Mung Beans, the Trad. Market, and JERBS

I have come to the conclusion it is not necessarily cheaper to get things at the traditional market. I've been getting dry goods like beans and rice from the dry goods purveyors, but I've found the beans are generally rife with bugs. Maybe it's the vendors I'm going to -- I've tried three. Last week I bought a bag of mung beans for 55 NT, and, after coming home and realizing that they were filled with bugs, stuck them in the freezer to kill the little motherfuckers.

I can get a bag of beans about half as big at 全聯福利中心 for about the same price, and those are guaranteed bug-free. For not having to deal with bugs in my beans nor dry goods taking up space in the freezer, I think I might just do that. _{I still have half a bag of buggy black-eyed peas in the freezer too D:< and all the brown rice, but that's so that it won't go rancid.}

Also, wood ear 木耳 tends to be cheaper at the grocery too.

In any case, now I have a huge container of cooked mung beans, and the only thing I know how to make with it is mung bean dessert soup. While there is considerable variety available (via the addition or omission of ginger, glutinous rice balls, job's tear/pearl barley, etc.) I need to figure out something not-sweet. Since I've been sick the past couple of days and not exercising, I can't be noshing on sweet bean paste for the next week O.o

Some searching on the internets revealed a bunch of South Asian recipes for mung bean curry, and this tasty-looking soup. Now I just need some curry spices! :D

In other news, I had an interview with one of the cram schools yesterday, and it looks like they're going to hire me if they can get enough students for a class, which is cool. The pay is kind of low -- NT$500/hr, no prep, and I have to come up with my own lesson plans, but it does come with retirement, taxes taken care of, and NHI if I want it (which I might -- can't apply for it on my own for another month D:)

I did find a couple other schools, and I have another interview on Saturday at noon-thirty. I like this one better, I think. They got a really good interior designer/architect so the space is really nice, and they have their students speak English when they're at the center, which is much better for learning. Also, they had a couple Robert Jordan books on the bookshelf, including New Spring!!! Hopefully they'll hire me ^^ I want to read that book!