Sunnie in California

As we get older, it seems like more and more of the things we do in our lives are because of added responsibilities. Life just gets busy and we don’t realize it. It’s hard to get together with all your friends and just live a little. Thank goodness for this new excuse we had to get together…Ji sun’s bachelorette! Thanks for a great excuse Ji Sunnie! With 5 lovely ladies flying in from VA and 4 lovely ladies transplanted in Los Angeles, it was an outrageous 4 day rager!
Most of the girls arrived Wednesday morning. I drew some childish posters 2 days before to welcome their arrival. I was just too excited for a weekend with my girls. I can’t really divulge any happenings of string of events or post any pictures, but I will say that it was a trip to remember.
Although this was a celebration of our dear friend jisun’s upcoming marriage, it was more of a celebration of our friendships. There was a lot of reminiscing and of thinking back on how we have all been blessed by the other. At one point, in the car with jisun, we talked about all the fights we’ve had in the past. All the crazy fights we’ve had with each of our friends. And how blessed we are that everyone is so forgiving to make the friendship stronger instead of tearing it up. I did have to apologize in the car to jisun...5 years later...for making her upset on TWO occasions that I was oblivious to! Oooops. I must be stupid.

But back to the happier situation...some non blackmail pictures for your enjoyment!











The corn. Oh the corn. I will share one story. About the corn. I was sitting next to Hye Young. There was dead silence. All you can hear is chompchompchomp. And then I heard a big boom and a big ‘GASP’. I look over and the poor corn was in the sand only 1/5th eaten and a very shocked and sad look on the girl’s face. And my reaction? I just laughed uncontrollably. Oh the corn.





The saddest moment of the whole trip...goodbye



But Ji sun stayed a few more days!!! And like i said..if you visit, you better clean as payment!



In San Diego at La Jolla.




As my final note on this post: Congratulations Jisun. May your marriage be blessed with an abundance of love, honesty, loyalty, humility, and servanthood.

**Till our next reunion the day of the ceremony. Toodles girls! See you on gmail!

Mom's Kfood Recipes

Annie Made yukehjang this week. She followed a recipe online which told her to put gochujang in it. (red pepper paste). I don't think you are supposed to put gochujang in any kind of soup. The only reason I say this is because one time I asked my mom if I put gochujang in this soup I was making and she just laughed at me. A Lot.

I told Annie not to follow online recipes for Kfood and just ask Mom.

I don't know how I learned to cook korean food. I just watched mom and after I left home when I craved mom's cooking I would call and ask how to make something. As a side note, there is no such thing as measuring in Korean Food. You just pour stuff in. I think this goes for all asian food. My roommate in Italy was Thai and she always made good food. She did the same thing as me, pour stuff in and then taste.

This is probably why I can't bake or cook american food. Too much measuring. I just recently found out that the measuring cups for powdered ingredients and liquid ingredients are different! You can't interchange the measuring cup for liquids and powders. WHAT? No wonder why my baking is horrible.

So here are some of Mom's recipes. Annie said I should blog them. Some are straight from Mom's emails and some are from my memory of what she told me.

*the red pepper she is talking about is gochu garu. Korean hot red pepper powder.

Yukehjang:
1) Put meat with water in the pot with Med. Temp (first 10 min. Med-high). until the meat gets soft.
take the meat out, and make them like a shredded beef. Don't throw out the broth marinate with Soy sauce(2 spoon) , sesame seed,and garlic
2) Need to cut in 5 cm each for green scalion (? Pa ), and put in the boiling water for 3 minutes. Take them out, and drain the water.
3) Make the redpepper sauce: put redpepper and sesame oil into the fry pan, and mix it.
4) Put 1) ,2),and 3) into the broth.
5) add Sogogi Dasida, and salt.

Chicken Legs in soy sauce:
Put chicken legs in the pot, and pour water to just cover the chicken. boil it with med-high temperature.
Add Oinion , Potato, Carrot when it starts boiling.
When the chicken is cooked , and the water should be about 1/4 from the start. (If too much water, get rid of some)
Put soy souce same amount of water or less, Add sugar, garlic, black pepper, sesame seed, and red pepper.
Boil them one more time.

Gutjuhri (a type of kimchi):
Clean and pull apart cabbage
soak in salt for a few hours
wash it off
add red pepper powder, sesame oil, and sugar.

Soondubu:
Cut up kimchi and fry with pork pieces with sesame oil
Add tofu (the very soft silken kind). No need to cut the tofu. break it up lightly as you mix it in with the meat and kimchi
Add red pepper powder
Boil
Add dashida if it needs more flavor
no water! the water will come out of the tofu

Kimchi Jjigae:
Boil kimchi with the kimchi juice in water.
Make sure water is double the amount of kimchi so it boils out
Add more red pepper powder if you want it spicier
add butter (this is key!)
Add spam, canned tuna, or pork. you can also add some tofu.
Add dashida if you want some more flavor
Done!

Omoorice:
In a pan add diced onions, corn, peas, spam, potatoes
Add rice
Add loads of ketchup
some salt and pepper
Fry an egg to put on top
put more ketchup on top of the egg
DONE!

Samgaetang (korean style chicken soup):
Stuff a small hen with sweet rice and garlic
Boil in water for a long time.
you can add garlic, ginger, and daechoo in the water.
(I don't know what daechoo is in english. dried red thing)
add salt for taste
DONE!

ENJOY MOM'S KFOOD!

Steel Cut Oatmeal

source

Have you ever tried Steel Cut Oatmeal? Does the name constitute how the texture is supposed to be? How it should taste? Maybe like steel? Well here's a great LOL story for you. This is my own version of the story. I was not present for breakfast. I just LOLed for 10 mins after hearing the story on the way to church. It's funnier if you hear it in person and if you know HY. But I had to share this story anyway.

Lisette came to visit this past weekend. She crashed at Hye Young's all weekend. For breakfast Hye young made Lisette her usual breakfast, steel cut oatmeal while Lisette was getting ready. Hye young proceeds to pour her oats into a bowl, boil her water, pour her water into the bowl, give a quick stir, and served it to Lisette.

HY: Here Lisette. It's not that good, kind of hard, but it's healthy.
Lis: (taking one bite and spitting it out) BLAH. What is this?
HY: I just put fruit in it to cover the hard texture and taste. and i've tried many different brands to see what was best.
Lis: What? How did you cook this?
HY: Like I alwasy do, add some hot water.
Lis: What? Let me see the box
HY: In the cabinet
Lis: (getting the box from the cabinet) OH MY GOSH HYE YOUNG! You're supposed to cook it for THIRTY MINUTES on the stove or TEN minutes in the microwave!
HY: WHAT? I've been eating it like this ALL YEAR

HY's final revelation for this sunday morning: "This new way to cook oatmeal has CHANGED MY LIFE!"

My comments: So WHO cooks oatmeal with just a pouring of hot water? You have to microwave even instant oatmeal! Leave it to HY to think rock hard oatmeal is a real food and continue to eat it day in and day out because it is healthy.