A Tale of Two Dinners

The past week we have had some glorious weather, but yesterday we experienced a cold snap and so I decided that I would like a nice warm soup for dinner.

When shopping at H-Mart I found a prepared version of the beef bone soup that I have now attempted to make twice. So I thought 'what the heck, I'll give this a go'

I thought that some ramen noodles, kimchi and soondae (korean blood sausage) would go well with it. I like to use the instant lunch noodles as, unlike many other packages of ramen, they are only 1 serving per container and therefore keeps the calories undercontrol.

I cooked the ramen and then drained them, heated the soup, chopped some kimchi, boiled some soondae and sliced some green onions....

Mixed it all together and voila....

 A very easy to make and satisfying warm bowl of noodles. Delish!!!

Tonight I wanted to make a dried shrimp banchan. To make this you will need
- 3 sliced scallions
- 2 cloves finely chopped garlic
- 1/2 inch finely chopped ginger
- 3 sliced serrano peppers
- 3 tbsp gochujang
- 1 tbsp honey
- 2 tsp peanut oil
- 1 tsp dark soy sauce
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- sprinkling of black and white sesame seeds
- small amount of chicken stock (I make a big batch and then freeze it in ice cube trays)

Here are the dried shrimp. They don't have their heads or legs but they still have their shells and tails. Crunch crunch crunch!!!

There were some dried anchovies in my fridge that I wanted to use too, so I added them to this recipe.

In a wok fry the green onion, garlic and ginger over a medium heat for 2-3 minutes.

Add the dried fish, shrimp and stock cubes

Allow to cook for 5-10 minutes over a low heat before adding the gochujang, soy sauce and honey. I love the colour of this dish.

Turn off the heat before adding the small amount of sesame oil. Sprinkle with the sesame seeds on the serving plate. Remember, this is a banchan (Korean side dish) so you don't serve up a big amount, it's there to compliment the rest of the meal.

There was also some chicken in my fridge that I wanted to use up today and so I decided to make stir-fried chicken with kimchi. The name of the meal tells you what to do. Stir fry some chicken till it's cooked, lower the heat and throw in some kimchi (I did a 1:1 ratio). Allow the kimchi to heat through and then serve.

So here is tonights meal. I added some plain boiled string beans. Both the chicken and the shrimp dishes are rather strong flavours, so the plainness of the beans was a great addition to the meal. I served it with rice and seasoned seaweed. My drink was guava and aloe vera gel with san pellegrino. 맛있다!!

Matt is in Boston this evening for work. So I had my dinner in the living room on the coffee table, sat on the floor and watched some kdramas :) Ah bliss!