Kimchee Mandu

While I was at the Korean grocery store, I thought I would try and make some mandu again. This is something that I have done on intermittent occasion in the past, but the last time I made any was during finals in law school. And, since my students will have their final this friday, I thought it was about time for another go. The last time, I made a shrimp, tofu, and spinach mandu. It was really dry. This time, I wanted to go for something a little more traditional. And so, kimchee mandu.

we've moved

we're moving over to wordpress. mobile users will see the biggest change.

http://cookingkos.wordpress.com

thanks for reading.

10 Year Reunion: Late Night - Del Taco

When I think about the food I ate in St. Louis, the list just wouldn't be complete without Del Taco. And so, after breakfast at Uncle Bill's, lunch at Seamus McDaniel's, dinner at Rigazzi's, awkward but ultimately enjoyable reunion drinks at Blueberry Hill, and a nightcap at Halo Bar, my wife drove me over to Del Taco.

10 Year Reunion: Dinner - Rigazzi's

After an extra large breakfast at Uncle Bill's, and then after lunch a Seamus', I decided that we needed to eat dinner at Rigazzi's. Rigazzi's is a family style Italian restaurant on The Hill. During my early college years, I was on the track team and they had an all you can eat spaghetti special, which was good for carb loading. During my later college years, I went there because they had comically large beers, which was good for carb loading of a different kind. And then, after college, my wife and I would go to dinner and enjoy both the spaghetti and the beers. In fact, our last dinner before leaving St. Louis for Chicago, we ate at Rigazzi's. And so it was only fitting that I chose this for the reunion weekend dinner.

10 Year Reunion: Lunch - Seamus McDaniel's

There are some people who like to go to various fancy or trendy restaurants and collect food memories like merrit badges. I have never been into this, and I particularly was not into this when I lived in St. Louis. Seamus McDaniel's will never be called a fancy or a trendy restaurant. It is a modest pub with modest food, most of which is not even very good. But Seamus McDaniel's in Dog Town was a place that I went to for just about every occasion, and it sums up what food was to me in St. Louis.

10 Year Reunion: Breakfast - Uncle Bill's

This May, it will have been ten years since I have graduated from college. There was a reunion. Although the reunion started on Friday, we weren't able to get there until Saturday. And, since I don't like things like reunions or people, I decided that I would forgo most of the scheduled reunion weekend activities and spend the day eating. For breakfast, we decided that we would start with Uncle Bill's Pancake House.

pretzel hot dog buns - attempt 1

I loved the pretzel rolls I made last week. And I thought to myself, how awesome would it be to have this as a hot dog bun? Maybe the pretzel roll taste would be too strong for a frankfurter, but it just made so much sense with brats. And so began my quest for the perfect brat bun.

Stella's Diner

Sunday was warm. Unseasonably warm. Unbelievably warm. We just knew that we had to go out for brunch, and we needed to be eating it outside. And so began the great outdoor brunch hunt of 2011.

Renaldi's on Broadway in Lakeview Chicago

On Fridays, I like to eat pizza. Growing up in New Jersey, public school lunches were always pizza on Fridays. When I was very young, the only option was an Ellios-like piece of cheese pizza. It wasn't until much later in my public school life that pepperoni then became an option. I somehow also recall a sausage option, but I may just be mis-remembering that. Regardless, even though Friday was always pizza, and regardless of how few options for toppings there may have been, I never got tired of it. And I'm still not tired of it. That's how, last Friday, Sarah and I ended up at Renaldi's.

Fish Tostadas

A couple weeks ago, I bought a big-ol-bag of frozen tilapia. Last week, it was breaded, baked, and served with chorizo sprouts. That was good, but the tilapia was fishy. Not in a good way, like mackerel. But in a way that you might anticipate from frozen fish sold in a big-ol-bag. I didn't mind that much, since the real star of the meal was going to be my chorizo experiment. But, this week, I wanted the fish to stand out. So I decided on fish tacos.

