A Taste of Home: Korean Beef

I needed a dinner recipe to take advantage of the pre-cooked ground beef I had in the freezer and this one fit the bill.  I figured Sonny D would probably like it for three reasons -- it's Korean, it's meat, and it's served with rice.    I liked the recipe since it didn't call for anything weird, we had everything at home already. 

Ground beef with rice.

Lemme just tell ya that I love having pre-cooked ground beef in the freezer.  It seems like pre-cooking your ground beef wouldn't save much time, but it totally does.  I pull it out the night before to let it defrost in the refrigerator and by the next day's dinner time it's pretty much fully defrosted and we're ready to roll.  It's easy to turn into taco meat, add BBQ sauce for loose meat sandwiches, or even a quick Asian-inspired dish like Inside Out Egg Roll Stir Fry.   

The star of the show, pre-cooked ground beef

Inspiration

Lizzy writes: Korean beef

The original poster likes her dish rather sweet, but we don't, so I reduced the brown sugar from 1/4 cup down to 2 tablespoons.  Otherwise the rest of the ingredients are exactly the same.  I wasn't clear if she meant "sprinkle it on your pizza" crushed red pepper or the Korean version called gochujaru.  I have the Korean version, so I went with that.  Gochujaru isn't spicy, so I knew I could use the full amount.

You could make a vegetarian version using textured vegetable protein or tempeh. 

Ingredients

The main ingredients

• 1 pound lean ground beef (mine was pre-cooked but feel free to cook it from raw)
• 2 T brown sugar 
• 1/4 cup soy sauce (I use low-sodium)
• 1 Tablespoon sesame oil
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh ginger, minced from a tube
• 1 teaspoon crushed red peppers (gochujaru)
• freshly ground black pepper pepper
• 2-3 cups brown rice, cooked (I made mine in the rice cooker at lunch and let it sit all afternoon on the 'keep warm' function)
• 1 bunch green onions, diced

Looks like plain ground beef, but there's lots of flavor in there!

Directions

Once your meat is browned (or defrosted), add the rest of the ingredients except the green onions.  Let it cook to fully warm up and thicken up a bit.  Serve over rice and top with green onions.

Verdict

Simple ingredients but so tasty!

I loved how quick this was to pull together.  Plus it was so flavorful!  Husband Jeff and I agreed that the flavoring/sauce would also work really well with veggies and crumbled tempeh (fermented soybeans, like a variation of tofu but looks more like ground beef).  Husband Jeff also said that it would make for some rockin' Asian tacos.   Sonny D was way more interested in rice but he did have some and seemed to like it.  Some days with a toddler you just can't tell what's going on.   

Menu Plan: Week of May 20

• Monday - I'm going to try the adventure of making spring rolls.  They're similar to egg rolls but it's salad ingredients rolled up in a slightly-clear rice paper wrapper and not deep fried.  I've had them at restaurants, so I figured I would try making a shrimp-and-tofu version at home. Aside from the shrimp and tofu, I'm going to use cucumber, carrot shreds, salad greens, avocado, and green onion. I'll serve it with a cooked veggie on the side and rice.  For dessert we'll have more of the strawberry-lemonade icebox cake I made the other day (recipe coming).
• Tuesday - Dad's Choice because I'm going out for a moms' night out event at Ha Long Bay, a delicious Thai, Laotian, and Vietnamese restaurant.  
• Wednesday - Husband Jeff and I have exercise class together (last one of the semester), so the usual small meal of a sandwich or random leftovers. 
• Thursday - Oven-baked pancakes, Greek yogurt souffles, fruit, and breakfast sausages.  The pancakes aren't like your standard round ones, they're baked in the oven in a casserole dish and you cut it into squares to serve it.  I found the recipe on Pinterest and found several bloggers who made it and liked it and it seems like a neat recipe, so I figured why not try it out?  I mentioned it to a friend and she thought it would be good for brunch, so if this goes well, I might try it out on friends as well. 
• Friday - We're starting off the holiday weekend by meeting up with friends and tailgating for the Milwaukee Brewers game.  I have no idea what the plan is, but Husband Jeff told me I can't go overboard with food planning like I usually do.  Typically I stress over the details and pack a million things.  Maybe we'll take only a package of hot dogs and a bag of buns!  (But hopefully someone is bringing a grill!)
• Saturday - We have friends that do a burger challenge every Memorial weekend, it's a contest where entrants make burgers and vie for the best burger.  We might actually go this time!  If we don't completely stuff ourselves at the event, I'll try making polenta pizza rounds (pizza toppings on a slice of polenta) with a veggie.
• Sunday - after all the food we're going to have this week, I figured we'd go light for dinner and have a can of soup with turkey meatballs on the side or sandwiches.
• Monday - We have friends back in town visiting from Seattle and we were invited to their family cookout.  We were asked to bring a dish to pass and I think I'm going to go for the lemon-basil chickpea salad I've made a few times.  It's easy to prep ahead of time and a light side to go with grilled foods. 

