Kimbab!

This is my Korean kimbab! My new friend Sunny came over this weekend and showed me how to make it. I'd been wanting to learn for years ever since I first had it in Korea. You have to cut everything into thin strips which took a lot of time but then the rolling up is kind of fun, I imagine that part is probably similar to sushi. She also showed us how to make two kinds of Korean soup but I'm not crazy about soup. Kimbab is going to be great for bringing to work for lunch, and just in time for summer!

Eggplant Rollups

Any food that can be rolled up or kept inside another food is cool in my book. Which is probably why I was attracted to these eggplant rollups. The eggplant slices are covered in egg, pesto, and breadcrumbs and fried. Then you put ricotta inside, roll them up, and bake them. The hardest part was slicing the eggplants really thin. I didn't do a great job, so I'll have to keep practicing that. Also they wouldn't stay rolled up so I stuck some toothpicks in which did the trick. All in all, a vegetarian success. Which is a relief because I tried another Rachael Ray dish last week, a tortilla chip casserole, which was not so good. That one sounded weird and it was. But this one is definitely worth a try!

Local Grocery Bliss!

We have a lovely independent grocery store nearby that caters more towards the ethnic population here in Naperville (we have a lot of families from India and Pakistan). But the best part of the store is the produce aisle. I'll come away with fresh bunches of everything from mint to lemons to dandelion greens (if i wanted). The best part? Super cheap. One dollar gets me 10 limes or 10 cloves of garlic, or two to three lemons, or packet of cherry tomatoes.

Gotta love fresh produce!

A Saturday night feast

Since I don't know many people out here in SF yet, I've had plenty of time to make some nice meals. Last night I made a southwestern themed meal with combinations of dishes from several recipes.

I made a burger with fresh salsa on top of it. Salsa was just a homemade combo of chopped tomatoes, shallots, garlic, cilantro, jalapeno peppers, lime juice, and salt and pepper. I put salt, pepper, and chili powder in the ground beef when I made the burger.

I also made some chili powder onion rings, taken from this recipe. I don't often fry things, but occasionally I check what little sense of healthy eating that I have at the door and fry away. I just substituted chili powder for the garlic powder to give it a little heat.

Finally I made a southwestern salad, adapted from this recipe. I just left out the shrimp.

It was a bit of a juggle to watch the onion rings and the burger at the same time. I also burned my finger and had a small paper towel fire(!!), but the meal turned out really well.

By the way, if you don't have one consider buying a grill pan. It is a pretty good alternative to real grills and nice to have when you live in an apartment building like I do and grilling outdoors is not an allowable option. This is the one that I own and I've been pretty happy with it - I use it a lot.

pork!

I make a mean tonkatsu (breaded and fried pork) but had little idea what to do when it came to other things. Pork Medallions was totally easy and took less than 20 minutes from start to finish. Paired with Mashed potatoes because the gravy was soooo good, and cranberries that have been in our freezer since thanksgiving--it was easy to whip up a quick sauce.

Yum! Delicious!