This year is a huge transition year for our family. We are getting prepared to move back to the United States after almost 8 amazing years living in Chengdu, China. Chengdu has definitely become our second home and we will miss it more than words can say. In celebration of our transition and to help me get through this difficult time I decided I would start a new blog to celebrate all of the wonderful cooking and eating I have had the chance to do while living here. I thought I could share some of the things that I learned to make from scratch and some ways that I adapted recipes due to lack of ingredients. I am going to continue to post most of my eating adventures on my original blog. I hope to update this as much as I eat Sichuan food.
After 3 weeks vacation in Thailand I was ready to get back into the kitchen. I did a huge shopping trip including Metro, where I buy bulk supplies and fresh herbs, Sabrina's a specialty Western small grocery store, and Carrefour, a French chain grocery store with everything you need from toilet paper to frying pans to fruit.
On the way to the shops I brought a few cookbooks with me to get my creative juices flowing and wrote my shopping list. We are trying to eat less and less meat in our house and I had already had Sichuan food (which is hard to eat without meat) for lunch, so I decided I would make a vegetarian dinner for the family.
I bought a new cookbook in Thailand called "The Sugar Cube" by Kir Jensen, which I thought was very fitting due to we may be moving to Portland, Oregon this summer. The book is a bunch of recipes from Kir's food cart in Portland. I thought I would make one of her breakfast dishes for dinner even though breakfast for lunch or dinner is one of my pet peeves. I had hit the jackpot of fresh herbs at Metro, so I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to make this delicious breakfast strata. I also loved the name of this masculine strata "Aric-A-Strata" although she claims it is named after an ex-boyfriend. It took me a minute to figure out the title, but if anyone was a fan of the 80's drama "Chips" you will understand my meaning.
'My ingredients. I had to do some substituting in this recipe due to lack of items such as brioche (I refuse to make bread to tear it up into another dish. I used white bread from my local bakery as the bread made in China is more sweet than the bread from home I thought it would make a good substitute.), cherry tomatoes (I found vine ripened tomatoes and used them instead.), and Portobello mushrooms (I used button mushrooms.).
My eggs, cream, paprika, nutmeg, salt, peper and fresh dill whisked together.
Sautéing my mushrooms with some fresh garlic and thyme.
You are supposed to let the bread soak up the egg mixture overnight, but of course I didn't read the full recipe before hand. The other option was to wait 30 minutes and then bake.
The finished product!
Dinner is served...
Due to my luck with the herbs we accompanied our strata with a creamy bowl of tomato basil soup.
All was delicious and I may try and make my own brioche to see how it would change the recipe. I felt it was very filling and the fresh dill always adds so much to any dish. Originally I started to make the strata in a tart pan, which was way too shallow. Even my 9x9 pan was a little too small. I think I will see what I can find at IKEA the next time I am there. I think it would be beautiful baked in a round, glass dish. I think I will have to invite a few girlfriends over brunch soon and give my strata another try.
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