Tag Archives: Dinner

Good, Bad, Everything in Between

Many apologies, lately I feel like I’ve been rather inconstant with keeping up on our blog. I know it’s only been a week or so since the last update, but it feels like months have went by that I’ve left you all hanging. Life has certainly been fast paced here for the bees. Travel, wonky work hours, and life, just plain life. Now I’m left trying to catch up on my e-mails, blogger friends, pen pal, books, and the heaping pile of laundry that’s bursting at the seams every time I open our walk in. The only real comforting fact to subside my OCD is that i know my grandma’s advise would be, it’s not going anywhere, you will get to it when you can get to it. She’s sweet! I won’t even get started on the fact I haven’t put any thought into packing for my trip to Cambodia yet. Eek! Yes, that’s this Friday…more on that later.

Lets start with the good! I like to jump off on a positive not anyways.

Over the weekend we decided to get more adventurous and try out another new restaurant. Sweet victory! We loved it! Excellent duck and outstanding sides. Of course I included photos for you, even threw in a bonus video too. Sorry for the iPhone quality guys. Can I just point out how ingenious is that table with the built-in rotisserie! Oh Korea, you make being foodies so easy!

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Onto the bad…no sugar coating…the place below was the pits. Period.

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So whats everything in between? Planning to leave for my Habitat for Humanity trip in Cambodia this FRIDAY!

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I wasn’t kidding, fast track life lately! I feel like it was just yesterday kicking off my build fundraising for my team. Here we are almost $2,000 later and boarding a plane soon. Everyone keeps asking me if I’m ready, if I’m excited, if I’m worried. Yes, yes, and yes!

I find myself soul-searching a lot, looking for ways to give a piece of myself, my heart, to something meaningful in this world. What an opportunity with Habitat! I get to build a home for a deserving family, give them a forever place. In so many ways I know this will fill my heart temporary. I’m ready to give my all! My sweat, my energy, my manpower. Oivay, sweat…did you see those temperatures above? I’m thinking there will be plenty of sweat to give.

I’m excited to learn about the Cambodia culture and way of life, work hand and hand with the people, be a tourist, and disconnect completely from all the technology that bogs me down. Yes, worry, had to mention that of too. What can I say? I’m a worry wort. With any trip outside of the norm there is always the element of worry, right? Mr. B made me make two deals. One, come back alive, and two I cannot bring any children back with me. Does this man know me or what? Shushhh don’t tell him I admitted that openly.

Cherio! I’m off to finish up and finalize all the in between things before leaving on my trip, but I’ll be back soon with lots of exciting things to share!

Backpackbees

Taste Of the Big Easy

Fat Tuesday is almost here! If you can’t make it to Mardi Gras, why not let Mardi Gras come to you? We Bee’s were treated to a taste of the big easy this weekend. With our friends, we broke out the brightly colored beads and masks and had ourselves a Mardi Gras feast truly fit for a King!

Our friends are originally from New Orleans, they literally created their own little French quarter here in their South Korean kitchen. It was fun to learn more about the Mardi Gras traditions like wearing masks and costumes, and the dancing and throwing plastic beads and doubloon coins from parade floats, and what the baby means inside of the king cake.

What would a Mardi Gras celebration be without authentic New Orleans food? I can assure you this was truly the real deal, shipped straight out of Louisiana. We started off with sipping on Café du Monde coffee with chicory, munched on Louisiana deviled eggs, black-eyed pea’s and beans salsa, enjoyed a delicious Mardi Gras salad, then moved onto the main course that consisted of perfectly fried and Creole breaded shrimp and catfish, cheese grits, and mixed veggies featuring the superstar, okra. Staying true to the cause, we topped the meal off with the infamous king cake and sinful pralines! (It may or may not have been planned, I ended up with the tiny plastic baby in my piece of cake!) So it’s our turn to host the next party! No nudging necessary, we love any opportunity to entertain with friends.

G. family, Thank you again for sharing your family traditions with us! A Bee could truly get used to the big easy way of life!

