Boiled Pork Belly (Korean Homecooking)

My mother-in-law's recipe:

Pork Belly
5 whole black pepper
2 bay leaves

1. Boil 40 minutes.
2. Boil longer if the pork belly is thick.

깍두기 (ggakdoogi/ spicy Korean radish)

내가 처음만든 깍두기 나름대로 괜친다. 

Sugar

Salt

Radish

Red pepper powder

Garlic

1. Sprinkle sugar and salt. 

2. Sit for 30 min and drain. 

3. Marinate with red pepper powder and garlic. 

Green Curry Chicken (Homecooking)

It's been awhile since I've made green curry. My mother-in-law taught me this recipe. I remember the main ingredients but I can't remember if I'm supposed to add garlic. She's on vacation in Costa Rica so I can't even ask. Times like this reminds me how important it is to take good notes of her recipes. 

Red/yellow/orange peppers

Onion

Green curry (small can)

Coconut Milk (2 cans)

Chicken breast 

1. Sauté peppers and chicken. 

2. Add green curry and coconut milk. 

3. Reduce to desired consistency. 

Easy BBQ Chicken (Crockpot Homecooking)

Bear got home around 10:30pm last night, so I didn't make have to make dinner (hurray!). I also have a cold. When he got home I finally started thinking about lunch the next day but it was too late. So I turned to my trusty slowcooker that can do the work for me while I sleep (double hurray!).

Surprisingly once I gave up trying to make edible pulled pork in this machine, I've actually used it for some delicious meals. When I first bought my crockpot I had dreams that it would prepare all my meals and life would be a breeze. Then reality hit. Food was bland and had the consistency of wet saw dust. For the past two years, this crockpot has seen some terrible times (mostly because I was trying to make pulled pork with recipes off the internet that involved making my own rub and kept adding a mix of ingredients in the hopes it would taste better. It didn't.).

Then, I figured it out - cook on low heat. Since then I have made delicious 갈비탕 (rib bone soup)....and today, BBQ chicken. 

Easy BBQ Chicken (Slow cooker/ Crockpot)

Chicken thighs boneless

Chicken broth

BBQ sauce

1. Emerge chicken in chicken broth until just covered. 

2. Mix in some BBQ to give meat and broth flavour.  

3. Cook low 4 - 4.5 hours. 

4. Drain broth and mix in more BBQ sauce to taste. 

Finally a slow cooker chicken recipe that works. And I didn't have a recipe. I just made it up. I don't know what is more surprising. 

Lunch? No problem! 

Valentine's Day Dinner (Brainstorming)

Bear doesn't like downtown. He doesn't like crowds.

The solution - make Valentine's Day dinner.

I want to try making ribeye steaks + lobster tails. While looking for a good recipe, I came upon this.

And steak university?

Korean Spicy Seafood Fried Rice (Homecooking)

I absolutely love this dish and the recipe is all mine. Whenever I have leftover basmati rice I like to make this dish to pack as lunch for Bear. It's spicy sweet and unlike most fried rice, it only calls for a tablespoon of EVO. It's like a paella but not because it represents Korean flavours.  

Spicy Seafood Fried Rice 

Mixed frozen seafood

EVO

Minced onions

Minced zucchini

Chopped french green beans

Basmati rice 

Salt and pepper to taste

Korean hot pepper paste

Sesame seed oil 

Soy sauce

Mirin

Sugar (or other sweetener)

1. Sauté onions and zucchini in olive oil. 

2. Add seafood and paste. 

3. Add cold leftover basmati rice (works wonderfully if basmati is hard or seems undercooked)

5. Reduce to desired dry-ness of the rice. 

6. Enjoy a big bowl. 

I don't use measurements. You can adjust depending on your taste. I probably make it a little differently everytime but it still turns out satisfyingly good. 

Ikea Swedish Meatballs (Ikea)

I tried this dish for the first time with my sister in New Jersey (pre-horse meat scare) after purchasing a desk for her new place. I don't know why I thought the dish was so tasty back then.

So today, after forgetting to pack my lunch, I was driving around Vaughan looking for a cheap meal to tide me over. (I also lost my debit and credit card so I was low on funds).

On my drive, I noticed Ikea and decided to try the swedish meatballs again.


(not my picture...apparently I paid too much for this meal. Sometimes Ikea offers this dish for a ridiculous price of $1.00. Is it still worth it? Probably not.)

Big mistake #1: Despite being heavily salted, the meatball and mashed potatoes lack flavour. You find yourself dousing the food in an even-saltier sauce to generate some flavour.

But you don't really notice the salt until after the meal.. and then it hits you with a - Bang!

