It has been a LONG time since I have posted a full blog post. Apparently I got caught up in the ease of Instagram and in all honesty, I might have gotten lazy. While it is easier to write a few lines about what I made for dinner, I realized that I missed giving a little more context.
I started sharing my food pictures and dinner ideas when I was not working last year and I had a little more freedom to cook more complex meals without time restraints. Thankfully, working from home in my new job has still allowed me to still have dinner on the table at a reasonable time! I take advantage of a quick lunch break to start prepping dinner (marinating meats, cutting up veggies, etc) and that helps cut the time down when I actually start cooking dinner. While we are surrounded by so many great restaurants, we usually eat in (with exceptions of course) and I have been working hard to continue to try new recipes, while still mixing in the tried and true favorites. I normally pull my Korean recipes from various Korean websites and blogs that I follow but I decided to take a risk tonight and try recipes pulled from The Food Network Kitchen (blasphemy, I know!). Tonight's dinner is a recipe for Grilled Korean Steak and Kimchi Fried Rice. Normally, when beef is involved and I am making Korean, it's in the form of Galbi Jim, LA Galbi or Bulgogi. Tonight's recipe is actually grilled skirt steak (full disclosure: I used one skirt steak and one flat iron steak because it's what I had). The marinade ingredients are pretty typical for a Korean beef marinade; soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic, sesame oil and the secret ingredient....soda! :) I often add a bit of soda to my LA Galbi marinade (a trick that my mother-in-law told me about) so it makes sense that it would be in this grilled steak version. You can't serve just steak for dinner (though I am not sure I'd be opposed to only steak) so instead of plain jasmine rice, which is normally our go-to, I decided to try the recipe for Kimchi Fried Rice. If I am being 100% honest, kimchi is not my favorite. I LOVE the flavors of the kimchi but the texture of the cabbage just doesn't agree with me. That being said, it all changes when you caramelize the kimchi (that and the bacon fat and bacon!)...the texture changes and the flavor intensifies. That is the base of the kimchi fried rice recipe. The recipe did not call for soy sauce but I did add a little because everything is better with a little soy sauce. :) The ingredients for the steak can all be found at your local grocery store, without needing a trip to H-Mart. It is worth noting that the bacon and peppers called for in the steak recipe did not belong. The bacon found in the steak recipe is actually for the fried rice. I did not marinade the bacon or use the peppers. I also did not use the kimchi recipe in the fried rice recipe for the kimchi, as it didn't seem authentic. Instead, I used the kimchi I had made a few weeks ago. I'd say go ahead and try to make the "kimchi" as written (note: it is not real kimchi and is missing the key ingredient of gochugaru - Korean red pepper flakes) or pick some kimchi up at the grocery store, if you are lucky enough to have a store near you that sells it already made. I have to say...the smell of the bacon and the kimchi caramelizing together made me drool. If you think you don't like kimchi - I PROMISE that if you try kimchi fried rice, you might just change your mind. This is one of the best meals I've made in a LONG time. I mixed mine all up to make my own version of steak fried rice. This is one happy girl! Korean Style Grilled Steak: food-network.app.link/N1kEIOD4c4 Kimchi Fried Rice: food-network.app.link/csY848A4c4
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After going away this weekend and eating copious amounts of red meat, I started out this week saying that we were going to eat a lot of chicken (and even some salmon!) this week. It was a well meaning thought but I should have known better....
Let me back up and talk about our weekend in Northern Virginia. Paul's nephew was getting married and that meant a mini cousin reunion! When the cousins are together, it usually means that there will be a lot of laughs, a lot of food, and a lot of drink. Often times, the food comes in the form of Korean BBQ and last weekend was no different. We managed to have second dinner (twice!!) at one of my favorite BBQ spots, Honey Pig in Centreville, VA. Why second dinner? Because, why not?? :) Friday night, it was a small group of just me and Paul and then his brother and his brother's girlfriend. We rolled in to Honey Pig around midnight and ordered a little of everything. Short Ribs, Dolsot Bibimbap, noodles, etc. The second night, we roll in (again) around midnight - post wedding reception, with a much larger crowd and the waitress from the night before recognizes us. I honestly have no idea what we ate the second night, as I think I might have already been in a food coma...but we ate, nonetheless. Sunday afternoon was spent at a luncheon with all of the cousins before we headed home to ATL. Wanna guess what I had? Yup! More red meat...a big plate full of bulgogi and glass noodles. We ate so much that we didn't even have dinner Sunday night when we landed. I am sure our stomachs appreciated the break. We are already looking forward to the next time we get to see all of the cousins (and next time, I will work on training my stomach a few days in advance!). So after all of that red meat and red wine, you can see why I had every intention of sticking to chicken and salmon this week. Well that all went out the door when I ran to the Super Target for some veggies and came home with two beautiful ribeye steaks. How could I say no?? So that is how we ended up eating MORE red meat last night. I also ended up opening a bottle of wine I've been sitting on for awhile...a bourbon barrel aged red wine called 1000 Stories. It went really well with the steak and had a smooth finish. I would definitely buy it again! Don't think I left out the veggies though! Roasted potatoes and balsamic marinaded grilled veggies rounded out the dinner and the rest, as they say, is history (in my stomach!). Here is a sampling of our dinner last night and some from our weekend away! ENJOY! When it comes to bone-in chicken, there is no denying that I love me some chicken legs! I think there's nothing better than a drumstick, with its own "handle" and no need for forks! So when I come across recipes for new ways to cook up chicken drumsticks, I am going to try it!
