Tag Archives: cook

What’s cooking?

Welcome back to our kitchen! Pull up a chair at our kitchen island and get comfy. Outside of our mini Mardi Gras feast and unbeetable Valentine cake, we’re sharing the recap of what we whipped up in our kitchen over the past week. We’ve got some exciting nostalgic dishes we’ve made a bit more modern to share with you!

Drumroll please..we tested out four more family recipes from Mr. B’s grandparents handwritten cookbook that dates back to 1949! It’s so special thinking about and picturing Howard and Rose cooking these very recipes together back then in their kitchen, perhaps doing the same exact things were doing in the present day.

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This super crunchy coconut granola! It’s been perking up our morning Greek yogurt and fruit routine. Try it! Next time I’m thinking I’ll use coconut extract instead of vanilla.

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Chicken Marsala with homemade garlic bread and garden salads.

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Seared tuna, a fairly regular staple at our table, was served as the main dish alongside of diced oven roasted rutabaga.

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The first family recipe tested was parsley curried corn. Originally we prepared as directed straight from the recipe, but in the end slightly altered it to more of our taste. SPICE! Yeah, we had to kick it up a notch and make it a bit more modern with the addition of hot madras curry powder. This dish was absolutely delicious and is a new favorite for sure.

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The second B family recipe tested was, pork tenderloin in cream sauce. Again, after preparing as originally directed, we modernized and altered by seasoning to our taste, it just didn’t have the pizazz we were after. We ended up adding green peppercorns and chopped onions.

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We paired the pork tenderloin with garden sweet peas, sautéed mushrooms in a pepper sauce and puréed sweet potatoes seasoned with maple, butter, pepper. D-licious!

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Oven roasted eggplant halves stuffed with zucchini, yellow squash, spicy Italian sausage, onion, and gorgonzola cheese. Like spaghetti, these were even better served as leftover for lunch, the flavors just popped even more!

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The stuffed eggplants were served with a side of roasted garlic butter mushrooms sprinkled liberally with salt and cracked black pepper. These little guys were like a vegetarian alternative to Escargot! The mushrooms gave the texture and the butter, garlic, salt and cracked black pepper brought the taste. Plus who doesn’t like the fact that the caps hold in all that buttery goodness? It’s all about those vehicles for butter 😉

The third family recipe tested was “Boston Baked Beans” and “BBQed Chicken”.

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The Boston baked beans used dried beans and minimal ingredients which consisted of molasses, sugar, salt and a bit of pepper and home cured bacon. The Flavor was fantastic!

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The BBQed chicken was a chicken quartered and the sauce was from scratch. The sauce simmered away for quite a bit of time on the stove, then it covered the chicken and was baked. This recipe was delicious with a delightful blend we were not accustomed to. Oh! the chicken came out super moist too!

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Then there was a quick last-minute dessert created. Inspired by our recent trip to Manimal in Itaewon, Mr. B halved bananas and drizzled them with homemade caramel and then topped it all off with fresh vanilla whipped cream. Boom! Front runner to the Bananimal!

Alright folks, we will meet you back in our kitchen again soon!

Backpackbees

Winter Warmers

Don’t you just adore good winter warmers, like the ultimate classic dish boeuf bourguignon?

This dish has been on my Culinary Bucket List, and I’m a tad bit embarrassed to say that it intimidated me and it kept getting pushed towards the end of my must make or bake list. Eek.. Speaking of bucket lists, do you have any? I use an Iphone and keep a huge list using the notes app of culinary things I want to try to make, and that way it’s always handy when I’m getting our shopping list together.

After actually making the dish, I realized that there is quite a bit of prep work before actually getting to cook it. BUT First, don’t make the same mistake that I did… forgetting the beef needs to marinate over night. Oops. It delayed our dinner by one night. Double oops. Secondly, prep all your ingredients the night before. Trust me! Major time saver if trying to serve on a work/ school week night. And third, enlist someone to help or do the kitchen cleanup along the way. (Thanks Mr. B). HUGE HELP!

