Another week and expecting another snow storm miday today. In my home city Austin, Texas, my mom said we actually got a lot of snow too! Someone in Austin, please save a snowball for me in your freezer for when I get there and save some snow adventure stories for me. Even if we get a lot of snow here regularly, there's something about snow in Austin that's special since it doesn't come often. I miss Austin... In Canada as we were watching the downhill ski Olimpics, it'd snow so much that the competitor would disappear into a curtain of snow and we'd be looking at a completely white screen. Hellooooo. Downhill skiiier, did you go to Narnia?
So as people disappear on skis here and there, we are safely tucked away in our home and between four sturdy walls.
BULGOGI JUNGOL
Tuesday, Kee and I hit up Buffalo Wild Wings while hitting up Palisades Mall to pick up our Williams and Sonoma item. It never gets old, especially that parmasean garlic ....oh and mushroom caps...aaaand...spiceygarliccheesefriesjamaicanjerkasianzing. We walked into our chocolate heaven, The Lindt store, and "Thank you Miss Chocolate sales person for the free sample AGAIN!" I highly recommend visits to this store. We're 2 for 2 for free samples.
We came home after our day of adventures, out of the dreary weather to some warm, piping hot Bulgogi Jungol. It's much like a hot pot, except that you put bulgogi into it and the broth comes out different because of the bulgogi seasoning. The bulgogi was marinated in the morning through the day. 1.5 lbs of thinly sliced meat sitting in a marinade all day makes for some good flavor!
The table was set for four because the Kims were coming over. When dinner time came around, we orderly arranged our vegetables in a pot that we use at the table. The enoki mushrooms remind me of the little game pieces in The Game Of Life, but I think they evolved because they have shoulders now. Before, they looked exactly like mini pink and blue versions of enochi mushrooms!
and then we put the all-day-marinated bulgogi on top of our neatly arranged vegetables, added water and broth and then....Voila.
A nice piping pot of goodness that you can put yourself around and keep you... warm. :)
If you'd like to give it a run, you can find the recipe and a video tutorial here
http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/bulgogi-and-bulgogi-stew
CUPCAKES BY CHEESECAKE
Yesterday, Olivia, Jenny and I went shopping for our church small group, Quantum Leapers. Our church is putting together kits for our mission teams that are going out to Haiti at the beginning of next month. We hit up Costco and Target and cleared their shelves of shampoos, hand sanitizers, toothpaste toothbrushes etc. We were hungry afterwards and took a trip to the Cheesecake Factory at Riverside Mall. This place has such an extensive menu that it's stressful picking the menu for indecisive people like me, but I was able to feel good about a choice of Romano Crusted Chicken. It was absolutely delicious with a lightly crisp Romano cheese crust alongside a glass of refreshing Mango tea. Afterwards, we went to feed our sweet tooth so O & J suggested Mr Cupcakes. It's a small hole in the wall place that does relatively well. They have 2 selections of Red Velvet: a Red Velvet and a Southern Red Velvet. Difference? One has cocoa and one doesn't. I decided on an Oreo Cheesecake and we sat on the mall couches, sipped coffee as we dove into our cupcakes. My Oreo Cheesecake cupcake was extremely rich which paired well with the coffee.
This is their website http://mrcupcakes.com/
Their cupcake mascot is a little scary looking. If I accidentally called Mr Cupcakes "Mr. Cupcake" with out the S, I feel like he'd come after me...but you can judge for yourself.
The night before, Anna bought some really good CRUMBS cupcakes from the city as well. There was Red Velvet, a lemon cupcake and a yellow cake cupcake with something like a chocoate frosting interior, topped with some cream cheese icing with a solid layer of ganache. Deliciousness. Thanks Anna and Mitch! :)
JJA JANG MYUN AND TANGSOOYOOK
So for dinner, I tried the good ole combination of Jja Jang Myun and Tangsooyook. We used to go to a place called Hunan in Texas for this combination all the time so I thought I'd give it a run.The sweet and tartness of the tangsooyook sauce and the sweet and saltiness of the jja jang myun make a great combination! This took some time due to the deep frying, but after investing some time in it, this was the product.
Crispy nuggets! It's extremely crispy so if someone in your house is cooking this, be sure to hang around and snatch some of them while they're hot! I took one to my husband and later, he was chilling out by the nugget mountain from time to time.
But we're not done yet. Of course we need that ooey gooey sweet and sour sauce. So the vegetables get chop't, the stove turned on, the vegetables get sent this way and that with your wooden spoon, add wet ingredients and voila. SAUCE!
and the whole shabang?
BAM! Dinner. . :)
We had a table set for four again because the No's came to join us. They brought over thin, crispy wafer that had a a sweet lemon filling. They're the thinnest things ever and we LOVE wafers. I'm sure we'll be diving into these again today. Yum. Thanks Jenny and Brian!
and we just found out that Kee doesn't have to go to work! We have declared it a housewide SNOW DAY.
Y