pretzel rolls

I had made some pimento cheese to put on some burgers. And to make it extra special, I decided to make some pretzel rolls. The first time I had a pretzel roll was at Weber Grill. They serve them with cheddar spread before your dinner gets there. It's amazing. Then, I had them at The Counter. It was a special bun option that was so popular, it's now a permanent option. Pretzel rolls are perfect for burgers because, no matter how juicy the burger, the pretzel roll is always up to the task. I made these a while back using a pretzel roll recipe from Stresscake, and it worked out ok. But I've recently realized that, since I use rapid rise yeast, I need to change certain things. So I decided to make some modifications. And this time, I couldn't be happier.

pimento cheese

I am easily prone to suggestion. A few weeks back, I saw an episode of Diners Drive-Ins and Dives that talked about pimento cheese. And then, last week, Sunny Anderson made pimento cheese on her show. It didn't really even look that interesting to me at the time, but it stuck in my mind. With summertime coming, I was already thinking about artificially yellow things like french's mustard or american cheese. And this sounded like it would hit the spot.

Truffles?

Sarah loves chocolate. On the same episode of 5 ingredient Fix: Dessert Bar that somehow inspired us to make meringue, they also made truffles. Generally, I don't care for desserts and I also don't like to watch people making dessert on TV. Specifically, I don't like watching episodes about candy-making. It usually involves things that I just don't have in my kitchen, like a candy thermometer, a copper mixing bowl, or heavy cream. But, like with the meringue, they made a dessert that I've always thought was quite complicated but looked quite easy to make. And so we made truffles.

Meringue!

Sunday morning, Sarah and I were watching an episode of 5 Ingredient Fix where the host had a pastry chef guest. Among other things, they made meringues. I've never liked meringues. I always felt like they left a waxy feeling in your mouth. And I was always confused about why they didn't taste more cookie-ish. But Sarah loves meringue, so I added the ingredients we would need for meringues to the week's grocery list.

Paradise Empanadas Cafe

After the Cubs game and then drinks around Wrigleyville, Sarah and I started stumbling home. We were starving because, for some reason, we elected not to eat anything that afternoon. So we went to Paradise Empanadas Cafe at Broadway and Belmont in Lakeview. It's a new empanada place near the gym we pay for a membership to. If you're counting: in 2011, I have been to the gym the same number of times at I have eaten empandas.

Hot Pockets

I've chronically been thinking about empanadas. But all the recipes for empanada dough all seemed too fussy. Plus, I don't really like traditional empanada fillings. I don't like ground beef with olives or ground beef with raisins. What I really wanted was a hot pocket.

OCD manicotti

My wife makes the best veggie manicotti. And whenever I want manicotti, I usually have her make it. But last week, I was watching an episode of America's Test Kitchen, and they pointed out how annoying it is to try and fill those manicotti shells. Instead, they used no-boil lasagne noodles. It was ingenious. Plus, the way they did it fit perfectly in a 9x13 dish. The OCD in me just had to try it.

chorizo sprouts

For years now, I've thought that brussel sprouts are one of the more under rated vegetables out there. I don't like the really large ones. They're the best when they're small. A simple roasting with a garnish of shaved parmesan is my usual go-to. Steamed and then topped with some lawry's is great too. And of course, sauted with some bacon lardons is simply magnificent. Then, Sarah told me that, when she had gone out to dinner with a friend for dinner at Mercadito, they had brussel sprouts with chorizo.

roasted garlic chicken with veggie couscous

Chicken is filthy. You have to worry about cross-contamination, salmonella, e-coli, and food poisoning. After you touch it, you have to wash your hands. Anything that touches raw chicken has to be instantly sequestered and then power-washed with specific particularity. The only other thing in my daily life that I have to be that careful about is feces. And I don't ever want to eat feces. So a couple of weeks ago, I decided that I would stop cooking chicken, at least for a while. But then, last week, I was watching an episode of Secrets of a Restaurant Chef where Anne Burrell was making roasted garlic chicken. It looked so irresistibly good, I broke my chicken boycott.

Osteria al Doge

Our last night in New York coincided with my mother-in-law's birthday. To celebrate, we were going to go to dinner and a show. The show was going to be Jersey Boys. For dinner, we wanted something relatively close to the theater. But it had to be nice, and I wanted to avoid anything too tourist trap-y. I selected Osteria al Doge.

