We Can Feed Ourselves!

We've struggled a lot since we got here about how to cook food for ourselves that we will enjoy.  There are many challenges to doing this.  Here are two:

1) There is no oven in our apartment. I think both John and I had been on a roasting kick back home.  Why have anything boiled, blanched, or steamed when it can be roasted?  Cauliflower: case and point.

2) Things that were staples back home, are super expensive here.  I don't mean just things like peanut butter that many people complain about being very expensive.  I mean dried beans.  We're spoiled Bay Area people used to grocery shopping at Rainbow grocery, or Berkeley Bowl, where the bulk sections set our hearts a flutter.  So when back in the U.S we could prepare rice and beans for cheap, here dried beans at the store are about $8.00-$10.00 per pound.

But, after one failed attempt, we were able to find the Asian import store district, (4 stores within a block of one another) that have familiar things like coconut milk, dried beans for about $2/pound, and tahini!  Yipppeee!

Here are some pictures of our bounty.  We also bought 2 plants to celebrate.