Seaweed and Rice

Rice, Kimchee & Eggs

2009-08-22T17:37:00.000-06:00

Oeufs en Cocotte avec la Ciboulette et L'oignon Vert

2009-04-05T12:58:00.008-06:00

Baked Eggs with Chives and Green Onions

2 Large Eggs
pat of butter
a pinch of salt & pepper
1 tsp heavy cream
1 green onion, sliced
6-7 chives, sliced

Generously butter a small ramekin or other small baking dish and place it in a bain marie. Break both eggs being careful not to break the yolk. Sprinkle with course sea salt and cracked pepper. Gently add the cream. For effect you can pour the cream onto a spoon aroung the yolks so the yolks can still be seen (I did not do this). Add the green onion and chives. For soft cooked yolks bake at 375 for 16 minutes. For fully cooked yolks bake at 425 for 20 minutes.
This did not take long to make, but it was very good. Very good.

Speaking of things French, I have been listening to CDs in the car to learn French and Spanish. I've learned quite a bit of Spanish, but the French is more slow going. I can ask where Saint Jack Street is, and I can ask if you speak French. I can also quote the line of a song from the 70's that has nothing to do with the CDs I'm listening to, but I digress.

I found a great webpage for people who want to learn another language. It is babbel.com. I also like to use babelfish.yahoo.com which is kind of the same thing as Google Translate. I have looked for a good French text to speech narrator, and I found one that I like called Natural Reader. I just use the free demo on their homepage. I like it because you can adjust the speed of the narrator. There are other free demos online that you don't have to download, but this is the only one that I could find where I could adjust the speed of the speaker.

Au revoir et bon appétit!

Chocolate Berry Pavlova

2009-03-30T19:38:00.006-06:00

There is a dessert called Pavlova that I have wanted to make. It is named after a Russian ballerina named Anna Pavlova. It is made of a meringue base that is crispy on the outside, but light and fluffy on the inside.

Whenever I've seen Pavlovas, they've been crazy tall, and now I understand why. The meringue kind of settles, and the flavor is so light, it will get lost in the cream or whatever you decide to fill it with. My Pavlova base was too short. Next time I will double the recipe and make it nice and tall.

If you decide to try making this, I recommend putting the meringue on a Silpat so that you can easily remove it and put it on a serving plate. For the Pavlova I used the egg whites that I had leftover from making the Hollandaise sauce for the Eggs Benedict. I whipped the egg whites together with some sugar and about 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar. I whipped it to high peaks, and then I spread it in a circle, lifting the edges higher than the center. I put it in the oven at 250 deg F for an hour and then I turned the over off and opened the oven door to let the meringue "dry out".

I filled it with whipped cream (heavy whipping cream whipped tight with powdered sugar and vanilla extract), and then I topped it with raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries. With just that, it was pretty as a picture, but I wanted to go over the top a bit. I made a syrup with Amarena cherry juice, marashino cherry juice, and a little bit of strawberry syrup. I dusted on a little bit of grated dark chocolate before I took some pictures. I had a lot of chocolate shavings left, so I dumped it all on and took more pictures. The extra chocolate made a difference in taste, and it was very good. Puddleglum and the boys all liked it a lot, but what's not to like- fresh berries, whipped cream, good chocolate, cherry sauce, and creamy meringue? It's an instant winner. I think it would have been better if I had made more meringue. Visually, I think the presentation would be even better if I made the filling and the meringue different colors so that you can see both layers. So next time I am going to double the meringue recipe and put some color in either the meringue or the cream.

Salmon Eggs Benedict

2009-03-28T20:33:00.006-06:00

I love eggs. They are so versatile, and I consider them comfort food. I like them every which way, but my favorite is probably poached; although I've taken a liking to three minute egg cups. When we visited my sister in Austin, she took us to the Original Pancake House where I had their version of Egg's Benedict which is made with a sausage patty instead of ham, and has a mushroom sauce that is so yummy. When I worked at Vargo's, we served traditional Eggs Benedict on their Sunday brunch menu. I wanted to make Eggs Benedict, but I wanted to make something special, so I decided to make Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon.

Everyone makes poaching eggs sound so difficult. It's not. If you have a very fresh egg, it's easier, but even if you don't have fresh eggs, it can still be done. Just add some vinegar to the water- maybe a couple of tablespoons. Bring the water up to a good boil, and then keep it at a gentle, simmering boil. I break my eggs into individual small ramekins, and then a gently drop them in. After I put them in, I set my timer to two minutes. At two minutes I lift them out with a skimmer, and put them on a couple of layers of paper towels.

Hollandaise sauce is also not really that difficult. There are several good recipes online. It's basically three things; egg yolks, lemon juice (or white wine vinegar), and melted butter. Yah. Artery clogging. But you don't put much hollandaise on the eggs, and hopefully some of those omega-3s in the salmon will counteract some of that. Anyway, what I did was I whisked the egg yolks in a bowl set over the pan with boiling water for the eggs (do not let the bowl touch the boiling water or you could scramble the yolks). I did not have lemons, but I put a couple of tablespoons of white wine vinegar in with the yolks. You whisk for quite a while until the yolks look thick and have grown in volume. Then you add an entire stick of melted butter (yowza!). I had already melted it, and I had it sitting next to the stove. You need to have everything ready when you make this sauce. Add your butter and whisk, whisk, whisk. If the sauce gets too thick, then whisk in a tablespoon or two of the boiling water. Season with salt and cayenne. You can taste when it is ready. It tastes really yucky if it isn't ready yet.

I have found that the best way to make asparagus is to microwave them. They stay greener this way, and it is harder to overcook them. Just nuke them with some water. We usually sit them in some water in a glass loaf pan. It varies on how long. If you have large asparagus, and you are making an entire "bunch", it can take several minutes. Today I only made seven, and then were very thin. It took like a minute. I just put some butter on them when I plated everything. If I had the money, I would have wrapped them in Jamón ibérico.

On two halves of some english muffins that I bought at MarketStreet I spread a thick layer of cream cheese (why the heck not?). Then I layered the smoked salmon on top of that. I had that ready and waiting for when the eggs were done. I placed the eggs on top of the salmon, and then spooned on the hollandaise sauce. Over that I sprinkled some basil and paprika. I thought the chives looked nice just layed on top. I wanted to put salmon roe on the very top, but it was freakin' sixteen dollars! I had intended to plate this with some red onion, but just forgot to use it until after I had taken all the pictures. I did sprinkle some on before I started eating, and it was yummy that way. All in all, pretty pleased with this one.

Bread

2009-02-28T15:19:00.011-06:00

I decided to make some bread today of the "artisan" variety. A couple of years ago I did a post about the no-knead bread recipe that Jim Lahey of Sullivan Street Bakery in Manhatten developed. It makes a nice crusty bread that is airy with lots of holes and not dense. I've taken a liking to kneading bread, though, and I don't think far enough ahead to do the eighteen hour rising thing that you do with the no-knead recipe. So lately I've been using some more traditional recipes with good results.

Over the holidays my sister brought some good bread from Austin with rosemary in it, and it was delicious. She brought some fancy cheese and wine with it, and everything went so well together. We have a bunch of pecans, so I made a couple of loaves with pecans and rosemary. It is really good together. Everyone liked it except Jon. He does not like nuts and apparently does not like rosemary either.

I learned some important lessons today. Do not cut your loaf before the second rise. Cut it just before you put it in the oven. The loaf that I crosscut sort of split open in a big way during the second rise. I had to try and pinch everything back together which made it kind of collapse, so I had to let it rise again a little.

A couple of weeks ago I made homemade french bread, and we used it to make french bread pizza. It was a hit. I did learn some things when I made these loaves. The recipe I used says to let the dough rest for ten minutes before shaping into the loaves. The top surface got a little dry during those ten minutes. I should have rolled this in so the more moist side is on the outside. The way I did it left my loaves with some kind of bread measels. It tasted good, and that's the important thing.

French Bread
Ingredients:
5 1/4 cups all purpose flour (we use Gold Medal Better for Bread Flour)
2 packages quick rise yeast
2 teaspoons salt
2 cups warm water

In a small bowl mix the yeast and the warm water (and maybe a little sugar) to make sure the yeast is active. In a large bowl mix 2 cups of flour and the salt. Then add your yeast water using a large wooden spoon to mix it together. Start adding the rest of your flour mixing with the wooden spoon, and then eventually mixing it with your hands. Transfer only a floured surface and knead until a nice dough forms. It takes about 8 to ten minutes to have a nice smooth, elastic dough. If you want to make the pecan rosemary bread, at this point mix/knead in two large handfuls of chopped pecans, a tablespoon or so of honey, and a tablespoon or so of rosemary.

Place dough in a large greased bowl and turn once so all sides get some oil on it. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubles- about an hour.

Dump dough onto a floured surface and gently punch down. Divide dough in half and shape into loaves. Place on a baking pan with a light dusting of cornmeal. Cover with a damp kitchen towel. Put in a warm spot and let rise for about 45 minutes. Preheat oven to 425. Place a pan on the lowest rack (you'll use this pan to create steam).

After 45 minutes or so of rising, remove damp towel and score loaves with a sharp knife. Place baking pan in rack in middle of oven. Pour water into the hot pan on the lowest rack. It will immediately sizzle and steam will begin to form. Immediately close the oven door. You can also use a spritzer to spray the loaves and the sides of the oven to create a humid environment.

After twenty minutes take baking pan out and rotate. Bake for another twenty minutes. If the tops of the loaves start to get too brown at any point, you can cover the tops with aluminum. Let loaves cool on a wire rack. Do not cut loaves while they are hot. Allow to cool and use a good bread knife to cut the loaves. You could also use the no-knead method of baking in a dutch oven or enamel stock pot.

Back Forest Trifle

2009-02-18T19:11:00.003-06:00

Kuidaore is one of the best food blogs that I follow. The latest post looks scrumptious, but then again, everything on this blog looks scrumptious.

From the blog post:

"Crème Chocolat is layered with Kirsch whipped cream, preserved wild sour cherries, and boudoir biscuits laced with Kirsch syrup.

The key is to use good quality cherry eau-de-vie, and good quality preserved cherries. Where the latter is concerned, griottes may be the traditional choice - and I may possibly get stoned by Black Forest Cake purists for saying the following - but my personal absolute favourite preserved cherries to use are Amarena Fabbri. As much as I adore the distinctive and signature blue-and-white packaging, what has me completely sold is what lies within the jar - small, plump, succulent amarena (wild sour black cherries) carefully candied in thick amarena syrup."

I'm drooling...

Bananas Foster a Fourth Way

2009-02-18T19:02:00.003-06:00

A while back I did a post called Bananas Foster Three Ways. Well, here is a fourth way, and it looks dee-lish-us. Culinary Concoctions by Peabody is... genius.

Blackbeard's Hot Buttered Rum

2009-02-16T17:38:00.002-06:00

I remember who first introduced me to hot buttered rum. Stephanie and I met when we were fourteen at the beginning of ninth grade. She was the new girl in school, and I remember when I first saw her in band. She looked mad and unhappy, but she was very pretty, so she was the talk among all the guys. Of course, all the girls hated her. Somewhere in the middle of the year we became best friends, and we saw eachother through many a tough time.

I started waitressing when I was eighteen. It was my next job after my summer as a security guard. I waitressed for about eight years. I started off working for ARA and Marriott foods doing banquets. Then I got a job at the Peking Chinese Restaurant. I worked for a summer at Griggs in El Paso while I was taking Microbiology and Anatomy & Physiology at UTEP. Stephanie worked for Chelsea Street Pub in El Paso. Back then Chelsea's was still pretty cool. They needed some Christmas help, so Stephanie got me a job while I was home for Christmas. I can't remember where we were or the circumstances, but she made me a hot buttered rum. She used light rum and white sugar. I remember it being almost clear. It's a comfort drink for sure.

When I moved to Houston, I got a job at Vargo's and I moonlighted at the Houston Racquet Club (I just found out this month that Mr. Vargo passed away in August). These jobs lent themselves to discovering other "comfort drinks", but hot buttered rum always held a special place in my heart.

It's a special occassion, so Puddleglum bought a good quality Puerto Rican rum. I decided to create a drink. I'm calling it Blackbeard's Hot Buttered Rum.

Blackbeard's Hot Buttered Rum

1 shot Puerto Rican rum
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
1 small drop blackstrap molasses
very hot water
1 pat of butter

Mix first four ingredients. Place pat of butter on top. One variation would be to use a black rum like Cruzan Blackstrap Rum, Gosling's Black Seal, or Maui Dark Rum.