Tonight's dinner was honey-lime drumsticks (Cooking Light again!) and ready in under 30 minutes! While the name of the recipe might make you think that honey and lime would be the most forward flavors, I think the ginger and soy sauce helped make this meal as good as it was! The legs are started off on the stove top, with a good brown on all sides and then the sauce is added and it's all thrown in the oven to finish cooking for about 15 minutes. While the chicken was finishing, I had enough time to cook up a box of truffle mac n cheese that went perfectly with the chicken! After a long week of work and ready for the weekend, this was a dish that is perfect for a weeknight dinner! Here is the recipe: https://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/honey-lime-drumsticks-snow-peas-brown-rice (full disclosure, I did not make the brown rice and peas!) I know most people will shy away from soup in the summertime, with 100 degree temperatures, but summertime is often when I enjoy making soup. They're usually quick, simple, and tasty. Perfect for a weeknight, summertime meal.
Dinner last night was jambalaya soup but I will be the first to admit it might have been less of a soup than the title suggests. It's quite possible the blame lies with me on that. I MIGHT have added an extra half a cup of rice because my husband can't get enough rice. The result was more of a thick stew rather than soup but the flavor was full on. My husband is a big fan of jambalaya but a lot of jambalayas have shrimp in them and he's allergic so he can't enjoy. When I found a recipe for a jambalaya soup a few years ago that didn't call for shrimp but only andouille sausage, I thought it was worth a try! I've made this a few times before and was always able to find chicken andouille sausage, which is what the recipe calls for. After searching high and low, I couldn't find the chicken andouille so I landed on just buying pork andouille and there was not a difference in flavor (though I am sure maybe a few more calories). I finished work around 5:30 last night and the soup was ready by 6:15 (it would have been ready even earlier but I was distracted by a phone call from Santa - long story for another time! LOL). Recipe:
Directions:
Looking for a quick link to the recipe? https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchen/jambalaya-soup-3362719 Oh what a tasty weekend it was! This weekend we experienced a little bit of everything, beginning Friday night at a local spot called The Coffee Vineyard with friends. The Coffee Spot hosted a BBQ and music on the patio event, bringing in a local BBQ truck, live music and a housemade sweet tea sangria. The BBQ was delicious! We ordered the pulled pork nachos and six ribs and they did not disappoint! The meat was juicy and pulled right off of the bones! After we were done, we came back to our place and just hung out on the back porch with some beer, wine and cigars. It was a great Friday evening! Saturday morning, we woke up and went to the local farmer's market in our little downtown area and we came away with a bounty! Fresh baked breads, locally grown lettuce, Georgia peaches and a little gem of India. One of the vendors was a woman from one town over who told us she had been up the entire night before, preparing all of the curries that we got to try and making fresh naan. She kept giving us samples and we kept eating! We ended up buying naan, potato chili curry, and a cilantro peanut chutney. For dinner, I cooked up some chicken thighs and added the curry sauce to the chicken, cooked up some rice and we ourselves a delicious Indian meal! I am setting myself a reminder to go back in the fall and stock up on her curries so that we can freeze and enjoy them all winter long! While we were out and about on Saturday, we finally stopped in to Sprouts, to see what it was all about and I was not disappointed! The produce was fresh and they even had products from a local place back in PA...but to me, the biggest surprise was their meat section. I brought home a few freshly marinaded meats, including a chimichurri skirt steak that I grilled up tonight. I cooked up green rice and a couple of spiced chicken thighs to go along with the skirt steak and it was DELICIOUS! We had leftover cilantro peanut chutney from last night so we used that to top off the steak and chicken and it was a match made in heaven. To go along with dinner, I decided to try my hand at making my own version of the peach moscow mule that I had while out to dinner last week and I might have just found my new favorite. I muddled fresh peaches with a little peach syrup and added it to the moscow mule (simple recipe of vodka, ginger beer, and lime juice). It was so good, I could have had three (but I stuck to one!).
As summer begins to wind down, it is a great time to check out your local farmer's markets and take advantage of the fresh produce while you can! What will you find next?? |
AuthorWife, food and wine lover, design enthusiast! Join me as we discover new ways to cook and make our houses feel like homes! |