I can still taste the salt in the back of my throat two hours after lunch and downing a bottle of water. This is what happens when you consume 1820 mg of sodium in one dish, when it is recommended that people over the age of 14 should eat no more than 2300 mg of sodium per day (people over the age of one don't need any more sodium than 1000-1500mg per day).

At the same time, the smoothness of the mashed potatoes and soft moist meatballs (which are soft and moist of all the oil/fat that drizzles out when you give the meatballs a squeeze) and sweet lingonberry is texture-wise an easy meal to chew and down your gullet ... and likely the reason for so many seniors at the Ikea Restaurant Cafe (assuming they like soft and salty food). I have to say the lingonberry was the best part of the meal and they just gave me a teaspoon of it.

I'm going to have to go back to the gym tonight just to sweat out some salt.

In the meantime, I'm going to grab another bottle of water.

I would come back for:
Cheap furniture and other Swedish non-food items

Lackluster:
Ikea Swedish Meatballs

Squash Fritters (I need to make this)

http://program.sbs.co.kr/builder/endPage.do?pgm_id=00000350336&pgm_mnu_id=9002&pgm_build_id=50&pageIdx=1&listOrder=regDtDesc&searchCondition=title&searchKeyword=&contNo=10000367819

Turbot Stew (Korean Homecooking)

I'm beginning to realize why so many people love and swear by this pot. 

It's versatile. Cooks food beautifully and it's so cute to look at.  

Sometimes I can't believe that I have to use my rice cooker twice in one day. First time, it was basmati rice for dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow and the second time, mixed grain lentil rice for dinner for Bear. Turbot stew is on the menu for dinner tomorrow. This is a dish my mom made at home. My dad likes this dish. And it's the first time I'm making it for Bear. I think the sauce came out too sweet from the mirin in the marinade. Now I know why mom didn't use mirin in this dish. Oh well.  

Patak's Butter Chicken Sauce (Costco)

So I've been craving Indian food lately, but my attempts to get  Bear to join me for some Indian food have been unsuccessful. A friend recommended Lahore Tikka House (downtown) as the best Indian she's ever had and I really want to go. I'll have to save that one for another outing with friends. 

So instead today, when I spotted Patak's Butter Chicken and Chicken Breasts on sale at Costco, I saw it as a sign from the food heavens - I'm making butter chicken tonight. And I did. 

And not only that. I decided to inaugurate my Le Crueset french oven (a $200 purchase justified only by the fact that it on sale and I didn't have to pay the full ridiculous full price of $400, and you can use it forever, and wouldn't it pay for itself with all the great meals I can cook with it with cheap cuts of meat, and everyone who has one seems to love it, and and and I wanted it so badly etc... Happy early birthday/x-mas?) with butter chicken. 

So I followed the instructions on the jar. The result was watery and bland, so I added some garam masala, carmadone, salt and butter and let it reduce to a desired thickness. 

Bear was at his parents and surprisingly he came home to have dinner of butter chicken instead of his mom's standard amazing/best-Korean-food-I've-ever-had/better-than-mom's-cooking  homemade dinner. He came home hungry and he really really liked it - highfive liked it! (highfives at the dinner table are only reserved for really tasty meals). 

The surprise is - it was just ok for me. I ate my butter chicken quietly and decided I won't be buying this sauce again. It lacked the deep rich flavour that I know and love about butter chicken. The real stuff. This is a toned-down shadow of what butter chicken could be - not flavorful enough, not rich enough, not creamy enough. In any event, I still have one more bottle so that'll be enough to tide Bear over if he ever wants butter chicken again. 

I'm packing him this for lunch tomorrow so he probably won't be asking me for more butter chicken anytime soon. 

MSG and other food additives

Whenever I eat foods with large quantities of MSG (ie. instant noodles, chinese restaurant food etc.), I wake up in the morning with swelling. The swelling is most noticeable in my hands. This morning, after a late-night snack of instant noodles after a winterlicious dinner at Pangaea, I woke up to so much swelling in the hands that it felt tight when I clenched my hands to make a fist. 

MSG is a mysterious ingredient to me. I know it's "bad" and I do dutifully check the label for MSG before considering making a purchase (usually...almost always, this is instant/junk food). Then there are foods that I know that contain MSG but I will choose to have it anyways. Instant noodles is one of such items. I know it's bad for me, but I don't care until the next morning.

After going to the gym, I felt so much better, and since I had some free time on a Sunday afternoon, I decided to do some light (*emphasis on light) research on MSG.

Then I hit upon this website.

This website contains a lot of information, if true, should make me a wiser eater. Did I read it from top to bottom? No. Here are the notes I took from the website for future reference.

• "FDA does not require manufacturers to label these foods MSG unless the added ingredient is 99% pure MSG."

• "If MSG is produced as a result of protein hydrolysis or a byproduct of protein processing, the FDA does not require MSG to appear on the label."

