Kimchi and sausage bibimbap

kimchi bi bim bop

A delicious rice bowl topped with kimchi, sausage, seasoned vegetables and a fried egg.  A dollop of spicy Korean paste tops it off and you mix it all up in your bowl for a tasty twist on a traditional Korean recipe. Translated to mean
“mixed-up rice”, this traditional Korean dish has been moving mainstream.  It has been spotted on the menu of a popular chain restaurant and now you can make it at home!

But this fabulous kimchi and sausage bibimbap has a little story.  This summer one of my comics was published an I was paid a small honorarium.  How exciting!! I can now call myself a published cartoonist.  🙂  So how does one spend the Amazon gift card that was given as a token of appreciation from the magazine?  A book of course; a cute kids book by the same name, Bee-bim-Bop! by Linda Sue Park. I have been eying this book for a while, it is written about Korean food by a great Korean-American author. (Kyah did a book review on one of her books here.)

Take a look!

Bee-bim Bop!

It’s an adorable tale of a little girl helping her mom shop and prep the food making bibimbap for dinner.  My kids love bibimbap and love to help me cook; it feels like the book could be written about us!

So after reading this book, who wouldn’t be inspired to make bibimbap?

Kimchi and sausage bibimbap

Ingredients

  • 5 cups hot rice (we did a mix of white and brown)
  • sausage cooked and cut into bite size pieces
  • 6 eggs fried
  • 1 zucchini sliced into thin pieces and quickly fried and seasoned with salt and pepper
  • 1 red pepper sliced into thin pieces and quickly fried and seasoned with salt and pepper
  • 1 cup kimchi cut into bite size pieces
  • Sesame spinach - mix together these ingredients:
  • 150 g blanched and drained spinach
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1/4 tbsp sesame oil
  • Korean red pepper sauce, gojuchang (from mykoreankitchen.com) Mix together:
  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • 2 Tbsp gochujang
  • 1 Tbsp sesame oil
  • 1 Tbsp sugar
  • 1 Tbsp water
  • 1 Tbsp roasted sesame seeds
  • 1 tsp vinegar
  • 1 tsp minced ginger

Instructions

  1. Assemble the bibimbap by first putting rice in each individual bowl
  2. Add zucchini, red pepper, kimchi and sausage
  3. Top with a fried egg
  4. Spoon a scoop of gojuchang sauce as desired by spice level
  5. Mix it all up in the bowl - this is the part the kids especially love! "Mix like crazy"
  6. Enjoy!
https://koreainmykitchen.com/?p=2015

We usually make dolsot bibimbap, which is cooked in a hot pot with a raw egg, just because I think it is fun.  But when I served this to my yobo, he said it tasted like normal Korean bibimbap because it wasn’t so fancy! 🙂


Kimchi bokumbap with bacon

kimchi bokumbap

My yobo loves thrift stores.  When we first moved back to Canada, garage sales, freecycle (remember that?) and second hand stores were his weakness.  He would take almost anything if it was free.  Most of our house was furnished in second hand furniture and he did find lots of treasures.  But for all the treasures, there was lots of … how do I say this nicely, … interesting items.  After I while, I made a little rule.  In order for an item to enter the house, it needed my permission.  Otherwise, it was banished to the shed.  I must say, I have some great items for thrift stores, and they have made good money on us as lots of it has returned back to their shelves. Charity.  It makes the world go round.

My yobo has gotten much better at spotting a good find these days, except perhaps his weakness for chicken things, but that is another post.  The other day he came home with this fabulous bowl which I just love.  It is great for holding soups and stews and this great recipe.

A left over bowl is the perfect fit for this left over meal.  We had some kimchi that had fermented too long and some left over rice.  Couple that with bacon and you have this treasure of a dish!

Kimchi bokumbap with bacon

Ingredients

  • 2 cups kimchi
  • 5 cups cooked rice
  • 1 pkg bacon (375 g)
  • 1/2 onion
  • 2 carrots
  • 1 zucchini
  • 1/2 tsp sugar
  • sesame oil
  • 6 eggs

Instructions

  1. Cut up the bacon into bite sized pieces and fry it. Drain the fat and put in a bowl. Save the fat. (I didn't say this was healthy!)
  2. Chop the kimchi into bite sized pieces as well (sense a theme?).
  3. Fry in the bacon fat. Add the sugar. Set aside.
  4. Cut up the onions, carrots and zucchini into small pieces.
  5. Fry the veggies in sesame oil.
  6. Add the cooked rice to the veggies and combine with the bacon and kimchi.
  7. Fry eggs (in leftover fat if there is any) and put on top of the fried rice.
  8. Enjoy!
https://koreainmykitchen.com/?p=1891

My kids like kimchi bokumbap but they can’t handle too much spice.  We are slowly increasing the spicy-ness of our food to make them into good fire eating Koreans! 🙂

Nyles

Here is our Ny-guy with a tone down version! The recipe includes kimchi for the whole patch.  The kids had less kimchi so the adults had more! Ours was hot! hot! hot!

