inner cavity.  You will see a picture later where the blood is scooped out of the cavity.  The sheep was dead in about a minute, with some reflexes of his legs for a few minutes after that.



Minutes after the artery has been snapped, the sheep lies still.  I believe the butcher is waiting for the blood to drain into the cavity during this time.



Cutting off the legs.



Beginning the skinning process.  The sheep in sheep's clothing!



And the skinning continues.



One side of the hide or pelt has been taken off.



The legs which were taken off a few photos back.



Now it's time to take the organs, stomach, and intestines out.  This was one of the "yukkiest" parts for me!



Scooping blood from the body cavity.  This whole process kept the blood inside the body cavity and inside cups and kettles.  No blood was spilled on the tarp or the ground.  This is all an important part of the process for them.



The stomach full of grass which the sheep had consumed is in the front left part of the photo.



As the sheep meat (mutton), carrots, potatoes, onions, and cabbage all stewed together with the hot rocks,
we all took walks and visited together.  Kevin and I took a hike up this hill and came upon this ovoo, a spiritual tribute
which can be found all over Mongolia.  It is tied to spiritism, superstitions, and worship which isn't connected to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. 



Here's Kevin with his portion of mutton and vegetables.  We are inside a traditional ger.  Gers are ALWAYS
orange inside.  I asked our Mongolian friend (who also has helped us learn some language), if anyone ever decides
to paint the inside of their ger a different color.  She hesitated, thought, and then laughed.  That would be strange...almost against all the rules!

 From this day, which was three days after Easter, I thought of the Lamb of God...who willingly gave His life for me.  I enjoyed my teammates in the great outdoors.  I was rejuvenated in my love for my husband as we had some time hiking in the hills.  What a great day!

We're Famous!



Chocolate from Germany--easy to obtain all kinds of chocolate here--from the very good to the downright tasteless, waxy stuff.  What fun to look for the good stuff, though.  Even though I haven't seen chocolate chips here (except at the American stores--and for a pretty penny...I mean tugrik), we make chocolate chip cookies here by taking a "chip off the old block" of chocolate.


Speaking of taste...a famous quote could be changed to go something like this, "If the chocolate doesn't taste good, it is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot."  And a thought I've had is, "Make them thirsty...don't drown them."  To think more on these thoughts, read Mt. 5.13-16

Timing is Everything!

Last night we were the host home for our organization's Christmas dinner gathering for 25 people.  I was in charge of baking a turkey.  The turkey was from the U.S., so thankfully, it was packaged as I would normally expect it to be (just thought you'd all like to know I didn't have to pluck the feathers or anything like that!).  Anyway, the gathering was originally supposed to happen a week ago, but one of our Mongolian employees had a death in her family that week, and we post poned the dinner so she could come.   By the time the dinner had been post poned, though, my turkey was thawed, so I thought it would be best to bake the turkey and debone it, freezing it for one week later.  It actually made for a less stressful day for the day of the event!  Let me tell you why! 

We came home from church and had no electricity.  I actually thought the whole building was without electricity, so I was just patiently waiting for the electricity to come back on for over an hour.  However, we realized the elevator was working, and so were the hall lights. This motivated me to investigate.  So, with my Mongolian language dictionary in hand, I went to see our building manager (jujor) who does not know a stitch of English.  I was able to communicate to her that our electricity wasn't working and she was able to communicate to me that we needed to pay our bill.  Somehow, the electric company thought we hadn't paid our electric bill. So, Sunday at 11:30, they disconnected our electricity. Not a good thing to happen when you're having 25 people show up for a 5 pm dinner!


Our conversation was getting complicated, so we went hunting for a translator in the building.  Fortunately, both of our Mongolian neighbors on our floor are also fluent in English.  One was home and helped us through the problem.  As it turned out, we HAD paid our bill, the electrical man came to re-connect our electricity at 4 pm, and he gave me a bill which needs to be paid to re-connect our electricity (is that fair, since it was unjustly disconnected?  Probably allowed in this culture...and it's only about $2.25...but stilllllllllll!).  I was glad I had, #1....baked my turkey last week; and #2.....had electricity just in time to warm up the thawed turkey in my frig!  I made a delicious thin gravy to drizzle over the re-heating turkey, and it tasted freshly roasted.  Several people commented that the turkey was good, and a very honest teammate (who knew my whole story), asked how I got the turkey to be so moist doing it this way.  All I can say, is I'm thankful for perfect timing!

