Backpack Bees – Page 7 – Follow the journey of the Bees

Cheers To The New Year!

Whew! It’s officially 2016! I know each year I say this…but… where does the time go?!? We just keep blinking and years are flying by. Is this another adulthood realization/moment that stinks? ….I think so!

We, much like you, have got so very many blessings in 2016 to look forward to! Perhaps our best baked goods yet…

So, What exciting things did you do to ring in the New Year? Did you get all dolled up? I was loving the sparkly dresses posted on Social media! How about making it until midnight to snag that good-luck kiss? Wink-wink. Tell us!

Well…we loved living in our own little world this New Years Eve. We went out in style New Years Eve. Yep. Total party animals here! HAHA…We celebrated by cooking up a storm in our cozy kitchen at home. An outstanding homemade four course dinner. We toasted (way before midnight) with sparkling cider and Belgium beer.

So what was this dinner we devoured and taunted our friends and family on Facebook with? Oh boy! Glad you asked, because you are now going to get a play by-play!

The first course up was hot bacon dressing using homemade mustard, bacon, shallots and vinegar. For those of you not familiar with hot bacon dressing, it is a very nostalgic memory of Sunday dinners in our families Pennsylvania kitchen. We modified and tweaked a bit to feature Korean pork AKA Samgyeopsal. It was excellent if we may say so. If you’re curious, this cut of meat is thick, fatty slices of pork belly meat. Oh and it just melts in your mouth when grilled to perfection too! Order this next time cut of meat when you find yourself in a Korean restaurant.

The second course was sous vide tarragon butter lobster tails (yep, here we go cooking our condom foods again). The lobster tails were seasoned with fresh parsley, chervil and of course melted butter. Much like its friend escargot, it’s an amazing little vehicle for melted butter! Mmmmm!

The third course, seared ahi tuna crusted with sesame seeds and black pepper. The marinade was sesame oil, soy sauce and a splash of Worcestershire sauce. Just when I thought the meal couldn’t get any better the tuna made its cameo and completely blew our minds.

Drum roll please…..vanilla bean crème brûlée with fresh strawberries. No further description needed.

Now that we’ve left you with a grumbling belly, cheers everyone! Wishing you all a happy healthy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

If you follow along on our Instagram account, you’d see that we had a really quaint Christmas eve dinner at home, just the two of us. A clove ham simmered away half of the day making the home smell heavenly! When I got home from work I got right to it whipping up some sage sweet potato gratin, creamed spinach, and a nice green salad. Everything was decadent yet pretty light and healthy. Mmmmhmmmm Getting in all those greens! (Sorry all the photos are over on Instagram here..)

Christmas Morning we were pretty casual and leisurely opened our gifts. Being just the two of us here not off jet-setting our holiday, it sort of felt short this year? I can’t really explain… It was absolutely lovely, just a different sort of feeling that’s hard to put into words. Honestly, this time of year you can’t pay me to leave the living room. I LOVE the Christmasy feeling in our home, the decorations we’ve collected from our travels around the world, The tree glowing in the evening making it even more cozy. Ah! I just LOVE it! ….Now the only thing we’re missing is a roaring fireplace to cuddle up next to. Perhaps our next place/residence will have that? Wink-wink.

^^Santa dropped off a new treddy for us!

Mr. B made sure that he got the traditional Christmas B breakfast going. Anyone following along, outside of our family, that is familiar with dried beef gravy, or SOS? Mmmm it’s their family tradition that I absolutely love and have definitely become accustom to! For not having a local Pennsylvanian butcher near by, I’d say he did an awesome replication.

Christmas evening we were invited to have Christmas dinner with good friends. I took along a healthier festive peppermint brownie cake.

We had a really nice time helping cook an incredible dinner together. It’s really hard to pick a favorite, but if I HAD to give you some show stoppers… I’d have to say the ham with its excellent glaze and the British sticky toffee pudding. Mmmm but seriously, everything was delicious and made even better with the great company! Oh and we did our first Christmas crackers complete with crowns too! What fun!!

Merry Christmas dear friends!

Ps: We didn’t have a white Christmas, but did wake up this morning (the day after Christmas) to this…. Just as GOOD!

Cookies

Let’s talk serious stuff here folks… COOKIES! That’s right… we caught you binge eating those little suckers, just like we are. Hey, it’s okay… times like these we get away with it and say, ’tis the season. So go ahead and munch away. We are not going to spoil it for you.

So….on the topic of cookies….do you have a go to cookie recipe for the holidays? If, so please share! We are always looking to try out new combinations and creations.

Speaking of trying out new things… Have you guys seen the BuzzFeed video circulating around for mini pecan tarts? No?! Oh goodness… let’s fix that right away. GO.HERE.NOW.

We were not sure how these little guys would turn out, but man are we pleased we gave it a test-run. They are not the pecan tassies that Mr. B grew up on, however they are a very easy and delicious substitute. SCORE! If you decide to give it a go as well, give us a shout and let us know what you thought. Don’t forget that tall glass of cold milk too. Hey, just remember, ‘Tis the season!