We just received our new Le Creuset Dutch oven as a Christmas gift to one another, so I figured what better way to break her in than with an extra special meal like boeuf bourguignon.

Maybe you haven’t tried, or are unfamiliar with the dish. That’s okay! Together lets dive right into in with our forks and spoons. This rich beef stew is made with beef braised in red wine and beef broth, it’s flavored with thick cuts of bacon batons, mushrooms, garlic, onions, carrots, and salt/ pepper to taste. Oh my stars, it is out of this world d-elicious! We ended up serving it over some nice buttery Cavatappi noodles.

So where can you grab this recipe?
…..Well you can intrust in good ‘ol Julia Child and follow along with this video.

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!

Backpackbees

Celebration Calls For Afternoon Tea

This morning, Christmas eve, I attended a graduation and certificate ceremony for my dear friend at Le Cordon Bleu (French for “The Blue Ribbon”) culinary school located in Seoul. What an honor to be invited and partake in such a monumental moment in someone’s life. Not to mention a dream of my own…swoon

As you may know already, there are some rather distinct differences when it comes to comparisons between S.Korea and the US. I now can also safely say that a graduation ceremony is another difference in my life experience book as well. The ceremony while very nice, had some distractions occurring.

…Eh, heck why not, I’ll share some of the humor with you all…while I carefully tried to concentrate and make out some of the words being said in both French and Korean, I was sitting beside a Korean man who was obviously very proud of his family member, so much so that right after his family member walked off the stage he decided he immediately needed to put together a video montage with songs right on the spot (I’m talking no ear buds, full on sound for all to hear around him). Then after said Korean man was happy with his masterpiece, I thought I was in the clear, silly me….two elderly Korean woman to my left decided to sit down and have a very loud conversation and pay no mind to the ceremony, or anyone sitting around them. I really don’t believe that they looked up at the stage once. I pondered if they even knew anyone there and perhaps maybe had come for the free food afterwards? Hey, no judgement ladies… no judgement. For future events try to keep it down a bit please? Thanks.

Anyways, the ceremony was beautiful in book, even with said distractions. I was beaming from ear to ear with a huge permi-smile for my friend and her incredible accomplishment! I think I told her about 50 times that afternoon how proud I was of her and how much of an inspiration she was to me. She really is, more than I think she will ever know!

Onward to the celebration afterwards. Let’s talk food shall we?

No, wait.. even better shall we look at amazing photos of the food that the Le Cordon Bleu Chefs prepared for the graduation ceremony? Yes, I think we shall…

After the ceremony and the light tasting event, we headed onto our own celebration at Shilla Hotel, also located in Seoul, for afternoon tea.

There is no need to make reservations and the afternoon tea is held in the Library Bar and Lounge of the hotel. The Afternoon Tea Set starts at 46,000 KRW and there is an option to upgrade and add a glass of champagne for the set price of 68,000 KRW.

First we were seated and asked to select our tea choices. Because our group was rather large, we ordered various teas. The tea selection is plentiful and I immediately fell in love with TWG’s White House tea. I know, I know…Perfect pick for the American! But really, the tea was a delightful white tea. It was described as, “delicately fruity with overtones of ripe, red berries and a scattering of rare and fragrant rose petals.”

I was blown away by the tea set that came out! It was impressive and perfectly plated for presentation. A wonderful section of various pastries, hot scones, sweets and beautifully sliced tea sandwiches. The afternoon Tea set also includes a selection from the cake cart. Our group chose a gorgeous slice of chocolate cake (and that says a lot coming from a non-chocolate lover)!

I cannot wait to go take a few friends back and share the experience.

I Highly recommend the afternoon tea and by the way, don’t forget pinkies up!

Backpackbees

Directions:

Le Cordon Bleu
Website: Here

The Shilla Seoul Hotel – The Library Bar and Lounge
249 Dongho-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul, South Korea

Adventures in homemade pasta making

Isn’t pasta just plain fun?! Seriously it really is!

