Warmer Weather

The weather has gotten so much warmer that I decided not to wear my long underwear for my triumphant return to school after the spring break. I guess the school agreed with me; the central heating was shut off. *shiver*

Crockpot “Hollandaise” Roast Chicken :)

I made this for dinner tonight... I was skeptical, but it turned out great! And it was really easy, too :)

Crockpot “Hollandaise” Roast Chicken

http://littlehouseinthesuburbs.com/2012/03/crockpot-hollandaise-roast-chicken.html

Ingredients:

one hen, icky gibblet bag removed

salt (and/or preferred seasoning blend)

Aluminum foil

3-6 egg YOLKS

1-2T lemon juice

pinch salt

possible extra slosh of olive oil or wad of butter if you can have it

Directions:

1.  Place rinsed, dried hen in crockpot, breast side up, on a big enough wad of aluminum foil to keep it off the bottom, but not touching the top.  Season well with salt and/or seasoning blend.  (We like creole seasoning!)

2.  Heat on low for, six hours, then crank to high for last hour. (Or you can do the reverse, I think. It’s just to crisp the outside.)

3.  Remove chicken and allow to rest.

4.  Pour “drippin’s” through a sieve to remove big yuck flakes. Eyeball how much it is.  (Different chickens give off different amounts of liquid.)

5.  Place not-scalding-hot drippin’s in a medium saucepan.

6.  For every one cup of liquid, beat together three yolks and a tablespoon of lemon juice.

7.  Add egg mixture to not-scalding-totally-make-poached-eggs-immediately drippin’s and beat.

8.  Doubt that there is enough fat in there to emulsify properly, and slosh in a glug of olive oil or dump in a few pats of butter. (I can’t have butter.)

9.  Heat on medium-low, whipping constantly, until thickened.

10.  Taste, adjust seasoning (remember all that seasoning you put on the hen before you cooked her before you try to salt it again.)

Serve over chicken….it’s HEAVEN.

YUM!!!!

Bread

So I finished the last day of school before spring break, and on the way home I stop by Paris Baguette to pick up some bread since we were out.

Holy crap, I was just there 2 days ago!!! Where do I get my bread now??? So I got some bread from the corner store as an emergency measure, but it was only so so. And bread here in Korea is already not so great so...

I decided to learn how to bake bread. I've been making my own bread for years, ever since I got my first bread machine back in college, but I've never made bread by hand before.

After reading around on the internet, I made the New York Times No Knead Bread. It made a nice looking, rustic loaf :) As promised it had a crunchy crust and a holey crumb.

However, Haley and I decided we didn't really like our crust that crunchy. So I found an alteration of that recipe: The Cook's Illustrated Almost No Knead Bread. 

We also wanted our bread to be a sandwich loaf, rather than a round boule, so I bought a loaf pan (for the low, low price of $19! Yeah, that's Korea...)

Result: Yay!!! Yummy sandwich bread at home :) I made a white loaf and then a whole wheat loaf, and both turned out well. Softer crust, finer crumb... And tasty :) Here's a photo of the remains of our whole wheat loaf (it used to be rather larger!)

Oh, and it turns out Paris Baguette is just being renovated; they'll be back in business on the 6th :)

Avocados

Dinner last night was baked potato wedges, toast, and herb cheese omelet. With AVOCADO. We haven't had any avocados for a long time, and last night's avocado was delicious :)

Location:Jwa 3(sam)-dong,Busan,South Korea

Salmon Dinner

I was complaining to my Korean coworker about the stupid, bony little fish they eat here, and how sad I was when I cooked fish for dinner and we got bones in every bite. She explained that in a Korean family, the mom cooks the fish and then *picks through it with chopsticks*, removing the bones for everyone in the family. No, really. Happily, a Canadian coworker overheard our conversation and mentioned that Emart has salmon fillets for sale. Oh yeah! When I bought the fillets, the fish monger explained that it was imported from Chile. Wow. Anyhow, tonight's (very late) dinner: teriyaki marinated salmon, rice, and broccoli. :)

Location:Jwa-dong,Busan,South Korea

They're not kidding...

No joke, this recipe really does make the Absolute Best Pancake Syrup!