Sous Vide

What in the world is sous vide? Sounds rather fancy and like something that takes a lot of work. Am I right?!

WRONG! First let’s get down the pronunciation together lets (say “sue veed” or, “soo–veed”). Great job! So…cooking your food sous vide is actually a very simple, easy, most consistent way to get amazingly delicious results in your restaurant or home kitchen. We are talking tongue tantalizing steaks, to the most flavorful vegetables, to the softest fish ever!

One of the million-zillion reasons that cooking your food sous vide is awesome is that you get to ultimately pick what your desired doneness is. You are setting a water bath to the appropriate time and temperature with your immersion circulator (we use an Anova), the water bath then does all the hard work being heated to the just the right temperature and cooking the food without any worry or fuss about over or under cooking anything. Seems to good to be true? Seriously, it’s not!

^We like to joke and giggle that we are cooking our dinners in a condom. LOL!

Sous Vide by definition is French for “under vacuum”. We seal our little “condoms” of food with a vacuum-sealer and drop it off into the pool to cook. Again, super easy!

So let’s see just one of the results of our condom cooked food, shall we?

After searching high and low in Korea for a duck breast like the one we prepared in France, Mr. B finally discovered the ticket! Gmarket! If you are living in Korea, and obviously under a rock like we have been, the site is in English and user-friendly. You simply find what you are looking for, click, pay, and next thing you know it’s at your door packed on ice. Talk about convenience! Oh, and here is the link to the duck breast.

I think the photos really speak for themselves, but just to reassure you…. absolutely delectable!

Click, Ship & treat yourself!

Or, search the internet for slightly adapted versions like the following:

Epicurious
Food.com
Simply Recipes

Whatever you decide in the end, you will not be disappointed.

In our greatest Julia Child impersonation we leave you with this quote, “See, I enjoy cooking with wine, sometimes I even put it in the food…” BON APPÉTIT!

Happy Friendsgiving!

We have a lot to be thankful for this year.

If you’ve been following along with this blog for a while, you know that our annual tradition is to have Friendsgiving, rather than a family-filled Thanksgiving, due to our logistical separations. We kept our theme to our meal to a smaller scale this year and also kept it centered around everyone’s traditional Thanksgiving fare. Eek we just get so excited for in the weeks that lead up to our dinner.

We live for the menu planning, the prep and yes, even those million little last second details that keep us buzzing around here and there. Year after year when all of our guest have left for the night, we head off to bed, we both look at one another and smile talking about how everything was so worth it in the end.

(Missing two and it was a test shot)

(Now just missing one)

This year we hosted 8 at our table…well 9 if you are counting 😉 little Miss B. We extended our dining room table by one leaf, it worked out perfectly.

The spread consisted of: Mr. B specialty Mashed potatoes; my side of the family family’s broccoli casserole and baked corn, My in laws homemade dressing (because it’s outside of the bird) my grandmothers stick to your ribs macaroni and cheese, my great grandmothers raw cranberry sauce, my homemade applesauce made with local Korea apples, sage leek and onion balls made by Mandy, the deep fried Cajun turkey, a ham prepared by George, crescents, a spinach pie baked by Jovone, pumpkin pie, cheesecake, vanilla and sparkly golden hazelnut macaroons, and an almond raspberry cake. Using the word delicious for this feast is just an understatement!

A close up of my plate. Ha-ha! As usual, my peepers were much bigger than my stomach. Of course I did manage to leave room for dessert.

Friendsgiving with our lovely friends was a beautiful, sweet, cranberry-kissed, happy affair! Thank you for making it another excellent memory friends!!

It’s Not To Early for A Bit Of Christmas

….Is it??

Typically we wait until the day after Thanksgiving to put up our tree, well except the past two years. Last year Mr. B got excited and insisted we purchase another tree because he had crossed the 5 year mark in Korea and I think he realized that the one we had sitting in storage wasn’t going to be making an appearance anytime soon in Korea. He also declared that he wanted to put it up before we had hosted our Friendsgiving. It was really sweet.

This year i’ve noticed many of our friends posting photos of their cozy homes all decked out with their Christmas swag. At first I thought ALREADY?! Then this past week it got me and sucked me right in. I’m guilty, i’ve had Charlie Brown’s Christmas music on and have changed out our pumpkins for red berries and greens.

After I decorated the first tree, I decided something needed to be filling the air with its Christmasy flair. I’m not talking about a candle, it needed to be homemade and baked for the right feel to go along with the good vibes.

As you know, I adore our cookbook collection and of course consulted my gal-pal Isa and whipped up an orange chocolate chip bundt cake. The cake uses orange zest and really added that hint of citrus spiciness you think of around the fall/winter holidays. Just enough to tickle the nostrils and stimulate your taste buds! Plus Mr. B is a huge fan of chocolate. Win-win!

