Tag Archives: Dinner

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

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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!

Gather. Eat. Drink. Repeat

Friends, we certainly missed you at our table over the weekend!

We gathered, ate, drank and repeated all evening. Nothing better in our book!

These friends are friends that have cooked a special birthday meal for us and have given us such wonderful gifts, we’re very blessed to have met them all, so we certainly wanted to return the favor with a special treat for them!

The menu was French themed and featured the following:

^L’Apéritif (Drinks): Assorted beer, cocktails, homemade mulled wine

^L’Entrée (Appetizer): Pan seared foie gras served on homemade whole-wheat toast

^Le Plat Principal (The Main Dish):
Sous vide duck breast, served with fresh steamed broccoli, and pommes frites (french-fries)

^La Salade et le Fromage (Salad and Cheese):
Seasonal dinner salad and assorted cheese plate (served on my favorite Pennsylvania board)

^Le Dessert (Dessert): Vanilla-bean crème brûlée with local strawberries

Le Café (Coffee) : Coffee & tea

Bon weekending!

What’s cooking?

We find ourselves together back here again at the end of the week. Can I get a Fri-YAY!?

While I know we observed MLK day and we had a shorten week compared to most, it just seemed to sort of drag on and on…what do you think? Perhaps it was the REALLY cold temperatures we’ve been experiencing as of late? Whatever the case, let’s get throw in another Fri-YAY! 😉

So what’s been cooking in your kitchen? Do share, we’d love to hear! In the meantime we will share just what’s been going on in ours…

Mr. B made a recipe from his grandparents cookbook dating back to 1949! Beef porcupines. Don’t worry there were no porcupines harmed in the making of the recipe haha! These little guys get their name from the way the rice pops out of the beef when they are done cooking.
Oh Lordy were they absolutely delicious! I know Mr. B made his grandpa proud that night!

^Google them!

Pizza night! Combination pizzas made with Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Pizza Crust, 16-Ounce. Have you ever used any of the Bob’s Red Mill mixes? We’ve dabbled in quite a few and always end up pretty pleased.

We topped the pizza with mozzarella, tons of roasted veggies eggplant, yellow peppers, red peppers, red onions, mushrooms, homemade meatballs, cheese filled jalapeños and cracked an egg in the center because we’re crazy like that! Oh and a side of roasted jalapeños filled with melted cheese.

We even ventured into the land of homemade vegetable hummus too! (Hey it’s all about getting those veggies in, right?) Yeah…Green pea hummus to be exact. Pretty outstanding and will make many future appearances in this house. You can thank us for sharing later.

We whipped up vegetarian BBQ. It’s sort of old school family BBQ recipe we have from Ms. B’s grandmother, but with a modern twist of using veggie crumbles.

And of course we mentioned Iowa Girl Eats blog meal on our last post, grilled chicken with a barley-corn salad. Think of the taste of a BIG bread-less BLT (YUM!).

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

Winter berries and the past

There are certain times throughout the year that I get very nostalgic about my childhood. So much so, I find myself shortly afterwards in our kitchen baking or making it simply to have a taste of the past. Make no mistakes, I enjoy adulthood and eagerly look forward to the future, but you know those days or moments when they hit you…

Today for me it’s homemade strawberry shortcake. Oh yes, a delicious family recipe that I covet, passed down generation to generation, butter, Crisco and all. No sharsies with this one folks. I know what you are thinking… Mmmm isn’t it sort of out of season to be longing for shortcake? Yes and no. I guess the great and not so great fact about the US is that at any time of the year you can get your hands on imported fruits and vegetables. I try not to be that gal, strive to purchase as much locally, plus we’re currently located in South Korea where local strawberries are divided into two growing seasons, summer and winter.

If you recall on a past blog post in the summer-ish we visited a nearby greenhouse and picked our own. With our winter berries we weren’t as adventures, we simply visit our local vegetable stand and purchase one or two containers a week. (They are that good!)

I enjoy learning more and more about anything that surrounds the topic of food. I found it very interesting when chatting up some Korean friends and locals that, the winter berries grown here are Maeyang strawberries, a cross and byproduct of two other strains of strawberries. I am told that these winter beauties yield a higher sugar content, because they are said to breath less at night, so unlike its sister summer berry, it loses far less nutrition, thus losing less of their precious sugar. I can absolutely attest to that! No need to sprinkle a dash of sugar on these little sweeties. Oh and the smell of the berries, imagine the best perfume in all the world!