Makes: 2 1/2 cups of syrup

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup buttermilk

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon corn syrup or honey

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

* buttermilk substitute

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 cup milk (less 1 tbsp)

Directions:

Bring butter, sugar, buttermilk, vanilla extract, corn syrup, and cinnamon to a simmer in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Once simmering, whisk in baking soda. It will foam up quite a bit; whisk and cook for 5 more minutes or so (till the foam is mostly gone) before removing from heat. Serve warm.

Notes:

If you don't have buttermilk, measure 1 tbsp lemon juice into 1 cup and fill the rest of the way with milk.

The milk will curdle as the mixture boils. Don't worry -- it'll be fine after you whisk it :)

The syrup will thicken as it cools, so make it up before you start cooking your pancakes and it will be perfect by the time you need it :)

Good News, Bad News, Annoying

We finally went down to the cell phone store to look into getting a cell phone for Haley. Since I already have a plan, and Haley is under 13, they have a special deal. For only 10,000 ₩ a month (less than $10), Haley would get unlimited incoming calls, 300 minutes to call me, and 66 minutes to call anyone else (her friends). When the minutes are gone, they're gone, so she can't rack up a big phone bill. Crazy awesome, right?! That's the good news. The bad news is that in order to get the family plan, we have to prove that we're family. Having the same last name and looking alike isn't enough (there are only a few family names in Korea, and all waygookin look alike), nor are my guardianship papers. So we have to go to the immigration office and get the official Certificate of Family. Which will probably be a good thing to have, but I wish I'd heard about it earlier (this summer, for example, when I had to be at the immigration office anyhow). The Immigration Office, being a government office, is only open from 9am to 4pm. Nor are they open on holidays. So Haley's cell phone will have to wait until spring break, which is only 2 weeks off. The annoying? That would be the explicit, non-refundable foreigner fee we have to pay to get a cell phone. The idea is that they pool those fees to pay the cell phone bills of those foreigners who skip out on their bills. One the one hand, I guess it makes sense... On the other hand, it's pretty prejudiced :( Still, even with the fee, it's a better deal than I've ever heard of for a kid's cell phone :)

European Home Ec.

I have two tricks that I've picked up in the last couple of years that are super awesome and I wish I'd learned them earlier!

1.     Duvet + Duvet cover rather than flat sheet + blankets. Holy smokes!!!

Time to wash my sheets? Wash the pillowcases, fitted sheet, and duvet cover. The comforter stays clean because it's wrapped in the duvet cover, safe from dirt. Before, when I had a flat sheet and blankets, I washed the sheets every week or two but the blankets? Maybe twice a year. And since sometimes I'd kick the flat sheet to the foot of the bed and wake up wrapped in my blankets... Yeah, now that I think about it that's kinda gross. The duvet cover is like a giant pillowcase, so you can't kick it off without losing the whole duvet. There's a trick to putting it back on quickly and easily: wash the duvet cover inside out. Then you stick your arms inside the bottom opening of the duvet cover and grab the top corners with your hands. Then just shake the duvet cover down over the duvet :)

Time to make the bed in the morning? Nothing simpler! Throw the pillow to the top of the bed from where ever it's migrated to. Grab the duvet. Shake it a couple of times and then throw it onto the bed. Elapsed time: 30 seconds :)

2.     Measure by weight rather than volume when cooking. 

This is amazing. Get a digital kitchen scale. They cost about $30, and are *totally worth it*. Put your mixing bowl on the scale, and turn it on. The scale will ignore the bowl and read 0. Add your ingredients by weight (you can google how much a cup of something should weigh, or just measure it one last time and weigh it), and zero the scale between ingredients. You don't have to use measuring cups, so there are fewer dishes. You don't have to worry about whether your flour is properly sifted or your brown sugar is properly packed. Recipes are much more consistant, and did I mention the part about fewer dishes??? 

Night Owls

Last night I got the urge to make chocolate chip cookies. I had the flour all measured out and the butter melting on the stove when I realized that I didn't have enough eggs. Aarrrgh! So I set out to see if the corner store was open to pick up some eggs. Open? Yes. Eggs? No. But the bigger store two doors down was *also* open. At 11:30PM. *grin*

Cellier des Dauphins

Upshot: meh...