You can find the link to her recipe here. I highly recommend you pick up her book, even if you check it out for a bit from your local library. I tweaked the recipe due to the availability of items in our kitchen. I used unsweetened vanilla almond milk, homemade vanilla extract, tangerines in the place of orange for the zest, used Ghirardelli Chocolate 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Baking Chips in the place of semi-sweet, and I cut back on the sugar. I also didn’t end up adding in the ground flaxseed. Digging into the cake that evening was a treat! Next time I’m going to make sure I have oranges on hand just to taste the difference.

We are not skipping or discounting any part of Thanksgiving this year, but as i’ve seen and recently have felt, it’s never to early to get excited about something as important as Christmas! What are your feelings, or are you waiting until after Thanksgiving to get in the Christmas spirit?

Click, Ship & treat yourself!

Just take a look at this baby! The goose was incredibly flavorful and tender! If you get the opportunity grab a goose for a special dinner and get cooking.

Le Weekend Cake

I’ve come to a realization after many, many, years of denial…I truly think it stems from some form of divorce child syndrome….(hey, we all have some dysfunctional childhood syndrome, it happen!). Sorry mom and dad.

There I was, I found myself drying dishes in our kitchen, after washing them moments before, having a conversation with Mr. B about organizing and cleaning up. I said aloud without even realizing it was coming out of my mouth, “If my home, office, car, etc. are clean and tidy, then everything will be all right, because I’m in complete control of those spaces and the things that fill them. Everything’s in the place it needs to be.

Can we pump the brakes for a moment? If this ever was a moment that a weekend cake and break from reality inside my organized little head was needed… This. Was. It.

Hence my adventures in making the French weekend cake, this past weekend. Do I have you scratching your head yet, questioning, “weekend cake” is there even such a thing? Yes, indeed and of course it’s delicious too!

In France le weekend cake, or gateau de voyage is traditional french pound cake that’s rich and buttery. The cake itself got the name because it’s a cake that can be made ahead of time and easily transported throughout the weekend on your picnics.

In the states, Sarah Lee and Starbucks mass produce a really sad spongy pound cake (that people love? Hey, I was one of them too…) that is very dense and heavily flavored with butter, but it essentially is the same concept and will keep for a few days.

Isn’t there just something so special about baking and getting to use your hands to create and transform something as simple as dough into something so delicious and beautiful? Plus baking is something that takes me completely out of my mind and worries of clutter and unorganized couch pillows and unmade beds. (Yep, I’m that girl).

Finally, everything was finished and the oven was cooling off. We both waited for this very moment and huddled eagerly together around the table and with every bite, there were waves that swept us away in pure citrusy ecstasy. Now that’s a weekend cake!

Tarte Aux Pommes

As apples are coming into season, leaves are transitioning over to their Burt-orange and yellow shades, and (the U.S) Thanksgiving is right around the corner, I thought I would share my most recent kitchen adventures with the tarte aux pommes (French apple tart). I think it’s such a nice counter-partner to the traditional “apple pie”, but comes off a bit more rustic and showy.

Hopefully I won’t get any backlash for this statement, but in my opinion the tarte aux pommes taste practically identical to the U.S version of apple pie. The exception is that the tarte aux pommes has wafer thin apple slices neatly arranged in the open on top of the tart, a buttery crust, and a caramelized glaze to give the whole thing that irresistible eat me sheen.

We prepped all of our materials and ingredients. I familiarized myself with the French tart ring, eek no bottom! Have you ever had the opportunity to use one?

I learned a new trick with how to make homemade vanilla sugar…. guess you will need to ask me to spill the beans.

To start we made a sweet short crust pastry. Rolled everything out by hand. Carefully Arranged dough in our tart ring and mini tartlet pans. We then popped them all into the refrigerator until we were ready for them again.

We then diced and thinly sliced the apples by hand.

We added our diced apples to pots on the stove with a mixture of butter, sugar, and cinnamon. The warm baking smells of the mixture slowly cooking happily danced up our noses. I wish I could just share that experience alone with you all.

Once the apples were soft on the stove top we then pulled out our chilled pastry dough and started to really get to work.

We filled the center of the tart with smaller diced warm apples and then continued on aligning and arranging the top ring of thinly sliced apples. It took me two attempts to get what I was looking for visually. Don’t fret if you end up doing the same.

Lastly brush the top of the apples with melted butter and generously sprinkle sugar over the tarte. We used the deck oven again and baked until golden brown. When it was finally finished, it looked incredible!

The last step was to lightly brush an apricot nappage–(an apricot jelly diluted with a bit of water and heated to near-boiling) over the tart tops. This nappage will help seal in the moisture and give it that stunning sheen that I mentioned above.

You can serve this French tart with a nice dollop of whip cream, or vanilla bean ice cream. Or, do as we did and invite your dearest friends over after a dinner out and serve casually with tea, coffee and good stories around the dining room table. Together we swooned with each bite of the buttery crust and heavenly scent of apples and cinnamon that encouraged us to just go ahead and indulge!