Backpackbees

A Little Spice

Isn’t the color of this stew is insanely appetizing? Who would have thought that ingredients like a little honey, soy sauce, garlic, onions, Korean red chili pepper paste (gochujang), Korean red chili pepper flakes (gochugaru), and some other key ingredients, would slow cook so nicely?

I made this very popular Korean chicken dish called, Dakdoritang 닭도리탕, in my slow cooker tonight for dinner. Its chicken cooked in a spicy red sauce with vegetables. Ah! I just cannot get enough Korean cuisine. So, what are your thoughts? Would you dare? I’d love to share! If you want the recipe, just let me know.

My “little helper” bahaha! Yeah right. I think the better name would be snoozer.

In Need Of Antidote for Too Many Christmas Cookies

After one to many Christmas cookies, a nice hearty soup was in order for we Bees. With our recent trip home, I knew just the antidote!

Chicken corn soup with rivels!

Have you ever tried chicken corn soup with rivels before? It’s absolutely wonderful!

Rivels? Scratching your head yet? No, no, these are not little bugs or anything crazy like that. Think of rivels as a homemade pasta. Little, perfect, delicious, little pasta’s.

In Central PA, typically we eat this soup towards the end of summer with freshly picked ears of corn. Oh how I just adore fresh sweet corn! We Bees were truly spoiled because my family would always kindly share the corn from their fields with us too. Sigh…

Speaking of family, I skyped with my grandparents this weekend and had to tell them what a proud little baker I was with my chicken corn soup accomplishments. I mean we are talking about homemade chicken stock folks! That’s serious stuff in my book, or maybe just serious time? Nevertheless, well worth it in the end! Anyways, it turns out my grandparents were cooking the soup the following day as well. Guess you can take the Bees out of Pennsylvania, but you’ll never take Pennsylvania out of the Bees.

Isabella’s

Besides sensing a food pattern here, I am sure you can tell how much we love our italian cuisine. Due to bad weather our prior dinner engagement at Ghezzi’s fell through. Our friend Scott came to the rescue and suggested that we try out a newly opened restaurant called Isabella’s restaurant and Cocktail Lounge. Sure, why not!

The restaurant is located on the main street that runs through downtown Selinsgrove, PA. The building that the restaurant sits in is what used to be an old bank. Once you are inside you will still find many remnants of the bank in the decor. Old bank ledgers piled on the window ledges, knobs placed all around still from the original bank, the bar area being used is an old teller box, the vault visible from the bar and dining area propped wide open and used as a prepping station. All and all it really boast a Victorian era vibe. We instantly fell in love and we hadn’t even seen the menu, nor tasted the food.

The service was fantastic! The food was outstanding! So much so that we ended up going back a second time while we were home too. We have high hopes that when we are back visiting in the area that the restaurant still operates because we will certainly go back again!

The restaurant is located on 23 S. Market St., Selinsgrove, PA. Hours are Monday to Saturday from 4- 11 p.m.

 

Home For The Holidays

You know, I’ve been humming that Christmas tune in my head all week…I think you know the one…

“Oh there’s no place like home For the holidays, ‘cause no matter how far away you roam, if you want to be happy in a million ways, For the holidays, you can’t beat home, sweet home .”

Really, besides the Grinch, who doubts the lyrics of a Christmas tune anyways?

To think just a few short days ago, I was sitting on the plane becoming so overwhelmed with these crazy persons thoughts about going home for the holidays. Feeling guilty and anxious already about making sure everyone has around the same time to spend with us before even stepping foot back onto US soil. EEK! Can you relate?

Thankfully that anxiety subsided somewhere in the air over what I’m guessing was the state of Washington.

I’m happy to report, We Bees are having such a wonderful trip back home! So much delicious home-cooked food and time spent with people we love so dearly.

For now, I’ll leave you with a few pictures from our merry little Christmas!

Typically we all attend Christmas Eve service but due to the road conditions we thought it would be best to stick close to home.

Christmas Eve with the traditional snack attack fest, this year held at my mothers house.I couldn’t believe the wonderful spread of snacks that she put out for us. Shrimp, spicy cheeses and ring bologna, cookies, and middleswarth chips.   I loved watching my niece and nephew. They seriously sprouted by like weeds! I am sure I have mentioned this before in a past blog post, children always put time into perspective for me.