Coffee Can Bread and Triple Hot Chocolate

2009-02-16T17:25:00.008-06:00

I've been making coffee can bread on occasions for over ten years. I don't make it very often, but I enjoy making it when I can. I think there is something good and wholesome about homemade bread, and I have much respect for people who bake their own bread on a regular basis. The 1987 edition of the Best of Sunset has been one of my all time favorite cookbooks. It has several really good bread recipes. It even gives instructions on how to make your own outdoor adobe oven.

Coffee Can Bread is a batter bread, so it's a dense kind of cakey bread. A couple years ago there was a big thing in the foodie world about no knead bread , which is a technique to make artisan french style bread without all the kneading. You don't do any kneading with this recipe, but it is not at all an artisan bread. If you are looking for that, this is not it. It's still an easy way to make homemade bread, and it makes good sandwich bread, so you could make cute, round sandwiches. I used a Cafe Du Monde chickory coffee can.

For the picture I left the "muffin top" on top of the slices. Kind of reminds me of that Seinfeld episode... "It's not top of the muffin TO YOU..." I pulled out a bunch of things for the boys to put on their bread, but in the end everyone wanted butter and honey. It was good. You can kind of see two faint rings etched into our table. Puddleglum uses these as templates for when he makes pizza dough. We have two pizza pans, large and medium. Puddleglum makes the dough on the table and then transfers them onto the pans. He could probably just eyeball it, but he is kind of picky about his pizza.

I'd been wanting to make some really thick and rich Mexican chocolate, so I decided to make that tonight as well. I put an Abuelita chocolate "tablet" in a mini food processor to break it up. If you've never used Abuelita or Ibarra Mexican chocolate, you need to know that you have to use a blender or a food processor to break it up. I wanted something super chocolaty, so I then fortified it with some high quality cocoa powder. In a double boiler I melted dark, bitter sweet chocolate chips with a little bit of regular chocolate chips to give a little sweetness (and because I didn't have as much of the more expensive dark chocolate chips left as I thought I did). When the chocolate was melted, I added the Abuelita chocolate and cocoa powder. I heated this for a while to get rid of some of the graininess of the large sugar crystals that comes in the Abuelita chocolate. I slowly added some milk. After that had mixed well, I added some more milk. I didn't want it to be like regular hot chocolate. I wanted it really thick and rich, so I was careful not to "water" it down with too much milk. I really like chili powder in my hot chocolate, so added that as well. Nigella Lawson likes rum in her hot chocolate, so you could add some Captain Morgan's if that's your kind of thing.

Coffee Can Batter Bread (from the Best of Sunset Magazine 1987)

1 pkg quick rise yeast
½ cup warm water (~110deg F)
1/8 tsp ground ginger
3 TBSP sugar
1 ½ cup mild
1 tsp salt
2 TBSP light olive oil
~4 ½ cup Gold Medal Better for Bread Flour
Melted Butter

Sprinkle yeast over the warm water in a large bowl. Stir in ginger and 1 tablespoon sugar. Let stand for about five minutes until bubbly. Stir in remaining sugar, milk, salt, and oil. Beat in 3 cups of flour, 1 cup at a time. Then add remaining flour ½ cup at a time until dough pulls from sides of bowl but is too soft to knead. The book says to use a heavy spoon, but I just used my hands. The dough should stick to your hands because it should be the consistency of a very thick batter. If it feels like you are kneading pizza dough, you’ve added too much flour.

Divide the dough in two. Put each half into a well greased 1-pound coffee can. Put the well greased plastic lids on (you can actually just stick them in the freezer at this point to bake at a later time. Let rise in a warm place until the batter pushes off the lids. Sometimes air pressure will pop the lids off before it’s finished rising. Just put the lids back on. It takes about 45-55 minutes to rise depending on the temperature in your kitchen. Start preheating the oven to 350deg F about thirty minutes in.

After they have finished rising, bake for about 45 minutes on the bottom rack. The tops should be very golden brown when you take them out. Brush the tops with the butter. Let cool on a wire rack for five minutes. Take a butter knife and loosen the bread from the sides and slide the loaf out. Let cool in an upright position on the rack. Serve warm with butter, honey, etc. You can modify this recipe to make English Muffins. If anyone is interested in that modification, just message me.

Pulled Pork Sandwiches and a Failed Attempt at Fried Pickles

2009-02-14T18:15:00.008-06:00

The homemade kaiser rolls took a long time, but if you used store bought rolls, this is something you could put in the crock pot in the morning and have ready for dinner. The pork was fall apart tender, and Puddleglum and all the boys kept sampling the pork while I got everything ready.

There are probably a ton of recipes on the internet. I rubbed a pork should blade roast with brown sugar, paprika, onion powder, sea salt, and fresh ground

pepper. I put onion slices, carrots, and celery on the bottom of a crock pot, and put the roast (fat side up) on the vegetables.

You can roast all day on low. After you take your finished roast out, save and freeze the juice in the crock pot for soup stock. We put pan drippings in freezer bags and freeze them flat for easy thawing.

I wanted to give kudos to my friend, Christina. A few years ago she gave me the recipe for roasting a chicken in a crock pot with forty cloves of garlic, and that got me used to roasting meat in a crock pot. We've made that recipe so many times, and it is good every time. The drippings from that recipe make the best soup stock.

The kaiser rolls were tricky. I enjoyed making these, and I felt like it was worth it. If you want to try making these, click HERE to go to an excellent website with instructions and pictures. Instead of poppy seeds, I used sesame seeds since we always have a bunch of those (the boys like rice with soy sauce and sesame oil with sesame seeds sprinkled in). For my oven, the temperature in the instructions was a little high. If you are wondering what those yellow discs are, they are a pickled radish called oshingo. I tried making fried pickles with them (in addition to dill pickles), and it was a complete disaster.

I made carrot salad with asian apple pear, pineapples, and dried cranberries. It sounds good, and it was good, but truthfully I didn't feel it was a ton better than the kind of carrot salad that everyone's mom makes with plain old raisins and apples. I asked Puddleglum to pick up some of the good dill pickles in the refrigerated section, and he brought back those long flat sandwich sliced pickles. This was great for the sandwiches, but I actually wanted to make fried pickles. I did try cutting some of the sandwich slices and frying them, but it didn't turn out right. Several people commented about missing fried pickles. If I ever perfect a recipe that tastes like what I remember from Pass the Biscuits, I'll post it. If anyone tries a recipe that is close, please let me know. These were edible, and the batter might have been right, but because they were cut from sandwich slices, they weren't the right texture.

I made homemade barbecue sauce using a recipe from Emeril. It is from this WEBPAGE where he makes pulled pork sandwiches with cole slaw and fried pickles. I didn't use his fried pickle recipe because he fried them whole. I think sliced pickle slices have to work better. Anyway, the barbecue sauce turned out really well. We happened to use the very last bit of ketchup for the recipe, so when I finished mixing it, I just poured it back into the ketchup container so we could just squeeze it onto our sandwiches. We were out of apple cider vinegar, so I used 1/2 a cup of white vinegar and 1/2 a cup of peach flavored grape juice (I know, but this is actually a good substitution). I know it doesn't sound very culinary, but neither do fried pickles. I also didn't have dried crushed red pepper, so I used cayenne pepper instead. It was darn good barbecue sauce.

Emeril's Barbecue Sauce

• 1 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup ketchup
• 3 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon yellow mustard
• 1 tablespoon molasses
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper

In a bowl, combine all the ingredients and whisk well to dissolve the sugar. Place in a squeeze bottle and dress the pulled pork sandwiches to taste. This recipe is great as a condiment, but for baking or grilling, it is too bland. Add some Worcestershire, onion powder, soy sauce, honey or whatever to taste.

DBSK Taste vs. Taste

2009-02-08T13:11:00.002-06:00

This is 2 of 9 parts. You can watch the other eight by going to youtube.com. Skip ahead to 2:00 to see a neat fish dish being made. I don't get the entire game show. If someone understands the premise, please explain in a comment. I don't get it...

Kimchi Jigae II

2009-01-02T06:18:00.000-06:00

I loosely based this on the recipe by Maangchi. You can watch her video for kimchi jigae on Youtube. I changed some things. Kimchi jigae is one of those dishes that can be a little different every time. Greg saw some shitake mushrooms at the grocery store that looked good, so I had those on hand. We also had a red bell pepper that we wound up not using for the Christmas dinner, so I used that too. I bought a 5 pound pork shoulder blade roast that we are having tomorrow, so I cut about half a pound off of it for this soup. Really, I think there are only a few things that you have to have for kimchi jigae- kimchi, gochujang (Korean red pepper paste), water, and onion. You could make a basic soup with just that. It would be simple, but you could do it. Pork would really add to it as would the tofu, sesame oil, and garlic. Maangchi doesn't use egg in her recipe, but my other favorite Youtube Korean cook is aeriskitchen, and she puts egg in her Korean Kimchi Ramon. I tried it, and I liked it.

I don't think this dish photographs well. If I had been thinking about it, I would have sprinkled some green onion on the top to make it look prettier. Well, it is what it is. I must say the end product was delicious. I used firm tofu, but Maangchi likes soft tofu. Also, I've seen many Koreans who slice the tofu in large flat squares not in small cubes like I did. The kimchi that I buy from the Korean store here in town already is coarsely chopped. I did chop some of the larger sections of cabbage into bite sized pieces. In most cooking onion is finely chopped for soup and then sauteed in butter or some kind of oil (except onion soup where the onion is left in rings). Maangchi chops her onion in large strips. Korean cooking is different from what you typically think of. I remember thinking my mom was not very culinary when she boiled soup on the stove, but that is what you do with kimchi jigae. You don't bring it up to a boil, and then turn down the heat to a simmer which is how most cooking is done. You keep it on high heat at a good boil for ten minutes, and then turn it down to medium low, and you still pretty much keep it at a boil.

My mom had a refrigerator in the garage that was dedicated to Korean food. I remember being a little afraid of it. I seldom had to open the door, but when I did, it was always with a little trepidation. I remember always being revolted by a bag of dead, dried up little fish. Now I know what they are for, and I even have a bag of my own. They are boiled and dried anchovies. You use them to make dashi (fish stock). I bought them to make dukboki (see my previous note on that) which is a popular street food in Korea. Since I had some, I thought instead of just adding water to the kimchi jigae, that I would make dashi and use that. It did give a very subtle and enjoyable fish flavor to the soup, so if you have it, great. If not, just use water. If you have guests coming over, I would forgo the dashi. It really smells up the house.

Tae obviously didn't like it (haha!). Thumbs up or thumbs down? Big thumbs up! He really liked the tofu. Baby is a brave one. I told him it was very spicy, but he wanted to try it anyway. He said, "Here goes." He liked it! He drank quite a bit of our special family heavily watered down peach flavored white grape juice to cool his mouth, but he did pretty good with it eating about a third of his bowl before giving up. The pork was very tender. I seared the pork pieces before adding the liquid. Maangchi uses pork belly. One time I did not have any pork, but I did have some bacon drippings in the fridge, so I added some to the soup for flavoring.

Once you master kimchi jigae, you can use the concepts in all kinds of dishes. I made this "Asian Leek Soup" when Puddleglum decided to buy some leeks. He was going to make this one particular dish, but then he changed his mind, and then we had all these great leeks. I started the way you would most soups. I put a tablespoon (or two) of butter into a saute pan, then I added the leeks (which I had washed and chopped). I sauted them until they started to get soft. I think we had some store bought chicken broth in the refrigerator or maybe I just added water (I can't remember now- I took a picture to do a blog post, and then I forgot to type everything out). We had some leftover pan drippings from a roast and also some homemade chicken stock in the freezer, so I threw both bags in. I added a little bit of gochujang and some soy sauce, and I think I put in a little brown sugar for some sweetness. Then I broke a couple of eggs into it like aeriskitchen does. When I plated it, I sprinkled some green onion and cilantro on top, and I served it with lime wedges to squeeze over the soup. Puddleglum really liked it, and I made it completely on the fly with ingredients on hand and things that I learned from Maangchi and aeriskitchen.