Hot Dog Cart

In the time we were in New York, I think I ate hot dogs on three separate occasions. Once on the ferry between the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. And two other times from hot dog carts. In my mind, there are few things as wonderful.

starbucks breakfast

The skipping of meals that my wife seems to insist on while traveling was beginning to take its toll. By the morning of our last full day in New York, my father-in-law requested that we eat breakfast, a meal that we had been normally skipping. I was happy to hear this.

We tried to go to Foodparc, which was next to our hotel, Hotel Eventi. I had seen it in our comings and goings, and the signs in the windows made it seem like breakfast there would be good. It was one of those fancy new places replete with white formica and a euroslick ambition.

Unfortunately, once we got there, we couldn't figure out how to order. There were signs directing us to use touch screens that weren't actually touch screens. People were standing in lines at counters with no people at them. And people standing behind counters were taking no orders from customers. It was confusing. So we left and went to starbucks the next block over.

Kum Gang San Manhattan

Being that my in-laws had never been able to make it out to the New York or New Jersey area before, my parents wanted to take them out to dinner. This could have been problematic, from a diplomatic perspective. My parents profess to enjoy all cuisines, but they in fact will only eat food if it is Korean. When they go out for sushi, they go to a Korean sushi chef. When they have Chinese food, they go to a Korean-owner Chinese restaurant. And so forth. Although, they do like spaghetti.

The last time the four parents sat down for a meal, it was at a Korean BBQ in Chicago. This time, my mom suggested Korean BBQ. She wanted to go to Zen Zen, a place that my mom swears is in Ridgewood (or Ridgefield?), New Jersey. But, since this was my in-laws' first time in New York, time was at a premium, and I didn't want to have to trek all the way out to New Jersey. The second place she suggested was Kum Gang San. But, for the same reason I didn't want to go to New Jersey, I didn't want to go all the way to Flushing, even though that is one of my favorite Korean restaurants. Fortunately, Kum Gang San has a Manhattan location, which I had no idea. And it happened to be within a few blocks of our hotel.

carnegie deli

On Sunday, I had split off from my wife and her parents so that I could go to church with my dad. He was announcing his retirement from being a pastor. I wasn't planning on being there on the day of this announcement, but after a last minute schedule change, I was able to go.

When I circled back with the group, I had found that, when my wife was the tour guide for the day, she and her parents did not eat breakfast, did not eat lunch, and had only a back of chips to hold them over until dinner. For this to happen in a city with this much culinary possibility, I thought, was a travesty. Thus, after a tour of the NBC Studio and after taking in the view from the Top of the Rockefeller building, I took my wife and in-laws to the Carnegie Deli.  

Angelo's in Little Italy

After church, and after I had dinner at Hanabi Sushi in Stony Point, NY, my parents drove me back into the city to meet back up with my wife and her parents for what would be dinner #2 for me. We met at the hotel and then headed down to Little Italy. I had been trying to figure out where to eat in Little Italy that wasn't a tourist trap. Turns out, that's not really possible, as far as I can tell. I tried to pick the place that was the least tourist trap-y. So we went to Angelo's in Little Italy.

Hanabi Sushi in Stony Point, NY

After church where my dad announced that he would be retiring as the pastor this coming June, we all went out for an early dinner. In true Korean fashion, we were going to be eating dinner immediately after having eaten lunch after church. We let my mom pick where we would eat dinner. And because I think she suspected that she would need to return me to my wife and in-laws after the meal, she picked a place that was as far away as she could think of. We went up to Stony Point, New York. In her defense, she took me to Hanabi Sushi in Stony Point, New York, which is always worth the trip.

john's pizzeria Times Square

 On our first night in New York, my wife wanted me to find a place for dinner for ourselves and her parents in Times Square. This was rather difficult because, when I think of restaurants in Times Square, I think of Bubba Gump, Olive Garden, and TGI Fridays. This was going to be my in-laws' first meal in New York City - ever. So I had to step it up to something better than a chain restaurant. Fortunately, after a little bit of internet research, I was able to find John's Pizzeria. Plus, I had already put brick oven pizza on the list of things we had to do during the trip.

