Food!

I never did much cooking before I came to Scotland. Now living by myself I have had to learn. This was the first week I was here and the first "major" cooking I did in my kitchen. Amy came over and we made pasta with pesto and feta.





Later that week Eileen and Fraser were coming to drop off my suitcase. I wanted to do something nice to thank them for going to all the trouble. Therefore Amy and I made cookies. I had bought measuring cups at Ikea. However, I did not realize until I started measuring out flour that they don't use cups in Europe. Instead they use a decaliter. They also measure their cooking ingredients in weights not volumes. We spent a long time trying to figure out how many decaliters are in a cup (I had no internet). We did a lot of the conversions on my cellphone. For being the cheapest cellphone available it has a lot of nice features. The converter is really useful.

The recipe for these ginger cookies came from Amy's mother. It required molassas. I looked for it in Tesco (the biggest grocery around here) and could not find it. Eventually I asked. The people in the store looked at me as if I were crazy. They asked all the other people that worked there. No one knew what I was talking about. Finally I called my mother who googled it for me. Apparently treacle is molassas! Once I said treacle everyone knew what I was talking about.






Here is what I eat a lot, rice, vegetables, tofu and curry sauce. Really quick and easy.


Another variation of it:
When I don't feel like cooking anything I tend to eat this, soup with tofu and vegetables added.



About a month ago I discovered a new vegetable. It is called a swede. It is wonderful! I have never seen in in Washington. It looks a bit like a huge turnip. You can peel it chop it up and boil it. Once cooked it turns a beautful shade of yellow.


It is really good for stirfrying.


The third thing Amy and I cooked was a greek rice dish (I can't remember the name). It is rice, spinich, carrots, lemon juice, a little oil and onions, if I remember correctly.

Another thing Amy and I have tried is cod with pesto. Also extremely easy.


After the fish we realized that food costs a ton here (not that we did not know this before hand)! So we decided to see what you could eat (other than a peanut butter sandwich) cheaply. It turns out baked potatos and baked beans are the only thing. Definitely not my favorite, but it is edible.



We also tried pitabread pizza. Well, Amy's was on pita. Mine was on regular bread as I didn't have any wheat-free pita.

And finally, salad from all the way back when lettuce was in season.