Puddleglum's Kimchi Jigae

1 TBSP pure sesame oil
1/2 onion chopped into "strips"
3 cloves of garlic finely chopped or minced
1/2 pound pork (I used shoulder blade roast)
2 TBSP red bell pepper chopped
5 shitake mushrooms sliced
3 green onions sliced thin
2 cups kimchi coarsely chopped (pressed down to 2 cups)
1 TBSP sugar
5 cups dashi* (you can just use water)
1 heaping TBPS of gochujang (Korean red pepper paste)
1/2 pkg tofu cut into cubes
1-2 eggs
another drizzle of pure sesame oil (make sure it is brown and not the light colored stuff)

In a large saute pan or small stock pot add the 1 TBSP of sesame oil, onion, and garlic. Saute over high heat. After a couple of minutes add the pork. Stir to sear the outside of the pork for maybe a minute, but don't cook through. Add the red bell pepper, the mushrooms, and the green onion. Stir for a minute or two. Add the kimchi. Stir for another minute or so. Add the dashi (or water) and then the sugar *(to make dashi boil 5 cups of water with eight anchovies for several minutes. Remove and discard the anchovies). You may need to add a little more water to the kimchi jigae depending on how big your saute pan or stock pot is and how "liquidy" you want your soup. Boil on high heat covered for about ten minutes. Turn the heat down to medium/medium low and stir a couple of times. Cook for another ten minutes or so stirring occasionally. Add your eggs. You can beat them in a bowl and then slowly pour into the soup in a circle to form strings or you can break the eggs directly into the soup. If you do that, let the whites cook a little first, and then break your yolks and gently stir. Add your tofu. Cover and cook for another five minutes. Uncover and drizzle a little more sesame oil on top and gently stir. I felt like I wanted to add a little soy sauce at this point. Heck. It's my soup. Why not? I added a little soy sauce and gently stirred.

I made a pot of rice so that if the boys did not like it, they could have rice with soy sauce, sesame oil, and sesame seeds. Jax tasted it, and he liked it all right but not enough to have a whole bowl. He had the rice. I wanted to put a big spoonful of rice in my soup, but I chose to abstain to reduce my carb intake. Who am I trying to kid? I ate Pringles today with the boys. I should have had some rice...

One last note here. For kids who are not used to spice, you could reduce the gochujang to 1 tsp instead of 1 heaping TBSP. You could also "rinse" the kimchi in a strainer under the tap to reduce some of the spice before you add it to the pan. This would make it less spicy.

Huevos a la Flamenca

2008-12-23T20:07:00.014-06:00

Some of my closest friends know that TJ Maxx is my favorite store. I found a beautiful casserole handmade in Poland for $14! I don't know why exactly, but it makes me happy to look at it. It is perfect for a dish from Spain called Huevos a la Flamenca. It is different from Huevos Rancheros in that the tomato mixture is smooth, the eggs are baked not poached or fried, and it is customarily made with peas and jamon and/or chorizo.

I have been wanting to try Jamon Iberica or Jamon Serrano. They are cured hams from Spain similar to Prociutto Ham from Italy. The Jamon Iberica is the most expensive. The pigs are a special breed called Iberian, and they are given a special diet that includes acorns. I couldn't find this kind of ham, and even if I could, I couldn't afford it. I did find the Jamon Serrano for about $20/pound! I asked for $4 worth which is actually a good amount. I have plenty leftover to make this for my sister when she comes to visit.

Some of the other ingredients include Manchego cheese which is made in the La Mancha region of Spain. It is fairly expensive here in our town. I asked for $4 worth which was plenty, and again, I have enough for my sister when she gets in town. It is a yummy cheese, and you could eat it with the jamon and some crackers for a nice snack.
I found a video on Youtube with a guy making Huevos a la Flamenca. He made it very simply using Tomate Frito which is made with fried tomatoes that have been strained. I couldn't find it, but I did find a product from Italy that is similar. You could make your own sauce with roasted tomatoes and a blender, or you can just use tomato paste or tomato sauce.

I found some pork chorizo. If you decide to use chorizo, don't read the ingredients. Just don't.
Whenever I hear the word chorizo, I think of a play I was in. I think it was called the Marvelous Playbill. David Velasco, who was actually from Spain, was the lead. I can hardly remember the storyline (early Alzheimers?), but the setting was in Spain a couple of centuries ago. One of the characters had a one liner where he said "chorizo", and it got a few laughs from the audience.
The Jamon Serrano is much tastier after it has been fried kind of like bacon. I thought I would like it raw, but I couldn't palate the flavor. Maybe I just haven't developed a taste for it. I would like to try Jamon Iberica someday. When the Jamon Serrano is nice a crispy, it is like a sophisticated bacon. It is smoother and has a different flavor. I recommend cooking the chorizo very, very well. Very well. When you first start frying it, it doesn't smell very good. Just give it a chance. It really adds to the flavor of the dish.
Be very careful not to overcook the eggs. You want the yolks to be runny. About 12 minutes in a 375 degree oven is about all you'll need. I overcooked this batch a little. It was still good though. When you plate it, make sure you put a little bit of everything on the plate. I grated the manchego over the entire casserole when it came out of the oven, and then I added even more after I plated it. Serve with bread. I used a French baguette. Your kitchen will smell like a gourmet restaurant if you make this. It is totally worth it.

I love nice hot coffee when I have eggs. If you had this as a dinner entree, you could serve it with a white wine or even a red wine. My favorite coffee is Ruta Maya from Chiapas, Mexico. My sister used to live in Hyde Park in Austin right next to an organic supermarket. They carried this coffee, and the first time I tried it, I thought,"this is the best coffee ever!" I was excited when Puddleglum found it at our local grocery store. It is distributed out of Austin.

Puddleglum's Huevos a la Flameca

several strips Jamon Serrano (can substitute 2-3 strips bacon)
5 TBSP chorizo (can substitute sausage)
1 TBSP olive oil
1/4 onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp oregano
1 cup Tomate Frito (or strained tomatoes, pureed tomatoes, sauce, or thinned paste)
1 TBSP Alessi roasted red pepper, chopped
3-4 eggs
2 TBSP peas
manchego cheese

Preheat oven to 400deg F. Cook the Jamon Serrano and the chorizo in their own saute pans until the jamon is crispy and the chorizo is very well done. Place the oil, onion, garlic, and spices in a large saute pan. Saute until the onions just start to soften. Pour in the Tomate Frito or whatever tomato mixture you have (in my case the Pomi Strained Tomatoes). Cook until the mixture has been bubbly for several minutes stirring constantly. Add your roated red peppers at the end. Pour the tomato mixture into a shallow baking dish. Break your eggs carefully on top of the tomato mixture. Place your cooked jamon, chorizo, and peas in any way you like. Bake for about 14 minutes until the whites are cooked but the yolks are runny. Generously sprinkle with manchego cheese. Serve with good bread and nice hot coffee.

¡Buen provecho!

*

Green Tea and Red Rice Swirl Bread

2008-12-11T04:07:00.003-06:00

Apple Pie, Patis, & Pate made an imaginative loaf of bread. He used ground green tea leaves and ground red rice. I like the idea, plus red rice has cholesterol lowering properties and green tea contains antioxidants. I think I may try this one.

Huevos Divorciados

2008-12-05T18:26:00.009-06:00

I decided to cook a dish for myself that I've been wanting to make for a while now. I love egg dishes- mainly anything with poached eggs (like Eggs Benedict), or fried eggs (sunnyside up or over easy). I've always liked Huevos Rancheros, but apparently what I thought was Huevos Rancheros isn't really Huevos Rancheros. At any restaurant that I've ever ordered it at, it is usually a fried egg with salsa on top and corn tortillas somewhere. I had a patient who was into Mexico cooking, and he told me how to make it properly. He said the only correct way to make Huevos Rancheros was to make a tomato concoction and poach the eggs in that. He said corn tortillas have nothing to do with it, and he usually served it with refried beans or chicharrones (fried pork rinds).

Last week the grocery store had some good looking poblano peppers, so I bought some. I can't ever find canned poblanos. One of my friends has found them, but I don't ever see them. We made Spanish Rice last night, so I roasted them to use a little in the rice. I roasted them and then nuked them for a few minutes. Then I put them in this glass casserole to "sweat" a little so I could peel off the shiny, "plasticy" skin.

It's always a pain to do that, and I never can get all that skin off. I know cooking fresh and by scratch is supposed to be best, but I wish I could find them in a can! This makes me think of how Puddleglum and I used to make mole from scratch. It is a long process and takes forever. When I was talking to my friend, Juana (who was born and raised in Mexico), about it, she asked me why we didn't just buy it in a jar and add peanut butter because that's what most of the people in Mexico do.

The smell of roasting peppers always reminds me of my first job. I was a Pinkerton security guard in the Summer of '87. My first gigs were at the Coliseum. I worked the Barnum and Bailey circus (clowns really are scary), a monster truck show, a Menudo concert, and the Motley Crue/Whitesnake concert (not as much fun as it sounds). I finally got a permanent gig at the Old El Paso Mexican Food plant. This was during the summer time in El Paso in a polyester uniform outside in the parking lot during the day without air conditioning. I stood in the security guard tower watching the employees' cars. Sometimes the smell of roasting chiles was so strong it made my eyes water.

For the green side, I diced one of the poblanos and put it into a saute pan over medium heat with some oil. After a couple of minutes I put two of the roasted poblanos that I had left into a food processor with about 1/4 of a jar of La Costena Green Mexican Salsa.

After I pulsed that a few times, I poured it into the saute pan with the diced poblanos. In another saute pan I put one jar of Muir Glen Diced Fire Roasted Tomatoes and about 1/4 of a jar of red salsa. When the contents of both pans were bubbling, I cracked an egg in each. You'll want to cook until the white is just barely cooked and the yolks are still runny. Do not overcook!

It's not too hard to plate it. You just have to be careful when you put each side in the bowl. I sprinkled some white cheese on top, and I put some cilantro in the center. We had leftover Pedros tamales and some leftover refried beans. I plated that with some of the rice that we made. The chicharrones were yummy crumbled on top. They made a crackling noise like Rice Crispies. The crunch went really well with the dish. One word of warning; the green side has a kick.

Puddleglum's Huevos Divorciados

3 Roasted Poblanos (dice one, puree two with the green salsa)
1/3 jar La Costena Green Mexican Salsa
1 can Muir Glen Diced Fire Roasted Tomatoes
1/3 jar red salsa
2 large eggs
2 TBSP grated white cheese
2-3 sprigs cilantro
1 handful of crumbled chicharrones

To stay traditional you can separate both sides with a strip of chilaquiles.

See instructions above and serve very hot with fresh, hot coffee.

Hobakjuk

2008-12-04T06:53:00.007-06:00

I made Korean Pumpkin Porridge (hobakjuk) last weekend. It was good. I made it more like pumpkin soup rather than porridge, and that was a mistake. I'll know for next time. I used this video by maangchi. She used butternut squash for her video. The boys helped me make the mochi balls. It takes a long time to make those. Maangchi says that when you see larger rice cake balls, that means they were made by lazy people. Not wanting to be lazy, I tried to keep them small. It takes a long time.

Each of the boys came by to see what I was doing, and since it looks like playdough, they all were interested in making some. They'd make about half a dozen until they realized it wasn't as much fun as it looked. Those little hands made nice small, round rice cakes though. I followed the directions on Maangchi's video. She takes two cups of water and 1/4 teaspoon salt and puts it in a big mixing bowl. Then she adds 3/4 cups of boiling water. She mixes it for quite a while with a big rice spoon. Then she uses her hands to "knead" it. She's so cute. She says that the "dough" should feel like an earlobe. Then wrap it up in some plastic wrap and set aside while you put together the hobakjuk.

So, here's how I made my hobakjuk. I took one of the pumpkins that we bought at the pumpkin patch and baked it on the oven until it the flesh was soft. I let it cool and then just peeled off the skin (rind?). It mashed easily with a hand blender in a soup pot. At that point I should have left it simple and added some sugar, and salt and pepper (and maybe some ginger), and a little water to thin it a little. Instead I added too much organic chicken broth, brown sugar, nutmeg, ginger, a little maple syrup, and white pepper, and then I added the mochi balls. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't hobakjuk. It was pumpkin soup. Greg made curry pumpkin soup a couple weeks ago, and it was good, but I wasn't really wanting that kind of thing again. We still have some pumpkin left, so I might try again. Sometimes hobakjuk is served with sweet red beans on top. It sounds weird, but trust me, it's good.

Korean Food: Fried Fish Cake Soup (Eomuk Guk =어묵국)

2008-11-07T21:13:00.001-06:00

She is so darn cute!!!