Kneading Dough, Kneading Seeds Into Hearts

Javkah and Byermaa make pizza in our kitchen for the first time.

I recently met a Mongolian woman who teaches at a university here in town.  We met at a "Monglish Club".  This is held at a restaurant and is open to the public, encouraging Mongolians to speak English with English speakers.  The English speakers we met were mostly from the Peace Corp, and some were from other English teaching organizations.  Not all were Americans.  Some were Australian, British, and Euoropean.  Since being introduced to this club, I've made a new word for whenever I say Mongolian words wrong..."Manglish"...meaning I've mangled their language. 

Anyway, back to the Mongolian woman I met!  Her name is Amraa, which means "rest".  Most Mongolians will automatically tell you what their name means, which is quite helpful since we've been learning vocabulary.  So, if I wish you a good rest tonight, I say, "Saihan Amrarai" which I actually do say quite often when friends leave the apartment at night.  It means, "Please have a good rest."

Again, I diverge! 

So, the night I met Amraa, I found out that she had learned her first English from the son of the president of the organization we teach with, several years ago in Western Mongolia (we are directly east of that location by a 20-ish hour drive!).  She raved about how she was so thankful that she was taught English and she is forever grateful to our organization.  It was quite a wonderful meeting.  I also found out she makes beautiful Kazak bag designs. I ordered one from her that night, guaranteeing we'd see one another again to make the purchase.  As it turned out, I ordered three more after that for gifts.

During the exchange of the three gifts, Amraa reminded me that we had talked about how her hobby was this Kazak craft and my hobby was cooking.  Would I like to teach her and a few friends how to make pizza?  Yes!  We decided on a date, and this past week the date came, and so did they. 

Amraa brought four friends with her, two of them teaching colleagues.  Kevin joined in with us and one of her friends was a man who actually wrestled at the stadium at Naadam this past summer.  Only the best of the best get to wrestle at the capital city's Naadam. 

All five of the visitors had varying English abilities, but all could speak and understand a good amount.  Amraa and the man were most fluent.  They ended up rolling out dough with me and the lowest English speaker, while the other two played Yahtzee with Kevin at the table 10 feet away.  The man looked at a poster in the kitchen which had a verse on it.  "Are you both Christians?"  The conversation continued and seeds were planted.  Questions were asked.  Some by me.  Some by them.  There was interest and consideration for one another.  It was a conversation which I sometimes didn't know which way it would go next, but I kept asking for advice from Him as I listened and before I spoke.  He gave me direction.




We took this picture before adding cheese so we could see the fancy design created by Amraa (left).  The yellow and red are thinly sliced peppers.

 We ate pizza and shared more of our lives with one another. Before leaving, Amraa suggested that Kevin and I come to her house to learn to make buuz some time. I think it will happen.
These are friends to remember as we interact with them.



Hot out of the oven...the pizza is ready to eat!

Oh, by the way, the pizza was made from browned ground beef and onion as well as a sausage which looks like our summer sausage, but is made with beef and mutton.  It's not bad, but it still has the after taste of mutton.  The Mongolians love mutton like we love beef...because that's what they were raised on.  A couple flavors that some Mongolians don't like: tomato sauce and cinnamon...and we've decided again, that it's because they weren't raised on those flavors.  The pizzas which were topped by the Mongolians had half the sauce that I would normally use...ahhh, something for me to note for future pizza meals with them, right?

I thought the Husker fans among us would enjoy this cake which was part of Micah's going-away party in November!  We all had a good laugh at the pretty flowers adorning the heart-shaped decoration on the cake.  Mongolia is known for its very fancy cakes; however, be not deceived....the flavor is usually a bit "blah" with about half the sugar than what we're used to and a texture which is more like Wonder Bread than a succulent cake.  Kevin and I refer to this kind of cake as a "hagus" cake. "Hagus" in Mongolian is "half".

