I am so smart. S-M-R-T.

First Meal at the New Apartment

First Meal at the New Apartment

Because we didn’t end up eating pizza and beer after moving on Sunday (mmm… Cho Sun Ok instead), Eric and I decided to make a homemade pizza on Monday night, to break in our new kitchen.

When I came home, Eric had bought me a celebratory bouquet of flowers.  Aww.

Eric and I are joking that we are “living large,” living on the top floor, hiring movers and then shopping at Whole Foods for groceries.  But what Whole Foods has that Jewel or Dominik’s doesn’t is fresh pizza dough available for purchase.  Eric quickly became a master dough tosser.  And only managed to hit the ceiling… just kidding.  We’re good.

We decided on a “white” style pizza, with eggplant, prosciutto, jalapeno peppers, fresh tomatoes, garlic and a three cheese, Asiago, Parmesan and Romano, blend.

Success!  And hopefully many more to come.

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This Dish is 2010 Me In Food Form

Megan was in town this week (see my last post), so I have spent a little more money than usual on food and drinks this week.  So today, post spending extravaganza, I tried to go the whole day without spending a cent.  This lead me to cooking tonight’s dinner with whatever was in my fridge and pantry— rice cakes, scallions, hot sauce, gochujang, spinach and dried mushrooms.

I wasn’t even going to take a picture of the final dish (since it was essentially dduk bokki), until I tasted the first bite.  Then I realized that this dish is, essentially, me in food form.  Mushrooms.  Dduk (rice cakes).  Garlic Chili sauce…

Only kidding.  I didn’t buy the jar that was this size, but there is a nice sized jar of garlic chili sauce in my fridge (LOVE this stuff).

Anyway, back to the dduk bokki I made tonight:

My variation of Dduk Bokki with Spinach, Dried Mushrooms and Scallion.

I added the dried mushrooms straight from the bag without reconstituting them and I must say, they were a great addition.  It added a chewy, umami flavor to the dish that I loved.  And I accidentally charred the rice cakes a little bit, which also added a delicious flavor (I’m weird, I love the flavor of burnt things).

Anyway, I know this is kind of the dish I make all the time and therefore it really isn’t much to blog about, but I was so happy with it that I had to blog about it.

As I said earlier, this dish encompasses all of my current food obsessions:  Korean flavors/gochujang, dduk (rice cakes), mushrooms and garlic chili sauce.  For example, when I order thai food, my order usually involves me telling the waitress, “I’ll have (insert dish here) with tofu, extra spicy and can you add mushrooms to that?”  And this goes one step further and adds dduk.  Mmmmm.

I hope you all are as excited as I am.

:o)

Dduk Bokki with Dduk in a new size!

Today at work, I had to fill out a little “Welcome to the Chicago Office” form.  It had some fun questions, like “What would you be doing if you weren’t in PR?” and “If you could have dinner with anyone, living or dead, who would you pick?”  For “What is your guilty pleasure?” I wrote: “Dining at restaurants that I really can’t afford.”

But my dinner craving came from my answer to “What is your favorite dish to prepare?” to which I answered, “Bulgogi or Dduk Bokki (Korean spicy rice cake dish).”

This weekend at Joong Boo Market, I bought a new shape of Dduk (rice cakes, for you new to my blog).  They are thicker and fatter— definitely the shape that most resembles gnocchi that I have tried so far.  So I knew that when I got home, I had the ingredients in my fridge to make dduk bokki without a trip to the store (unusual, as I tend to buy fresh ingredients one day at a time).

A quick reminder:

Dduk bokki = gochujang (spicy red pepper paste) + rice cakes + whatever veggies you have in your fridge. 

Tonight I used one carrot, a handful of spinach, garlic, sprouts, one sesame leaf and scallions.

Lucky me, I had Korean sesame leaves in my fridge as well!  It was delicious.  Just had to blog about it.  :o)

This Is Why You’re Fat: Cheesecake Factory

My problem with The Cheesecake Factory isn’t that it serves cheesecake that is merely average, it’s that it serves food in ridiculously enormous portions.  I’m talking portions that leave me angry because if they would only give me half of the food (the amount I’m capable of eating in one sitting), they could charge me half the price, thus leaving me just as full but with a fatter wallet.

My general rule of thumb for restaurants is as follows: the crappier the food, the more they give you.  The thing about the Cheesecake Factory that gets me, is that it violates everything I know about how to judge restaurants.  Don’t get me wrong, their food is just okay.  It’s not terrible, compared to say, Old Country Buffet or Olive Garden, but it is just okay.  But unlike OCB or Olive Garden, it would still be good in a normal sized portions— there is no need for the insane amount of it.  You know what I’m talking about- the restaurants where patrons leave talking more about how MUCH food they got rather than the QUALITY of the food.  I am especially weary of those leaving restaurants who tell me “the portions were SO SMALL!!!!”  You might as well tell me that you have no taste buds.  Yet Cheesecake Factory patrons don’t talk about how MUCH food they got.  They talk about how GOOD it is, thus violating my basic restaurant rule.

Needless to say, I think I have their marketing strategy figured out.  It’s all about cost of marketing versus cost of food.  It must be cheaper to double the amount of food on your plate (food being extremely cheap), than the cost of maintaining a national marketing campaign.  A ridiculously huge portion size almost guarantees that you will carry your take home baggie throughout the mall, which so happens to be where all of their restaurants are located.  Cheap, effective marketing.

Example A: The “lunch sized” portion of the Santa Fe Salad, dressing on the side (so that I can take home half and eat it for dinner without it getting soggy):

No wonder America is fat. This is a serving size? This can feed and has fed two people. No really, when my mom used to come and “check in on me” in college, we would meet at Old Orchard to shop and then get lunch.  We would split an appetizer, the bread, a “lunch sized” salad and then a piece of cheesecake, leaving completely stuffed (and only completely finishing the cheesecake).  Suffice to say, this meal was both my lunch and dinner that day.

I guess to put it simply, it annoys me that the entree portions are so ridiculously large at a restaurant where people are just waiting to get to course with the namesake dish, cheesecake.

But anyway, Grannie and I still had a great time, regardless of portion sizes.

Grannie and me, in our annual birthday lunch photo.

Can’t wait for next year!

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