Tag Archives: Seoul

Birthday Celebration

Mr. B puts a limit on the amount of fuss and pizazz that I get to make over his special day, his birthday. He’s not one for parties, no dragging out the celebration, no telling the waitress while out at dinner (trust me…past experience he never lets me live down). His birthday request, celebrate one day, at home, a good home cooked meal, a favorite adult beverage (or a few) and his once a year praline ice-cream cake.

To me I feel that your birthday needs to be fussed about and you HAVE to drag it for at the minimum of a week, because come onnnnnn, it’s YOUR special day! Celebrate!!

So per his request last week we celebrated at home one evening with a good friend, delicious grilled rib eye steaks, foie gras, buttery scallops, hand cut French fries, a tomato cucumber salad with vinaigrette andddd of course his praline ice-cream cake. Mmmm-Mmmm!

Happy Birthday Mr. B. to the best dad and husband bumblebee and I could ever ask for.

Backpackbees

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.

Backpackbees

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)

Backpackbees

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?

Backpackbees

Product Review: Bob Revolution Pro Stroller

Oh yeahhh… It’s time for a product review on a mommy Monday blog posting!! Wow… my last and one and only was back when I did a post on coconut butter. By the way that was delish!

Okay, okay enough with my magpieness. On with the review!

Gawdddd have you realized just how many strollers on the market there are?! It’s just insane! We are the couple that researches to death, this purchase wasn’t an exception.

As you could guess, being abroad, specifically in South Korea, is a bit of a challenge when it comes to purchases that you really should be checking out in person. A stroller is a purchase you want to touch, test out in the store aisle, judge height, check out the overall quality. Unfortunately that just wasn’t an option for us and we only want to pay for shipping once. Yes, you can purchase strollers in Korea, however baby products are extremely overpriced, even if you are looking for something simple.

Over our lunch breaks at work, we’d meet and watch YouTube video reviews on strollers for tall people, adjustable handlebars, all-terrain, comfort, ease of use, weight and storage capability, safety and overall quality and durability that would last and grow with our daughter. We watched and compared, watched and compared, and watched and compared some more. Finally we landed upon an agreed decision, the Bob Revolution Pro Stroller. We realized this purchase would be an investment not only for us, but for our little bumblebee.

We’re now just a little over the two month mark with our Bob and we’re loving it! It’s incredibly! To us it’s like we purchased a BMW or Mercedes, lol but for the Bebe.

As we sort of listed above, the features we love in no particular order are:

The ease of folding the BOB stroller up by pressing in the two pieces and just an easy flip like motion to unfold again. Oh and it’s fairly lightweight to lift in and out of our cars and you can easily remove all the wheels.

The suspension and shocks. No matter what the terrain, our infant bumblebee is riding around smoothly.

The plush padded handle bar that is not only incredibly functional, but also super comfortable on the hands. Calling all 6 foot parents and soon to be parents, this handle bar will adjust to a comfortable height for you. (Sooo nice!) No feet hitting the stroller and messing with your natural stride.

The stroller canopy is ginormous with peek-through window to see a toddler. We haven’t hit that stage just yet, but we have the Britax car seat attached (make sure you purchase the BOB Single Infant Car Seat Adapter for Britax to fit the car seat onto the stroller perhaps another product review later), however the canopy on the stroller does folds over the car seat and protect an infant from the elements if you use it that way.

There is a decent sized storage area underneath. We’ve fit a diaper bag and some vegetable/fruit purchases in it. Also on the backside of the stroller, think where your knees face when pushing, is a flat pocket area that will hold flat items like diapers, wipes or a light blanket.

I haven’t jogged just yet with the stroller, however all reviews from runners say that it’s excellent for exercise. I’m excited to give it a go!

We want to be completely honest and up front with this product review and list the cons/ dislikes to this stroller as well. Guess what? We haven’t really found any just yet…. We do find ourselves in a bit of a pickle when it comes to taking the stroller into Korean restaurants and coffee shops due to the tightness of tables and such. So you could say that the overall size is sometimes a con? However you could argue the fact that it easily folds up and if needed you could fold it up and stick it in the corner. Stay tuned we will update this post as we continue to use regularly.

We purchased our Bob on (you guessed it) Amazon. You can find the direct link below or BOB Revolution Pro Single Stroller, Black <here.