Strawberry stuffed pancakes – ttalgi hoddeok

strawberry hoddoek

Nothing says I love you like a strawberry stuffed pancake!  These yummy traditional Korean pancakes take on a valentines twist with a sweet strawberry jam filling!

Valentines day is such a special day.  When you are dating and new in love, you think it is the best; it is so romantic.  When you have kids it is just a wonderful day to celebrate love, all kinds of love, friendships and relationships.  Little valentines cards go to school and come home.  The teacher, me, gets a few special teacher cards and I go home, slightly frazzled from 5 year olds on a sugar high, but feeling loved.  And at home in your family, your kids make you cards and leave secret messages in the mail box.  You make a fancy breakfast with valentines under their plates. Your husband brings home chocolates.  You eat some strawberry pancakes.  And life is good.  Love is good.

So how do you say I love you in Korean?  Besides with strawberry pancakes?  Sa -rang-he-yo!  Give it a try, it might work wonders for you this valentines day! 🙂

Strawberry stuffed pancakes – ttalgi hoddeok

Total Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Yield: 8 pancakes

Strawberry stuffed pancakes – ttalgi hoddeok

Ingredients

  • 1 cup lukewarm water
  • 2 tbsp white sugar
  • 2 tsp yeast
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp oil
  • 2 cups flour (I used whole wheat...doesn't that make it healthy?)
  • 1/2 cup strawberry jam
  • Icing sugar for sprinkling

Instructions

  1. In a bowl, mix together the warm water, sugar, yeast, salt and oil
  2. Add the flour slowly and mix it all together
  3. Cover with plastic wrap and let the dough rise for about an hour or it has doubled in size
  4. Knead the dough slightly to release the bubbles
  5. Cover again and allow to rise for 10-20 minutes
  6. Flour a clean surface and knead the dough
  7. Divide into 8 balls
  8. Flatten a ball in the palm of your hand and fill the center with 1 tbsp of jam
  9. Pinch the sides to the top to close it up
  10. Fry in an oiled pan on medium heat
  11. Fry for 30 seconds and flip it over and flatten it out so it looks like a pancake
  12. Flip it over and fry until golden brown
  13. Sprinkle with icing sugar and enjoy warm!
https://koreainmykitchen.com/?p=1755

A visual how-to:

hoddeokhoddeokhoddeokstrawberry hoddeokhoddeokstrawberry hoddeok

Some of my valentines enjoying the love!

the boys

Korean lentil veggie pancakes

lentil veggie pancakes

Savoury pancakes with a protein punch! One mouthful of these and you will be back for more.  Haven’t tried savoury pancakes before?  Those Koreans, they knew what they were doing when they fried up this fabulous food!

I have a confession: I love pancakes and could eat them every meal of the day.  Sweet in the morning with blueberries and maple syrup, savoury for dinner with zucchini and soy sauce! Nothing makes me swoon like a crispy pancake.  I have make endless variations of the traditional Korean pancake (jeon) and just when I thought I couldn’t come up with anymore, I made these!

I was looking to add protein without adding meat.   Enter in lentils!  What a amazing addition to this recipe.  The red lentils cook up quickly not adding too much prep time and with 16 grams of fibre and 30 grams of protein for 1/2 cup, they add a nutritional punch to this already ridiculously good recipe!  Now my little perfect pancakes are a protein powerhouse!

So do yourself a favour, break out your fry pan, get cooking!  Grab your chopsticks, dip them in some soy sauce, bow to the Koreans and thank Saskatchewan farmers for their lentils!

Korean lentil veggie pancakes

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup of red lentils
  • 1 zucchini
  • 2 carrots
  • 3 green onions
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 tsp onion powder
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • oil

Instructions

  1. Cook up the red lentils according to the package, drain and cool
  2. Slice the zucchini, carrots and green onions nice and thin (a mandolin works great for this!)
  3. Mix together the eggs, flour, water, soy sauce, onion powder and garlic powder
  4. Add in the lentils and veggies
  5. Heat up the oil in a frying pan
  6. Put the batter in the pan according to the size you would like
  7. Flip when browned and squish the pancake flat - this cooks up the veggies
  8. Flip again and squish hard
  9. Serve hot with soy sauce
https://koreainmykitchen.com/?p=1642

Sesame spinach side dish- sigeumchi namul

spinach

Trying to get more vegetables into your meal plan?  Tired of the same old, same old steamed veggies?  This delicious garlicky spinach Korean side dish will have you craving those leafy greens!!

