Belated Korean Honeymoon Part 2 - Busan

Returning to the mainland, we had more adventures in the city of Busan!

We initially planned to go to Busan right after our time in Jeju Island, but there were some changes to our plan. The final plan layout to the first part of our honeymoon plan is in my earlier blog post,  Belated Korean Honeymoon Part 1.

Belated Korean Honeymoon Part 1 - Jeju Island

My husband and I went on our Belated Korean Honeymoon a few weeks ago and returned this passed Sunday. The honeymoon started off on the island of Jeju.
When we planned the beginning of our honeymoon in Jeju we had to consider multiple things which I will go into detail.

1. Budget - Our budget for our entire trip was $4000.
2. Travel - Air and Public
3. Type of accommodation - AirBnB and hotel
4. Location - Jeju, Busan, Incheon, Seoul
5. Ambience - Romantic, Functional, Comfortable, and Adventure

Valentine's Day / Birthday Celebration Part 2

Hi all!

I know Valentine's Day was in February. I apologize for the late blog because I was preparing for my belated Korean Honeymoon. But I hope you had a great celebration of love with your special person or people in your life.

This Valentine's Day was a combination birthday celebration part 2 and celebration of love and family.

I had the special birthday people: My Sister-In-Law and my husband 

Then Valentine's Day all at once.

So I thought I would kind of make a Korean fusion lunch that everyone would like. 

My sister-in-law likes traditional Korean, brother-in-law likes anything meat and my husband and I like fusion.

So I made a variation that will fit everyone's palette. I used recipes from maangchi.com.
The layout on how the instructor has a Youtube video plus written instructions for each recipe.

Below, I have put a link to the recipe I used to make each meal. 

1. Mi-Yeok Soup - Seaweed Soup

2. Jap-Chae - Sweet Potato Noodle Stir Fry

3. Marinated beef

4. Spicy Marinated Pork Belly
5. Rice
6. Cabbage Kimchi

For birthdays, my mother used to always make me Mi-Yeok Soup (Seaweed soup).
I researched the reason behind that 

We ended the meal with some nice freshly brewed coffee with slices of New York Cheesecake!

Great end for a celebration of love an family!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY dinner for my Hubby!

My husband's beautiful birthday was this week and we are on a budget, so I figured I do what I do best and make his gift homemade, livanue-style! haha...so corny! Love it!

Homemade meal and a homemade card was my gift!

And my husband appreciated it very much.
Well that is what he said.

If you would like to know how I made the main course and the dessert,
Here is the links for them:

Steak Marinade Recipe

Stuffed Bell Pepper Recipe

Reese's Cup Vanilla Cupcake Recipe





MAIN COURSE:

Marinated Steak with Stuffed Bell Peppers








THEN TO THE DESSERT! : Vanilla Cupcakes with Reese's Cup filling topped with custard and topped with crushed Reese's cups.

PRESENT TIME!

Now this is when your listening and paying attention to your significant other comes in handy, even it is the small little things.

My husband does not like to ask for things because he is trying to be good steward of our budget, but sometimes its nice just to get something simple so when he looks at it, he thinks of me and is reminded that even though I may not look like I'm paying attention, I am. hahahaha.

The Gifts:

1. Bottle of Wine - $7
2. Pint of Half and Half - $1.30
so he could make his espresso drink at home while taking a break from Starbucks.
3. Setting up the extra TV we had in his office - 30 min.
so that he can take a break from the computer work he does.
4. Homemade card - 30 min. and a little extra $$$ to put towards publishing his children's book.

All of these were gifts for my love, so I hope you take the time to listen to your significant other's ramblings, passions, and when they share things with you. And remember that sometimes it is the small, meaningful things make a world of difference.

Reese's Cup Vanilla Cupcakes

Delectable dessert for any occasion.

These are really easy and cute.

I made only 6 but in the photo there is 5 because the birthday guy ate one aka my husband.

So the recipe that I have is only for 6.

The inspiration for the vanilla cupcake itself was from Food Network Vanilla Cupcake Recipe

Ingredients:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
5/8 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup of sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup whole milk, at room temperature

Filling and Topping: Reese's cups (I had some at home, but you can buy the small packs from any grocery store my bag had 9 pieces total - perfect for this recipe)

For Frosting, I used some leftover custard, Here is the Custard Recipe

INSTRUCTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Line a 12-cup muffin pan with only 6 paper liners. If you see the photo below, I just used the center part of the pan.

Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl.