Pumpkin Flan

2008-10-01T18:35:00.003-06:00

Culinary Concoctions by Peabody just did a post on Pumpkin Ginger Crème Caramel. It looks so yummy. The boys enjoyed the pumpkin muffins and the pumpkin soup that we made from pumpkins that they had picked out in a local pumpkin patch. They've also all developed a taste for flan. Puddleglum and I have used a mix by a company called Con-Gelli that included a packet of caramel, but we haven't been able to find it in the stores lately. We did find a mix, but we had to make our own caramel. Puddleglum got the temperature too high, and we would up with hard candy stuck to the ramekins, but the flan was okay. We even make homemade flan without a mix. It was descent, but not as creamy as I wanted. This recipe by Peabody looks like a keeper. It's pumpkin patch time, so maybe we can make this soon.

Aeriskitchen's Korean Stuffed Peppers

2008-09-22T19:10:00.001-06:00

Here is the video that goes along with the previous post. Doesn't she have a cute voice?

Korean Chile Rellenos

2008-09-21T17:20:00.003-06:00

Chile Rellenos (Chiles en Nogada specifically) is one of my very favorite foods. I didn't know Koreans have their own version. This is from Aeri's Kitchen. I enjoy her videos on Youtube because they are short and to the point but enjoyable as well. She has a pleasant speaking voice and I like the way she has made some where she narrates and some with music.

I was going to post the recipe, but you really have to go to her post to see how to make them. If she makes a video about how to do it, I'll post it.

Chocolate Truffles from Leftover Cake

2008-09-21T17:15:00.001-06:00

Su Yin of Journal of a Girl who Loves to Cook just did a post about how to use cake scraps. It sounds delicious. Here's her recipe;

5 cups cake crumbs (preferably chocolate)
1/2 cup cream
100gms dark/bittersweet chocolate (chopped into large chunks)
1 tbsp instant coffee(opt)

"Heat the cream in a microwavable bowl for 60 seconds or more. Throw in the chocolate chunks and stir till you create an even mixture. Pour this into the cake crumbs and mix about to it create a sticky dough-like paste. Refrigerate it till its workable. Mould them into tiny bite sized pieces and coat with coating chocolate/tempered couverture of your choice.
Leave them to dry on a parchment or even skewer them to make pops. It's really up to you."

Insult to Injury for the Astros (Off Topic)

2008-09-14T21:30:00.005-06:00

Puddleglum is so outraged by a sports decision, I decided to let him post his fumes here.
**********************

Houston has been damaged by high winds and rain from Ike, so the home game that the Astros were supposed to play against the Chicago Cubs had to be moved. There has been a longstanding bitter rivalry between the Cubs and Astros for years.

I was disappointed and surprised when the Commissioner of major league baseball, Bud Selig, decided that the game should be played in Milwaukee. He used to be the owner of the Milwaukee Brewers years ago and remains a faithful Brewers fan (born and raised in Milwaukee). Milwaukee is maybe an hour and a half bus ride from Chicago. The Astros players had to take a 4am flight to get there. All those ratty Cubs fans didn't have far to travel. This game was supposed to be a home game for the Astros. So much for home field advantage.

There are several things that stink here. One is that the game could easily have been played in Texas. One possibility was Round Rock where the Astros' triple A team plays. Another possibility was Arlington. Why move it to Milwaukee which is so close to Chicago? Here's why. The Houston Astros and the Milwaukee Brewers are both fighting for a wild card spot. So if you take away the Astros home field advantage, throw in a bunch of mouthy Cubs fans, and then have some Brewers fans show up for good measure, the Cubs could reduce the chance that the Astros will get a wildcard spot.

It was a Cubs shutout five zip and a no hitter to boot. Houston is still recovering from a weather disaster with many people still without power. The compassion shown by Bud Selig is pathetic, and this from a man who makes 14.5 million a year and whose contract with the MLB doesn't expire until 2012. Who is going to challenge this gazillionaire? Sorry Astros. This Bud's not for you...

Dukbokki and Kimchi Jigae

2008-09-13T14:21:00.010-06:00

I made my own version of dukbokki today. I used the instructional video on Youtube made by Maangchi, but the sauce was more like the sauce made by aeriskitchen when she made ddeokggochi (skewered sticky rice cakes). I made the anchovy stock like Maangchi does, but then after that I added all the extra stuff that aeriskitchen put in her sauce. The last time I made dukbokki it was a simple sauce (anchovy stock, sugar, and kochujang), and it still tasted good. I think it is better with the extra ingredients though, and the crushed peanuts really added an extra layer of flavor and texture. If you have the time, it is worth the extra effort, but if you don't have the time, the simple way is still really good. My boys wouldn't even try it because the smell of the anchovies when I made the stock grossed them out.

I also made my own version of kimchi jigae a few weeks ago. I didn't use pork belly because I didn't have any. I had some bacon drippings in the fridge, so I used that instead. I also did not have tofu, so I added some egg for the protein. I used the recipe that Maangchi put on youtube of her kimchi chigae, but I used aeriskitchen's video of Korean Kimchi Ramon for the instructions on how to add the egg. She breaks the egg into the soup but does not break the egg up until the white has cooked, and then she uses a chopstick to break up the yolk. That worked well. I thought it was delicious. My boys really liked this!

I found these pictures of some ways to add protein to dukbokki. The first picture has octopus, and the second one has boiled eggs.

Korean Kimchi Ramon

2008-08-24T15:10:00.001-06:00

Korean famous rapper MC MONG, Ice cream music video

2008-08-06T07:33:00.001-06:00

Seoulglow #6 - Susan Eats Jokbal!

2008-08-04T17:59:00.002-06:00

My Friend - Takoyaki

2008-08-04T17:40:00.004-06:00

There are a bunch of Takoyaki videos on Youtube. I liked this one because the guy seems really cool (he's a Japanese rocker) and I like the music. At about 1:30 it looks like his hands are in fast forward. Last year I did a post of three videos that show how to make Takoyaki at home.

Korean Snack : Skewered Sticky Rice Cakes(Ddeokggochi)

2008-08-04T17:22:00.000-06:00

SeoulGlow #2 -- Street Stand

2008-08-04T17:13:00.001-06:00

Another ddeokbokki video.

No Reservations Korea

2008-08-03T18:05:00.002-06:00

From Anthony Bourdain's Travel Channel show, No Reservations.

Learn Korean - Picture/Vocabulary Lesson 1 - Street Food

2008-08-03T17:52:00.003-06:00

The third video is a good overview of street food in Korea. If you're just interested in the food without the language lesson, just watch the third one.

dukbokki, dduk bok kie, tteokbokki, 떡볶이, dukboki, ddeokbokki

2008-08-03T17:32:00.011-06:00

The second video is just to show what odeng (fishcake)looks like. You can buy odeng premade in packages. Odeng is good with dukbokki. Street vendors serve odeng on skewers, and it kind of looks like big ribbon candy.

[Korean food culture] Daejanggeum 1-4

2008-08-02T16:11:00.003-06:00

These videos are mesmerizing. My mom loves watching Korean "soap operas" set in this era. Makes me proud to be Korean.

Bananas Foster Three Ways

2008-07-13T07:21:00.008-06:00

My favorite blog, Culinary Concoctions by Peabody, just did a post about a yummy cake she created called Banana Fosters Crumb Cake. It sounds yummy. She is absolutely a baking genius.

Below is a 36 second video about showing a Bananas Foster Cocktail by Ben Roche from Moto in Chicago. They use liquid nitrogen to make the ice-cream. Cool. If I ever go to Chicago, I am definitely going to Moto. The second video is an interesting video about Moto.

The third video is Alton Brown doing a show about bananas. He starts making Bananas Foster at the beginning of the second minute.

We used to serve Bananas Foster when I worked at Vargo's in Houston fourteen years ago or so. It originated at Brennan's in New Orleans and is still one of my favorite desserts.

The Wonderful World of Korean Food

2008-05-03T13:12:00.008-06:00

Seared Scallops

2007-12-28T13:18:00.000-06:00

I love Scott Simens with Whole Foods (first video). Scallops are one of Puddleglum's favorites. Here is a great way to prepare them. Remember Sea Scallops are larger than Bay Scallops, and the way to remember that is- a sea is bigger than a bay.

The second video is Ming Tsai showing a quick and easy way to sear scallops. I always learn something when I watch him, and I learned some new things from this video. It's a 2 min 22 sec video.

The third video is a "how to" video that I found for a basic scallop recipe. The last thirty three seconds are redundant, so it's really just a two minute video. If you want to try the saffron sauce (she mentions this at the end but then doesn't give a recipe for it), I included a recipe for an easy saffron sauce.

Seared Scallops with Blood Orange and Smoked Paprika Sauce

Simply Ming Tips- Pan searing scallops

Scallops

Saffron Sauce
1 French Shallot, finely, finely chopped
1/4 cup white wine
1/2 cup heavy cream
A pinch of saffron (a "heavy" pinch if you can afford it)
Salt and Pepper

Put the shallots and the wine a saucepan and reduce by two-thirds. Add the cream and saffron, and salt and pepper to taste. You can also add a little dashi or fish stock. If you do, just cut the amount of wine and cream a little so your sauce won't be too thin.

I've seen recipes that have all kinds of extra ingredients like cornstarch, tarragon, fennel, star anise, etc, etc. Think Mark Bittman, and save yourself the time and money and just simplify. Plus all that other stuff just muddies up the flavor of the saffron, and saffron is so expensive in the US, you don't want to waste it. You can substitute onion for shallot, just you know- add about the amount of onion that would equal the size of a shallot. I dunno. Maybe 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup depending on the size of the onion. This may not sound culinary to some purists, but you could use a food chopper or blender on the shallot or onion to make the sauce a smoother one. I don't recommend substituting anything for good tasting white wine.

Forbidden Rice and Beans

2007-11-05T18:45:00.000-06:00

Why not try something different? Purple rice and white beans- what a switch!

Takoyaki

2007-10-04T19:30:00.001-06:00

Here are three videos (shortest video first). I think the last one has the best directions.

Gateau Basque

2007-07-23T17:43:00.001-06:00

This is from my very favorite food blog, Culinary Concoctions by Peabody. She made Gateau Basque, and it looks delicious! She is amazing. You should also check out her Chocolate Crunch Slice.

Hot Smoked Salmon

2007-07-04T08:37:00.000-06:00

From Foodwishes.com

Coffee Ice Cream!

2007-04-13T21:11:00.000-06:00

I just got off coffee (for like the tenth time). I am over the withdrawal part of it. In the morning I've been drinking genmaicha instead (green tea and toasted brown rice). Anyhoo, while reading over Simply Recipes on my bloglines after I read the post about Croquet Monsieur sandwiches, I saw this post about coffee ice cream. My favorite flavor!

Croque Monsieur

2007-04-13T21:04:00.000-06:00

Simply Recipes just did a post about a toasted French sandwich called a Croque Monsieur. It looks delicious but not low cal. Interestingly, Food Wishes also just did a post about how to make these. Maybe I can get Puddleglum to make these. Then I can be sure and work them off at my kickboxing class.

Green Tea-ramisu

2007-04-13T20:36:00.001-06:00

Yet another no-knead bread video

2007-04-12T19:05:00.000-06:00

When she says 250 degrees, she means Celsius. For us, you want like a 500 or 550 degree oven.

Care and Feeding of Your Cast Iron

2007-04-11T19:49:00.001-06:00

About curing new pans...

A dutch oven gathering...

Cranberry Orange Cookies

2007-04-09T18:37:00.000-06:00

Culinary Concoctions by Peabody is my favorite food blog. She is so creative, and her pictures are so yummy. These cookies sound absolutely dreamy. Maybe I'll get a chance to make them someday...

Bobby Flay's Fish Fry

2007-03-27T04:04:00.000-06:00

Maybe I Can Have Fried Chicken Again?

2007-03-27T04:01:00.000-06:00

More Cheeek-In Mister

2007-03-27T03:59:00.000-06:00

Good Chicken Brining Video

2007-03-25T13:15:00.000-06:00

Whole chickens can be purchased very cheaply. We buy organic chicken from someone local, and he only sells whole chickens, so we wind up roasting chicken a lot. Normally we just cover it on olive oil, salt & pepper, and paprika and roast it over a onion broken into rings with garlic cloves. I like this video because he also shows how to chop up a whole chicken.

America's Test Kitchen Chicken and Dumplings

2007-03-25T12:58:00.000-06:00

You can watch this America's Test Kitchen episode about Chicken and Dumplings by clicking here.

Chicken and Dumplings
from the Episode: American Classics

Don't use low-fat or fat-free milk in this recipe. Start the dumpling dough only when you're ready to top the stew with the dumplings.

