Breakfast Cups

A fun take on a classic breakfast.  You can nix the bacon completely if you want to.  You monster.

Ingredients

bacon

egg

butter

salt

crushed black pepper

Optional

bread

shredded cheese

onion

garlic

chopped green onion

Equipment

muffin pan

 The How-To

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit
2. Butter the muffin pan
3. If you want to use bread or toast, you can cut out circles and put them at the bases of the muffin pan
4. If you want to use onions and garlic, chop the onions and garlic and fry on low heat/caramelize
5. Fry the bacon until it's just about done/slightly crispy - you can pat them dry if you want to
6. Shape the bacon strips in the muffin pan circles; one in each so it's pressed against the sides like a little bacon cup
7. You can add some cheese, along with the caramelized onions and garlic from before.
8. Crack an egg into each of the bacon cups
9. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper
10. Bake for 11 to 15 minutes
11. To remove the breakfast cups from their muffin pan prison, you can simply run a knife around each one and pry them out
12. Enjoy

Sometimes I add a little tomato, steak, turkey, and/or ham to the mix.  Or a little potato.  Go crazy if you want to, haha.

SIDE DISH: Some Pickles

It's often said that cooking is science in the kitchen.  In this recipe, we'll be cultivating Lactobacillus, which is a genus that's present in fermentation.  I understand bacteria are seen as harbingers of death and food poisoning, but there is no need to sterilize Lactobacillus.  They're in cheese, yogurt, wine, beer--KEEP THAT CLOROX AWAY, PSYCHO.

Ingredients

salt

water

cucumbers and/or peeled daikon

Optional

soy sauce

Equipment
container(s) - bowl, Tupperware, jar... something to hold the pickles
cover

Optional

pH strips for testing the brine
baking soda to kill the smell while fermenting

The How-To

1. Rinse the cucumbers.  You can choose to cut them so they're like little circles now, or you could do it afterwards.
2. If you are using daikon, chop it.  You can use whatever shapes or kind of cutting, but I usually cut them into strands or cubes.
3. Coat the cucumbers/daikon with salt.
4. Pour water into the container.
5. Stir salt and/or soy sauce into the water until the water is briny/very-salty-and-therefore-not-very-drinkable.  You can use the pH strips here to test the water's pH - your aim should be about pH level 4.5
6. Put the salt-coated cucumbers/daikon in the container(s).  You can put both cucumbers and daikon in the same container, or have segregated containers.
7. Cover the container(s) so oxygen doesn't get in.
8. Keep container(s) at room temperature for at least 6 hours.  More time = more sour.  It may also get smelly so you can keep some baking soda nearby (an opened box, a bowl of baking soda, etc.) if you don't like the smell.

You can also refrigerate the container, but it's best to do that after it's pickled.

Heck, you could just toss daikon cubes and cucumber slices with some vinegar/salt, but who wants to do that?

I like to garnish the pickled daikon with some shredded bell pepper, and serve it on a leaf of lettuce/spinach on a white side dish bowl.  Or serve pickled cucumber slices with a little toasted sesame seed as a garnish.

Mommy's Perilla Salad

I don't know why people think putting soy sauce and mandarin slices in a chicken salad automatically makes it Asian, but here's a legit perilla salad, usually eaten with Korean barbecue AKA a bad day for PETA.  There's no WTF acidic orange toothpaste taste here.  At least, there shouldn't be.  Thank God.

This is a salad my mother often makes, sometimes as a side dish and always for Korean barbecue.

Ingredients

Perilla leaves

Lettuce (I like Romaine)

Green onion

Soy sauce or salt

Crushed black pepper

Garlic

Sesame oil

Sesame seeds

Crushed chili powder

Optional

Bell pepper (makes for nice coloration and a source of crunchiness)

Sugar or sugar replacement

The How-To

1. Chop the perilla leaves and lettuce.  Bell pepper too, if you want to.
2. SHRED the green onion until they're in slivers about 1/8 to 1/4 inches thin.
3. Toss the perilla, lettuce, and green onion together.
4. Add a little soy sauce or salt, with some crushed black pepper and minced garlic.  You can add sugar/sugar replacement at this point.
5. Toss.
6. Drizzle sesame oil.
7. Garnish with sesame seeds and crushed chili powder.

You know what this needs?  Some orange zest.  Yeahhhhh.  And jelly beans!  Can't forget the freakin' jelly beans!  AND PEACHES.  WE FREAKIN' LOVE PEACHES IN SALAD BECAUSE IT'S OMG SO UNIQUE YOU KNOW BURN IT BURN IT BURNIT KILL IT WITH FIRE BURN BURN BURN

You can consume this with some bacon, and/or rice.  And, of course, in typical Korean fashion, side dishes.  But it's great for Korean barbecue, or in a bulgogi burger.

Mommy's Seaweed Soup

In Korean culture, you eat seaweed soup for your birthday because it's what your mother ate while pregnant with you (well, usually).  It's basically paying respect for your mother every birthday, or going to your roots since a fetus basically absorbs whatever the mom eats.  So, kind of like the champagne bottle christening a ship, here is a recipe for Korean seaweed soup!

Ingredients

Seaweed

Salt

Sesame oil
Water

Optional 

Korean soup soy sauce (none of that Japanese sushi stuff)

Mussel, beef, and/or anchovy

The How-To

1. Soak seaweed in water.  When it's an expanded and big, you rinse the seaweed a couple times to make sure there aren't any rocks hiding inside.
2. Drain the seaweed.
3. Cut the seaweed to whatever size you'd like.
4. Drizzle a little sesame oil in a pot with the seaweed.  Add a little salt.
5. Stir on medium to medium-high heat until there's some color change.
6. Pour some water in - about two parts water to one part seaweed.
7. Boil

If it's not very yummy, add a little Korean soup soy sauce.  You can put some mussel, beef, and/or anchovy in for some extra protein.  It's also not uncommon to eat this stuff with rice and some side dishes.  Then again, in Korean everything has some side dishes.  Hey; that's another idea for this blog thing!

HAPPY BIRTH DAY, COOKING BLOB

At last - my first blog-thing.  A cooking blog... I should frame it or something.


PURPOSE
To have some place more public to record kitchen experiments, so that I may exchange notes and whatnot with folks.  Or something.

So, to commemorate this blog's birth day... a recipe!

I will add photos and whatnot to help make this blog look less like a wall of text.