Followed by opening gifts at the in-laws. Any occasion to involve gifts my sweet sister in-law gets super excited and cannot wait to tear into them, hence gift opening on Christmas eve. It always makes me giggle because her brother is exactly the same! He also is the type to get super excited to give me a gift, what a pair these two.

The traditional Christmas Day breakfast with the in-laws, dry beef and gravy.

Last but certainly not least, the traditional Christmas Day dinner with the other set of grandparents and my family.

Poor Mr. B has been incredibly jet lagged. I guess I better follow suit too.

Yook hwe

EEK! How in the world is it already Tuesday night?! Please! Someone tell me how we already flew straight past the first part of the December month? It seems as though ready or not, The holidays are coming full speed at us! This means we Bees are only a few days shy of making our trip back to the states for the holidays.

Speaking of ready and Christmas, I’ve got to tell you, that Mr. B makes me feel so unprepared sometimes! This man has his entire luggage packed for the trip and even has it sitting by the front door. Bless his little heart. On the flip side there is pokey little me who hasn’t even thought about packing or anything related to that subject. You’ve got to believe when I say this is completely not my style. Perhaps my brain is on holiday overload right now? Or perhaps i’m just choosing to stay in my little bubble of denial. Well, whatever the case I guess I better get a move on it here!

I’m a teeny bit behind in blogging from our past weekend too. See holiday overload line above. I’ll just jump right into it for you now.

This is Yook hwe. (Sorry vegetarians blog followers). This dish just intrigued me way to much not document a photo to share with the rest of you.

What is Yook hwe? Yook hwe is basically like a steak tartar, only this is a Korean dish. The dish traditionally is served with thin slices of a juicy asian pear, salt, sesame oil, and sesame seeds. And uh yes, we actually tried the dish….we lived to tell the tale…and we actually really liked it. Folks you know by now we are strange birds.

We traveled down South for a holiday get together with some fantastic friends. It was so nice to catch up, chit-chat, laugh, and of course eat! And gosh did we eat! The food just kept coming and coming!

Wishing you all the best the last few days before the magical day of Christmas is here!

Can’t Handle The Heat…

Then stay out of the kitchen, as the old saying goes. Well bloggers I’ve got a confession! Up until very recently the kitchen and anything surrounding the subject of the kitchen, such as cookbooks, utensils, basically anything kitchen related, made my anxiety kick into full gear. It was sort of the unknown and that was frightening to me.

I was the type of girl that enjoyed the idea of cooking. I loved to stroll around the kitchen department thinking how it would be awesome to whip up a little of this and that with a little of that. The idea of things is always so much nicer in your head, right?

I guess I was fairly spoiled growing up. Someone was always around to cook me something…even my little baby sister. He-he-he. Hey! She enjoyed it! REALLY! I swear she did.

Well, these days, with many (oh so many) failed attempts and a few victories under my belt, by gosh I think I’ve finally caught the hang of it! (Or at least tonight, I feel that way)

I’ve been using Skinny Taste by Gina, she hasn’t really lead me down a dark alley yet. The recipes are very easy to follow and they are not only healthy, they are DELISH! You know it’s a good thing when Mr. B says, “I don’t think I could have made that any better myself”. You know my little Chef Ramsay. Oops, i totally forgot Mr. B tends to read and post on our blog. So, mmm scratch that last line and insert my tough, strong, throw a meal together with the bare necessities manly man.

If you like a nice spicy linguini and shrimp fra diavolo, this recipe is for you!

Taken directly from Skinnytaste: (We love the spice, we threw in a lot more crushed reds)

Ingredients:

3 tsp extra virgin olive oil
6-7 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
2 lbs jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined*
salt and fresh pepper to taste
1/4 cup celery
1/2 cup chopped onion
35 oz crushed tomatoes
1 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper (or to taste)
1 tbsp capers, drained
8 fresh basil leaves, rolled and sliced thin
12 oz whole wheat pasta

Directions:

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

While the water is heating up, heat 2 teaspoons of the olive oil in a large heavy skillet over medium heat. Stir in the garlic and cook until golden, about one minute. Add the shrimp and cook 2-3 minutes to brown but not cook through; sprinkle with salt to taste.

