Category Archives: Life

Memorial Day 2016

Unfortunately our freedom today comes at the cost of all our brave fallen men and women lives. Memorial Day is a day dedicated to honoring those past heroes, and is also a day that is often confused with Veterans Day, where we honor our present heroes.

Today had me really thinking about how we are all very guilty of bumbling through life, acting as if all of our tomorrow’s are guaranteed….We Place our eggs in life’s irrelevant baskets, place our happiness in others emotional state/hands thus affecting our day-to-day. We place such a high value on life’s petty things such as, getting social media “likes”, or money. But why? So since days like Memorial Day are really good in your face reminders telling and showing us that our tomorrow isn’t guaranteed, please make sure to take some extra time and truly reflect on this day and send an extra thank you upstairs to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice and given us the opportunities of today and possibilities of our tomorrow’s.

Memorial Day has always been pegged as the “unofficial summer start”. Calendars show that the true summer season doesn’t actually arrive until later, however our warm Korean weather has been serenading us with a sweet summer song, plus kiddos are just as the cusp of breaking out of school and anywho like we all don’t need an excuse to get out and grill good food, and wear our patriotic pride colors!

Just because we’re in Korea doesn’t mean that we aren’t festive too! We try to uphold picnic and holiday traditions, just on a smaller scale. For our mini Memorial Day picnic feast, I prepared Mr. B’s Aunt Gail deliciously famous macaroni salad, the Mr. grilled a variety of big ol’ sausages and we slathered them with Coleman’s mustard, we munched on my grandmas homemade pickle recipe, and enjoyed the non-traditional side of Armenian eggplant clavier (we’re just a teeny bit obsessed). Dessert was honey pound cake topped with fresh vanilla whipped cream and local strawberries (But guess what? Our bellies were so full, we had to save them for tomorrow.)

Poor bumblebee….just a tall order of milk for now, lol!

^Cannot resist those baby belly buttons and leg rolls!

‘Merica! Love from the Bees!

Blueberry Coffee Cake

A friend recently mentioned in passing that my photos used to be mostly foods we cooked or baked and hasn’t been lately, but with good reason, and she missed reading about it. (Admittedly bumblebees photos filled my entire iPhone and I need to clear space now). This post is for you Leibe!

It does seem like ages the last time I REALLY got to sink my hands and teeth into something I baked out of our kitchen. Yes, yes I’ve baked oatmeal cookies almost weekly now…but I mean really baked something with the kitchenAid and all! So I found myself jonesing one Sunday morning and took advantage of the “free-time” and whipped up the most scrumptious Dahlia Bakery’s sour cream coffee cake (so kindly introduced to me by our dearly missed friends).

Imagine a nice thick blueberry sour cream coffee cake topped with just an irresistible cinnamony crunchy streusel topping. OKAY! Now STOP imagining and go bake it!

Sour Cream Coffee Cake with Cinnamon Streusel
Serves 12
Recipe from The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook

Ingredients:

Streusel:
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
6 tbsp cold unsalted butter

Cake:
2½ cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 tbsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
2 cups berries (blueberries, blackberries, or raspberries)

Directions:
Preheat over to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9×13 pan and set aside.

Make the streusel: combine the flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon in a bowl. Dice the cold butter, add it to the mixture, and blend with your fingers until crumbly. Set aside.
Make the cake: Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda into a bowl, and set aside. In an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Scrape down the bowl. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each and scraping down the bowl as needed. Mix in the sour cream, vanilla, and salt. Add the dry ingredients a third at a time, mixing until just blended. Fold in the berries.

Scrape the batter into the pan and spread it evenly with a spatula. Sprinkle the streusel over the top.

Bake 45-50 minutes, until a tester comes out mostly clean. Cool in the pan in a wire rack.

French press Friday: Savoring the now

Random thoughts over french press today…

I realize that there may come a day she prefers the company of friends to her parents…
The day she thinks and feels her first love is the ONLY person needed on this planet…
When she tells us we just don’t get her and will never ever understand…
and the day when she makes the big decision to move out on her own.

Thankfully today is not that day.
No, today in this very moment she is sleeping ever so peacefully in one of her favorite places in the world, my arms.
Thankfully today IS that day she’s letting me savor this very special moment.

