First day of work in 2011...

So today was my first day back to work in the new year...

I held out as long as I could.  It wasn't too bad and I had a fabulous lunch!

Kimchi

Dan and I spent the morning at Asian markets in Portland gathering ingredients for a big ol' batch of kimchi and kaktugi.  We came home, salted the cabbage and radish and then took "the moose" out for a bit of a brisk winter constitutional.  After freezing my left buttock off at the Lacamas Heritage Trail, the radish and cabbage were discovered to be considerably reduced and juicy.  I turned them over to sweat further and started on the task of mixing up the kimchi base.  

Below is the product of 2 heads of napa cabbage, 2 korean radishes, rice flour, sugar, 4 heads of garlic, 4+ cups of red chili powder, fish sauce, onion, green onion, ginger, garlic chives and shrimp paste.  

(I couldn't bring myself to add the oysters...) 

I tasted it as I was putting it in the jars and, just like Maangchi said, it already tasted great!  I prefer my kimchi  more fermented and sour tasting so it's going to stay on the counter for a couple of days...

I also made a couple of side dishes to add to our lunches tomorrow.  

kimchijeon

gaji namul

Today was an adventure in Korean cookery and certain not to be my last...

Weekly Meal Planning

I spent large chunks of the day pouring through some of my many cookbooks looking for new, exciting, healthy, vegetarian friendly, seasonal deliciousness to place on the menu for this week.  Oh, the meals also have to be relatively quick to prepare since our weeknights are absolute craziness.

Here are a few of the things that I came up with:

Pasta with Eggplants (from the "The Italian Cooking Encyclopedia")
Foxy Soup Noodles (from "Washoku: Recipes from the Japanese Home Kitchen")
Twice Baked Potatoes with Stout Braised Onions and Kale (from "Farm to Table" cookbook)
Herbed Spaetzle and Braised Red Cabbage (from "Farm to Table" cookbook)

I also have about a thousand Korean recipes that I want to whip up for lunches this week.  The kids are "picky" (in a "the-boy-is-pretty-sure-that-he-doesn't-like-anything-that-he-hasn't-eaten-in-the-past-week-or-two-and-the-girl-is-strictly-vegetarian-which-is-somewhat-limiting" sort of way...) so lunches are the best opportunity for experimentation.

NEW OBSESSION ALERT!!!!!
I LOVE the www.maangchi.com website!!!  Fabulous Korean recipes with videos and step-by-step directions and pictures for tons of recipes.  I can't wait to try them!  Korean food is awesome!  I love the way the meal can be made up of all the little side dishes and a bowl of rice.  Never boring! But I digress...

Tomorrow, since I have the day off work, (YAY!!!) will involve a trip to the local asian grocery and Chuck's Produce Market to procure the necessary ingredients for the week's meals and a Korean side dish preparation session.  I'll try to post pics.  We're also planning a stroll along the Willamette.
It's sure to be cold but we just can't pass up the beautiful blue skies we've been having the past couple of days.

2011, so far so good...