A Culinary Adventure in Photographs

At least one weekend a month, my husband and I trek into Houston to go to an out-of-our-ordinary grocery store.  Sometimes this means a Whole Foods trip, but, more often, we end up at one of the many ethnic grocery stores in the Houston area.  We buy interesting produce, pastries, and whatever else catches our attention.

Last month, we discovered a great Asian market in our area.  We went back today and loaded up on goodies.  And at least one not-so-goodie.

One of the items we came home with today is an angled luffa, also known as Chinese okra.  I later learned that is not a type of okra at all.  It's a gourd- and a huge one at that!  My husband insisted that I take a picture of the gourd with something else, so that you'd have a size reference.  He suggested a Sharpie marker, but I decided to show you a "luffa-stache" instead.

 I peeled and chopped that sucker and stir fried it with some shrimp.  Except I won't grace you with the recipe, because it was bad.  (And I mean really, really bad.)  Everything I've read about this vegetable says it's supposed to taste sweet, but ours tasted like a bitter cooked cucumber.  Blech!

I then cooked up some "Japanese alimentary paste somen" noodles.

Unlike the luffa, the noodles were delicious.  There was only one problem I had to overcome:

 But luckily, I was able to eyeball it well enough.

After (not) eating dinner, my husband and I enjoyed some dessert.  I had a piece of coconut bread.  It was delicious.  The bread itself was only slightly sweet, but it was filled with the most decadent coconut custard mixture.  Mmm.  Matt went for the ube (purple yam) and red bean popsicle.

And, if you're wondering, YES- I do mean there were boiled beans frozen inside the popsicle.  He loved it, but I just couldn't go there.