Food failures

Thankfully, in spite of using a lot of unfamiliar foods and ingredients here, I haven't had too many real phenomenal failures with cooking here. I have tried a couple of things that went less than fabulous, but they were still edible and mostly looked that way.

Yesterday, with friends coming over for both role-playing game stuff and some school work stuff, I thought I would have fun making something we made back in my first cooking class here. Tofu balls were quite tasty and fun looking when we cooked them in the class!

Well, first I put some potato, carrot, onion, and seasonings mix in the rice cooker, as I often do, which at least turned out edible, though not as tasty as usual since I added too much water.

The tofu balls did not turn out to be balls at all, but rather a mush of tofu, spices, and bits of green onion. I did taste the stuff and the flavor was decent, but the mess rather looked suspiciously like something that had already been eaten at least once by someone or something...I'm not kidding. Obviously didn't serve that stuff!! I should have made cookies!

I know better than to try new foods on friends...but having cooked this stuff before, I thought it would turn out fine and tasty. Should have made the lotus root instead! I KNOW that works.

At some point, I will try making these again until I can get them right. Quite tasty, really. I have some suspicions of what went wrong this time, and will likely ask the cooking teacher the next time I see her.

I love a lot of foods here. I know there will be some I particularly miss when I go back to the US. Cheese, however, will be my welcome friend. Very little of it here...and expensive when it can be found. I miss sharp cheddar cheese!