Season Your Pasta Water

Herbs and spices coloring the
water and making it taste good.

The next time you make pasta for a dish, try seasoning your pasta water. Celebrity Chef Rachel Ray says this is the only chance you get to really infuse your pasta with flavor and I agree.  Typically pasta is really boring on its own, so it's nice to give it a little boost even when you're going to cover it in sauce.

I think it's a good way to enhance your foods.  I've added herbs and spices, but most commonly I'll add a dash of cayenne pepper to the water to enhance the pasta with a little zip but without making the dish super spicy.

I also used this concept when making rice, quinoa, or couscous.  I use flavors that either complement the rest of the meal or flavors that are already in another dish to help tie everything together.  Typically this means I use chicken stock as the liquid, but also throwing in a touch of anything else that seems good.

Favorite Equipment: I Love my Immersion Blender

Not my model, but similar. Courtesy of Braun.com

One of my favorite kitchen tools is immersion blender, sometimes also called a hand blender. We have a standard blender somewhere, but we rarely use it since this can do pretty much everything a regular blender can, plus it's not as big and clunky. 

I have an older model Braun Multiquick 3 that they don't make anymore. It has three removable heads/functions - a blender attachment, a chopper cup attachment, and a whisk attachment.

The blender is the piece I use the most, you can use it to make pesto, smoothies, whiz up soups, etc. I would say that I use it most to blend hot soups while they're still on the stove in the pot.  When I make creamy tomato-basil soup, I stick it right in the pot and blend it up, with only the blender stick to clean.  If you did that in a standard blender, you would need to clean the blender up, plus when you blend hot food in a blender, you can only do a small amount at a time and vent the lid to make sure the food doesn't come popping out. 

The whisk is nice for whipping cream or mixing up a cream cheese frosting.  It's not as strong as a standard mixer, but for small amounts it's perfect. 

The chopper cup is nice for things where you only want to chop things like nuts or mix up ingredients for a salad dressing. I use this least, mainly because I buy most things pre-chopped, but I have used it as a mini food processor to mince things like veggies and ginger. 

Morning Joe in a Bowl

Inspiration

I think I saw the concept for coffee oatmeal on a blog somewhere, but this isn't copied from a recipe so I had to make it up.  I usually make my oats the night before or in a big batch for the week. By making the oats ahead of time and allowing them to sit overnight, you end up with a bigger bowl of oatmeal than you would if you made it that minute.  It's the same concept as the growing bowl of oatmeal, adding more water than called for and giving it more time to "cook".

My breakfast ended up being mocha oats since I added cocoa. I was afraid the coffee flavor would be too flat so I added the cocoa powder in the morning, but it's actually best to add it the night before so it has time to fully hydrate.  

Dry ingredients

Since I make my oatmeal ahead of time and I like it really thick, the amount of water I used is different than what you might like.  If you're making your oats to eat right now or can't wait until later, you'll probably want to reduce the water to 1/2 cup or so, depending on the texture you prefer your oatmeal to be.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup oats
• 1 T chia seeds
• 1 teaspoon instant decaf coffee 
• 3/4 cup water (or replace instant coffee and water with 3/4 cup brewed coffee)
• 1.5 teaspoons cocoa powder

Instructions

Mix all of the ingredients and heat for 1 minute in the microwave.  Stir, and heat for one more minute.  Let sit overnight in the microwave.  By microwaving, you're starting the cooking process, which allows the oats to soak up more water.  I've tried it where I heat it for only one minute the night before, and the oats didn't soak up much water at all.

After going for a spin in the microwave two times. 

In the morning, stir it and heat it for 1 minute, stir, and cook for 1 more minute.

I top my oatmeal with a "milk float" of 1T non-dairy creamer and 2 T almond milk. 

This is how it looks in the morning after the water is absorbed.

Verdict

Deep, dark flavor to start your morning.

I'm not sure why I waited so long to try this, but I thought this was awesome. Oats work really well with coffee.  The coffee flavor was perfect, not too strong or too weak.

According to The Flavor Bible, coffee goes well with banana too, so I'm going to have to try that sometime.

Since I typically make a large batch of oats at once and divide it into containers to eat for the week, I'll have to see how it is if I mix the instant crystals into the oatmeal in the morning.  But this is definitely on my list of go-to flavors for oatmeal.

