Chayote Melon－Buddha Hand Melon

Today I found one of my favorite vegetables at Buy Low: Chayote Melon. It's Chinese name is a lot cooler: Buddha Hand Melon. My mom used to cook them all the time. It's got a very mild flavor and can be served cold or cooked.

There are a couple common recipes my mom cooks the melon. One is to slice it and fry it with eggs. I made them tonight and it was a light little dinner. You can serve it with brown rice or whole grain steamed buns. Another common recipe is to cut it into chunks and use it in soups. I made a Chinese beef-tomato stew tonight and used a melon in it. It turned out great.

I miss the large variety of vegetables we eat in China. I wish I were a better Chinese food cook so I could fix some of my cravings by myself.

It's Chinese time!!

John started his Chinese class at BYU yesterday!!It's only been a day and it's been a tough day. It'll get a lot better after he warms up, but he had to study so hard since last night. He took Chinese 101 and 102 in 2007. Three years is a long time for a language learner to pick up the language again. So he had to study and review a lot of the things he's learned before. But he's doing amazingly well. I'm so proud of him. He hand wrote, with a little of my help, 10 Chinese sentences last night. And this morning, he spent 3 hours memorizing a dialogue in the book. I'm so proud of him.

Most people think with a Chinese speaking wife around, your Chinese should be great. NO! It's been hard for me to teach him Chinese or speak with him in Chinese. We thought it was just us, but a lot of my friends are in the same situation. It's hard to learn a new language from your spouse. You just pick the language you both speak fairly well, in our case, English. So being married to me actually hindered his Chinese learning.

But now that he has time to take some classes, I can help him. Helping him to learn is very different from teaching him. I'm glad he's learning my language and he's good at it. I can't wait for the day when my hubby can talk to my family in fluent Chinese :-)

So here is to my diligent, smart, Chinese learning husband!

weddings and pictures

We had a great weekend. One of John's best friends Jason got married in the Logan Temple. We drove up there for the sealing and reception. It was a beautiful ceremony and we loved being in the temple again. Every sealing we go to reminds me of our own, except neither of us remembers much of our own sealing because we were both nervous :-) So it's always great to go to other people's sealing and be reminded of God's love for us.
Their beautiful reception hall.

Scottie and his wife Alexys, another of John's southern UT buddy

Another reason I love going to weddings is the pictures :-) I love taking pictures, BUT John doesn't. So he tries to ruin many of my pictures. Here are the proofs:


Despite the goofiness, I like this one because it makes me laugh every time I look at it :-)

This is probably take #5, better.

Take #10, perfect. He has such a cute smile and is so photogenic if he behaves.

Finally, the pregnant me @ week 26.

Happy Earthday! How do you beautify the earth?

This semester break is not fun for John. He's been taking finals and working the whole time. Next Tuesday he starts school again with some intense Chinese classes. So he won't get much of a break at all. He has to cross off a lot of things from his to-do list, but one thing we were able to do today is planting some spring flowers :-)

We went to Lowe's and got some gorgeous flowers and planted them. Hopefully they'll grow strong together with our baby girl, who, BTW, has been having too much fun kicking mommy all day and night long. I WANNA SLEEP!

Someday I'll have my own garden, where I can grow edible things, like tomatoes, cucumbers, berries, etc. And John can continue to grow his beautiful flowers :-)


Daisies are one of my favorite flowers, not John's though. They ended up taking too much space in the big pot. So they get to have their own little home.

Aren't they gorgeous!!

End of semester/end of 2nd trimester

Yay, I'm on vacation for 2 weeks!!! It has been a good semester at school because I was at the most enjoyable phrase of pregnancy, or so I hear.

Looking back, it's been a quite pleasant 3 months, except for that terrible cough last week. I seriously thought I'd never get better. John slept on the couch for over a week. After lots of honey lemon water and a couple bottles of Robitussin DM, I'm finally over it now. I sill don't know what caused it and how it could be prevented in the future.