^(savoring time over momma)

Weekday Dinner Spontaneity

Welcome to South Korea! We’re halfway through May and it’s practically Summer already. The the temperatures are holding steadily in the lower to mid 70’s. Hey, I’m not complaining about the gorgeous afternoons that I get to share with my bumblebee outside. Nope, I know that all to soon the monsoon season will be upon us. I know! I had to bring it up…complete BLASPHEMY! So you’ve got to squeeze every single sunray out of each day. We decided the other evening for dinner to “grill out” (funny little fact: we don’t own an actual grill, lol) with our neighbor was in order!

Hey, isn’t this is what life is all about!? Spontaneity!! Or at least it calls for homemade spirilized French fries, homemade burgers, homemade bread and butter pickles, and homemade pickled eggs and red beets. Hands down worth the effort in the end! Oh! Don’t forget the cutest little petite roses to set in the center of it all too.

Holy cow I just love our little life! (prepare yourself for food envy and a photo dump)

Click, Ship & treat yourself!

French press Friday: Childhood daydreams

Random thoughts over french press today…

Do you remember the weekends during your childhood?

Whether you spent those childhood days growing up with your grandparents, or your parents, do you remember the smells and the sights? Maybe those days involved special breakfasts made by your grandpa that consisted of toad in a hole, or tea parties in the backyard under a big old tree, maybe it was winter weekends filled with mugs of hot chocolate with mini marshmallows and dipping your buttery toast in it while your snow-covered clothing drip dry over the radiators, or it was your dad singing a silly song every time he cooked spaghetti for dinner.

Those days are now the keepsakes our adult brain keeps locked up in special places.

We seem to dig them out when we need to enjoy the nostalgia when we’re feeling down, or just want to smile.

I realize now as an adult truly just how important these little keepsakes are to me. I realize now evermore when I look into my daughters eyes.

As a parent now, I’m striving to keep my/our weekends, or Sunday’s completely free for our family, making sure to not get so wrapped up in the everyday hustle, just so that our bumblebee builds up those keepsakes of childhood for her adult memory too.

So tell me, what are your weekend rituals? Are you building, or have you yourself strived, to build those special keepsakes with your family?

Children’s Day 2016

I completely forgot this post up to share with you all. Oops!

Children’s day is a nantional holiday in Korea was celebrated annually on May 5. If you are not familiar with Children’s Day, it’s a day dedicated to family and encourages parents to get out and spend time with their children. Schools are closed and parents are off. It’s such a wonderful concept, so meaningful and completely unlike the generic Hallmark greeting card holidays.

The traditional places families head to are children’s parks in almost all communities here, amusement parks, zoos, or to the cinema for an entire day dedicated to just fun and games! Places are just packed! Of course bumblebee and I took a stroll downtown and had to get in on the action. Getting to see all these cute little kids run around just full of smiles from ear to ear made for such a wonderful afternoon!

Enjoy some of the photos I snapped from the day. (I’m partial to the fifth photo down… USA booth food representation…. Hmmm….)

First Mother’s Day

Yesterday marked my very first Mother’s Day. My coffee cup and heart were filled to the brim with such good stuff! The weather was straight out of Mr. Rogers neighborhood perfect! I’m talking clear blue sky, the sun shining, birds chirping happily, and the evening sunset was one of the most beautiful we’ve seen to date in Korea! See! Perfection!

Olivia and Mr. B made my day so very special and absolutely memorable. Outside of the fact that I get to wake up every single morning to my best friend and my daughter, seriously is gift enough, but I also had a lovely prepared breakfast, freshly brewed coffee, the sweetest little message from “Olivia”, as well as two beautiful charms to add to my Pandora bracelet.

Sipping on my coffee that morning, I couldn’t help but think about the past several years, the Mother’s Days that passed, that my heart waited, ached, and longed to be a mommy. To experience life being a parent with my husband. I didn’t realize that there was a bigger plan eventually in store for us, it just wasn’t our time. It was a hard pill to swallow and I just didn’t understand why. So this very morning, like all my mornings since becoming pregnant and having our bumblebee, meant so much more to me than anything in the world. As I said on our Instagram account, my husband and daughter are the greatest gifts on this side of eternity to me!

We continued our afternoon with a stroll, snapped some fun photos and picked up potbingsu from a local cafe.

It didn’t just stop there! The Mr. continued right on spoiling and making the day special by cooking the most deliciously moist grilled chicken, Israeli shiitake mushroom flavored couscous, spicy crushed tomatoes, and bread with homemade dipping oil….. I scarfed it down, I had to grab this photo off of the Mr.’s cellphone.