cake boss

The hotel that my sister had chosen for the wedding block was the W in Hoboken. Upon hearing about this, my sisters-in-law thought of one thing - Cake Boss. So, a trip on their behalf became necessary. For the couple of days around my sister's wedding, I had seen long lines to get into the bakery. But I figured that those long lines had to be some sort of fluke. It turns out, I was wrong. In all, I spent just short of four hours waiting for Cake Boss. In contrast, I have spent a total of about 30 minutes watching the show.

sarah's mac'n'cheese

To go with the astonishingly simple beer can crock pot chicken, Sarah made this relatively complicated mac n cheese. I tried to tell her that I would have been just fine with the box stuff. But she insisted on this, and I am glad that she did.

But, because it does seem like it is a little more complicated than macaroni and cheese needs to be (it's an alton brown macaroni and cheese recipe), I wouldn't recommend making this on a regular basis. But if you need a dressed up side dish, I think this is a good bet.

beer can crock pot chicken

In anticipation of the Great Blizzard of 2011, Sarah had bought a whole chicken. And because I was still at trial, I really didn't have time to cook it. This was a perfect opportunity for Sarah to try out a beer can chicken recipe that she had gotten from her sister. The recipe is remarkably simple. Astonishingly simple, really. And it makes for some really moist and tasty chicken.

Egg Pancakes

At some point during week 2 of the Trial That Would Never End, Sarah was craving egg pancakes. Egg pancakes are something that I had never heard of, growing up in New Jersey. That is because it is an Iowan food.

And, like most Iowan food, people from Iowa are completely unaware of their food's regionality. So, the first time Sarah told me about egg pancakes, I was bewildered. And so was she. She couldn't believe that I hadn't heard of them.

Since then, I have become a fan of this part-crepe/part-pancake dish. The lovely recipe is from Sarah's mom, who I presume got it from her own mother.

Deep Fried Veggies

 It was the playoffs and the Bears were playing. I wanted to make something special. The previous week, I had made a brisket, and the Bears won. So, of course, I was going to make the brisket again. But since this game was against the Packers, I wanted a little something extra. That is how I decided I would make beer batter onion rings and green beans.

Veggie Chili

With how cold and generally unpleasant the weather has been in Chicago this winter, Sarah and I have been making a lot of chili. We've made beef chili, turkey chili, and white chili. So, when I saw this recipe for veggie chili, I couldn' resist. Plus, I generally like Real Simple recipes. So I thought I would give it a shot. It has some ingredients that I was very interested in seeing in a chili, like sweet potato. But it also has some ingredients that I thought were dumb, like cocoa powder.

Shin Ramyun

Last week, Sarah was going out with a friend for dinner, so I was on my own for the evening. And as much as I love eating with my wife, I look forward to the times when she leaves me alone. Because this means I get to eat ramyun. Not ramen. Ramyun.

Ramen is an American thing. Ramen was something I ate in college (and for several years after college due to budgetary constraints). Back in St. Louis at the time, you could find it on sale for 10 for a dollar.

Ramyun, on the other hand, is a Korean thing. It's spelled different because that's how Koreans pronounce it. "myun" is the Korean word for noodles. and the "ra" part of ramyun, I don't know what that means. But its unusual because it's pronounced with almost a rolling R sound.

Eggplant Surprise

I had a ton of leftover eggplant from when I made the eggplant parmesan. Also, looking in the fridge, I noticed that I had a lot of other leftovers that I needed to get rid of. And so I came up with a trio of eggplant pasta dishes: Eggplant Alfredo, Eggplant Pesto, and Eggplant and Gravy. It was super quick and easy. And it cleared out like half my fridge.

eggplant parmesan

One of Sarah's sisters had asked me for a recipe for something to do with eggplant. And I was thinking that, since eggplants aren't really in season, it would take me a while to get to posting a recipe. But, the last time I was at the grocery store, they had a ton of eggplants. And they looked really good. And they were really cheap. So I bought two. Then, I had to figure out what to do with them that didn't involve frying, deep or otherwise. Here is one of two dishes that I came up with.

