Cooking in the Chinese Kitchen #2

I still can't get my stove to turn on (above), but since it scares me, I'm kind of ok with leaving it off. It scares me because yes, that's a gas tank, yes, it's attached to my stove, and yes, if anyone in the world would be able to blow up a kitchen thanks to their exposed gas tank, it would totally be me. So for the time being, I'll leave it off and just use the coolest electric kettle in the world!

ta da.

By day, a normal electric kettle. By night, awesomeness:

Heating Up... Ready!

And I didn't even know it did this until I got home from the store and plugged it in. Yay I love China. Since this is my only means of cooking, I'm now limited to a diet of Ramen noodles and tea, but it's not like I was very savvy with a spatula in the U.S.

Being a vegetarian, it's a bit difficult to buy pre-made food at the grocery store. Even crackers and noodles are often covered in shrimp dust or pork flavoring (ew). So, when I saw frozen black bean dumplings,

I was thrilled for 3 reasons. 1) could be made in my Super Cool Kettle 2) vegetarian and 3) clearly delicious judging by the child's smile on the package. Imagine my horror when, after boiling them as directed, I dumped them into my bowl, and they looked like this:

I tried to eat them, but the consistency caused me to lose my appetite before the dumplings even made it to my mouth. ...and then I didn't need dinner after all, so obviously win-win. The End. (ps cute chopsticks, WCBF!)