Four people around a table eating food and talking politics.

Since I stayed indoors all day yesterday, I wanted to do something that involved human interaction. What I really love about living in a flat with so many different types of people and nationalities is you get to try foods from all different cultures and see it prepared in ways you didn't expect. Who puts jam on their cheese? But hey, I do now because it's awesome!

Anyway, last night, I invited my friend Jia (Canada) to come over and join me and my flatmates for dinner. We all prepared our own little dish and brought it all together. Here's mine:



I call it Peanut-Sauce Udon Noodles with Chicken and Veggies. Whenever I cook, it's usually whatever I have lying around in the fridge. I learned how to make peanut sauce from my French Canadian boyfriend. All it is is peanut butter and soy sauce. Who knew such a combination could be so delicious!

Instructions:
1) Marinate chicken with whatever you have. I used lemon, oregano, and black pepper. Set for about an hour or two. I usually like leaving it overnight.
2) Wash/cut veggies.
3) Start cooking your diced-chicken over medium heat. You can choose to dice your chicken or not.
4) Begin boiling the udon noodles. Udon noodles don't take too long to soften up so don't leave it in too long.
5) When the chicken looks halfway done, put your veggies in. It's important not to cook the veggies too much because they lose their nutrients that way.
6) Pour your peanut-sauce mix into the chicken&veggies combo.
7) Drain your udon noodles and put it in the pan with the chicken&veggies.
8) Stir it around letting the peanut-sauce stick to the udon noodles, veggies, and chicken.
9) Enjoy!

If you got some Red Rooster Sriracha Sauce, even better!



Here's Anna's dish. Anna is from Germany but refuses to make German food so she made a spicy Red Thai Curry.



When we first tasted it, even for me, it was really spicy. It helped clear my sinuses! So Anna put in more coconut milk and let it simmer again. Over rice, it was delightful, still spicy, but delightful!

She put coconut milk, red curry sauce, peppers, and eggplants. The eggplants absorbed the flavors the best I think.

Over dinner we talked about political systems in Spain. Joel, who is from Spain, helped us learn about the struggle of Catalonia and the changes they are undergoing. It was really interesting having four different cultures at one table sharing food and talking about politics. We talked about our own governments and what we believed was ideal. In the end we all agreed that there is no solution and no way to achieve an ideal government but that does not mean we should stop trying.