Leftovers (Monday, May 31, 2010)

I had leftovers and Ethan dropped off our cat Nelly with a friend who is watching her while we're on vacation.

Soup for the Sick (Wednesday & Thursday, May 5 & 6, 2010)

Ethan had oral surgery Tuesday afternoon, the same day I went to the Carnegie Hall Performance.  For dinner he ate tofu with soy sauce, yogurt, and ice cream - a lot of ice cream.  I wasn't being a very good wife leaving him alone after surgery...

On Wednesday, I made more kimchi jigae, modified with added carrots, celery and spinach.  I think the soup helped him recover faster.

Leftovers (Monday, May 3, 2010)

Leftover kimchi jigae tonight.

Leftovers and Banchan (Thursday April 15, 2010)

We had a combination of leftovers with rice with a variety of kimchi.

Magnolia's Bakery: Chocolate Cheesecake Swirl 

Leftovers (Wednesday April 14, 2010)

We ate leftovers today.

Leftovers & okra & green beans (Saturday April 10, 2010)

We had leftover mac & cheese from yesterday along with steamed green beans

and okra roasted with Indian spices

For dessert we had strawberries

Soon dubu Jigae (Wednesday, April 7, 2010)

Ethan's still not feeling well so he made some Soon dubu jigae from Cecilia Hae-Jin Lee's Eating Korean cookbook - I guess he really liked what he ordered at Seoul Garden on Saturday night.

Food my Grandmother gave us (Sunday, April 4, 2010)

My mother and Grandmother gave us some food to take back with us.  I was very excited about this.  It was great, since we got home at around 8pm, all we had to do was cook rice really quick and heat up the food.

Leftover sujube (Wednesday 3/24/10)

We had leftover sujube (torn noodle soup). I picked out the leftover noodles (which went from mediocre to soggy flakes of lead) and made a new batch of noodles.

To go along with the leftover soup, I tried out a new banchan:  Soy-Sweetened Lotus Root. We had a dish like this at a friends-of-friends house around Christmas, and I had tried a couple of times to recreate it (with mixed success). There is a recipe for the dish in our most recent Korean cookbook acquisition, The Complete Book of Korean Cooking (reviewed by me here), so I decided to give it a shot.

• The recipe is to slice a lotus root into 1/4" slices. I used pre-sliced packaged root, but if it is fresh the slices should be dipped into acidulated water to keep them from browning. 
• The root slices are then put in a pot and covered with water. Soy sauce is added (about 1/4 c. per 3/4 lb of root) and boiled for 20 minutes.  

• 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar and 3 tablespoons of maple syrup are added and the boil is lowered to a simmer for another 30 minutes. I suspect the maple syrup is a substitution for Korean malt syrup (which we have), but we actually have more maple syrup on hand then we know what to do with, so I kept the substitution. I like the resulting taste, so we'll keep maple syrup in our version of the recipe.
• The root is drained, coated with 2 teaspoons of toasted sesame seed oil, and sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds.

We loved how the recipe turned out, so it is definitely a keeper!

Janet sliced jicima to which we added a little rice wine vinegar, mirin, and Korean chili pepper. Janet had a bite and accidentally had a piece go down the wrong pipe. It may have been having a piece stuck in her throat, but it felt a little like she was having an allergic reaction to the jicima (and people do have reactions to it--the plant is in the nightshade family) so Janet steered clear of the dish for the rest of the night.

I steamed some asian eggplant for gaji namul.

We added some leftover mixed grain rice, geem (seaweed sheets), and kimchi and had a meal.

Leftovers Reinvented (Friday, March 19, 2010)

Since our friends Nami and Jonathan have been renovating their kitchen, we were lucky enough to have them over for dinner a couple nights this week.  What a treat for us! What a joy to have a two year old at the dinner table.  Have you ever watched a 2 year old eat?  I couldn't keep my eyes off of her, especially while two fisting the dried seaweed.

Ethan was very creative in combining some leftovers into entirely new dishes.  