Beat the butter and sugar in another bowl. The recipe calls for a stand mixer with a certain attachment, I used a hand mixer with whisk attachments on medium-high speed until fluffy.

Beat in the egg and scrape down the bowl as needed.

Beat in the vanilla.

Reduce the mixer speed to medium low.

Beat in half of the flour then the milk, then the remaining flour mixture until just combined.

Divide the batter among the muffin cups, filling each three-quarters full.

Then take six of of the 9 pieces of reese's and put them in the middle of each of the cupcake batter.

Then cover it up.

Bake the cupcakes for 18 to 20 minutes.
Half way through, rotate the pan.

When a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean, then they are done.

Take the cup cakes out and let it cool for 5 minutes or more,

Remove them and place them on a plate and top with large tablespoon of custard. Make sure the custard does not drip down the sides.

Take the remaining reese's cups and decorate the top of each cupcake with a little piece of reese's.

And then your cupcakes will look like the photo below.

ENJOY! 

Stuffed Bell Peppers Recipe

Now if you read my blog on HAPPY BIRTHDAY dinner for my hubby!

This is the recipe for the Stuffed Bell Peppers I made.

Ingredients:

4 cups of cooked rice

Sliced and chopped red bell peppers

Half a package of frozen vegetable medley

2 eggs (room temperature)

3 to 4 tablespoons of Kikkoman Low Sodium soy sauce

2 green bell peppers

2 tablespoons of cooking oil

INSTRUCTIONS:

Put the oven to about 250 degrees.

Take the green bell peppers, and cut out the top and core the inside so that the seeds and much of the membrane is removed.

Then put about a teaspoon of olive oil in your hand and then rub the olive oil all over both green bell peppers. 

Place them in the oven and cook them until their a light brown around the top edge like you see in the photo to your right.
Or if you like them softer, then check every 10 minutes or so to see if they are at the consistency that you would like them to be.




NOW TO THE STUFFING:

While the green pepper is in the oven,

Put the rest of the olive oil into a large skillet on medium heat.

Put in the vegetable medley and the red bell peppers, cooking them until they are soft.

Then put in the cooked rice. I used the rice leftover from another dish, which was perfect. Make sure that everything is well incorporated.

Now make a space in the middle of all the rice so you can see the skillet and crack the eggs in the middle. Scramble the eggs and then stir them into the rest of the mix.

While mixing, put in the last ingredient, the soy sauce. Make sure it is well incorporated. If you need a little more flavor you can put in a little more soy sauce, but be careful because too much will overpower the flavor that the entire dish brings together.

And after you are done, take out the green bell peppers from the oven, turn off the oven and then start stuffing the bell peppers with stuffing.

Here is an example of how you can plate your dish with the stuffed bell pepper:

BON APPETIT!

Steak Marinade Recipe

I bought steaks at the local grocery store for 3lbs for $16.50, the price was not too bad considering the size of the steaks.

Now you have to marinade the steaks first. 

Ingredients are inspired by All Recipes.com Steak Marinade 

1/3 cup of Kikkoman Low Sodium soy sauce

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/3 cup lemon juice (You can buy the lemon juice in a container to save time)

1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce (I made a substitute: Look below for that recipe)

1 1/2 tablespoons garlic powder

3 tablespoons dried basil

1 1/2 tablespoons dried parsley flakes

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE SUBSTITUTE RECIPE: 

Inspired by Campbell's Kitchen Smart Substitutions

2 teaspoons soy sauce,

1/4 teaspoon lemon juice,

1/4 teaspoon sugar

2 teaspoons of Siriracha Sauce

This recipe is for every tablespoon that your recipe calls for Worcestershire Sauce

INSTRUCTIONS:

Mix the ingredients together in a large bowl.

Take a large pan, I used 9X12 glass pan.

Make sure all the meat you want to marinade fits in the pan. In the photo, that is 3 lbs of beef.

Drizzle the marinade all over the meat in the glass pan. 

Cover the glass pan with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator for as long as you can. I had it marinating for about 4 hours. NOTE: The longer the marinade, the better.

Pull out the marinated steaks and heat a large skillet on medium heat.

I only put half the meat in the pan and half the marinade in the skillet and cook it for about 20 minutes. Depending on how well done you prefer will determine the amount of time you cook the meat.

Now, half way through cooking, make sure you flip the steak so that it is evenly cooked and both sides of equal amount of time being able to cook in the marinade.

