Mariannes Motifs

Seo Ra Beol Korean BBQ

In celebration of Mom in Law's visit we took her to a pretty fancy Korean restaraunt - Seo Ra Beol.  (Pleasant Hill Road in Duluth, GA)  This is the place that used to be Seoul Garden. Not only do they cook the BBQ on a grill in the middle of the table - its a real charcoal grill.  It's amazing - they come out with a big bucket of glowing hot coals and put them on the grill then bring out the meat to cook!

Here's a picture that shows all the yummy kimchi sides they bring out and some Gal Bi ribs cooking up.  It was so good we ate ourselves silly. (Might need to pick up extra disability insurance - just kidding I was careful)

Beef Stew

I've got beef stew in the crock pot.  I chopped up carrots, celery, parsnip, potatoes, and onions. I chopped up some chuck steak and browned it, then browned the onions and a little bit of garlic.  Then I dumped everything in the crock pot with some essence of Emiril, hungaian paprika, and cover with beef stock.  A little while ago I took some of the liquid and beat in some flour to try to thicken it up. 

Hopefully this comes out good.  It sure smells good.  I am craving some nice beef protein.  It might save me from having to read dermitage reviews.

Spiced Strawberry Lemonade with Captain Morgans

I had some strawberries on the way to going mushy and realized I also had a bottle of "Simply Lemonade" in the fridge.  I thought to myself, "self, I could make strawberry lemonade."  Hubster piped up and said "daiquiris?" which got me thinking.   So I "unvented" a drink.

This is what I came up with ---

Captain Morgan's Spiced Strawberry Lemonade:

Strawberries macerated with sugar

Simply Lemonade

1 Shot of Captain Morgan's spiced rum

Pour over ice and serve!

 Absolutely delicious.  I think this would be great blended up in the blender as an iced drink as well.

Cheers!

Cooking Seder Dinner

We are doing our Seder late this year - tomorrow night.  That way I have more time to get everything ready since I was in calss all week.

So I made the chicken soup already and will make the matzoh ball mix tonight.  I am in the process of cooking "My Mother's Brisket" (the Epicurious recipe, which coincidentally my mom also makes).  Then tommorow I will chop up charoset, and do the rest of the preparations.  I cheated and bought already hard boiled eggs.

My friends Jeff and James are coming over to be our guests.   Yay!  Get ready to break out the discount acid cigars, its party time.

Homemade Cold Sesame Noodles

I am pretty sure the cold sesame noodles you get at New York City Chinese restaurants aren't authentic to China.  They are, however, a delicious dish full of peanut buttery, sesame goodness.  One of those great New York Chinatown inventions like fortune cookies, and chow mein.

You cannot get these at any of our local Chinese joints here in the made up town of John's Creek Georgia, so I decided to make my own today.

I used speghetti, since that's what I had.  I used a coule of different recipes as a guide.  Basically I used this one from Sack Lunch Cold Sesame Noodles, except I sauteed the sauce in a saucepan instead of using the blender.  That way I cooked the garlic and ginger first, to mellow their taste.  I used really good Korean dark sesame oil and roasted sesame seeds.  I juilienned carrots, cucumber, and scallions to put on top.  This came out so delicious.  The kids wouldn't touch it with a 10 ft. pole, however.  So its probably going to be all mine and make me gain 5 pounds.

 

Homemade Brown Rice Cucumber and Carrot Maki

I made home made sushi rolls.  These are made with organic farm brand organic brown rice.  First I soaked the rice in water for a few hours before cooking it in the rice cooker in attempt to ge t it light and fluffy instead of hard and crunchy. 

After the rice was cooked up I mixed in sushi vinager, a touch of sesame oil, and roasted sesame seeds.  This gives it a nice flavor.

Then I rolled them according to this video.  I think the cling wrap really helps!

I did thin matchstick cucumbers and carrots in them.  Super yummy!  We had them for dinner and I packed some for lunch tomorrow.

 

 

 

Southwestern Brisket Soup

In the process of making the Texas Caviar (half batch) I ended up with half a can of corn and half a can of black beans, some chopped onions, and part of a can of green chilis left over.  I knew I had some leftover brisket cooked in Heinz Chili sauce in the fridge so I thought to myself - "self, this sounds like it could be a quick soup."  I mean, when you've already done the production jobs of chopping stuff, it makes sense to use the extra to make something else while you are at it.

I scrounged around and found some celery sticks and red bell pepper sticks left over from some veggie dip.  Chopped those up.  I had half a container of beef broth.  Good.

So I sauteed the onions and veggies, dumped in the beans and the broth.  Chopped up the brisket slices into chunks, and added them with just some of the brisket sauce.  (It had a lot of sauce and I didn't want to put too much in in case it was too strong)

Cooked this up, added some water.  Wow - Southwestern Brisket soup came out FANTASTIC.  Next time I have any leftover brisket I am so going to make soup out of it.  (Of course leftover brisket can be hard to come by when you have hungry bridket loving folks around...)

 

 

Texas Caviar

DSC06648
Originally uploaded by mar1annec

I first had Texas Caviar at the house of a friend of a friend who invited us over for a pool party in the summer. I fell in love with this strange bean salsa. Not really knowing the hostess all that well, I figured I could use my google-fu and find a recipe. I googled bean salsa, white bean salsa, and all kinds of things but could not find a recipe that seemed the same.

I finally asked my friend to ask her friend what that dip was. She goes "Oh, you mean the Texas Caviar?" LOL! I had no idea that is what it was called. Of course when you google search for Texas Caviar you get a bunch of great looking recipes.

I kind of used this as a starting point - http://www.wchstv.com/gmarecipes/texascaviar.shtml and then did my own thing. I used honey Dijon dressing and jarred salsa and skipped making my own dressing. I skipped the avocado and jicama - overkill IMHO.

It is so good! And the black eyed peas are lucky for New Years Day.  I am sending 2010 back to the address on the return return address labels and am ready for some good luck in 2011.

Brisket - Yum!

Yesterday we went to Costco and I bought a package that had two large pieces of brisket for about $21.00.  I trimmed them and froze one and cooked the other.  It was so easy - I just browned it and cooked it in the crock pot with a package of onion soup mix, one onion, pepper, and paprika.

Four humans and one dog loved this dinner.  (Served with egg noodles and green beans)  Plus I packed lunch for tomorrow and have leftovers.  That's a nice home cooked meal for only a little more than 10 bucks.  Time to spend more money on mbt shoes?

Actually, I spent my bloggy money this week on a hank of fancy hand dyed sock yarn from dizzysheep.com.

America's Craft Brewers - Making Booze

Werni, like most craft distillers, started off making only vodka, a liquor that takes just a few days to make and bottle before heading out the door to customers' gimlet glasses. But then he began branching into other spirits and is now making both bourbon and rye whiskey. Those spirits must be aged for two years in special wooden casks.

via www.jsonline.com

When I was a kid I remember that my grandmother would drink Bourbon on the rocks each evening saying her doctor told her it was good for her heart. She lived into her 90's so I think it worked.

I don't drink beer or wine anymore because they can sometimes trigger a migraine headache for me. But I have found that I don't seem to have any headache issues with Brandy. I just drank the last of my bottle of Courvoisier. (It took me a few years but I am pretty sure I drank the entire thing!)

I would love to try a handbrewed US bourbon. Sounds delicious.

Kind of makes me laugh that they used to just call it moonshine when people made little batches of booze.

Alcohol is a disinfectant, right - so it should work to treat acne.