Banchan with fried tofu and leftover chicken

Fried Mixed-Grain Rice with Steak, Asparagus, Scallions, and Gingko Nuts

Leftovers (March 14, 2010)

We had quite a variety of leftovers: pork with bacon, chicken burrito, yellow rice, black beans, baked rigatoni, spinach with parmesan...and carrot cake for dessert.

Before...

...After

Leftovers and Key Lime Pie (March 8, 2010)

We ate the very delicious pork roast, broccoli and roasted potatoes tonight.

I made the Key Lime Pie yesterday but being a novice cook, I didn't read the entire recipe until it was too late and didn't realize that you have to let the pie freeze overnight.  When I pulled it out last night to serve it, it was definitely not ready to be eaten - back to the freezer it went until tonight.  Our friend Pyul made this last Summer and it was so incredibly good.

Leftovers (Mar 6, 2010)

We had left over duk bok gi and guchujang chicken. Still yummy!

Fried Rice (March 3, 2010)

I love fried rice, especially how Ethan cooks it!  I mean, it's just a bunch of leftover everythings, lots of flavor with a little bit of the crunchy burnt rice, kimchi and veggies - what could be better?

Flounder and Bulgogi (March 2, 2010)

Ethan marinated the flounder in miso, sake, soy, mirin and guchujang then baked it. It was a bit salty since it marinated for so long.  I'm beginning to think I'm not a big fan of this fish.  I'm just looking forward to finishing this gigantic bag of frozen flounder we bought at Costco.  We cooked the remaining bit of bulgogi I made for the japchae and dukboki.  Afer the rice cooked, Ethan mixed in the leftover wheatberry.

Leftovers (March 1, 2010)

Ethan had an Art grant meeting tonight, so I ate leftover japchae and dukboki...oh and a big slice of a pumpkin bar.

Brunch at Norma's and Chicken Thighs, Potatoes, and Tomatoes (Feb 27, 2010)

We met our friend Yumi for brunch at Norma's, for her first time.  I think I've been there at least half a dozen times now and the food is consistently great.  There's usually a long wait to get a table so luckily I thought ahead and made reservations.

[NOTE: The Burger Joint is located across from Norma's.  In case you forget to make a reservation, don't just sit there going hungry.  You can eat a burger first while you wait...then you go ahead and order your "real" brunch at Norma's - yes, I have done this before.]

Yumi and I both ordered the Huevos Rancheros and Ethan ordered the Foie Gras Brioche French Toast.

a complimentary strawberry/blueberry smoothie shot

huevos ranchero

foie gras brioche french toast

We were planning to have dinner at Ippudo, but the brunch kept us full pretty late so Ethan made dinner at home.  He made Jamie Oliver's, Crispy and Sticky Chicken Thighs with Squashed New Potatoes and Tomatoes which we ate with leftover wheat berry and Chickpeas with Tomatoes and Spinach from yesterday.

Spam and Banchan (Feb 25, 2010)

Maybe you never tried Spam...maybe you should ; )  I especially like it with kimchi and rice.

Ethan cooked some left-over roasted potatoes with gochojang, tahini sauce, sesame oil and scallions.  It was really good!  We also had kimchi, rice, dried seaweed and ojingha.

Pork chops (Feb 25, 2010)

After the vegan dinner last night we were feeling the need for some meat. So it was pork chop night!

With potatoes...

And leftover cabbage from the night before.

Sarah Magid's "Easiest Chocolate Cake" (February 20, 2010)

Sarah Magid designed and baked our wedding cake.  She has the most stylish and tasty baked goods.  Luckily for all of us she just came out with a great book called "Organic and Chic: Cakes, Cookies, and Other Sweets That Taste as Good as They Look"

I've made her chocolate cake recipe before and used her Vanilla Whipped Buttercream frosting, but this time I ended up using a cream cheese frosting.

Here's her recipe which I found online for Sarah Magid's Easiest Chocolate Cake.

It really is a very easy to recipe.  It's very moist and tastes amazing!  

Dinner was leftovers tonight