Cheeseburger Soup

Okay, this is the cheeseburger soup I mentioned in my Menu Plan Monday post earlier this week.  It would be just as delicious with chicken, and perhaps just as delicious with camel meat.  I'll try the chicken option someday soon...but not sure about that other option!  I received this recipe from Deanna C. at Berean in Rochester, MN.  I have added the cabbage option here in Mongolia since cabbage is plentiful and cheap.  I buy it weekly here, since I can get it for about 80 cents a head.

Cheeseburger Soup 


Brown together first three ingredients, then drain off fat.
1/2 lb. hamburger, browned
3/4 cup onion, diced
1/2 cup celery, diced

Add these ingredients to pan and simmer for 15-30 minutes:
3/4 cup carrots (I like to grate mine)
4 cups potatoes, diced
1 cup cabbage, diced up real small (optional--I've done both ways and like both ways!)
3/4 tsp. salt (or a salt/pepper/dried garlic combo)
1 tsp. basil

Make a white sauce with the following ingredients (melt butter first, whisk in the flour and let simmer for about 1 minute, then slowly add other ingredients as you whisk it together and keep heating and stirring to prevent lumps):

4 T. butter
1/4 cup flour
3 cups chicken broth (if you need to "make" broth with bouillion cubes and water, that works fine)
1 1/2 cups milk
2 cups cheese

Combine the white sauce in with the vegetable mixture.  Eat right away, or put in a crock pot or on a very low warm burner until serving. 

Homemade Runzas

Enjoy the "Runza" recipe I mentioned in the previous post.  My sister has written out the details!  Go to....

http://looseendshere.blogspot.com/2010/02/runzas-kraut-burgers.html

Menu Monday (written and posted on Tuesday!)

Monday:  "Runza"--a fast food item in Nebraska that my family has adapted to make on our own.  Basically it's homemade dough (use your favorite bread dough---or frozen dough if that's available!), rolled out into hand-sized circles with a scoop of the following filling: browned hamburger, onion, cabbage, and a little white sauce stirred in to make it all stick together...but not too much to make it soupy.  A little cheese in the meat/bread pocket is good too!  Now, fold the bread over and seal.  Rise and bake.  A couple weeks ago I froze some at the pre-2nd-rise stage (after the meat was enclosed in the bread), then pulled them out 24 hours before wanting to eat them--thawed in the frig--and rose all morning on the counter, and baked as usual.  They weren't as pretty, but they were just as tasty!

Tuesday: Potato Crust Quiche (grate some potatoes and add salt, onion, and oil....pat into a pie crust and bake for 15 min at 425...take out of oven and top with quiche ingredients, and continue baking).
Wednesday: Cheeseburger Soup...absolutely delicious!  I'll post this recipe later this week!  Deanna
C. from Berean in Minnesota shared this recipe with me.  I made it last weekend for some Mongolian friends and they "oohed and aahed" over it.  We didn't get enough, so I must make it again!

Thursday: Chicken, cheese, peppers, onions, in tortillas--baked with a little enchilada sauce poured over.  I've been making my own sauce which is tomato sauce, cumin, oregano, chili powder, and a little tiny bit of cayenne!  I've made my own tortillas, but found a woman who is one building over from us who makes them for 5000 Tugriks for 25 tortillas.  That's about 15 cents a tortilla...and less mess for me!

Friday:  Make a triple batch of brownies with a Mongolian friend who has never made brownies (and she had her first brownie from me!)  What a sad life (just joking).  Any way, she's coming over at noon to bake brownies.  We'll make a small pan for her and her husband (she's 24 years old, has a 17 month old and is 5 months pregnant).  Then, we're going to an American family's home for supper.  They have 8 children.  Hence, the large batch of brownies to take along!

This little girl ("Angel") took a nap at our house on Saturday.  She woke up and needed a snack.  I had some pumpkin bread which she gobbled up--here she is eating a piece.  (This is the pumpkin bread which only had the baking powder in it...I had fogotten the soda...so it was a little flat, but still edible!).  Her mommy, Zola, and I will bake brownies together on Friday this week.

Yesterday at the market I bought a purple cabbage and green cabbage.  I'll make a salad with that some time this week.  Also, last night I pickled three large beets which filled a large jar.  I'm the only one who eats them, so I make small batches like that...equal parts water, vinegar, and sugar (but I always half the sugar)...boiled together with the beets until beets are tender.  Then put in frig with the juice.