Serve 6 to 8

*Stew*
5	pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
	Table salt and ground black pepper
4	teaspoons vegetable oil
4	tablespoons unsalted butter (1/2 stick)
4	carrots , peeled and sliced 1/4 inch thick
2	ribs celery , sliced 1/4 inch thick
1	large onion , minced
6	tablespoon unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4	cup dry sherry
4 1/2	cups low-sodium chicken broth
1/4	cup whole milk
1	teaspoon minced fresh thyme leaves
2	bay leaves
1	cup frozen green peas
3	tablespoons minced fresh parsley leaves
*Dumplings*
2	cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1	tablespoon baking powder
1	teaspoon table salt
1	cup whole milk
3	tablespoons reserved chicken fat (or unsalted butter)

See Illustrations Below: Getting it Right: Adding the Dumplings

1. For the Stew: Pat the chicken dry with paper towels, then season with salt and pepper. Heat 2 teaspoons of the oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat until just smoking. Add half of the chicken and cook until golden on both sides, about 10 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a plate and remove the browned skin. Pour off the chicken fat and reserve. Return the pot to medium-high heat and repeat with the remaining 2 teaspoons oil and the remaining chicken. Pour off and reserve any chicken fat.

2. Add the butter to the Dutch oven and melt over medium-high heat. Add the carrots, celery, onion, and 1/4 teaspoon salt and cook until softened, about 7 minutes. Stir in the flour. Whisk in the sherry, scraping up any browned bits. Stir in the broth, milk, thyme, and bay leaves. Nestle the chicken, with any accumulated juices, into the pot. Cover and simmer until the chicken is fully cooked and tender, about 1 hour.

3. Transfer the chicken to a cutting board. Discard the bay leaves. Allow the sauce to settle for a few minutes, then skim the fat from the surface using a wide spoon. Shred the chicken, discarding the bones, then return it to the stew.

4. For the Dumplings: Stir the flour, baking powder, and salt together. Microwave the milk and fat in a microwave-safe bowl on high until just warm (do not over-heat), about 1 minute. Stir the warmed milk mixture into the flour mixture with a wooden spoon until incorporated and smooth.

5. Return the stew to a simmer, stir in the peas and parsley, and season with salt and pepper. Following the photos below, drop golf-ball-sized dumplings over the top of the stew, about 1/4 inch apart (you should have about 18 dumplings). Reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook until the dumplings have doubled in size, 15 to 18 minutes. Serve.

Step-by-Step: Getting it Right: Adding the Dumplings

1. Gather a golf-ball-sized portion of the dumpling batter onto a soup spoon, then push the dumpling onto the stew using a second spoon.	2. Cover the stew with the dumplings, leaving about 1/4 inch between each.
3. When fully cooked, the dumplings will have doubled in size.

Alton Brown's First Season Episode About Fish

2007-03-18T10:31:00.000-06:00

Picky Eater Videos

2007-03-18T10:27:00.000-06:00

Great Foodie Gift

2007-03-12T19:35:00.000-06:00

I was browsing msn.com and found this on this article, The Top 15 Wackiest USB Devices. I didn't think this was wacky. I thought it was cool.

Neat Way to Organize Your Books and Noodle Making

2007-01-24T11:03:00.000-06:00

Truly nothing that we have cooked has been particularly "blogworthy". With two seven year olds and a two year old who are quite happy with dishes like meaty spaghetti and Kraft mac and cheese, that shouldn't be surprising. But I don't want my blog to become too stagnant. I was reading my bloglines, and I saw this cool picture on The Scent of Green Bananas page. She has her fiction organized by color! I thought it looked neat.

Also, I saw this video of one way that they make noodles in Insa Dong in Korea. I wondered if I could ever master this skill. I'm sure it is one of those things that take years to get really good at. My only concern would be the cleanliness of the floor where they do this. It is three and half minutes long, but as soon as the red bar is at the end, just scoot it over to the right.

Cooking For Kids- Sushi

2007-01-20T19:15:00.000-06:00

How perfect for this blog- a kid's video about seaweed and rice!

Cauliflower Popcorn

2007-01-13T21:03:00.000-06:00

I am supposed to be going back to Phase I of South Beach. Puddleglum made pizzelles tonight, and I ate several. Tomorrow is a new day, right? Kalyn at Kalyn's Kitchen has been posting some great recipes for Phase I. I found a couple of videos on YouTube that were very appropriate. I found this one that showed how to roast spaghetti squash which really isn't complicated. He also does this one about popcorn squash which is something I'd like to try. I had read this post on Heidi Swanson's 101 Cookbooks about Cauliflower Popcorn. It sounds good, and I thought if I planned ahead, I could have a batch of this ready for me on those movie nights when Puddleglum and crew are munching on that high carb kettle corn that they love so much. I also found this very sweet by sort of long video about making cauliflower popcorn. I try to keep my favorite videos as those that are under three minutes, but this one is an exception (it's six minutes). It sounds like the cauliflower is tastiest if it is very well done. Since my food blog is more of the "mommy" variety, I thought this video was very fitting. I know I haven't done an original post in a bit. Yesterday (Friday) Puddleglum made grilled salmon, spinach, brocolli, and seaweed & rice. In the middle of the meal, I remembered that I should have taken a picture. Then today we made chicken and dumplings, but I have already done a post about that. I need to start thinking like a food blogger.

The Dream Kitchen of Tomorrow

2007-01-13T13:28:00.000-06:00

This is a cute video. I just wish it were under three minutes. It's five minutes and twenty seconds long. If you watch about half of it, you've seen the best parts anyway, so just read through my blog while it finishes up.

My Kitchen

2007-01-07T21:06:00.001-06:00

When I read on Kalyn's Kitchen that Ilva at Lucullia n Delights was hosting a blogging event, I thought it was probably time to become a participating food blogger and enter my first group effort. I will use some photos from old posts, but I did take a couple of new ones today.

Here are the before and after shots of my kitchen. I won't go into all the details, but when we bought the house we were looking for something fully wheelchair accessible, and our house was built for a paraplegic. It has large rooms, but everything was outdated. The dining room was crazy big, so we made the kitchen bigger and reduced the size of the dining room. In this shot with the pumpkin muffins you can see the stovetop and the oven and our awesome red Korean rice cooker that talks and sings in Korean. At some point I would like to have double ovens. My husband put the brick backsplash up. He used individual sealed paving bricks. My original idea was to make an Italian kitchen. I wanted to put up a brick wall between the dining room and the kitchen with a wide arched doorway, and I wanted our stovetop enclosed in a brick archway and maybe even have a brick oven in addition to double ovens, and I wanted lots of hanging plants and ivy and maybe even stained glass here and there, and all stainless appliances, and I wanted... Oh. Sorry. Got away from myself there. Fundage was a problem, so it never came to fruition. Oh well. While looking for kitchen shots, I found this cute one of my two older boys taken a couple of years ago. I was so into Italian sodas back then that I kept several flavors of Italian syrup that you can see in the background.
Now I'll show you what is to the left and right of me as I cook. To the left of me while I am at the stove is my hodge podge, quite messy kitchen utensil drawer. Look at it. You could play I Spy with this picture. We also keep four kitchen utensils hanging on the wall behind the stovetop for convenience; a spatula, a slotted spoon, a ladle, and a pasta server. Then to the right of me is my spice drawer (and I also keep the bamboo maki sushi roller here). Don't try to read the spices. It's a terrible shot, but I was in a hurry, and I didn't want to use the flash because then the shot would have looked all washed out, and my guess is no one cares what brand of curry powder I use . Anyway, my point here is that it is convenient to have the spices there. We do keep pots and pans hanging over our island, but I also keep some pots and pans in the cabinet under the stove. The cabinets to the left of me below the cluttered utensils drawer are more cluttered kitchen accessories of varying use, and this is also where we keep our new Waring Pro Waffle maker. To the right of me under the spice drawer are my casserole dishes and some other cookware.One thing that I love about my kitchen is the view. This (picture below) is the view out the dining room windows from our kitchen. The picture, which is from this post, doesn't do the view justice, but you can see the horizon beyond the trees. There is a magnolia tree right outside the window above my sink which adds a nice green touch to my view. It's an east view, so I can watch the sunrise from my kitchen as I drink my morning coffee. For those of you who live in the mountains, this doesn't look like much, but I live in a very flat part of the country, so we're thrilled to have any view at all. You can read more about our view and the ridge we live on here and here.Now the shot with the spaetzle I can explain. When we bought our new refrigerator, there was one silly feature that was the deciding point. It's those blue lights which you can see if you click on this photo to enlarge it. At night when I get up to get a drink of water, I love those beckoning little blue lights. Silly. I know. But what Lola wants, Lola gets... except an expensive Italian kitchen.

Okay, this is a cute one minute video about someone's dream kitchen.

Beignets Ruined my Weight Loss Weekend

2007-01-07T19:43:00.001-06:00

You may or may not have seen my previous post about Puddleglum's beignets. They are fabulous and wonderful. The problem is that I am supposed to be back on South Beach Phase I for a while because of my holiday splurging. The other problem is that Puddleglum tried a new recipe that wound up making a gajillion beignets. How could I eat just one? Well, I couldn't. I ate several while he was at the stove making them, giving him feedback about the texture and the taste. Then I ate more while we all sat at the table. Then I snacked on them throughout the day. Because I had been so bad with them, I tried to be careful about everything else that I ate and get some healthy protein in. This morning I was surprised to find that I hadn't gained any weight, but that my percent body fat was up. I have no idea how those scales work, but I think they must be pretty acurate. I would tell Puddleglum not to make them anymore, but the boys love them. I just need to learn self control and moderation.

My Restaurant Resume

2007-01-06T07:25:00.010-06:00

(I've noticed that this post gets the most hits on my statcounter because so many people are writing a restaurant resume. If you are looking for tips on how to make your resume look professional and stand out, go to the this webpage. My advice is that perspective employers want to know about two things; any training that you have and about your experience. If all you have is a high school diploma, well, that's okay. Just put that on there so they know you have your diploma, but if you can think of any other training- a seminar at your church about how to work with the elderly, a seminar at your last job during an employee meeting about food presentation or table side cooking, a food safety course you took for your last job, a customer service lecture, whatever- just put it down. If you have no experience, then put down any volunteer work. Explain at the bottom of your resume or in your cover letter that although you have no restaurant experience, that you are dependable and that you are eager to learn. The fact is that there is high turnover in the restaurant world, and sometimes the hiring manager is so desperate that they'll hire someone with no experience hoping that you'll learn fast. If you've never stayed at one job for very long, then you should explain why (ie the jobs that you worked at were in low volume restaurants and the tips were not substantial, etc). One word of advice- NEVER, NEVER talk negatively about former employers or coworkers. It just makes it sound like YOU are difficult to work with. Don't say that you left your last job because the executive chef was a jerk (come on. They're ALL jerks sometimes). Say that you enjoyed certain aspects of your last position, but that you are interested in a change because you didn't feel that it was the "right fit" for you. You should emphasize that you are looking for the "right fit" for you in a "long term" position. Again, sometimes the hiring manager is so desperate that they don't care that you've never stayed longer than three months at any one place. At least you're trained. Don't talk about the negatives. Emphasize the positives (I show up on time. I dependably show up for work as scheduled. etc etc). I suppose the best place to give this big push is in a cover letter rather than in the body of the resume itself. Assume that the person reading your resume or interviewing you WANTS to hire you, but you need to give him reasons why so that he when he approaches the general manager, he can justify wanting to hire you. On your resume, in my opinion, they don't care if you roller blade and collect stamps, but if you want to put down your hobbies at the end, that is kind of the traditional thing to do, so go ahead. It's possible that the hiring manager may also enjoy bird watching or whatever, and maybe that will help you. If you've been in the restaurant business for a while, then you know how hard it is. If you are a newbie and looking to get your first job, then I want to warn you. It's late nights and your schedule is always different. You can make some money, but it's a lot of work. I will tell you the Monday through Friday 9 to 5 is easier. But if you really want to do this, best of luck, and I hope you get the job you want...).
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My waitressing career started when I worked for Marriott Foods and ARA at the age of 18 working banquets when I was in college. My next job was at a Chinese restaurant called the Peking. The best food I ate there was not on the menu. It was when the owners had a Chinese New Year party, and I was invited. The owner/chef made the most amazing food I had ever eaten. I guess the good stuff was not reserved for customers. I spent a summer at home, and got a job working for Griggs, which wasn't bad (except that I was working full time and taking General Microbiology and Anatomy & Physiology during the same Summer session and they both have labs). Griggs probably does make some of the best flat, red enchiladas out there (don't forget the fried egg on top). That year I also worked at a pub as holiday help when I was home for Christmas.