I also get full really easy nowadays. Half a sandwich or 6 dumplings plus some fruit would fill me up. And I don't feel hungry any more, which sucks, cuz I want to eat. But every time I eat a little bit more than I should, my stomach pumps up like a balloon, so tight and uncomfortable. Seriously, my morning bump is half the size of the day bump. I guess it'll only get worse.

It's been so nice outside. I'm already feeling hot and stuffy. I don't know how I'm gonna get through the summer. I wish we could take a trip somewhere, but I'm lazy and we're saving up for a big trip, so we'll just chill in good old Provo.

Our end-0f-semester potluck

There's always a dance when there're Mexicans.
My ELC classes

My Selnate class

Happy Summer, everyone!!

John's famous Armadillo Eggs

WARNING: SPICY, SPICY, SPICY

This is John's specialty treat, one of the few things he LOVEs. It's by no means a diet food. We only make them on certain occasions when we could share them with other people. Don't let the name fool you either. It has nothing to do with armadillos or eggs. I guess the finished product looks like eggs.

Today we made them for John's elementary school reunion :-)
How I wish I knew this cute boy! I hope our kid will be this cute :-)

Ingredients: (yields 25 servings)
48 oz of pickled jalapenos
2 boxes (4 cups) of Jiffy corn muffin mix
2 boxes of Pork Oven Fry
2lbs pork sausage (Jimmy Dean is the best.)
2lbs Monteray jack Cheese
2-4 eggs

Heat Oven to 350F.

1. Grate cheese. Destem and deseed peppers so they are hollow.
2. Stuff peppers with cheese. (picture 1)
3. Combine leftover cheese with all 2lbs of sausage. Add the corn muffin mix. Mash with hand till they are combined. (Picture 2)
4. Roll out small sausage cake (the size of a large egg) to roll the stuffed pepper in. Shape it into an egg shape. (Picture 3)
5. Beat a couple eggs in a bowl. In another bowl, get the oven fry ready. (Picture 4)
6. Roll the sausage wrapped peppers in the egg, then roll them on the oven fry. (Picture 5)
7. Lay them on a baking sheet.
8. Bake at 350F for 25 minutes.

Note: Do not use "Shake n Bake" in place of "Pork Oven Fry". Also La Costens peppers are the best flavor.

Picture 1

picture 2

Picture 3

Picture 4

Picture 5

Finished product. Enjoy!!

My Version of Chinese Fast Food

This is my version of Chinese fast food. When you order a lunch box in China, one of the popular choices will be some sort of vegetable-meat stir-fry served over rice or noodles.

I like this recipe because you can use anything you have in your fridge. Also you get different kinds of vegetables in one serving. I serve it over whole-grain rice or buckwheat noodles to make it healthier.

Ingredients:
1/2 pound of ground or cubed pork (or chicken, or beef)
Assorted vegetables cubed (I like different colors and textures. My favorite combination is eggplant, celery, carrot, green onion, and mushroom.But you can throw in whatever you have at hand.)
1 Tbsp Soy sauce
1 Tbsp Oyster sauce (if you don't have it, use 1 tsp sugar instead)
a pinch of Salt
a pinch of Pepper

1. Heat up a little olive oil in the pan.
2. Add the meat, fry it until it changes color.
3. Add vegetables. Make sure you add the easy-to-cook vegetables last. Add carrot, onions etc first so they finish cooking at the same time.
3. About 10 minutes later, you have your lunch :-) Serve over brown rice or buckwheat noodles.

the Easter Egg Hunt-Adult Version

Easter weekend was relaxing. It involved conference, heavy breakfast food, bbq, Easter egg hunt, bridal shower, and more conference. You'd think Easter egg hunt is only fun for children, but John managed to have some fun.

They were stuck @ the door for like 2 minutes because they all wanna get out first!

Ready-Set...

GO!!!!
Let the wrestling start!
It's really not a good strategy to wrestle your brothers when you could be finding Easter eggs!!

My smart baby avoided the fight and scored on the mini golf court!!

Look how many eggs we got! We were supposed to get 8 per person! Haha, we win!!