The photo is only one of the two pieces of steak I bought, but cut in half, so it was more than enough for two and could be enough for four people depending on the portion size for each person and what kind of side dishes you have with your steak.

After you are all done with that, go ahead and plate it with any other side dishes you have prepared like I did below.

BON APPETIT!

Leftover pancakes solution

So I made strawberry pancakes last Saturday and I had 3 pancakes leftover, decent sized.
And I asked myself, now wasting these would be unfortunate, so what should I do with them?

Then I began to research and explore online and found that there were some creative options:

- pancake wraps with eggs and sausage
- chocolate covered pancake crisps

But my pancakes already had a little strawberry pizzazz so I just wanted a simple addition.

Please excuse the shapes of the pancakes, I was in a little bit of a hurry this morning making breakfast.

So I decided to make it a dessert for after dinner last night.

I cooked the pancakes again until they are crisp, but not burnt and then topped it with homemade custard. Click the link for the Custard Recipe

And here is the finished product:

YUMMERS!

My husband loved it, so I hope you do too!

Homemade Thai Noodle Recipe

I LOVE Thai food, but don't have the budget to buy it every time I crave it.
So I made my own version and adding up the costs, it was only about $15.60 for 6 servings.

When I posted this, they asked how I got it to be so affordable and I will share the cost breakdown at the end and where to get certain items that are hard to find.

Ingredients:
- 1 tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 1/2 package of Mushrooms
- 1/2 bunch of Chinese Broccoli
- 1/2 package of Baby Carrots
- 4 cloves minced Garlic
- 1 lb cubed Boneless Organic Chicken Thighs
- 1 egg
- 1 tbs sugar
- 4 tbs Light Soy Sauce
- 3 tbs Dark Soy Sauce
- 1 pkg of Rad Na Noodles
- 8 cups of water


Now this dish was stir fry all the way.
It's just the order of how you need to stir fry, it goes by fast, so you need to work quickly.

Preparations:
- Heat a pot of water for 15 to 20 minutes.

- Chop the mushroom lengthwise, chop the chinese broccoli in half, and chop the baby carrots lengthwise very thin.

- When the water boils, put in a two pinches of salt so that noodles do not stick. Then put in the package of noodles. Let it boil until the noodles are soft to your liking. After you drain the noodles, rinse it quickly with cold water.

- Heat up a wok or a frying pan with tall sides at medium heat.

- Put in the extra virgin olive oil, garlic. Let it simmer until you can smell the garlic and then toss in the chicken.

- After the chicken browns, toss in drained noodles and stir.

- After stirring a little, you make space in the center of the noodles and chicken (so it looks like a donut) so that you can scramble the egg in the middle of it.

- After the egg has been cooked, toss in the mushrooms, broccoli and carrots. Stir.

- SAUCE TIME! Put in the sugar, and both types of soy sauce.
Now I did put certain measurements for the light and dark soy sauce, but taste as you go and see what works for you.

- Stir it all together until it is incorporated pretty evenly and Bon Appetit!

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COST BREAKDOWN! Keep in mind, This is an estimate (usually rounding up so it can be lower than this in your own calculations) and your estimate calculations may vary upon how much you pay for these particular products in your local grocery stores.

- Extra Virgin Olive Oil   ------------------$.10
- 1/2 package of Mushrooms --------------$.75
- 1/2 bunch of Chinese Broccoli ----------$1.50
- 1/2 package of Baby Carrots ------------$.75
- 4 cloves minced Garlic ------------------ $.10
- 1 lb Boneless Organic Chicken Thighs  $5.90
- 1 egg --------------------------------------$.25
- 1 tbs sugar --------------------------------$.05
- 4 tbs Light Soy Sauce -------------------$.60
- 3 tbs Dark Soy Sauce --------------------$.60
- 1 pkg of Rad Na Noodles ----------------$5.00
- 8 cups of water ----------------------------Free

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WHERE to find certain items:
Chinese Broccoli - a Chinese grocery store or a similar Korean version would be YOO CHO EE (유초이)

Light and Dark Soy Sauce - difference between them is that one looks lighter than the other....I know that is obvious, but you can literally see the difference if get a small bottle of both and see it for yourself. I personally use Kikkoman Light Low Sodium Soy Sauce and HyangSan Stir-Fry Sauce which is a thicker texture, but has great flavoring.

Rad Na Noodles - I found the noodles at my local Ralphs in the international food section.

#Food #Thaifood #Budgetmeals #Homemade #Cooking