Then when I got into grad school in the big city in the early 90's, I got my fancy shmancy job in a fine dining restaurant that, in it's hayday, was really something special (from what I've heard, it's changed a lot, and not for the better). It was called Vargo's, and it was here that I learned what the restaurant industry is really about. I waited on Louie Anderson, and President Bush (the older not the younger) came in while I was working, but they gave him to the top waiter. I was one of only four waitresses who ever worked the dining room while I was there (it was an almost all male staff). There were three executive chefs that came and went; the first was not great, the second was fantastic but ran the kitchen cost up so far they couldn't afford him, and the third was good but crazy. The first one eventually was rehired. He wasn't the best, but he could keep food cost down. The sous chef was there the entire time. I wonder if he's still there. Vargo's really was a neat place to go to because it overlooked a few green, lush acres with a "lake" and trees and a small "river" with two bridges, a gazebo, swans, and peacocks, and the azaleas were gorgeous when they were all in bloom. It was a beautiful place to have a wedding. Too bad the least talented chef was the chef for most of my stint there. He actually had "salmon bella" on the menu. I'll never get that dish. Don't people realize it sounds like salmonella?

I also moonlighted at the Houston Racquet Club which had a great Swedish chef. It was actually a much nicer environment, and the food was better, but the money was not as good. It was cool to see how wealthy people do up a party. One of the fanciest dinners was for about fifty people with five courses where a dinner bell was rang and all the fancy, shiny plate covers where removed at the same time. The food manager was really nice. He let me tend bar. He sort of looked like Weird Al, but with a heavy New York accent. He wound up taking a job at a resort in Austin. I hope he's doing well.

I will say that there is a lot of drama in fine dining. I once was screamed at by the manager for telling a customer we were out of hot tea on a night where we were so busy it's a miracle any food got out at all. Everyone was running around like chickens without heads, and the manager stops to scream at me for what seemed like a full minute (which is a lot of time on a night like that) in front of the entire kitchen staff near the kitchen door, and I'm sure it could be heard in the dining room. That's not the only drama. Don't get me started on the drugs, the parties, the soap opera dating, the philandering matre d' who just couldn't keep his... well, you get the picture.

I had a great idea for a screenplay about the world in a fine dining kitchen, and of course, someone else got that idea and actually did it. Vargo's had waiters and kitchen staff from Iran, Nigeria, Mexico, South America, Cuba, Austria, Germany (East and West), Ireland, and we even had a former Miss District of Columbia work in the party room, and a former pro baseball play tended bar in the lounge (he played pro ball in the 70's before they got paid millions). Everyone had a story. Maybe someday I will write that screenplay. I know it's been done and redone, but mine would... nah. I'll never write that screenplay.

Bad Housewarming Gift

2007-01-05T22:29:00.002-06:00

A respected couple in our community has built an enormously fancy house in the lot across the street from us. It's simply gorgeous. We have found out that the husband is a vice-president at one of the local universities. On Wednesday when we got our mail, we found that the post woman had placed their Sears card bill in our mailbox. So I thought it would be a great idea to send a housewarming gift from us when we took it over to their house. I have an abundance of loose tea leaves. I purchased the peppermint leaf, alfalfa, nettle, and raspberry leaf for a tea recipe where you throw it all together and brew a nice cuppa. After I mixed the dry, green leaves together so the wife could brew a "spot of tea" whenever she wanted, I placed them in a bag to be delivered. That's when I looked into the baggie and realized what it looked like. "Puddleglum, we can't send this gift. Look at it. What does it look like to you?" I believe this gift would have left an erroneous impression of who we are. Fortunately I also have an abundance of Korean chili powder and sent over a jar of that instead.

New Years Day Meal

2007-01-01T13:31:00.001-06:00

We made the traditional Southern New Year's meal- black eyed peas, cornbread, and greens. We always have a ham for Christmas dinner so we can save the ham bone for the black eyed peas. Last night I soaked the black eyed peas with 1/8 teaspoon baking soda. The reason you soak the beans and then discard the water and rinse and drain them is that it gets rid of most of the indigestible sugars that are in beans thus reducing flatulence. The baking soda helps get rid of even more. I cooked the peas with the ham bone, ~3 tablespoons bacon drippings, ~1/4 of an onion (chopped), and the rest of the leftover ham from Christmas cut into cubes. At the end of the cooking I added salt and pepper to taste and a good sprinkling of curry powder. Southerners eat black eyed peas for New Year's because the peas swell, and this ensures luck and prosperity. The greens ensure lots of cash will come your way, and the cornbread ensures lots of gold. We're not superstitious, but it's still fun. Tae wouldn't eat the peas, but he liked the ham and drank lots of the broth. Baby played in everything and ate a little. Jax didn't eat a ton, but he did eat some.

No Knead Bread

2006-12-31T07:23:00.000-06:00

I have a no knead bread recipe where you bake the bread in a coffee can. I enjoy making it, but the bread is a little on the heavier, spongier side for bread. Sam at Becks and Posh just posted her favs for 2006, and this recipe for bread was one of them. I found this terrific five minute New York Times video that has the author of the above recipe, Jim Lahey (owner of Sullivan Street Bakery in Manhatten's Hell's Kitchen) showing how to prepare this very recipe. The video segment is hosted by Mark Bittman, who is huge with foodies. Update (1/4/07): Here are the "fine tune" tips Bittman wrote to help with the recipe.

Spaetzle

2006-12-02T19:56:00.001-06:00

Tried the goulash. Kids don't like goulash. I think it's the complex flavors. Little kids don't really care for a lot of flavors. That's why they like Kraft Macaroni over really good homemade Macaroni and Cheese made with three different cheeses and nutmeg and eggs and evaporated milk. Baby did like the spaetzle plain and dry. Tae just liked the carrots. Jax didn't much care for any of it; although he did eat some spaetzle. I may try to modify goulash so it is simple so the boys might like it.

The spaetzle- I love making spaetzle. I whisked together 4 extra large eggs and 1 1/2 cups milk. Then I added 4 cups of flour and 2 tsp of salt and mixed it all together with a wooden spoon. I spread several scoops of the thick "batter" on a cutting board. Then I used this to scrape small sections of batter into boiling water (you'll dip the edge of the scraper in the boiling water, and the noodle will fall right off). After all the spaetzle floated to the top, I used a mesh scoop to fish out all the spaetzle and put it in ice water. There was enough batter to make five batches. My guess is that just as crepes are best really, really thin, spaetzle pros probably pride themselves on really thin spaetzle. That Graham Kerr Bash n Chop made it easy.

So thumbs up on the spaetzle- thumbs down on the goulash.

The picture above is my rendition of goulash next to a glass of "the Little Penguin" shiraz which is a pretty darn good cheap Australian red wine. I liked it better than the Llano Estacado cabernet we got. I think the next time I try making goulash I won't use balsamic vinegar and I'll tone down the spices. BTW "the Little Penguin" wines would make good Christmas gifts. The cork has little penguin "footprints" on it. Too cute!

Ghoulash

2006-12-02T12:17:00.000-06:00

I was readling my bloglines and got inspired by this post to make goulash. When researching goulash, I found it is a very different dish for different people. When Puddleglum makes his mother's goulash, it is really a baked pasta dish with shells, tomato paste, ground beef, and cheese, and it is flavored with Lowrey's. My guess is that it was Puddleglum's mom's fall back dish when there wasn't much to make, and she just called it "goulash". When I think of goulash, this picture to the left is what I imagine.

Elise from Simply Recipes had fluffy dumplings with her goulash, but I decided to make Spaetzle instead. Click this link to see one way to make spaetzle, and click this next link to see a video of two German guys making spaetzle. The show in the video below also shows how to braise veal and lamb as well as how to make spaetzle, and I am going to use some of the techniques on the video to make my goulash. It's a 28 minute video, but you can move the arrow to fast forward to get to the good parts. I hope the goulash turns out, and I hope the boys like it.

This video is kind of funny because at certain parts there is some tension between the two hosts, and it's easy to think in SNL mode and come up with some funny things the younger guy is thinking. If this video were an SNL skit, then they would wind up in an insult match toward the end that results in a brawl.

Snow Day!

2006-11-30T20:15:00.001-06:00

I left early to get to work on time, and the roads were a mess. It was dangerous in spots. The schools were running 2 hours late. I called Puddleglum and told him to keep the boys home. We have to drive across town for both boys' school, and it would have taken over an hour to deliver both boys. Then when I got to work, it was so slow, I got to come home early. I stopped by the store and picked up some things. When I got home Puddleglum had made a nice fire, and we played and roasted hot dogs and made smores.

Before dinner we all had another round of playing in the snow while our chicken and dumplins cooked. Then we came inside and took off all the wet snow gear and had hot chicken and dumplins. After hot baths, all three boys are now in bed!
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Mama's Homemade Chicken and Dumplings

(Takes as little as an hour and a half or you could start it earlier when Baby is napping and cook on low. If you take the chicken out in the morning and put in the black stock pot with hot water, it will thaw by just after lunchtime).

Rinse one of Alan's organic whole chickens and put in red soup pot breast up. Fill with RO water until just about 2 inches of the tip of the chicken is sticking out (you don't want the pot too full so it won't boil over). Add sea salt, parsley, white pepper, and three bay leaves and bring to a boil.

Put about 2 TBSP butter in the big copper saute pan. Add about 1/2 an onion chopped and 1 or 2 chopped celery stalks (cut stock in thirds lengthwise and then chop) and 1 or 2 carrots chopped. (You could also add chopped turnip and even some garlic cloves). Sweat the veggies, then add to soup pot.

After everything comes to a good boil, lower heat to low and put cover on. You can cook on low for a few hours or keep the temp about med low at a low boil and cook for about an hour.

Remove chicken from pot and put in the copper saute pan to cool. Use a soup ladle to ladle out as much of the yellow chicken fat at the top of the soup pot while not wasting good broth. Find the bay leaves and remove. Take the mesh strainer and scoop out as much of the onion as you can (little kids don't like too much onion in their soup and you already got all the good flavor of the onion out). You could strain out some of the celery, but never remove and carrot because the boys will eat that.

When the chicken has cooled enough to handle, remove the skin and start getting your chicken meat. Tear into small pieces and add to the soup pot. After you've removed all the good meat (paying attention to get as much of the good dark meat), give Sasha the skin and any yucky or tough pieces of meat and pour the skimmed chicken fat over all of it for her.

Make Quick Dumplins
2 c. flour
2 tsp baking powder
2/3 c. milk (gently warmed in microwave)
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp butter

Combine and cut in butter. Roll out on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut in 1 inch long strips. Then crosswise into about 2 inch strips.

Add one small container of organic chicken broth to the soup pot and bring to a boil. (If you are just doing soup without dumplings, add a can of corn, and make a pot of rice). If you have it, squeeze the juice of one lime into the soup pot (but no more than one- maybe even just half). Salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil. Add your chicken and reduce heat to low. Put cover on soup pot. After a few minutes, add your dumplings. Cover the pot again so the dumplings will steam and get fluffy, and cook on low heat until the dumplings are cooked through.

If you are doing Chicken Noodle Soup, add half of a 1 lb bag of egg noodles before you add your chicken. Boil for 10 minutes until the noodles are soft.

Tuna Fish

2006-11-26T13:25:00.009-06:00

I was looking at some old photos, and I saw these. Tae and Jax were probably both four or so at the time. I was trying to document some family recipes for a homemade cookbook (that never got made), and I wanted to include my recipe for Tuna Salad. This is a recipe I have come up with myself. I think it makes tuna yummy. You chop a couple of dill pickles, a couple of carrots, a fourth of an onion or so. Mix in tuna, mayo, a shot of pickle juice, a couple of big dashes of dried parsley, and salt and pepper to taste. The tuna in this picture is Chicken of the Sea albacore, but albacore has a higher mercury content than smaller tuna. We have switched to Tongal tuna over Chicken of the Sea because Tongal tuna is wild caught while I believe Chicken of the Sea is farmed, and farmed tuna has much more mercury than wild caught. You must toast the bread for these sandwiches. Serve with good chips. My tuna salad is in the same class of food as my favorite childhood sandwich- sliced dill pickle rounds and bologna with mayo. Aren't the boys so cute in this shot?!