This is a very common side dish (banchan) in Korea served with rice and other side dishes such as kimchi,  honey potatoes or a bell pepper banchan. It is one of my yobo’s favourite; he has fond memories of eating this everyday in spinach season. He waxes on about his mom and his childhood when he eats it  reminiscing about trimming spinach in the garden.  He recalls being influenced by Popeye cartoons and wanting to eat lots of it to grow big and strong.  Our kids have no idea who Popeye is, so the stories are lost on them.  This poor generation of kids, not having heroes like Popeye to look up to.  I should find some old cartoon clips and show them.  For educational purposes, of course!

So whether you are old enough to remember Olive Oyl and Brutus or not, I promise you, if you make this dish, it will be gone before you can say ‘Popeye’!

Sesame spinach – Sigeumchi namul

Ingredients

  • 300g spinach
  • 2 cloves minced garlic
  • 1 green onion chopped fine
  • 1.5 tbsp soy sauce
  • ½ tbsp sesame oil
  • ½ tbsp toasted sesame seeds

Instructions

  1. blanch the spinach in hot water for 30 seconds
  2. drain and squeeze out excess water
  3. add the remaining ingredients
  4. mix well
  5. serve and enjoy!
https://koreainmykitchen.com/?p=1428

Recipe from Maangchi.com

Pork sausage zucchini pancakes – dwaeji gogi jeon

pork zucchini pancakes

Love these pancakes!  All the yummy-ness of sausage and zucchini fried up in a pancake.  Who could ask for more?

#vintage corelle dishes

I don’t hashtag. I’m not on twitter.  And I don’t normally even think in social media lingo. I never LOL or TTFN.  Call me old. So old in fact that these vintage 70s dishes are still used at my moms everyday.  I grew up eating cereal out of the matching bowl and toast from the salad plates. I happen to have one in my cupboard that brought something delicious home from her place.  I thought it would be the perfect plate for these crispy pancakes! Everything tastes better on mom’s dishes!

Do you have this set or something similar?  Does your mom?  Or (gasp) Grandma?

Pork sausage zuchinni pancakes

Ingredients

  • 250 g pork sausage
  • 1 zucchini
  • 2 green onions
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce
  • pepper
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp red pepper flakes

Instructions

  1. Remove the pork from the casings
  2. Slice the zucchini thinly
  3. Cut up the green onions
  4. Mix all the ingredients together
  5. Oil the pan generously (I didn't say these were healthy!)
  6. Fry on medium high heat until browned squashing them thin
  7. Flip and squash until browned nicely and the sausage is cooked
  8. Enjoy!
https://koreainmykitchen.com/?p=1381

How to make kimbap – graphic

Kimbap how-to graphic

Here it is!  For those visual learners, who like to see how to do things, a how-to graphic!

I’ve been wanting to make this for a long time.  Whenever I post a yummy kimbap recipe, I have thought that it would be really handy to have something like this to attach so people could easily see the steps.  I hope this helps.

And if this has inspired you to make kimbap, here are a few fabulous variations to try:

kimbap rolls Kimbap

cucumber rolls Naked cucumber rolls

Nov 2014 011 Sweet and spicy Tuna kimbap

tuna kimbapTuna kimbap

salmon kimbapSmoked salmon kimbap

 

 

Ramen burgers

ramen burgers

Heard of these fabulous burgers made with ramen noodles instead of a bun?  Seen the pictures on pinterest?  Drooled?  Licked the screen?!  Well, you can wipe your drool and make them at home!

My fabulous friend, who took me to Hawaii this summer where I was first introduced to L&L Hawaiian Barbecue and their ramen burger, said mine was better.  Don’t take her word for it… try it yourself!  And if you have a chance, fly to Hawaii and try theirs too!  Better yet, take me along and I’ll buy you one!

ramen burgers with nyles

These tasty burgers were a ton of fun to make.  Whats more fun than making buns out of ramen noodles?  In our house, you get to pick your birthday dinner (and breakfast and lunch) and it was my dear sweet Jaina’s birthday recently.  The other members of the family always try to influence and encourage the birthday person to pick something they really like.  I suspect this request was at my yobo’s influence.  Jaina also wanted rice burgers, some I made them both.

Jaina and her ramen burger

Most recipes online for this creation have instructions for making one burger.  The whole process would have been tedious and time consuming for all the monkeys in this little household.  So I needed to find a way to make this work to feed all the hungry mouths in our family plus a special guest.