These past few weeks, two months, this very morning, life as a whole has become so much more meaningful to me. There has been no greater miracle than this one to me. So many heartfelt thank yous to my husband and bumblebee for such a beautiful day.

What’s cooking?

Continuing on with our new year quest for meal prepping and planning, consuming better foods and striving for less food waste, we’re glad you found your way back into our kitchen and home again for our food recap.

There’s just something very meditative about weekly food preparation, perhaps it’s my OCD coming out? Seriously…coming home after a long week of work and preparing/ menu planning for next weeks round of breakfast, lunches and dinners has a calming and relaxing end result when you really let yourself enjoy it. It also helps that the Mr. supports and recognizes the importance of it too. (I have express and give my pure gratitude to this man too! Feeling under the weather this week, he cooked almost all of the deliciousness for us shown below).

^Homemade buttermilk scones served with a nice cuppa vanilla honey rooibos tea.

^ Homemade oven baked chicken kiev, with a side of crispy curried carrots and sun-dried tomato and feta spread served on top of homemade rye bread.

^ No bake 5 minute brownie from Minimalist baker. Slowly trying to curb my crazy sweet tooth, plus I’ve been itching to use up my cacao powder Healthworks Raw Certified Organic Cacao Powder, 1 lb This was very different texture wise, not terrible, but filled the temporary void, left out the espresso the recipe called for.

^ Spicy Japchae, jabchae, chapchae, chop chae, or chap chae (Korean: 잡채) (glass noodles, peppers, sesame seeds, onions and veggie-meat) and Maneul Jangajji (chili paste and pickled garlic scapes). Served with a side of korean purple rice.

Lots of pickling, preserving and burning our mouths this past week! Mr. B Made some garlic scapes Korean style. If you don’t know, garlic scapes are the green parts of the garlic, do NOT throw these away, instead make Maneul Jangajji!

Maneul Jangajji

12 hrs total (11.5 soaking)

Directions:
Pepper mixture:
1 cup dried pepper flakes (ideally Korean peppers)
1 cup Gochujang (Korean red pepper paste)
3 Tbs white vinegar
2 Tbs fish sauce (or to taste)
6 garlic cloves minced
3 Tbs brown sugar
1/2 cup hot water (may have to add slightly more if scapes are very well-drained)

The intent is to have a thick paste with a consistency of cream spreadable peanut butter or very slightly watered down.

Scapes:
cut off whiter tougher parts of scapes and trim to 3″. Boiled salted water. Pour over scapes in an insulated bowl (glass/ceramic etc) and leave sit (make sure to cover with a plate) for 11-12 hours or longer until they start to yellow. Drain and cover with pepper mixture (easiest to do with gloved hands).

These can be eaten immediately or saved if packed in the mixture for several months in fridge.

(Best compliment ever was when Our Korean foodie friend was over eating dinner with us and said that this was better than her moms! Mr. B’s Korea cook level awesomeness was achieved!)

^ Spaghetti and our homemade meatballs! You know.. Plenty of garlic and basil, you know, a nice dose of nerve-steadying herbs.

^ Shared a meal with our dear friend over our ground beef patties seasoned with our own special blend of spices. The burgers had oyster mushrooms, red onions with torched sharp cheddar cheese, fried egg and foie gras flavored with homemade BBQ sauce and horseradish mayo. The buns were coated with foie gras oil and toasted in the pan for finishing. Annie’s White cheddar Mac and cheese and salads on the side (you know, keeping it classy).

^ Homemade almond biscotti from America’s Test Kitchen (Household favorite!)

^ A delicious mediterranean steak salad!

And last but not least…. freezer meal prep for the unknown weeks that are to come. Chuck steaks ground, seasoned and formed into 1/2 lb burgers. Not pictured, because someone fell asleep on the job, vegetable beef stew and slow cooker pork BBQ with homemade BBQ sauce.

Click, Ship & treat yourself

<br />

Mardi Gras!

Wow! Did you guys realize that February 9th was Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras), Pancake day, chocolate day, pizza pie day and national bagel day?! How does a girl decide what event to observe?!

How about you? Did you do anything special on the 9th? Oh, wait… and we cannot forget sweet Cupid knocking on the door to this weekend too, huh? Whew!