Sarah's Pork Roast

Last Friday, I was heading home after a long week in court for a jury trial. I was feeling pretty exhausted, and I wasn't looking forward to eating another take-out dinner, which is what we primarily subsist on when I am at trial. The worst part about it was that I knew that I had a pork shoulder sitting in the fridge. I really wanted some pork slathered in barbecue sauce. But I knew that making it would take several hours. And I was starving.

In my mind's eye, as I was sitting on the bus home, I opened the fridge and stared at that raw pork shoulder, longingly. Then, as I got off the bus, took the elevator to get to my floor, and walked down the hallway towards our apartment, I could smell the aroma of meat - wonderful, wonderful meat. I opened the door and was reminded in yet another way of why I love my wife. She made the pork.

Jury Duty

This week, I started a jury trial. For various reasons, the work has been even more time consuming than a jury trial would otherwise be. I haven't cooked in about a week, which is unfortunate, as cooking, or more precisely, chopping things, has become a way for me to de-stress. Since there isn't much time for cooking, I've reverted back to my normal trial time ritual of seeing if I can finish a bottle of whiskey before the trial ends. One would think that, as sleep-depriving as trial work can be, how is there enough time for whiskey? The answer is that, because trials tend to make you have to drink coffee far into the evening, having a nip at the end of the day helps you get to sleep.

A friend just started a food blog, and reading her first post has made me particularly hungry for well-prepared food. But, as I write this post from the bus, I know that, because I have a couple hours of work still ahead of me and an early Saturday morning meeting tomorrow, Sarah and I will likely have to suffer through something that comes in a styrofoam delivery container.

home fries

The last time I made breakfast, I tried to make hashbrowns. Hashbrowns are one of my favorite things to eat. Last Thanksgiving, I went Black Friday shopping with Sarah and her sisters. At some point in the morning, I went to McDonald's to pick up some breakfast for everyone. I bought like five breakfast meals, but the girls only wanted to eat the sandwiches. That left me with five hash browns to eat. I felt like the chubby kid in Billy Madison who was eating everyone's lunches.

For whatever reason, hash browns have eluded me. This has been the case, even though I have been trying to make them for the last two decades. Granted, two decades ago, I was 11. My idea of cooking was to get eggs, ham, and frozen tater tots, and throw it in the biggest frying pan I could find. It would invariably end up as a big, breakfasty mush. It never turned out how I hoped, but I would cover it in ketchup and watch the timed VCR recording of the previous night's saturday night live.

I still can't make hash browns. But I have gotten really good at home fries.

Pizza Sausage

Last time we were back in Iowa, I really wanted to make a variety of pizzas that day so that everyone could have their favorite. One of my nephew's favorite toppings is sausage, and I just didn't know how to make that. Fortunately, he also really likes cheese, so the absence of sausage pizza went unnoticed. But it made me start thinking about pizza sausage incessantly. Some people get songs stuck in their head. I get food.

pot roast

Because I only used part of the chuck for last night's dinner, I had two pounds of chuck that I needed something to do with. I decided to make pot roast in a crock pot. Things were getting pretty busy with work, so it was nice to make a meal that pretty much just takes care of itself. Plus, I had a shelf full of barbecue sauces that I had bought while in Iowa. Pot roast makes for a good palette to compare.

beef and mushroom ragu

Every time I see a recipe with pappardelle, I instantly want to try it. This pappardelle with beef and mushroom ragu recipe from Real Simple was no exception. The problem was, and the problem with pappardelle recipes always is, I could not find pappardelle in the store. Come to think of it, I don't think I have seen pappardelle sold at the grocery store. Ever. Fortunately, the recipe says you can substitute with fettucini, so I got the fattest fettucini I could find.

Buffalo Dip

To go with the brisket I made for my Bears Game Day spread, I made Buffalo Dip. This is a recipe that Sarah got from a friend. From the moment I tried it, I knew I had to have the recipe. At the time, I was going through a year-and-a-half-long, insatiable craving for wing sauce. And this just hit the spot.

taco pie!