Transfer the shrimp to a plate, leaving garlic in the pan.

Add pasta to water and cook according to package directions for al dente.

Pour the remaining teaspoon of olive oil and add the celery and onions; cook 2 minutes then add the crushed tomatoes, season with salt and crushed red pepper and bring to a simmer.

Lower the heat and let it simmer about 8-10 minutes. Add the shrimp and cook another minute or two; remove from heat. Add the capers and serve in a large bowl over pasta topped with fresh basil, fresh black pepper and Parmesan cheese on the side.

See, easy peasy! Try it out, throw in a nice glass of wine too! Afterwards show Gina some blog lovin and post your reviews.

A Rainy Spring Night

Is there anything better than…
enjoying a delectable chicken breast topped with mushrooms and onions cooked in sherry
sipping on a new white wine

on a rainy spring Saturday night

while watching Julie and Julia with the love of your life?
I think not.
Bon Appétit!

Confessional: Tuna Noodle Casserole

Buh-Bye Christmas holiday and Bee’s tropical vacation! That’s right, Christmas has officially come and GONE and I can’t tell you how sad that makes me. I must admit though, this was probably the best one yet!! 🙂

Anywaysssss……

I have a confession to make… I have diliked loathed tuna noodle casserole since I was a child. I’m not totally sure if it was because I felt like my stepmother at the time knew I despised it and continued to make it or, if it was just the strange concoction of tuna and noodles itself. Whatever the case was, I have successfully avoided it throughout my entire adulthood thus far. Well, that was until I realized that I was depriving my hubby of one of his favorite meals.

Today I decided that I would give the dish a go again. Who knows… maybe it really isn’t that bad after all, right?

RIGHT! I actually have a healthified tuna noodle recipe that not only Mr. B loved, but now I love just as much too.

Okay, okay.. I’ll share! (Adapted this wonderfulness from Skinny Taste)

6 oz no yolk noodles
1 tbsp butter
1 medium onion, chopped up fine
3 tbsp flour
1 3/4 cups fat free, sodium free chicken broth
1 cup fat free milk (we use Lactaid)
4 sliced baby mushrooms
1 cup frozen peas (we used frozen ones)
2 (5 oz) cans tuna in water, drained (we used albacore, less fishy)
1 block of 2% reduced fat sharp cheddar (We used Kraft)
2 tbsp parmesan cheese
2 tbsp seasoned breadcrumbs

First, I Cooked noodles in water until slightly undercooked. Set them aside.

I used a large deep skillet pan to melt my butter. Add in your onions and cook on medium heat until they start to get soft, all and all it’s about 5 minutes. Next, add flour and stir well because it’s going to get a bit crumbly.

Preheat your oven to 370°. Lightly spray your casserole dish so that the noodles do not stick.

On the stovetop slowly whisk in chicken broth until it is well combined, turn up the heat to medium and continue whisking mixture for 30 seconds, add the milk and bring the mixture to a boil. When the mixture is boiling, throw in your chopped mushrooms and peas, add in salt and pepper to taste and simmer mixture on medium heat. You want to mix occasionally until everything starts to thickens, this will be about 5 minutes. Next, stir in the drained tuna.

Remove the mixture from the heat and mix in the reduced fat sharp cheddar, it will melt into mixture. Add your egg-noodles to the sauce until noodles are evenly coated. Last step is to pour entire noodle mixture into your sprayed casserole dish, and top with parmesan cheese and breadcrumbs (listed above).

Bake uncovered for about 15-20 minutes. If you desire a more crispy casserole top, place the dish under the broiler a few minutes to get the crumbs nice and crisp! Word to the wise, be careful when the dish is under the broiler that it does not burn.

Bon Appétit! We Bees are looking forward to making this dish for years to come.

Can you think back on foods that you never would have touched when you were a child, and today you just simply cannot consume enough?