While I’ve never officially experienced Mardi Gras in New Orleans, I like to think of myself as slightly indoctrinated into the festival and of course the feast! Yes, my dear friend Mary, born and raised in New Orleans, and her family would celebrate and make a big shebang and invite us on over to partake. When I say shebang…. I’m talking full-scale! The glitz, glitter, beads, masks, Mardi Gras decor, and of course good ol’ N’awlins food!

AH! Each year I looked forward to it! I could practically taste the King cake as the month of February approached each year. You know, looking back and reminiscing, I’m pretty sure she always made sure that I got the baby in my piece of cake too. Mmmmm such sweet memories to savor for a lifetime.

Unfortunately my friend Mary and her family moved onto another country and I feel like it’s my duty to uphold the our little tradition, even if we cannot enjoy it together. Sooooo… deciding what we’d celebrate on February 9th wasn’t a big deal after all. Bring on that good ol’ N’awlins colorful feast!

All of the recipes I used were passed onto me by Mary herself.

^Creamy Cajun Deviled Eggs

^Black-Eyed Peas Salsa served with multi-grain tortilla chips

^Shrimp Creole served with steamed rice

You could practically hear the New Orleans jazz and brass bands in the background couldn’t you? Haha! I feel like we represented well and made her proud this year flying solo? Perhaps next year I’ll snag her King Cake recipe and give it a go and snag some beads for an even more festive feel.

Here are some inspirational Mardi Gras recipes to tickle your fancy. Enjoy!

Spiciness with age

I wasn’t raised on very spicy foods…actually, I’d really label my childhood as pretty “vanilla” when it came to any sort of spiciness. But hey! That’s okay, because my very favorite ice-cream flavor just so happens to be vanilla! Ha-ha! I’m wild, I know!

Most know this little factoid, however some readers do not, my husband and I were both born and raised right in the same area of Central Pennsylvania. So a lot of our childhood experiences with, places, family traditions, and local foods, are very similar and easy to reminisce about together. (The Sub Shop, Knoebels Grove, ham loaves, growing up with grandparents that we’re practically parents, experiencing 4 seasons!)

So that brings me back to us chatting about if he too experienced a similar spice-less existence? Outside of childhood candy like warheads and cinnamon balls, he too was rather “vanilla”. Ha-ha! Womp-womp.

Fast forward to our adventures in Korea and you’d think we were two totally different people! Our taste have done some sort of crazy flip-flop and we crave and cannot get enough spice! We’re always testing our limits ordering more spice, telling the Korean restaurants, “The spicier the better”. Yes, quite the duo we are, what a spectacle when we’re eating spicy squid together.

The spicy thing is just one thing that’s boggling my mind lately when I really sit back and think about it. It sounds so elementary and simple, like, ohhh wow! You are adults your taste have changed.. WOW…

No! They really, really have! Our tastebuds have aged, as we have.

Here’s another fun giggle for you.. We thought we were really “cooking” when we first got married and purchased our first home. We’d take a weekend trip North to SAMs Club and pick up frozen individual breaded eggplants. We’d bake them in the oven and top them off with spaghetti sauce and shredded mozzarella. Boom! We were so proud! (In our defense, they were/are pretty tasty.)

Again, fast-forward and change countries, now we frequent our local vegetable stand weekly, try to stay away from most processed foods, and haven’t purchased an actual loaf of bread in 6 months? We bake our own loaf about bi-weekly. Pantry staples are now giant jars of jalapeños, Coleman’s English mustard, and a plethora of spices to take our foods up another heat notch and flavor (outside of being the chronic black-pepper food coater that I am.)

Perhaps all of the reasons and then some are why we make such a big deal about being together in our kitchen cooking and creating? Whatever the reasons, we’re certainly blessed with this time, the resources, and really hope to continue to encourage our friends, family and readers to get into their kitchen and menu plan, create some foodie-magic too!

I now present to you, a little hodgepodge of our past week spicy meals. Enjoy!

^Homemade spicy chorizo sausage soup with kale pesto and homemade whole-wheat bread.

^Homemade spicy salsa Mexican rice, homemade guacamole and chicken fajitas.

^From scratch gyro meat (ground beef and lamb spiced accordingly), grilled asparagus with an oyster sauce glaze, tomato basil salad and homemade pitas.

^Homemade whole wheat banana muffins from my gal-pal Jenny’s blog. VISIT HER NOW! You will fall head over heels with her style and bluntness!