•  "Moreover, a product labeled “No MSG” may still have MSG or free glutamic acid as a result of protein processing, as long as pure MSG was not added."

• "Glutamic acid found in unadulterated “whole food” protein does not cause adverse reactions. To cause adverse reactions, the glutamic acid must have been processed/manufactured or come from protein that has been fermented."

• "Names of ingredients that always contain processed free glutamic acid:

• Glutamic Acid (E 620)2
• Glutamate (E 620)
• Monosodium Glutamate (E 621)
• Monopotassium Glutamate (E 622)
• Calcium Glutamate (E 623)
• Monoammonium Glutamate (E 624)
• Magnesium Glutamate (E 625)
• Natrium Glutamate
• Yeast Extract
• Anything hydrolyzed
• Any hydrolyzed protein
• Calcium Caseinate
• Sodium Caseinate
• Yeast Food
• Yeast Nutrient
• Autolyzed Yeast
• Gelatin
• Textured Protein
• Soy Protein Isolate
• Whey Protein Isolate
• Anything :protein
• Vetsin
• Ajinomoto

From time to time, I remind Bear that I'm the queen of the kitchen. I control 90% if not 100% of what we eat in our daily lives. The saying 'we are what we eat' rings true. I should educate myself more about food and nutrition.

"2월 7일 2013년에 이다혜 만나서 참 다행이야."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tiana-brown/what-ive-learned-from-fighting_b_4169452.html

Pangaea (Yorkville)

Today marks the two year anniversary I met Bear. I made reservations for a special dinner tonight a week ago. Since then, I've read mixed reviews about this restaurant. I thought about changing my reservations to a different restaurant but decided in the end to stick with Pangaea. Pangaea is a Yorkville restaurant, the receptionist will address you by "Madame" and almost all the waiters at restaurant are middle aged white males. Today I moved up my reservations from 6:15pm to 4:45pm because Bear was hungry.

The setting was elegant and quiet, then as more guests arrived it became loud and crowded. I preferred the quiet ambience. We opted for the winterlicious menu and an appetizer off the regular menu. It was the appetizer that blew me away. The waiter split the appetizer for us in two plates, which was a nice touch. The rest of the meal was nothing special. It did not help that the waiter/chef lost our mains dish order, and we had to wait close to half and hour for our main course. The portion size was fine and the food did seem wholesome.

I would come back for:

Grilled Calamari (best calamari I've ever had. Perfectly seasoned with olives and capers and that "fire" taste. I would come back just to have this again)

Soup (celeriac) 

Lackluster:

Duck (lukewarm and slightly gamey)

Cinnamon toasted creme brûlée (way too sweet and over spiced)

Mushroom risotto (creamy undercooked rice - and where are the mushrooms?)

Lemon bar (I could not eat this because of the eggy-fishy taste from the whipped topping and lemon bar itself. The meringue batons and mystery red fruit (really want to know what this is) mango coulis was refreshing and sweet. It was disappointing because I've read that their lemon bars are delicious. I did manage to sneak in a picture due to my initial excitement.) 

Today was a difficult day. Bear and I are very different. He told me today that he does not like coming downtown because there are too many people. He said that he compromises by coming to dinner with me downtown but he doesn't like to come down often. I am the opposite. I love coming downtown and trying out new restaurants and just walking about. I'm debating whether I should keep exposing him to these experiences in the hopes that he will learn to love as I do or if I should just stick to downtown outings with friends. What should I do??

He also told me today that he liked the food at PF Chang's better than Pangaea. Gah....

Good news is that on our way back home, I noticed - BUA THAI - which to my recollection has the BEST summer rolls I've ever had, period. Three years go I was in the area for a job interview and went in for a quick bite. The summer rolls were full of fresh veggies and perfectly prepared noodles and fresh shrimp - must go back!

At home, Bear cooked Shin Ramyun in leftover beef rib broth. Sooo good. Our tummies are happy - we are no longer cranky - and the today is finally as it should be. 

PF Chang's (Shops at Don Mills)

Yesterday, Bear was working late and I decided to take advantage of the winterlicious opportunities around that neighbourhood. Low and behold, my first instinct was to find a Thai restaurant, and did make reservations for Linda Modern Thai at Shops at Don Mills. Then I remembered, I did not have a memorable experience at this restaurant.

So instead, I decided to try something - and that "something new" was PF Chang's. Either on urbanspoon or yelp had good reviews and described the restaurant as a US chain that had recently opened a location in Canada. One posting likened the dining experience at PF Chang's to "eating Chinese food at the Keg" - and it was exactly that. The atmosphere was clean and very Keg-like. Our server was attentive, the food came out quickly and it seemed to me that the food did not have a usual MSG-taste in cheap Chinese restaurants (this is not to said that they don't use additives - because I did experience the usual food additive swelling of face and hands in the morning - but perhaps not as severe as after eating at the usual hangouts).