Beignets

2006-11-26T09:51:00.001-06:00

Puddleglum has been wanting to make beignets for a while now. This morning he got everything together and started before I even got out of bed. He used this recipe from cooksrecipes.com, and the beignets turned out well. They were very light and not too sweet. One batch is the perfect amount for all five of us, but I imagine it won't be too long before we'll have to make two batches.

We're not going to Sunday School. We haven't been going to Sunday School in a while. I guess we're heathens that way. We're usually just glad to make it to church on time. I often wonder how other people seem to always have it together. Probably because they don't have a blog...

Puddleglum made a big pot of coffee, and the beignets were so good. We don't have chicory coffee, but what we have was fine. I guess I could have made cafe au lait, but I like my coffee black, and any saved calories is a good thing. I've gained two pounds in the last week. Tae is my little running/workout buddy, and he really enjoys our runs. I have been lazy the last couple of weeks, and I am off my game. I need to get back in there.

I have my makeup done, but I better go get ready for church. Jon has picked out a very interesting ensemble. He picked out a dark blue t-shirt with yellow trim. He has a matching clip on tie, and a red cardigan on top. Puddleglum has just informed me we have to leave in 15 minutes. Gotta run!!!

Rainy Sunday Morning

2006-11-05T14:25:00.001-06:00

This morning as we were making the muffins, I kept admiring the view from our window. I know it doesn't look like much, but where we live this is as good as it gets. This picture doesn't make it look as pretty as it really is. This is the east horizon, so atleast we can watch the sunrise most mornings, even if our neighbor's brick wall is always in sight. From the street you can't see the horizon, but our house sits on a ridge so we can see above it. When the appraisal district tried to raise our appraisal value, we fought it so our taxes wouldn't go up. Puddleglum took a picture of the brick wall from the street level. The amount that they wanted to raise our home value to was ridiculous, but the photo of the wall along with a well-written letter got them to keep the value where it was before they raised it.

This week we're getting some warmer weather. I like the warm weather, but I am ready for more mornings like this. I like it when it is foggy out in our little "valley" or when it's covered in a blanket of snow. We never get blizzards, but we do get a couple of good snows every year. I am looking forward to making hot chocolate for the boys and snuggling up to a fire with Puddleglum.

Pumpkin Muffins

2006-11-05T14:03:00.001-06:00

This morning we were trying to decide if we should make waffles or pancakes. Then I suggested we have pumpkin pancakes with the other half of the pumpkin that we used for the soup last night. Tae made a face at that. Puddleglum pulled out his favorite cookbook and asked, "how about muffins?" That sounded good.

We started with a basic muffin recipe;
1 3/4 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup cooking oil

The recipe calls for 1/3 cup of sugar, but we substituted 3 Splenda packets and about 1/2 tablespoon sugar. To make pumpkin muffins the cookbook recommended 1/2 cup canned pumpkin and 1/4 cup chopped pecans. I decided that we should use 1 full cup pumpkin puree and 1/2 cup chopped pecans. We also added cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. This made 12 muffins.

The recipe says not to put the batter in paper muffin cups, but rather you should lightly grease your muffin pan and pour the butter directly into the pan. You bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees. With our oven, 17 to 18 minutes would have been enough. They were really good, but I think they needed to be just a tad sweeter. They would have been really good with the recipe as we made them, but with a generous sprinkling of brown sugar on top. We'll do that next time. The boys liked them except that Tae picked out all the pecans and gave them to me. He choose his own clothes for church. I thought he did a good job.

Pumpkin Soup

2006-11-05T13:29:00.001-06:00

Yesterday Puddleglum and I baked one of the pumpkins we bought with the boys at the pumpkin patch. It was a medium large pumpkin. We cut it into quarters and baked it in a 350 degree oven for about an hour. Then we turned off the heat, and we went to the park by our house. It is a small park that is usually pretty empty of people. It has an inline hockey court, a tennis court, a basketball court, a volleyball court, an area for baseball, a covered area with picnic tables and a nearby grill, and a small playground. It is right next to a cotton field. Puddleglum brought his roller blades and his hockey stick, and the boys brought their skates. Baby had his three wheel scooter. A few years back (before I got pregnant with Baby) I bought a pair of roller blades on sale at Target for $10. They are well-made, good skates. Then I got pregnant and couldn't use them, and then I was too big to use them. I got them out of the box, and I had so much fun with them and the boys. Puddleglum and I couple skated around the rink while we sang "Once. Twice. Three times a lady..." It was just like those old roller rink days of the late 70's/early 80's. The boys had their hockey sticks and played around. It was fun! Then we went to get ice-cream. I wasn't going to get any, but when Puddleglum asked them to put coffee ice-cream in his sundae, that sounded so good. So I had one scoop of coffee ice-cream in a cup. It was dee-li-shus.

When we got back to the house, I took the pumpkin out of the oven. Puddleglum and I peeled off the skin. Then I got the idea that we should have pumpkin soup. I put 3/4 stick of organic salted butter in our ceramic soup pot (a Le Creuset knock off that is pretty good). Then I put in 1/2 a large yellow onion chopped. When the onion was very soft, I added one 32 ounce carton of Pacific Foods organic chicken broth. When that came to a low boil, I turned down the heat and pureed it all with a hand blender. I had to keep checking the consistency with a metal spoon to make sure the onion was fully pureed. Then I put half of the baked pumpkin in the pot. I used the hand blender again to puree it all together. I used the high speed after it was all mixed. You want it to be very smooth. At this point I wanted to put in some brown sugar, but we were out. So I put maybe 1/2 tablespoon of black strap molasses (not too much). Then I stirred that up. It was very thick at this point. 1/2 a medium large pumpkin is actually A LOT of pumpkin puree- like maybe four cups atleast. I added milk until it had the consistency of a thick and hearty soup. I added maybe 1/4 cup of organic maple syrup, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and a dash of sea salt. This made enough soup to feed about 12 people! I had one I Love Lucy moment when the soup started to boil, and it was so thick a big bubble made some of the soup splatter the back splash and me.

When I served it to the boys, I added more milk. For mine I added some tumeric and curry powder. It was so good but also really rich. I could only eat one bowl. I had a bowl after church today, and it is even better the next day! Baby liked it so much, he decided the spoon was too slow.

Another Cool Cooking Site

2006-10-21T17:39:00.000-06:00

Back in January I wrote a post that linked to a neat Norwegian website where you can watch videos of them cooking different dishes. I like the videos because they are quick and to the point. I found an Italian website with similar videos. They are narrated in English and maybe a minute each. The narrator has a pleasant Italian accent. Here is the link http://english.incucina.tv/ and you just click on the video recipes page. All the measurements are European and some of the ingredients are a guess, but atleast it would give you an idea, and I always like to learn better technique.

Real Men Make Quiche

2006-10-01T17:02:00.001-06:00

Here is a photo of the quiche that Puddleglum has made. Puddleglum has perfected some dishes, and quiche is one of them. To save time he uses Pillsbury's pre-made pie crust that is in the refrigerated section. You just unroll it and put it in the pie plate. It is very good, flaky crust. He will use leftovers or frozen or fresh veggies, so it's different every time.

Healthy Breakfast

2006-08-19T08:41:00.001-06:00

Puddleglum has been a gourmet this week. This week he served delicious baked chicken with rice, chili and cornbread (Puddleglum doctored some organic turkey chili with butter beans, red beans, and corn, and he put fresh grated parmesan on top), homemade pizza (everyone got to make their own pizza and the boys all loved smoked oysters on theirs except Baby who ate them off his pizza before it could get baked), our version of taco salad (fried tortilla bowl filled with rice, seasoned ground beef, lettuce, tomatoe, black olives, cilantro, avocado slices, cheese, sour cream, and salsa), and last night he made pulgogi. It was funny. A couple of weeks ago he went to the Korean market to buy ingredients for pulgogi marinade, and the owner said, "why don't you just use this? This is what we use." He uses a commercially prepared marinade. It is delicious. Reminds me of back when Puddleglum and I used to make our own homemade mole sauce (pronounce m0e-le not mole). It's a Mexican sauce that is a true process to make made with ground nuts, Mexican chocolate, and dried chilis (which are roasted, and then reconstituted, and then pureed). When I was talking to my friend, Juana, who grew up in Mexico, about it, she said, "Why don't you just buy it in a jar and add a little peanut butter. That's what I do." That's what we've been doing ever since. Simplify. Right?

This morning Puddleglum made pancakes with homemade strawberry sauce made from fresh strawberries, and he served it with fresh peach and kiwi slices. It's hard to stay low carb around here, but I only ate one bite. I am sticking with my low carb breakfast and a hot cup of coffee this morning. It's not bad. I cut a pita in half, then stick each half in the toaster. I drizzle in a bit of olive oil and put a fried egg in each. Eat it while it's hot. It grosses Puddlegum out that I like the yolk runny. To each his own.

Before and After Kitchen

2006-06-11T13:01:00.001-06:00

Puddleglum is very handy when it comes to home remodeling. He built a wall around the opening to the basement because the rod iron railing around it was not safe for little kids. He just knew how to do it, and I was amazed. Here is what he did with our dining room and kitchen. The "Before" picture is one that we took when we were deciding on whether or not this was the right house for us. It definitely is.

Shish Kabob and Scorpions

2006-06-10T16:05:00.002-06:00

I never make shish kabob, but Puddleglum does, and he does a great job with it. Sometimes he uses pearl onions, green peppers, cherry tomatoes and beef. Other times he has used chicken and tried different combinations. Here is a picture of his latest creation. He used large sea scallops, shrimp, pineapple, and maraschino cherries. Yum. He served it with rice and tater tots. Not what I would have chosen, but if you have little kids, it's a good choice. For future reference the only thing that would have made it better would be to go ahead and use onions too. Pearl onions would be good, or even squares of red onion or 10-15s would be yummy.

Also, I wanted to mention that I got stung by a scorpion Thursday night. I was wearing short pjs, and I jumped into bed. The next thing I knew I felt something like glass tearing into my skin on the front left side of my upper left thigh. I quickly jumped out of bed knowing something had got me and brushed around the area. Not seeing anything on me I pulled back the sheets, and there it was. It was one of the biggest ones we've seen. I yelled for Puddleglum. He was my hero. He grabbed my little pink house slipper and killed it. We were thankful to God because Baby had been in our bed earlier in the day watching a video.

The sting wasn't that bad. Puddleglum said that I probably was on top of it, and it didn't have a chance to grab a hold of me with it's pinchers. Again, thank God because then it could have been very bad. Speaking of scorpions, I'd like to remember one of my old favorite bands, the Scorpions. Wind of Change is a classic.

German Sausage Dinner

2006-06-06T20:17:00.001-06:00

I made sausage with fried potatoes and red cabbage. Not low cal, but it sounded good. Puddleglm was going to make mashed potatoes for the barbeque chicken yesterday, but he would up making spanish rice and refried beans. He had already boiled the potatoes, so I told him I'd make fried potatoes today. I decided that a German meal would be good. The red cabbage recipe I used is at Allrecipes.com. It has apples in it. I added more vinegar than the recipe called for and less sugar. Some of the reviews recommended that, and they were right. The recipe says 8 cups of cabbage, and that is one medium cabbage. I don't know why they didn't just say one medium cabbage. I used three apples instead of two, and I used brown sugar and apple cider vinegar instead of white sugar and white vinegar. For dessert we had strawberry shortcake. Of course we used real whipping cream. Ever since I found out what Cool Whip was made of (Mom's favorite), I can't eat it. Baby ate all his strawberries and some of mine, but he didn't care for the yellow cake. Tae and Jax loved it.

Mouse, Boad, Pog

2006-05-24T22:44:00.001-06:00

I think Baby grew an inch taller while I was playing with him in the backyard. It's like he is growing up in front of my eyes.

Tonight was one of those magical nights. Tae and Jax were inside playing some games on Yahooligans, and Puddleglum was mowing the lawn. Baby let me rock him in the glider rocker while I sang to him. I like to do that or hold him on the swing with him facing me laying his head against my chest and sing to him. He is so still and quiet when I do that. The birds were singing as they were beginning to roost. Then he wanted to go play. The sky was turning pink and orange, and I walked to the top of the ridge in our yard and sat down. Baby sat beside me. It was so peaceful. The grass is so soft in that part of the yard. I said, "let's roll!" So I held him and rolled down the ridge. He loved it. He was giggling so hard. I ran inside to get the camera and had Puddleglum stop mowing to take a shot.