I wanted to get back to some recipes from the Western Dubuque Marching Band Cook Book. So I started flipping through the pages to find something to cook. And while I thought it might be fun to randomly pick things, like bubble pizza (which calls for 2 canisters of instant biscuits) or Barbecued Ham Balls (which calls for graham and/or Ritz crackers), I decided to ask some of Sarah's siblings to provide suggestions. I got this from Sarah's sister:

Mike,

I like Chicken Breasts Supreme recipe on page 219. I have also made the Taco Pie recipe on page 241. The kids and I like it, but Ben does not. I also make the Broccoli salad on page 277 quite a bit.

I decided on the Taco Pie, because it sounded the most ridiculous and because Ben doesn't like it. But also, since I do like Iowan Taco Pizza quite a bit, I thought this would probably be good. After all, the recipe calls for crushed Doritos. 

game day brisket

In the days before the Bears playoff game against the Seahawks, I decided that I wanted to make some really special food. Normally, I would make a boatload of wings. But since it was the playoffs and all, I figured I needed to do something special. When I was in the grocery store, I saw some brisket. I have never tried to cook one before. In fact, I had never even seen a whole brisket, other than on TV. It seemed unnecessarily large. I didn't even think I had a vessel large enough to cook it in. But none of this deterred me. I put it in my cart and went to the checkout.

I don't think they sell a lot of the briskets at my grocery store. When I went to pay for it, the checker asked me how I was expecting on cooking it.

Cooking Redemption: Iron Chicken

As unpleasant as dinner was the night before, I didn't want to leave things with Sarah not-liking dark meat chicken. I wanted to give the chicken another try, but I really had to make sure that she would like it or she might have made me cook vegetarian for the next week. Plus, I had like two pounds of raw chicken sitting in my fridge that I wanted to get rid of, so I had to do something.

For most of the day, I figured I would slow cook it for a couple of hours. That way, all the parts of the chicken that Sarah considered gooey or nasty from the night before would melt away into a slow cooked chicken that would be nice and tasty. But that would be a cop out, I thought. I decided that I would not let the iron skillet chicken defeat me. I wanted to try it again.

Hash Browns and Pancakes

Even though it was a Saturday, I woke up early and got started on breakfast. Last night's chicken fail left me pretty hungry. And I wanted to make it up to Sarah with a nice breakfast. This, I thought, would be a good opportunity to use a Christmas gift I got from my mother-in-law, a double burner skillet pan. To best utilize the extra real estate that this skillet pan would provide, I decided that I would make some pancakes and some hash browns.

Cooking Fail: Iron Chicken

They can't all be winners. This recipe started out with the best of intentions, but it was not so successful. I wanted to create my own recipe by picking and choosing things I liked from various other recipes. I was hoping for a rustic chicken roast with mushrooms in a rich balsamic sauce. But what I ended up with was undercooked chicken and oily mushrooms drowned in hot vinegar. The only plus side is that, when we went to get quesadillas afterwards, we also stopped by CVS where they had these doritos sold in old school packaging.

Metafood

I am proud to announce that this blog now has 10 followers. I am going to celebrate this milestone with a bag of cool ranch doritos I found in my office.

Super Tacos

 Just before Sarah and I left Chicago to go visit her family, we spent a couple of days trying to eat everything in the fridge. We were going to be gone long enough that anything that wasn't eaten would probably go bad, and I didn't want to throw anything away.

By the final night of fridge cleaning, we were down to one chicken breast, the remnants of several bags of shredded cheese, and several corn tortillas. I combined these things into a hybrid taco/quesadilla. I liked this so much, I decided to do it again. This time, with pork.

Pommes Chef Anne

The problem with making your wife watch three hours of cooking shows per day is that your wife will soon begin thinking that you can actually make anything that is on tv. This is where we started on this fancy yet easy potato side dish adventure.

But, as usual, I modified the recipe.

Meatballs!

Kay's Meatloaf, as delicious as it was, was not enough to sate my craving for ground meat. If you recall from my facebook earlier this year, I was consumed with the desire for a meatball sandwich for a good several days. Then, after watching a Good Eats episode about meatballs, I decided that I try to make them on my own.