Here we have a two-for-one recipe special, a first ever on foodzings. Both of these dishes are so easy, that even I could make them. So we’ll start first with a cucumber side dish. It’s a tangy little banchan of freshly pickled cucumbers, with a bit of spice.

We start off with a few pickling cucumbers. Half them lengthwise, then slice them.

Throw them in a bowl along with some thinly sliced onion.

Throw a little salt over this and mix it around a little bit.

Chop up a sprig or two of green onion.

Throw these into the bowl, along with a bit of sugar. Mix again.

Then we only have two more things to add – kochukaru (korean chili powder) and white vinegar.

The more kochukaru you add, the spicier it will be. The more vinegar you add, the tangier it will be. Put in however much you like! That’s it!

Ok, moving right along to our second dish, sweet red bean buns. Correction, the easiest sweet red bean buns you will ever make. These are super tasty and super easy to make. Seriously, they don’t get easier than this. So if you like pastries, and if you like sweet red bean, then keep on reading. If not, then click away.

Here are the ingredients – crescent roll mix and a can of sweet red beans. Seriously that’s it. This is a two ingredient dish. I told you it was easy.

So you take a piece of the crescent, and spoon some sweet red bean in there.

You close it up so that it forms a little bun.

Place the buns seam-side down on a cookie sheet. How long to cook these? At what temperature? I have no idea. Just follow the crescent instructions and don’t burn them. The bottom has a tendency to burn, so keep an eye on them.

Eat them when they’re fresh out of the oven! Ok, so I don’t know if these buns are really korean, but since my mom is korean, and she made them, I’m going to call them korean. Or at least korean-esque. All I know is that they’re good and beyond easy!

I was in Columbus for quite a long time, but we were all well fed by my mom’s cooking the whole time. Here are some of the highlights. Her famous spring rolls! As usual, they kicked ass. We accidentally bought the wrong noodles (cellophane noodles instead of rice noodles), but they were still darn good.

Spam fried rice! This happens to be a favorite of my brother. I’m not nearly as into it as he is, and he is also a SPAM freak, but I like it. With egg on top and ketchup. It totally takes us back to our childhoods.

Some spicy kimchi soba noodles. A ridiculously easy dish of soba noodles, chopped up kimchi and maybe some cucumber, and some kochujang. Maybe a little sesame oil, soy, sugar too. It’s great for a hot day, which most of the days in Columbus were.

A big bowl of kalguksu. Kalguksu literally translates to knife noodles (kal is knife, guksu is noodles). The noodles are thick wheat noodles that were traditionally hand-cut with knives. They don’t exactly do that these days. The dish isn’t the most flavorful, so we eat it with kimchi. Everything tastes better with kimchi!

My mom also made another big batch of dumplings, or as we call them, mandu. Here are some of the little half-moon beauties after being steamed.

We also ate some on another day in soup. Manduguk literally means dumpling soup. Mandu is dumpling, guk is soup. See, you’re all getting a free korean lesson.

A little bowl of spicy dubu jjigae. That’s tofu stew to you. Can you figure out what means tofu and what means stew? Congrats! You’re well on your way to be fluent in food korean.

And a random smattering of banchan and other dishes. Some galbi or bulgogi, I don’t even remember which it was anymore. Some of the japchae, whose recipe I shared with you earlier. Some marinated cucumbers, whose recipe I will soon share. And some marinated file fish. The file fish, or juipo, was languishing in my brother’s freezer for who knows how long. So my mom freed them from their frozen cell and promptly led them into our bellies.

If you’ve eaten korean food before, especially in a party type of setting or at someone’s house, you may have eaten japchae. It’s kind of an iconic korean dish, for whatever reason. I actually am not crazy about it, but when people want to expose newbies to korean food, japchae is often used, along with korean bbq. It’s typically a side dish or an accompanying dish made of potato starch noodles, veggies, and sometimes meat. It’s often served cold or lukewarm. It’s not a hot dish. It’s really up to you what kind of veggies you put in it. So here’s a version that my mom made so that W could learn how to make this.

This is not a difficult dish to make at all, but it is manually intensive. You need some decent knife skills, or at least it helps. And it also will look a lot more attractive if you’re very good at julienning. So here we go. Julienne some carrots into thin sticks. In a pan with some vegetable oil, sautee them up with a little salt. Take a thing of kamaboko and julienne that up too. Sautee it up with a little salt. These were some dried shitake mushrooms. Soak them so they spring back to life. Then remove the stems and julienne the tops. Sautee this with some oil and salt. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Thinly slice up some onions and sautee with oil and a little salt until soft. I think you’re probably catching on by now. Feel free to use other veggies you like. Spinach is often seen in most japchae variations. My mom doesn’t like to put spinach in there as she feels it makes it spoil faster. Thinly sliced red, yellow, or orange bell pepper would have been a nice touch. You can also put egg in here as well. Mix up an egg, cook it in a big pan like a thin pancake and slice it up into thin strips. Really, make your japchae to suit what you like.

Thinly cut up some sliced beef. These are slightly still frozen so it’s easier to cut. Cook the beef up with some oil and a little salt.

Here are the potato starch noodles. You know these are the right ones because it has a picture of japchae on the package. Then it has to be right, right?

Cook these up according to the directions. They don’t take long to cook. Thoroughly rinse the cooked noodles in cold water.

Yep, that’s right, you have to heat these up a little too. Add a little oil, a little salt, and heat these up a bit.

Throw everything into a big ass bowl and mix!

I said mix!

Add some soy, some sesame oil, and some sugar. Add little by little, and adjust to your liking while mixing and tasting. And really, that is it!