Friday, August 7, 2015

Korean Day & Everyday Foodie is Six!

I've been on the scene for six years!

Everyday Foodie turned six years old yesterday, and like any good foodies we celebrated with Spam:


Okay, stay with me.  There's more to it!  I haven't gone off the deep end.

Since Korean is our favourite type of ethnic cuisine we decided to have a couple Korean meals yesterday.  For lunch we had tteokbokki.



Then for dinner we decided to whip up budae jjigae.  Budae jjigae (army or soldier stew) became popular after the Korean war when food was scarce in Seoul.  Many people made use of canned surplus foods from army bases (Spam, ham, beans, etc.) and mixed them with Korean flavours such as gochujang and kimchi.  This dish is still popular in Korea, and it is a mixture of modern American ingredients such as instant noodles, American cheese, macaroni, and hotdogs, with tofu, a Korean broth and spices, rice cakes, and vegetables.

It starts with making and then straining a simple, quick broth.  In the broth are dried shitakes, dried shrimp, dried anchovies, onion, and kelp.


Then you saute some onion, carrot and garlic.  Once softened you top the vegetables with sliced Spam, sliced hotdogs, sliced tofu, rice cakes, and kimchi.  You can add different things too - Google a few recipes if you're interested.


You pour the broth over everything, and bring it to a boil ...


Then you add a spice mixture of gochujang powder, gochujang paste, soy sauce, and rice wine.


After cooking that for about five minutes, you add some instant ramen noodles, and cook until those are done.


Then, in case this hasn't been strange enough for you so far ...


You add a couple processed slices of cheese.

Stir that in and then dig in!


The verdict = It was too Western for us to be honest.  It tasted fine, but almost a little bland compared to what we're used to with Korean food.  We like to tell people that we're part Korean, and although this is a popular Korean dish, the addition of all the Western ingredients made it taste not Korean enough.  It could have used way more spice too.  We had fun making it though!

It's hard to believe that I created this blog six years ago.  I remember it perfectly, sitting in the spare room, on a desktop computer at a corner desk.  I had started blogs before, but never stuck with them.  This one I wanted to commit to.  I bought the domain name that day, and got started, never imagining where it would end up.  Within the past year alone I've partnered with some big names, such as Canadian Living Magazine, Sobeys, Circulon and Menchie's!  What a blast!  I'm so excited to see what the future holds for Everyday Foodie.

I'd love to learn more about my readers!  

If you have a minute, leave a comment (you don't need an account or anything like that - anyone can leave a comment) and tell me:

1) Your name
2) Where you're from
3) What keeps you coming back to read
4) What you're up to this weekend!

5 comments:

Dione said...

I'm Dione from Edmonton! I'm 40 years old, a med lab technologist, and have been reading you for years. I enjoy seeing what you and your husband are up to, what you're eating, and your recipes. I'm off this weekend but don't have any plans yet, but am content to stay home and putter. It's been a hectic week.
Congrats on 6 years, I'm sure I've read you for at least 4 or 5!

Lisa from Lisa's Yarns said...

Happy 6 year blogiversary! :) I am glad you've kept with it as I love reading your posts!

My name is Lisa, I live in Minneapolis, MN, and I keep coming back to read your blog because I love to see what you and Chris are eating. I'm always impressed by the number of meals you cook during the week and the complexity of some of the recipes you tackle - I find it inspirational as I am one of those people that only makes 2 real meals a week and then I get by the rest of the week on leftovers and easy meals like eggs or avocado on toast! (boring!) And this weekend, we stayed in last night and got take out. I ran a lot of miles this morning so will not do much this afternoon and then tonight Phil and I are going out to dinner with his mom and then I'm going to Music Man with his mom at the theater by my house! It should be a really fun night.

Anonymous said...

Hi Jolene, my name is Michelle and I'm from Ayrshire in Scotland. I stumbled upon your blog about two years ago and have been reading it ever since.

Like you, I love all things food and cooking and I'm always trying out new things! Baking is also one of my favourite things to do, especially bread.

So far this weekend I've cooked a Mexican themed dinner for my family and have done a bit of shopping.

Congratulations on six years of Everyday Foodie!

Why am I here??? said...

I think you're half Korean!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BLOG!!!!

Unknown said...

I missed this post....Happy blogiversary! 6 years is a long time to commit to a blog way to go and congrats on all the exciting opportunities you've encountered along the way!