Baby is talking more and more. He says "Dance Party" (his favorite Wiggles video- he LOVES the Wiggles). When I was giving him a bath tonight, I named outloud the objects I gave him; Micky Mouse, boat, and a frog. He started playing, then he stopped. He grabbed Micky and held him up to me. "Mouse". Then he picked up the boat. "Boad". Then he picked up the frog. "Pog". After a minute or two, he held up Micky and said "mouse" again. Then he threw him out of the tub. I guess Baby is not a Micky Mouse fan. He played with the frog and the boat. There was a dinosaur on the counter, so I gave that to him. I said, "dinosaur". Baby held it up and went, "Grrrr! Didodo!" He played happily with the boat, the frog, and the "didodo". I thought about what a boy he is. When I wrapped him in his towel, he got a playful look in his eye and said, "bye Bath", and waved to the bathtub.

Oh, another cute thing is that he can say five now, except he says, "pive". He asked me to give him five (high five) about ten times tonight. He tried to count sing songy, "piiive. twoooo." (those are the only two numbers he knows). He can name body parts too. When the Wiggles sing that song Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes, Baby can point to everything especially when they get to the part that goes eyes and ears and mouth and nose. It's cute.

Puddleglum got Baby's pjs on him, and they played with a "bouncy ball" (as Baby calls them). He would not part with it. And so, here he is as he fell asleep with his bouncy ball. Oh, kids are hard work, but these are the moments I need to remember!

Moon Tae Sung 's Birthday 4-3-99

2006-04-02T18:06:00.001-06:00

We gave Tae a birthday party at the science museum in town. It was terrific. The bakery didn't make the Korean flag just right, but we'll forgive them. We decided to only invite his class, but we did invite the entire class. There were two young women from the museum who helped with the party, and they did everything. They did a demontration about liquid nitrogen that ended with making ice cream. It was the best time. This party and Jax's second birthday party are both in the Party Hall of Fame. We may do another party in a month with friends outside of his school for a "Gotcha" party or what we might call a "Home At Last" party. His actual gotcha day is 4-30-03, but we got home to the U.S. 5-1-03.

Korean Mother Sauces

2006-03-28T05:29:00.000-06:00

I found a blog written by an American living in S. Korea called Zenkimchi. It is a food blog, but there is also information about the ins and outs of living in Korea without being able to speak fluent Korean. The latest post is about the three basic "bases" in Korean cooking, toenjang (soybean paste), koch' ujang (red pepper paste), and kangjang (soysauce). On a previous post he shows how to make kelp stock or dashi (also called sun dried anchovy stock- so that's why Mom always had packages of dried fish!) which is one of the two stocks used in Korean cooking (the other being White Beef Stock). He uses photos so it's easy to follow how to do it. He links to another blog called Ya Rayi Our Rai that has a more indepth article about the three Mother Sauces and the two basic stocks used in Korean cooking. If I ever am able to really get into cooking, I'd like to become good at cooking Korean food.

Paella Soup

2006-03-21T19:58:00.001-06:00

When I showed Jax how the clams protect themselves by closing their shells tightly when I tapped on them, Jax spoke to the clams. "Don't worry. We won't hurt you. We're Christians." I explained to him that we were going put the clams in the soup and eat them. I was afraid that he would be bothered by this. We had a talk about how God made animals for us to eat. He enjoyed the clams as much as the rest of us.

My favorite part of the soup was the andoille sausage. I enjoyed the flavor of the broth, and I think it wouldn't have tasted as good without everything in it, but I would have been happy with just the sausage. I used 1/2 pound of sea scallops (because Puddleglum likes big scallops), 1/2 pound of bay scallops, one pound of clams, one pound of shrimp, four chicken tenderloins, and a full 12oz package of andoille sausage. I considered buying the saffron, but I figured my boys did not have palates sophisticated enough to justify the $12 for the teeny bit of saffron. I put in paprika and curry powder to give it some color, so really we didn't have paella soup. It was a seafood curry soup, but it was very good. In all the ingredients cost me $35, but it would have cost more for this much seafood at a restaurant. I don't think I will make this a lot because it isn't very budget conscious, but it was delicious for a special meal. For future reference, the red 5qt stock pot isn't big enough. Use the 8qt copper pot. Also, as unculinary as this sounds, I substituted peach flavored white grape juice for the white wine. Like I said, it was delicious...so back off.

Spring Break

2006-03-14T16:13:00.001-06:00

I showed a schedule to Auntie Puddleglum, who was here for the weekend, and she called the schedule our Spring Break Survival Plan. If we don't do planned activities like this, the boys make us crazy. The idea isn't necessarily to stick to the schedule to the minute (although sometimes that is a good idea). I didn't finish out the week. We'll play by ear. Every day will have a theme. I used the schedule as my shopping list when I went to the grocery store Sunday with Auntie Puddleglum. When I got home yesterday (Monday) from the office, the boys were excited about having had "Space Day" with Puddleglum. I don't know that "Nature Day" was as exciting, but I think they had a good time.

For lunch today the salad was a huge success. I bought that Butter Lettuce that comes with the roots still attached to show the boys. We had a salad bar with beets, black olives, baby gerkins, sliced egg, real bacon, cherry tomatoes, pecans, black eyed peas, and cucumber (Baby ate all the avocado yesterday). Jax wanted everything except egg. Tae wanted everything except the black eyed peas, pecans, and cucumber. Baby mainly ate the olives and the egg. Of course, being that we're Texans, we had Ranch dressing.

The boys loved the snack. I put Oreos in a ziploc bag, and the boys beat them with spoons. We poured the "dirt" onto Vanilla Bean ice-cream, and I let the boys arrange the gummy worms on top.

Baby is taking his nap and the boys are having free play. I may update this post with a picture of the cellophane noodle beef soup if I have time. I hope it turns out yummy.

Quick Flan

2006-03-11T06:18:00.001-06:00

Speaking of flan... Don't start cracking the eggs and separating the yolks out. Don't make a hot water bath for your custard cups. Don't start making your own caramel. Just go to the Mexican section at the grocery store and buy some Con-Gelli. It comes with a package of caramel to squeeze into your custard cups, and all you do is bring four cups of milk to a slow boil and mix in the packet. It's just as good as the stuff I used to serve at Vargo's (Houston). Having two six year olds, a one and a half year old, and a thirty seven year old (all boys) to take care of, any time savers are appreciated. Add some raspberries and a small sprig of mint, and you have something special. I think Jax would have liked it, but he heard me tell Puddleglum, "Mmm. This reminds me of that egg custard pie at House of Pies that I used to get all the time." Then Jax took a few bites and said, "it tastes like eggs." Then he wouldn't eat any more. I guess for him, eggs and dessert don't mix.

First Photo Together

2006-03-07T06:54:00.001-06:00

Here is the first picture of my two oldest babies taken together at AMSA in Seoul, South Korea in late April 2003.

Puddleglum's Pooch

2006-03-03T07:50:00.001-06:00

This morning the boys were concerned about our dog. We love her. I tell the boys she is the only other girl in the family. We've had her for 7 1/2 years. We rescued her from the local dog pound, so we don't know exactly how old she is. She is probably almost ten years old. She is such a good dog with the boys. I am so thankful for her. Anyway, she doesn't seem herself this morning. Tae asked if we could pray for her. So we put our hands together, and Tae said a little prayer.

Sweet Corn Chowder with Shrimp and Red Peppers

2006-02-22T22:06:00.001-06:00

I love this soup. It's called Sweet Corn Chowder with Shrimp and Red Peppers. Tae ate two and a half bowls. Puddleglum ate two large bowlfulls. Jax ate maybe three or four bites (but he did eat all of this shrimp). Baby made a pretty good dent in his bowl. I had Puddleglum pick up some hot French bread again on his way home from the office. It's not the best French bread in the history of bakeries, but atleast it's fresh. Remember Tuesdays and Wednesdays are my days to stay home and Puddleglum's days to work. I work Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Here are the ingredients;

2 TBS olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 large potato, peeled and diced
1 whole bay leaf
1/2 tsp dried marjoram, crumbled
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
2 cups chicken stock or broth
1 can (17oz) cream style corn
1 can (17oz) sweet corn
2 cups milk
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
1 jar (7oz) roasted red peppers, thinly sliced
1 lb large shrimp, shelled and deveined
"Sweat" the onion in the olive oil. Add the potato, bay leaf, marjoram, nutmeg, and chicken stock and bring to a boil. Lower heat and cover. Keep at a gentle boil for ten minutes or until the pototo is just tender. Add all the corn, milk, and black pepper. Bring to a boil. Lower the heat then add the peppers and the shrimp. It takes maybe three minutes for the shrimp to cook. Be careful not to over cook the shrimp. Serve immediately. Puddleglum did pick up some O'Douls Amber which is surprisingly good for non-alcoholic beer, and it's only 90 calories! I can't get over that.

Skins or No?

2006-02-03T19:24:00.001-06:00

When I was a kid I definitely didn't like pudding skins, so we'd put Saran Wrap on top after we poured it into cups. Now that I'm an adult, I like pudding skins. My boys are just happy to get pudding. They don't care either way. We happened to have some Pocky and some Korean cookies. Have you been to a Korean market lately? There are tons of cool cookies and candy. They have candy that looks like real rocks! Why is that cool? I don't know.

Spanish Rice

2006-02-01T19:59:00.001-06:00

Tonight was the first time I made Spanish rice that turned out right. My childhood best friend was Yvette Fierro. We were stuck together like glue, and I spent camping trips and dinners with her. I have never been able to make Spanish rice or fideo or sopa like Mrs. Fierro or the other ladies who would bring food to parties and gatherings. I've tried the stuff in a box and the stuff in a can. Both are terrible. I've also tried recipes that turned out tasting okay, but didn't taste like what I remember as a child. This recipe on allrecipes.com was close. It wasn't too wet like some other recipes. The rice was fluffy. It was also one of the easiest recipes I've tried.

I also found this excellent recipe for enchilada sauce. I put a full 1 ounce block of semi-sweet chocolate in it, and it tasted like mole. It was spicy, but not too spicy for the boys. It calls for five full tablespoons of hot chili powder, and I have a huge bag of chili powder that a friend made and gave my mom. I did use Gebhardt refried beans from a can, but it tastes as good as homemade.

I used arm roast for the meat that I got from Alan at Pai Dom. We buy organic beef, chicken, lamb, and eggs from him. I marinated it in lime juice (from one lime), picante, a little soy sauce, a little olive oil, and a tiny bit of apple cider vinegar. It worked because I could pull the meat apart with my hands it was so tendy and juicy. I just roasted it in the oven on low. Baby ate a bunch of the meat before I began to make the enchiladas. He loved it. Tae ate everything but the beans (he's never liked beans). Jax ate more than he usually does. Baby loves beans and rice mixed together.

Foi Gras?

2006-01-29T13:23:00.001-06:00

Puddleglum got sandwhich fixins last week, so we had some extra ham and baby swiss slices from the deli. So on one of my cooking nights (Tues, Wed, Sat, and Sun) I made chicken cordon bleau. We had one left, so for lunch today I thought I'd try our new Kitchenaid chopper (that we got free along with a hand blender when we bought our new fridge) and make chicken salad. In goes onion, carrot, celery, mayo, mustard, and the chicken cordon bleau. Not having any experience with this chopper thing, I just kept pulsing until all the chicken was chopped. What resulted was far from what I was imagining.

What resulted was like baby food. I told myself that it was like chicken pate, and since we had some baguettes, I presented it that way to Puddleglum. It's not really like pate. It's like something you would make for your great granpa because he refuses to wear his teeth. But, not liking the idea of that last chicken cordon bleau going to waste, I imagine that I am in France eating fancy duck liver pate.

So this is not deviled chicken and Welch's. It's foie gras and French champagne (in my imagination anyway).

Cool Cooking Site

2006-01-13T20:06:00.000-06:00

You should check www.spise.no out. This Norwegian site has video of actual cooking set to jazzy music. The camera is on a closeup of the cooking the entire time. The measurements are metric, but you get the idea. You have to make a best guess at some of the ingredients, but most of them are obvious. Each recipe lasts for a minute or so, so you don't have to sit through a 30 minute show. If you have any cooking skills or experience at all, you could cook something from this site.

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Found 'im!

2005-12-31T01:36:00.000-06:00

I know this image has probably been seen by thousands, but I've never seen it. I was looking for some ideas on Japanese Bento boxes, and I saw this.

Gingerbread CSI

2005-12-24T11:59:00.001-06:00

Here are some ornaments I made for the boys;

At first when I look at this picture, I think,"ahh. How cute they look!" But then I look at it again, and I think, "it looks like a gingerbread crime scene."