I talked Husband Jeff into trying a bite and he didn't care for it.  He said, "We have different ideas of what tastes good." 

Menu Plan: Week of May 13

Here we are again, another week gone by. It feels like we're sprinting to summer. This weekend was cold in Wisconsin -- 41 degrees for a high on Saturday, 61 degrees for a high today, but by Tuesday we're supposed to be at 81. 

I took advantage of the colder weather this weekend and cranked up the oven to make some more roasted veggies.  I was lamenting the fact that I won't be able to make roasted veggies once the weather turns out, but I realized I've now got a Pampered Chef grillpan I got over the winter that I can use.  It might take multiple batches since it's smaller than my huge roasting pan, but some real grill taste will be nice.

Here's the meal plan for the week.  For the Korean dish on Tuesday and the taco salads on Thursday I'm relying on the pre-cooked ground beef I prepped on my last big grocery shopping trip.  I love being able to pull those out and make a meal quickly.  Not that browning ground beef takes a long time, but sometimes it's nice to take care of it when you do have the time and ensure your weeknight dinners are quicker. 

• Monday - jalapeño chicken sausages, roasted veggies with cilantro-jalapeno hummus, and gnocchi alla sorrentina.  The sausages, hummus, gnocchi are from Trader Joe's, I love that place!
• Tuesday - Korean ground beef dish with rice and whatever random veggies I pull out of the freezer.
• Wednesday - a small sandwich and fruit (or sometimes leftovers) before exercise class
• Thursday - taco salads plus probably a can of Mexi-corn or something.
• Friday - Sonny D will have something quick and easy like pancakes and eggs because I'm going out for a birthday dinner with friends. 
• Saturday - Mojito salmon (another Trader Joe's favorite) plus whatever I can find that sounds good.
• Sunday - two-timin' pasta (alfredo plus red sauce) with garlic bread and maybe frozen turkey meatballs.  I might actually make the two-timin' pasta this time, this is at least the second time it's been on the menu but I haven't actually made it yet.

Springy Lemon Pasta

Here's the finished dish.

 Inspiration

My inspiration for this dish was the lemon slowly wilting away in my hanging produce basket.  That one lemon wasn't enough lemon flavor for my taste, so I added some bottled lemon juice.  I like my lemon dishes to be really strong on the lemon flavor, so you might want to only add one additional tablespoon of bottled lemon juice.  Definitely taste it as you go.

If you want to make this dairy-free, swap out the butter with your favorite oil.  You might also be able to use a non-wheat flour to make the roux gluten-free, but I haven't tried that.  Cornstarch or arrowroot are traditional thickeners you might try.

Ingredients 

Makes 4 servings

Starting off a roux

• 6 ounces pasta
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• pinch dried parsley (optional)
• 1.5 cups (almond) milk
• zest of 1 lemon
• juice of 1 lemon
• 2T bottled lemon juice
• Couple handfuls of peas (frozen)
• handful of chopped/ripped spinach
• 4 slices of bacon, minced
• Salt and pepper

 

Instructions

Start your pasta in a large pot of boiling water.

In a large, deep skillet or saucepan, melt the butter and flour together over medium heat and stir it around and let it cook for a bit to get rid of the rawness of the flour. This is the start of a roux. 

Adding almond milk to the roux

Add the garlic and let it cook for 1 minute, then stir in the milk and ensure it gets evenly incorporated.
Zest your lemon directly over the pan so you get all of it in the dish and add the juice as well.  Let it cook for a bit to thicken up.  Stir in the peas and the spinach and let things warm back up and wilt down.

When your pasta is done, add that and the bacon and stir it all together.  Add salt & pepper to taste. I used a pretty heavy amount of pepper to ensure the dish wasn't just lemon tasting.

Verdict

Lemony-sharp and springy. 

Added lemon juice to the roux

With the creamy citrus and the green peas, this was a wonderfully springy dish to throw together.  Husband Jeff and I loved it, we both like really lemony dishes.  He wanted more protein with our meal (I served it with salads) and was disappointed that the rest of the bacon wasn't going into the dish.

I would make it again, maybe next time with some diced ham.  Could also add some steamed asparagus.  Another variation would be with salmon or shrimp, which could also include the bacon.  
 
This dish would have been pretty quick to pull together but I had to defrost and oven-fry my bacon first. But now I've got the rest of the pound of pre-cooked bacon in my freezer, ready to go into pretty much anything.

You could also add some freshly grated parmesan to the roux when you add the lemon juice for a lemon-alfredo sauce.