Kitchen adventures

Since I've been around the house a lot the last few days, I've had a couple opportunities to mess around in the kitchen and attempt to make things. For those of you who do not know me, I really really really like cooking. I like baking desserts and cooking meals and thinking about cooking meals, and tweaking recipes, and all that jazz. It's just fun for me. Back at UF, the roomies and I had family dinners 3-4 times/week. Each of us would cook a meal for four (or more) once a week, and we'd share with each other. It was super efficient and enabled us to get a wide variety of foods, expand our personal recipe books and enjoy each others' company (which reminds me, to the old roomies: can someone send me the recipes for a) cheesy chicken, b) chili, c) chicken soup, and d) crepes? Kthanks)

Yesterday I made mac & cheese from the box. Nothin special there. I added too much butter and milk (you see, the butter here comes in bricks approximate 1 kg in weight, which is just over 2 lbs. It is difficult to guesstimate 4 tablespoons of butter. As for the milk, I don't have measuring cups here, and so I had to eyeball it. not a good idea) but it was tasty nonetheless.

Today I experimented with 도시락 or doshirak. Doshirak is like the Korean version of bento boxes. It is a Korean lunch box of sorts. The tendency these days is to make it a regular rounded meal of different food groups and such. But, the origin of doshirak is quite humble. Doshirak used to be stigmatized as the food of poor rural workers. Doshirak typically consisted only of rice and kimchi, often a fried egg added when money presents itself. If you order a doshirak at a restaurant that doesn't specialize in doshirak, this is pretty much exactly what you will get, a fried egg, some rice and kimchi. Not much, but it's pretty much the three staples of the korean diet. They have become more elaborate, but they remain largely the same, with a base of rice, a side of kimchi, usually an egg. these days, though, they often add some meat to make it more filling.

I tried to make a version of doshirak for myself. I diced up some garlic, and sliced some mushrooms. Sauteed them in a pan. Microwaved one hot dog, sliced. Prepped rice and fried up an egg. Mashed it all together, and there was my late lunch. It was pretty mediocre, I'm not gonna lie. It was wildly underseasoned, and desperately neeeded the kimchi it was lacking. The hot dogs were a great add, but the garlic overwhelmed the dish. If I make this again, which I probably will, I will 86 the garlic, keep the hot dog and toss in some kimchi to round it out. Also, I'll be more careful to season the egg while it's frying (something that I forgot all together).

I have made a particularly fantastic bulgogi doshirak before. I wish that was what I ate for lunch.

I'm thinking I'll make a meat sauce spaghetti tonight for dinner since I didn't last night. ^^

Anyways, tomorrow is D-day. Keep your fingers crossed, say a pray for me, light a candle for me, or do whatever it is you do to protect someone from its downfall. Thanks!

xoxo
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