The solution:  muffin tins!  Would doesn’t love muffin tins?  Not muffin tops… muffin tins! (Though eating too many of these may lead to muffin tops!!)

Ramen burgers

Yield: 6 burgers

Ingredients

  • 4 packages of ramen noodles
  • 2 large eggs
  • salt and pepper
  • oil
  • Hamburger patty
  • BBQ sauce (or teriyaki sauce, or hoisin sauce... whatever you are feeling in the mood for!)
  • green onions chopped finely
  • mixed greens

Instructions

  1. Cook the ramen according to the instructions
  2. Strain the water and let cool slightly
  3. Beat the eggs and salt and pepper
  4. Coat the noodles with the eggs. If the noodles are too hot, they will cook the eggs already!
  5. Line a muffin tin with plastic wrap
  6. Scoop out the noodles evenly into 12 muffin tin spots
  7. Cover with plastic wrap and weigh the buns down with various small jars from your fridge
  8. Refrigerate for 20-30 mins
  9. Add oil to a frying pan on medium heat
  10. Remove the buns from the saran wrap and fry for 4-5 mins on each side until they are brown.
  11. Press down on the buns to thin them out
  12. Prepare the hamburger patty
  13. Top the ramen burger with sauce of choice, onions and mixed greens!
  14. Savour and enjoy!

Notes

The muffin tins make for smaller ramen buns, so smaller beef patties would work best with this recipe.

https://koreainmykitchen.com/?p=1367

Slow cooker Sunday – Mongolian beef

mongolian beef

I love Sundays! We get to sleep in, drink coffee and eat a slower paced breakfast, and make our way to church. We spend the day with family and at church and it is near dinner time when we get home. It is a lovely day, except for the last minute planning (you know, open the fridge, close the fridge, open it again in hopes some idea jumps out at you!) and the mad rush to make dinner once we are home.  A quick way to ruin the tranquility of the day!

mongolian beefSo recently, in a moment of brilliance, I dug out the slowcooker and decided we would start slow cooker Sundays. It’s the best idea I’ve had in a long time!

So now I turn on the rice cooker and the slow cooker before I head out the door, and let the appliances do the cooking!  If only there was an appliance to clean the bathrooms! 🙂

Slow cooker Sunday – Mongolian beef

Slow cooker Sunday – Mongolian beef

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 pounds stewing beef
  • 1/8 cup cornstarch
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1/2 teaspoon minced ginger
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 3/4 cup soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp sesame oil
  • 3/4 cup water
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup cubed carrots
  • 3 medium green onions, chopped

Instructions

  1. Combine ingredients the in crock pot (except green onions).
  2. Cook in crockpot on high for 2-3 hours or low for 4-5 hours (or until you are home).
  3. Serve with rice,
  4. Garnish with green onions.

Notes

Recipe adapted from sixsistersstuff.com

https://koreainmykitchen.com/?p=1245

We even have time for some cute pictures of my kidlets in their Sunday best now!

the girls

the boys

Steamed eggs with spinach

spinach eggs

Deliciously steamed eggs with spinach make a easy side dish, or breakfast, or whole meal if that is the way you roll with eggs! 🙂

Have I mentioned we eat a lot of eggs in our house?  We have a lot of chickens in our coop and they normally produce a lot of eggs, except for right now since they are molting and losing so many feathers that the run looks like they have a constant pillow fight! When they lose their feathers, they lose the energy to lay eggs, and we lose our abundant breakfast supply! Luckily this yummy recipe only needs 4.

What would an egg recipe be with out a picture of my cutie pie helping to collect the eggs?

fresh eggs

Steamed eggs with spinach

Ingredients

  • 1 cup of chicken broth
  • 1/2 c frozen spinach thawed (fresh would work too of course!)
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 green onion chopped
  • Dash salt
  • 1 tbsp sesame oil
  • 1 tsp sesame seeds

Instructions

  1. Bring the chicken broth to a boil
  2. Drain the spinach. If not totally drained, adjust chicken broth accordingly.
  3. Whisk eggs in a separate bowl then add spinach and onions and combine well
  4. Reduce the heat of the chicken broth to medium- low
  5. Add the egg mixture to the pot
  6. Stir until fully mixed
  7. Cover for 10-12 mins until most of the liquid has been absorbed
  8. Occasionally move the egg away from the edges of the pot to allow the broth to drain down
  9. Do not stir or else you will have scrambled eggs 🙂
  10. Remove cover for a minute or so. The texture should be like medium firm tofu
  11. Add sesame oil to the top (It adds a great flavour)
  12. Garnish with sesame seeds and green onions
https://koreainmykitchen.com/?p=1243

Enjoy!