Martha Stewart and Korean BBQ

I am a big admirer of Martha Stewart(criminal history aside). She is extremely talented and she has taught herself most of what she knows. However, she is really not a charismatic TV personality. A show featuring Martha is always a bit awkward although she is somehow still likable, perhaps because it makes her seem less than perfect. She can't be great at everything, right? Anyhow, not too long ago on her current show she had on a Korean woman who was a charismatic personality and was great on TV. In my opinion she really showed up Martha Stewart on her own show. She was there to show Martha her Korean BBQ recipe. The recipe is great and I use it frequently. It is marinated meat served wrapped in a lettuce leaf with white rice. This recipe is so good I am sure you will love it if you try it. The link to the recipe and the episode in which it appeared is here, Martha and Korean BBQ. I don't expect to see this woman on the show again. Women like Martha don't like to be overshadowed:)

Steamed dumplings

I have recently become addicted to my bamboo steamer. I found it at the thrift store(surprise, surprise) a few months ago but I was a little intimidated by it and didn't try using it until just the last few weeks. I really love it. Mostly I am using it for vegetables and reheating things but I decided I should try it for something more traditional. So I made pork dumplings from a healthy Asian cookbook I have. The dumplings turned out great and I have been using the steamer almost daily since. It is really great for reheating rice. Normally I am not a big fan of leftover rice because it gets kind of hard and dried out, but if you put it in the steamer for a little bit it comes out tasting like it was just cooked. I lined the steamer with parchment paper(because the holes are pretty wide in the steamer) for the rice.

Future blogs coming soon are Dandelion adventures and Korean BBQ.

Asian Store Finds

Over the weekend I went to the closest Asian Store I can find, which is 70+ miles away. I venture there periodically to stock up on Asian food. We particularly like Wah King Chinese noodles and fresh rice noodles. Also this is where I get dried shitake mushrooms, soy sauce, bamboo shoots and other sauces. The prices are always so reasonable. In addition to our usual items we picked up a couple of noteworthy things. Our favorite new item was "Peanuts Coffee Flavor Coated." This was literally peanuts covered in a coffee flavored shell. The unique thing about it was that it was right in between a salty and a sweet snack. It leaned towards being a salty snack. This was my first experience with anything salty flavored with coffee. It was really quite good.

The other new thing I purchased was mock chicken in a can. Near where my parents live in Seattle there is a Chinese restaurant that is completely vegetarian. You can order chicken, beef or fish but it is all vegetarian and it is really tasty. So when I saw this at the store I had to get it. We have not tried it yet but I will post our thoughts on it when we do. I got mock chicken and duck. It is made of fried gluten. I think it is similar to seitan.

I also got a dark soy sauce which I had not used before. It is thicker and with a more meaty flavor than regular soy sauce.