The Winterlicious Dinner ($25) and their usual Dinner for Two ($24.99) ... what am I missing here. This made the entire point of coming here for winterlicious moot. I made Bear order the winterlicious option so that I could get the Ma Po Tofu and ordered an additional appetizer.

The yelp recommended "dynamite shrimp", which was small deep fried shrimp doused in Bear's fav - mayo-siracha hot sauce. Nothing spectacular except for the look of delight it is able to bring on Bear's face. Bear's favourite condiment isn't honey - it's mayo.

The veggie spring roll was nice (new kinds of veggies other than the usual cabbage etc.) but tasted processed. The wonton soup had nice pork dumplings with ginger which I enjoyed (then later regreted after reading that chinese restaurant soups and sauces are flavoured with food additives). 

The sesame chicken was kind of like 양념치킨 (korean fried chicken). The Ma Po Tofu was deep fried and the sauce pleasant (loved that it wasn't overwhelming or salty). I especially enjoyed the "fire" flavour that comes from foods cooked in very high temperature.

All in all, I enjoyed the food at PF Chang's and the fortune cookie was a hoot. I considered coming back to try out other items on their menu as I walked out of the restaurant and waited for my $3 valet parking.  

We were full and didn't have room for dessert. The New York style cheesecake we brought home - was so good with raspberry coulis - right before bed. The carrot cake was moist, light and soft (like of like cinnamon cake) but it wasn't my cake so I only had one bite.

Yes. I went to bed very full. Never a good idea. I'm surprised I didn't get nightmares. 

But that was after. 

After waking up to some swelling in the morning, I hit "msg" and "PF Chang's" on  google and I find out that PF Chang's does not use MSG (good!) but they may use something worse - a mysterious food additive derived from yeast - it has neither been confirmed or denied - what the heck. 

Good feelings are gone. I won't be going back. But now I'm curious to try the Japanese restaurant next door - Kabuki. 

Thai Restaurants (Toronto & GTA)

My bear likes Thai food, so when we are not having Korean or Japanese food we are always on the lookout for a good Thai restaurant. 

We still need to try:

* Sukho Thai

* Mengrai Gourmet Thai

* Golden Thai Restaurant

* Khao San Road

___________________________________________________

Sabai Sabai Kitchen and Bar (near Bond Hotel)

225 Church Street, Toronto

Tapas Style

I would go back for:

* morning glory stirfry (the reviews were true - crunchy light veggie with delicious flavourful sauce)

* butternut squash fritter (satisfying treat and fun to eat)

* beerlao (bear liked this alot)

Lackluster:

* sausage (mediocre)

* coconut shrimp (mediocre)

* pad thai (too salty)

* tom yum soup (too sour and sweet)

* satay skewers (mediocre)

Thai Fusion (near St. Lawrence Market - a chance find back in the days of scrambling for good food with an haangry bear in tow after a tuxedo fitting)

47 Colbourne Street, Toronto

Sit down dining

I would go back for:

* appetizers (never had a bad spring roll here)

Lackluster

* pad thai (too tomatoey and eggy-fishy)

Thai Bistro (our go-to Pho restaurant in North York)

5306 Yonge St, North York 

Sit down dining

I've only had appetizers and Pho here.

I would go back for:

* special combination Pho (their meat:noodle ratio is perfect!)

Lackluster

* spring roll (not a fan of the mashed taro/turnip filler in their rolls)

* shrimp roll (shrimp was rubbery and same mashed taro/turnip business)

* summer roll (worst I've every had. the shrimp was tasteless and bland. the noodles were bloated and dissolving from absorbing too much water)

Pai ( near Queen St./University Ave.)

18 Duncan Street

Sit down dining

I tried this restaurant with friends for dinner after we were booted from Byblos for lack of reservations.

The atmosphere was good (very dim lights, a bit crowded and busy), but I can't  remember what I ate here. Whatever it was, I think it was just okay, because I didn't feel the need to go back. 

Linda Modern Thai (Shops by Don Mills)

11 Karl Fraser Rd., North York

Sit down dining

We tried this restaurant once for summerlicious 2014.

This is a Salad King sister restaurant ( my one-time lunch at Salad was bland and tasteless.)

I would go back for:

* tiny rolled veggie appetizer that was quite literally the size of my thumb

Lackluster:

* Crispy Beef Panang (Beef is coated in crispy batter -  the sauce is so rich and creamy. It was not easy to eat more than 2-3 bites.)

* dessert (nothing special)

Bua Thai (Avenue Road)
150 Avenue Road
Sit down dining
I tried this restaurant once three years ago.
I just had the summer rolls & I would definitely go back for that!