Purple mouse

This is Purple mouse.  In case you can't remember, the words "purple mouse" are on the cover of this photo album three times!  It is pretty common to find totally random English words or phrases on notebooks and photo albums ( and lots of other things). This Purple mouse is a very important item in our house.  Really it is just a small photo album, but we use it for our recipe book. 

It is filled with recipes that I use nearly every week. 

Cooking in China can be very tricky.  There are many ingredients we do not have and some things we just can't do here.  I do have an oven, but it is really just a large toaster oven.  We have learned to make lots of things from scratch and sometimes we just have to be creative.  I do get a feeling of satisfaction when I make things that are tasty for my family, 

When we moved to China two and a half years ago (can you believe it has been that long?) we had very limited space to bring all we would need.  I did not bring a recipe book.  I did however, copy some of my favorite recipes on some 3 x 5 index cards and tuck them in my suitcase.  Over the years I have added to my stash with recipes I have found online or other places.  I love allrecipes.com.  I can look up specific recipes or recipes that use certain ingredients.  Other people review the recipes and add comments and from that, I can get ideas of substitutions that work for the recipe.  I found a great recipe for some cookies that don't use butter, or shortening.  I made 4 batches of them this holiday season. 
(I'll share the recipe another time).  Some of the recipes in Purple Mouse are cornbread, dinner rolls, pizza crust, different kinds of cookies, banana bread, boiled custard, apple butter, pancake syrup, dressing,potato soup, and muffins.
When we find a recipe, we try it out and if it meets our approval, it goes into Purple mouse. 

I guess we could call this book our recipe book, but it is more fun to call it Purple mouse.  Next blog, I will share a recipe we have in Purple mouse.