Cost: less than $10

Notes: major points for being a *grape* wine, but definitely not a fantastic one. Kinda sour, kinda thin. However, better than several I've had in the last few
Months, and cheaper. Overall, an ok cheap wine, but not something I would serve to guests.

Location:Jwa-dong,Busan,South Korea

My Bed

I was remaking my bed this morning after changing my sheets (juggling laundry when everything has to hang dry in the winter is an adventure) when I realized I'd never posted any pics of my fitted sheets that I made. Well, actually, I never finished them, so I have really big flat sheets that I tuck under all the way around. They work just fine, and look fairly snazzy :) Here's the purple set; next time I change my sheets I'll try to post a photo of the blue set (don't hold your breath; winter has me on a much longer sheet-changing cycle).

Location:Jwa 3(sam)-dong,Busan,South Korea

Geoge Island

Today Haley and I took the subway halfway across town to meet up with the family of a couple of my students. They're originally from Poland and have been here for seven years. They have a car, so are able to travel places that can't be reached by public transit. We all piled in, including the dog, and drove forever to get to a place called Geoge Island, to the southeast of Busan.

The land around there has lots of waterways, so first we drive over a few bridges. However, instead of a bridge one section has a tunnel; a concrete tube lying on the floor of the bay. My photos didn't turn out; one tunnel looks the same as another :p



The big attraction of the island was walking the dog on the beach; it's deserted enough to let him off the leash for a while.




Korean beaches aren't very warm in February though, so we didn't stay more than an hour. Then we went out to lunch at some all-you-can-eat place where you pick out raw meat from a buffet and bring it back to the table to fry there. It was pretty good; Haley and I both ate a lot of meat :) Then back to town, where they showed me some good places to shop, including the "secret" bakers supply stores :) After parting from them, we hopped onto the subway to get as close to Costco as we could before taking a taxi the rest of the way. Hundreds of dollars later, we took a taxi home and put away our groceries. Dinner tonight? Brie and donuts! Super healthy :)

Deviled Eggs and Strawberry Pie

This weekend I made deviled eggs and strawberry pie. The deviled eggs turned out great. I used lemon juice instead of the vinegar and I like it so well I think I'll use lemon juice from now on. Here's the original recipe:

Deviled Eggs

Servings: 12

Ingredients:

6 eggs
1/4 cup mayonnaise (1.8 oz, 51 g)
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon yellow mustard (.07 oz, 2 g)
1/8 teaspoon salt
paprika

Directions:

Put eggs into a pot of cold water and bring to a boil. Let boil for one minute, then cover tightly, remove from heat, and let sit for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, use cold water to chill the eggs as quickly as possible, to avoid a green ring.

Halve hard-cooked eggs lengthwise; remove yolks and mash. Use back of spoon to completely pulverize chunks. Add mayo, mustard, salt, and vinegar and mix. Hand mixer may be necessary for double batch. Refill whites with yolk mixture; sprinkle paprika on top to taste.

Hint: if you're taking your deviled eggs to a potluck, put the filling into a Ziploc bag. When you get there, cut the corner off of the bag and use it to pipe the filling into the eggs (like frosting).

Source: Better Homes & Gardens; alterations by Marilynn and Meg Claypool.

My strawberry pie was less successful. The crust turned out great, but the filling was not so excellent. My crust recipe is here:

http://mobile.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/07/easy-pie-dough-recipe.html

It's by another of those fantastic "cooking as science" not just art chefs I love. He has an article about why the crust works the way it does here:

http://mobile.sweets.seriouseats.com/2011/07/the-food-lab-the-science-of-pie-how-to-make-pie-crust-easy-recipe.html

I think I may have mentioned this recipe before, but it's so awesome that it bears repeating :)

Now I have to go score about a million midterm exams in time to turn in grades in two days :p

Holy crap, it's cold!

Walking to school this morning, we agreed it was pretty damn cold. Haley said it was below freezing, but I disagreed... Turns out she was right. It's about 15˚F outside right now!!! This is definitely the coldest weather I've ever been in. My face hurts, my nose runs, my eyes water... Still way better than the summer though. I think I'll go buy us some scarves this weekend :)

Bad News/Good News

Sadly, the logic board of my laptop is fried. Damn. It'll cost about $1,700 to fix. So I guess I'll be buying a new computer. Of course, if I order one here, the keyboard will be in Korean. But ordering a MacBook from the US will be... complicated :p Oh well, I'll get it figured out.

