Because you will win free stuff! I got to see a great show at the Khyber this week – Kristoffer Ragnstam and Robert Gomez. All because since I started blogging, I’ve been reading blogs more, and while I don’t remember even entering this random draw, I apparently did, and won free tickets to the show from the Phillyist. It was a fantastic show, nearly noone was there, and I got to meet both bands. And they were also great. Good times. Now on to the food…
My friends M&M invited me over the other night to have some leftovers of soondubu (Korean tofu stew) and cioppino that they had made. You know what? They were both good. Soondubu is one of those things that is very Korean and there are restaurants who only sell soondubu. They have one thing on the menu and that’s it. They make it very easy to make at home these days because they have packets with the flavorings that you throw into some water along with a package of tofu and also toss in some frozen seafood mix that they especially sell for situations just like this. I’ve never made it myself, but my brother has. If he can make it, then anyone can! The cioppino was also good. We ladelled it over linguine noodles and there were mussels, fish, onions, and tomatoes. Good job M&M!

Then M made me try this weird Chinese “dessert”. He kept calling it dessert but it was really booze with some rice in it. It says “fermented sweet rice sauce” on the label, but it’s basically some sweet rice in water that they fermented. It’s gross, extremely strong, and not likeable at all. Blech. M is crazy for liking this stuff!

I made a giant hot bowl of udon noodles the other night. It’d been in my freezer for awhile so I wasn’t sure it would turn out good, but it certainly did. Udon is a thick Japanese noodle, but Koreans like it alot. The frozen packet I was using was Korean. It comes with the noodles and the flavoring packet and the veggie type stuff. It turned out really quite delicious. But I think I need some bigger bowls.

Like I said, we spent most of Saturday preparing for the crazy 60th birthday celebration feast, with very specific food being prepared. Behold the feast table. May I remind you that it was my sister-in-law who researched and came up with our modified table setting. Things are arranged very specifically, with the food being pointed to the head of the table, where my mom was supposed to sit.

The piece de resistance had to be the Hwachae, or fruit soup, that my SIL had to make. I believe this was something special specific for the 60. This dish literally included a dozen different fresh fruits, and also included some sake. Yeah. It basically ended up tasting like a runny fruit salad that had a slightly flower-y flavor to it. I liked it. But I love fruit, so it wasn’t surprising. You were supposed to garnish it with pine nuts and mint leaves. I passed on that as I do not like pine nuts nor do I like to bite into mint chunks. It was a really fun dinner to make and my mom really appreciated it, but I’m rather glad I’ll never have to do it again! I can just wait for my 60th birthday and make people prepare my feast!

My friends M&M invited me over to make pizza last night. I got them hooked on home pizza making with the dough from Trader Joe’s. They have a fancy pizza pan with holes, see? Ooh la la. The dough doesn’t stick at all and it stays nice and doughy, not crunchy. We had pepperoni and sauage and cherry tomatoes. The sausage was fresh from TJ’s and we cooked it up a little before using it as pizza topping. It turned out great. I put some bbq sauce on mine after it was cooked and it was even tastier.

M made some dessert as well, some chocolate pastry pockets. She got the recipe from Paula Deen. She even made crimps on the edges with a fork. Isn’t it fancy? She made some chocolate sauce with cream and Hershey’s Kisses as a topping and also sliced up some strawberries. It was so simple, but so tasty. We also had some white bean dip as an appetizer that was good and pretty much tasted like hummus, but slightly different. We were kicking it like royalty in Ardmore.