During my childhood summers we’d always enjoy a nice size slice of shortcake topped with fresh local strawberries, sometimes cool-whip topping, but almost always soaked in a bowl of milk. This cake would accompany a bowl of parsley potatoes. That was it. Nothing more, nothing less. Recently Skyping with my grandparents we had a good laugh because Mr. B couldn’t wrap this mind around the fact that there wasn’t any protein, and the fact that was the entire meal. Hahaha! I suppose it might sound odd to those out there reading this post too, but I confess those dinners as simple as they were, were the very best. My great-grandmother coined the statement that you had to have the salty with the sweet. The saltiness of the parsley potatoes and the sweetness of the strawberries. This was a grandmother that knew her foodie stuff, she’d rather enjoy her dessert served before any meal. I certainly belong to the correct bloodline.

While we didn’t serve parsley potatoes tonight with our strawberry shortcake (party-pooper Mr. B), we did enjoy an outstanding marinated grilled chicken with corn barley salad from Iowa girl eats. The link is here and we didn’t change a thing. We used our fresh corn on the cob that we shucked and froze when it was available. We know you’ll enjoy this hearty easy dish during the weeknight too!

So now it’s your turn to share your childhood meal nostalgia with us. Do you re-visit the past with any sorts of odd meals? We’d love to hear!

What’s cooking?

Oh man am I ever glad you asked!

This year, like many past years, we didn’t make any official resolutions. But, I guess you can say this is sort of something we’ve decided to try to stick to in the new year. I guess you can say that goes along with a form of resolution, right?

Weekly dinner menu planning. Boom. It sounds so simple, right?…It is! So… Uh… Why haven’t we done this in the past? …… clueless.

Anywho. We did our first full week of dinner menu planning and it looked a little something like this.

We’re trying to incorporate a ton of veggies into our meals too. Oh! Plus I got my hot little hands on this really cute weekly menu planner stationary/ a store list. I cannot wait to share with you all! Stay tuned on Instagram. (Thanks Jenny!) We had a really good time sitting down together and planning meals from our cookbooks and must bake/make bucket-lists. I know it’s a time I’m going to look forward to in our future.

Our goals are to incorporate more veggies, take the stress out of any weekday scramble of what’s for dinner tonight, plus try to make fewer trips to the vegetable stand and grocery store. We will promise to keep you posted with delicious photos along the way. Follow us on Instagram if you aren’t already.

Speaking of delicious photos… This is one meal from our past week of dinner planning, minus the dinner salad. Meh. Sometimes you see one, you’ve seen them all.

^ Armenian eggplant caviar. I get the sweetest memories of our dear friend Mary when I take a bite of this stuff! Hi Mary!!

^ Homemade Pumpkin-Sage Ravioli with Browned Butter and Pecans from kitchenAide
(Don’t worry we’re sharing the recipe below. You are welcome!)

^ Homemade tapioca pudding with fresh local Korean strawberries

^ Lamb steaks seasoned with curry spice grilled in a cast iron pan, creamy garlic parmesan quinoa, Korean pumpkin purée

^ Homemade ricotta chocolate mousse from The Forest Feast Cookbook (Highly recommended purchase!)

^ Sous vide pork chop with homemade Asian BBQ marinade, roasted garlic ancho chile potatoes, cauliflower and puréed sweet peas

^Seared ahi tuna (marinated with soy and Worcestershire sauce and sesame oil) with quinoa, broccoli and puréed beets

We hope you enjoy every bite!

Pumpkin-Sage Ravioli with Browned Butter and Pecans
Taken directly from our KitchenAide manual
Yield: 6 servings (12 to 15 ravioli with 1 tbs [15 mL] butter and 1 tbs [15 mL] pecans per serving).

Ingredients:

1 recipe Basic Egg Pasta
1 can(15oz[445mL]) pumpkin
1/4 cup (60 mL) packed brown sugar
1 tsp (5 mL) ground sage
1/2 tsp (2 mL) salt
1/4 tsp (1 mL) black pepper
1/4 tsp (1 mL) ground nutmeg
6 tbs (90 mL) chopped pecans
6 tbs(90mL)butter

Directions:

Prepare pasta dough; let rest.

In medium bowl, combine pumpkin, sugar, sage, salt, pepper, and nutmeg; refrigerate until ready to fill ravioli. Follow directions in “To Prepare Pasta Sheets,“ “To Use Ravioli Maker Attachment“ and “Cooking and Storing Ravioli.“*

On baking sheet, place pecans in single layer. Toast in oven at 350°F (180°C) for 5 to 7 minutes, or until golden brown and aromatic. Meanwhile, in heavy 1 qt
(950 mL) saucepan over medium-high heat, heat butter until golden brown. Serve hot butter over cooked ravioli and top with pecans.

Click, Ship & treat yourself!

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!

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!