On the plus side: I'm lying in bed, with a bowl of strawberries and a glass of champagne getting ready to watch the latest episode of Fringe. I've got a bowl of pizza sauce mixed up on the counter and pizza dough rising on the table... :) :) :)

Hoist by my own stupidity

Two nights ago I managed to knock a water bottle over onto my laptop in my sleep. Woke up in a puddle of water with my metallic, plugged in computer. The power supply was fried; better it than me. Not sure yet whether the computer will be ok once it dries out - hopefully, since the water should evaporate without a lot of residue... Though the battery isn't removable in this computer, unlike my last one, which makes me a little nervous. Guess we'll find out tomorrow...

Location:Jwa-dong, Busan, South Korea

My Mommy Sent me Christmas

I got to my friends' house tonight to hang out for Thanksgiving, and one of the first things they mentioned was "Nox's Boxes". Yes, my care packages from Mom arrived :) I was expecting most of it, but I was really, really touched by the little things she included. She sent some of our traditional Christmas decorations, and The Polar Express book that we read every Christmas Eve... She sent our Christmas stockings! Intriguingly stuffed... -- even one for Hooligan! I almost cried... Thanks Mom :) :) :)

A Little Math

I bought beef yesterday. I wanted to make beef stew and chili, so I needed beef. 340 grams of ground beef cost me 12,000W, and the beef stew meat was on sale for 3,480W per 100 grams. In Imperial? I spent about 12 bucks on 3/4 a pound of hamburger, and the stew meat was on sale for about $15 per pound. Yeah...

Yay Chocolate Chip Cookies!

As soon as we got our oven, Haley wanted to make chocolate chip cookies. We didn't actually get around to it until the next weekend, but when we did, the cookies tasted great. Alas, they were only about a millimeter thick, but they were very yummy :-/ So I figured I needed to adjust my recipe; maybe add more flour so it wouldn't spread out so much in the oven. This has happened to me before, though never to such an extreme. I make good oatmeal cookies, but I've never made a batch of chocolate chip cookies I was proud of... Meanwhile, I happened across a chocolate chip cookie recipe online that claimed to be for Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies, written by the folks who made my favorite cookbook (thanks Grandma!). Naturally, I had to try it! Holy moly, I've finally made thick, chewy, delicious cookies!!!

The recipe only makes about 20 cookies, so I'll need to make another batch (or two...) so I can bring some cookies to school to share with all the people who helped me get my oven :) :) :) Meanwhile, I suggest you click on the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies and give them a try yourself :)

Mushroom Soup

Today I found mushroom soup in the store. This is a big deal, because Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup was at the top of my "American Products" wishlist. However, one of my co-workers told me that a local convenience store had Campbells, and another mentioned, "Don't waste too much money -- they have packages of mushroom soup mix here that are pretty good." So I went to the convenience store armed with my iPod, and played pictionary/charades with the sales clerk. Drawing with my fat finger on an iPod touch is not an exercise in precision, but it's a lot better than nothing!

They did not, apparently, have Campbell's soups. I wandered every aisle before asking for help, and couldn't locate any. But she *did* have the mushroom soup packets! $1.50 apiece, they make about 4 cups of mushroom soup :)  I have no idea how they taste on their own, but I used one tonight to make chicken/mushroom/rice casserole, and it turned out very well :) 

I'm so glad that a) I have an oven and b) the weather has cooled off enough that I can *use* it without dying!

Saturday we're walking to school at 6am to hop on a bus to Haley's soccer tournament. After she plays soccer all day, we're going to hop in Ivy's car (she's driving rather than riding in the bus) and we're driving up to Seoul for the rest of our 3 day weekend :) So I'll be able to pick up my garb etc that is cluttering up some nice person's house and meet the SCA people I've been corresponding with.

Hopefully while we're up there I can find a cell phone company that is used to dealing with foreigners so I can arrange to get an iPhone 5 when they come out!

Meanwhile, I have to do this weekend's lesson planning tonight and tomorrow, since I won't be around to do it this weekend...