Do you own a Bob? If you are looking for a stroller, what features are you most interested in? We’d love to hear from you!

Backpackbees

Click, Ship & treat yourself…or in this case the bébé !

Homemade Foie Gras Burgers

Enough of the Bebe post… although incredibly adorable… Lets talk burgers folks!

Sometimes a burger is MORE than just a burger. Let’s chat specifically about the foie gras burgers you’ve seen featured various times on our Instagram. To us, topping a homemade beef patty with a delicious hunk of perfectly seared foie gras is just sooooo comforting. The two belong together like peanut butter and jelly. Trust us on this one!

Look at that perfect rich buttery perfection. Mmmm!

We had the opportunity to share our homemade burgers with the Mr’s mom while she visited and helped us the first week after the birth of our bumblebee. Unfortunately, she wasn’t as excited to jump on the bee burger creation train (I know she’s laughing if she’s reading this).

If you’ve never had foie gras, we understand that you might hesitate to try, let’s be honest.. it’s intimidating. We also understand that if you do try, its one of those foods that are an acquired taste, you might love or loath. As a workaround we suggest throwing the foie gras on a burger like we do and you might find it less intimidating to try out. Give it a shot!

Have you ever tried foie gras? What did you think if so? We’d love to hear from you!

Backpackbees

Her Room

So now that we’ve opened up this chapter of our lives on the blog, we’ve been asked to share our bumblebees nursery.

As you know, we live in Korea, in an apartment, so it’s a bit more challenging to style a space that you can’t really completely make your own. Even if you’re not living abroad, maybe you too can relate in the way that you rent, you’ve got to work your magic in your own way to make it that special space that you are envisioning.

Recently IKEA came to Korea! What a godsend! Haha! All the furniture in the nursery is all from you guessed it… IKEA! (Side note silly… Koreans pronounce Ikea, E-key-a.)

So why exactly is IKEA a godsend you ask? Isn’t it just like transitional furniture you ask? Well… Unfortunately most Korean furniture is made from partial board, yes, much like IKEA, however muchhhhh more expensive. Yeah…

We really just wanted to keep things simple and clean-looking. We decided upon gray, black and white as the primary colors, no real theme. Simple.

Bedding and mostly everything you see was ordered from Amazon, or gifted from sweet families and friends. It was overwhelming in an amazing way to realize just how blessed we are, our bumblebee is, with all this showering of love from all around the globe! (Thank you all again!!)

So there you have it! We hope you enjoyed another look into our lives while we’re living abroad and navigating this new adventure together.

Can you relate with decorating restrictions in your home? It can be a monetary restriction, or perhaps you rent too, how did you overcome and make the space your own? Looking forward to hearing from you.

Backpackbees

New Chapter

It’s been awhile guys! So where have you been? Kidding… I know it was us, we basically fell off the blogosphere. But hey, with good reason!

They say that every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end. So here we are…at a new beginning, a new chapter in our lives, a close from another beginning’s end. Life is funny like that.. some chapters allow us to open on our own, while others are sort of forced open. Nevertheless, within these chapters of our books we are ever-growing and learning something from each of them.

Exactly where am I going with this? As you could have guessed, we’ve opened a brand new chapter in our lives. Yes, I struggled with the decision to post anything on our blog about my pregnancy, or if I’d keep that chapter of our lives closed from online and kept private. Ultimately I made the decision that it is a HUGE part of our lives and is an incredible blessing not to share with you all.

Funny when I think back on this now…we didn’t know at first we were even pregnant with our little bumblebee until we were already a few good weeks in. Crazy! Huh? Then we didn’t announce to our families and friends until we knew we were in the clear. I’m so terribly superstitious with certain things, especially because of our past experience and struggles.

Prayerfully everything progressed as normal and healthy with our daughter and we baked perhaps the very best treat of our lives yet!

Live in Korea? Need an amazing photographer for maternity, newborn or family style photos? Excellent! We’ve got you covered! Check out Little Lime Tree Photography here.

Backpackbees

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.

Backpackbees

Click, Ship & treat yourself

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.

^
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.

^
Chicken Marsala with homemade garlic bread and garden salads.

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

^
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.

^
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.

^
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!

^
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!

^
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”.

^
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!

^
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!

^
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