At the market, I bought the cabbages (smaller sizes), 7 potatoes, 7 carrots, 3 beets, 7 onions, all for 3300 Tugriks--a mere $2.50.  I am always so impressed with the amount of veggies I can get for a good price. 

So, there's the Block Food Report for this week.

Click here for more Monday Menus.

Two Teaspoons of Baking Soda Makes All the Difference!

Don't you just hate it when you spend time on a recipe and it flops because of one stupid mistake?!

So, a couple days ago I cooked a small sugar pumpkin.  After cleaning the insides out and taking the peeling off, I had invested at least a good half hour in preparation.  Then, this morning, I mashed the pumpkin and made a large batch of pumpkin muffins.  I had just made the same recipe last Saturday, so I knew this was a yummy one!  The muffin baking extravaganza took around an hour (with cleanup).  They just didn't turn out as good as last week.  They were extremely solid and lacking some flavor.  Upon scanning the recipe one more time, I realized I had left the baking soda out which would've given the bread the "lift" it was lacking, as well as the extra salt it needed for flavor!  I was so bummed.  Here, I had many good ingredients and time packed into this bread that SHOULD be delicious, but was rather disappointing. 

I whipped up some cream cheese frosting to dress it up a bit, but you just can't make a flop into a blue-ribbon quality item.

Later, I pulled a cake out of the oven, which I had also baked since the oven was on and company is coming later today.  The cake turned out very good.  I said to Kevin, "It's amazing how just using the right ingredients makes for success!" 

I'm sure we can apply this illustration to life, right?  There would be all kinds of ideas to use with these concepts, but the one that seems best for me right now, goes something like this:

Sometimes I try to dress up my day with some "cream cheese frosting" by skipping a main ingredient (i.e., time with my Father--main ingredient--exchanged for listening to some encouraging music--the cream cheese frosting).  Or sometimes I might think if I just follow the rules set before me, I don't have to work on the heart issues.  Get the idea?  So, don't forget the baking soda!

We Should Live On Veggies (yeah, tell that to my men!)

I was amazed when I left a vegetable stand last week with this nice little harvest, all for around $1.25 USD (1600 Tugricks).

A Mongolian Evening

Last night we visited a couple that we've recently met; the wife knows a lot of English and the husband knows very little.  This gave us an opportunity to speak in Mongolian to try to include him, yet we sometimes mixed Mongolian with English and charades!  They also had their neighbor friend over since her husband is out of the country right now (she's in the purple and black v-necked shirt).

We had a wonderful, simple Mongolian meal.  It included boiled carrots and potatoes (the best potatoes I've had in a long time!); shaved pieces of beef which had been boiled; a plate of cut up tomatoes; rice; some mantoe bread (dough which has been steamed)...it was rolled in the shape of a cinnamon roll, but steamed (not baked) and no cinnamon and sugar.  We told them about cinnamon rolls and the wife went to the cupboard and got cinnamon and sugar out.  I was surprised, as many Mongolians do not like cinnamon.  Kevin unrolled the steamed dough roll and sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on it, then rolled it back up.  They were interested and tried it themselves.  "Mmmmmm..." was the reply. 

We stayed for two hours and enjoyed talking about a book this man has recently written and had published concerning the history of Mongolia and how there is evidence of the Word being around in Mongolian history many centuries ago. 

Their daughter (around 11 years old) played some beautiful selections on the piano.  She has been taking lessons for four years, and I thought she was doing wonderfully for the period of time she's taken.

We then walked home in the dark at 8:15 p.m.  There was much activity in the city, still, but it seemed so late with it getting dark so early again.  It was a mild temperature--perhaps the last evening like this until next summer. 

Today it turned cold, and there were some hours when it was sunny and nice, and other hours when it was rainy and cold.  I think this is all due to being at this higher elevation, and being nestled in between two rows of mountains. 