Ohhhh and when it’s freshly made you can just taste the love that was put into it. It’s just comfort in a bowl on a cold winters night, a bowl I could just cuddle up inside and not poke my head out of until the first sign of Spring.

Ahhhh pastaaa.

What really intrigues me about pasta is the fact it’s made so simply. All it takes is flour, water and eggs. Honestly every Pennsylvanians staple kitchen item when the weatherman forecast an inkling of snow. When these three simple things are mixed and kneaded together, they are transformed into a magical elastic ball of dough that can be pinched off, cut, or rolled out into a billion flavors, colors, and shapes. Now if that isn’t just simplicity at its finest.

After lusting for a year or so, for Christmas we purchased a together gift, the pasta roller attachments, that we couldn’t bare to place under the tree. We are worse than little kids on Christmas Eve, we haven’t grown up. When the package arrived, the tape barely ripped off the box and we were already googling what we could whip up first.

To get our bearings and because this was our first pasta making experience, we just went with the Kitchenaid recipe for regular pasta noodles. We will get all sorts of crazy now that we’ve got that test run out of our system.

Cheers and stay tuned. Many apologies in advance for the harsh kitchen lighting.

BASIC EGG NOODLE PASTA DOUGH

Ingredients:

3 large eggs
2 tablespoons water (we needed a tad more than this original recipe)
2 3/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour

Instructions:

Break eggs into a glass measuring cup. Add water. Carefully check to see that the total liquid amount is 3⁄4 cup. If less than 3⁄4 cup, add additional water 1 teaspoon at a time until that amount is reached.

Place flour in bowl. Attach bowl and flat beater. Turn to Speed 2 and gradually add eggs and water. Mix for 30 seconds. Stop mixer and exchange dough hook for flat beater. Turn to Speed 2 and knead for 2 minutes. Remove mixture from bowl and hand knead for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Cover with plastic wrap and let dough rest for 15 minutes before extruding through Pasta Maker.

Makes about 1 pound dough

Source: KitchenAid Pasta Maker manual

Backpackbees

Sunday Morning Poached Eggs

You know what? Poaching an egg is very intimidating and unknown territory when it comes to a mediocre cook. Truly, I can say this from experience. Believe it or not, I never poached an egg until this morning. Boy, they are tricky little guys!

I found that using a small bowl to slowly slide the egg into the almost boiling water worked the best. Thank goodness for good old Google and some tips from Real Simple magazine to help me keep calm and cook on.

Fresh eggs are key. My eggs are fairly fresh, but not fresh-fresh, like snatched right out from under the hen fresh. When I think of fresh eggs, I instantly think of my grandparents that raise chickens. Sometimes they tell me they have so many eggs, they often run out of creative ways to use them up. Maybe after they read this post they will want to poach some eggs too?

What are your thoughts on poached eggs? Have any tips or tricks to getting them perfect?

Backpackbees

Shoo Fly Pie

Have you ever had a slice of shoo fly pie? Ah! It’s pure magic! Okay…I may be exaggerating a bit with the word magic, but it’s really that good!

Shoo fly pie is a pie that has three layers. A bottom gooey layer, called wet bottom. A middle layer of cake consistency, and a top layer that is sprinkled heavily with a streusel top. It’s a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch molasses pie and its delicious! If you ever find yourself around or driving through Central PA on 11-15, stop and treat yourself to a slice of shoo fly pie! Let me know what you think once you taste it too.

I never realized how much I enjoy cooking, and then of course there is eating too. I knew when I was home I wanted my grandmother to show me how she bakes her shoo fly pies.  She is amazing and of course made sure that she had all the ingredients for me to learn how to make it. It’s funny how much I miss the simple traditional things like this shoo fly pie. So many things that I took for granted. I cannot wait to bake it again in the near future when I am feeling a little home sick or craving something from my hometown.

Thank you Gram! These pictures will help preserve the wonderful memory of baking with you that I will treasure forever.  Love and miss you guys already!