I am asking for a content attitude no matter what the weather.  I can take notice of the weather, but I want to not grumble about the cold.  When I say, "Oh, it's so cold," it's not like I'm informing someone around me of something they themselves haven't noticed.  So, I want to focus on other things than the weather.  Set my mind on the things above...not on the things that are on earth. Col. 3

Something I Tried This "Mungday"

Mung Beans And Veggies

Boil 1 1/2 cups water and sprinkle some salt in. Add 1/2 cup of rinsed/sorted mung beans, put lid on the pan, and turn the heat to a low simmer. The beans are done after they have absorbed most of the water (just little bubbles left in the bottom)...it took about 45 min, perhaps. I added a couple T. of water at the end because the beans still seemed firmer than I wanted.

In another pan, heat 1-2 T. oil. Add 1/2 red pepper, 1/2 yellow pepper, 2 baby tomatoes, all chopped up, saute for a few minutes, then add sprinkles to your taste liking of: curry, cracked pepper, salt, red pepper flakes, basil, and ginger. After the beans are cooked through, add this vegetable mixture. Oh, my, so tasty!

Other delicious additions which I didn't have tonight, but want to try: onion, garlic, eggplant, potatoes, carrots. This would also be awesome served with rice! We ate it with spaghetti and canned meat sauce (no extra meat added)....so ALMOST vegetarian!

Enjoy!

Hot Pot

Have you ever had "Hot Pot"? The one we had this past week was with a couple we've met through our curriculum director here in Mongolia, an American who has lived here for 13 years. She and this couple are like "family" to one another.


The couple is a Mongolian woman who teaches language and her Laotian husband who has been a doctor in the past and does other business here in Mongolia. They have a 20 year old daughter who studies in the U.S., but she's home for the summer.




"Hot Pot" is a soup broth base in an electric-wok-type of container in the middle of the table. We selected the meat we wanted (beef) and put it in a "sieve" type of ladle that allowed the meat to sit down in the boiling broth.


Then we added all kinds of veggies after the meat was cooked (greens, onions, celery, cilantro), and then boiled it for a few minutes then transferred it to our bowl. It's the Asian style of fondu, I think! After the meat and vegetables have been put in your individual soup bowl, you add some broth into your bowl and add some Asian "glass" noodles and peanut sauce and you have a bowl of yumminess!

Besides the great food, we had great conversation and encouragement as we spent time with these friends.



Here's some ground up peanut sauce that, at first glance, looks like raw ground beef. Be not deceived! It's tofu, peanuts, and some spicy sauce; float this in your bowl of soup and you've got extra flavor going on! I think Rachael Ray would say "Yum-O". I know I did! And, I got my week's supply of vegetables in this one meal!

Butter and Wind Storms in Mongolia

Here's how we buy butter. It doesn't come in pre-wrapped, pre-measured uniform quantities. It comes in blocks and we buy it by the kilo or "hagus kilo" (half kilo). It's pretty good stuff, but it goes rancid quickly, so once we get home from the store, I divide it up into separate baggies and freeze reasonable quantities. I just thought I'd share this little cultural difference with anyone who cared to read about it!



And, here's our window sill after a dust storm. We weren't home to close the windows, and this was what happened. Dust storms are a common happening in UB in the spring. We have had very little precipitation since we arrived March 1. In fact, there is only 8" of precipitation in a year, on average, with 3" happening in the month of July. So, as you can imagine, it's very dry here at this time of year. There's not a lot of grassy areas in the city, so the wind picks up the fine dirt and if you're outside, you get a gritty mouthful. And during such a "storm", you'd better hope the windows are closed. Fortunately, our landlord has supplied a vacuum cleaner for us and we use it to pick up the silt which is sure to happen even on a mildly windy day. Since the radiators are still going, we have to have our windows open sometimes, or it gets stifling in the apartment. Just another little interesting tidbit I thought I'd share about life in UB, Mongolia!

Mexican Food in Mongolia!

Micah has become quite the chef! He and I had fun creating this delicious meal today. We have made tortillas three times in the past week. Our coordinator's wife showed us how and it's a fun process and yields some delicious bounty. I made a mixture of black beans and beef stew meat with spices (chili powder, garlic, onions, and cumin) and we also created a homemade salsa. Cheese and yogurt rounds out the dish (I used yogurt instead of sour cream for a more healthful alternative).

When skyping with our daughter in Wisconsin, she wanted to know why I never made this when she was at home. I replied, "Because we could BUY tortillas and salsa ready-made easily!" Here, it's not as easy to find, and when found, can be rather expensive. So, we're learning a new art.