Bulgoki- Korean Beef BBQ

The theme for this Recipe Swap was Asian food.  My last experience with Asian food (Thai lettuce wraps) was a massive flop in my house, so I was looking for redemption from a bad meal.

I put together the marinade the night before.  The smells of the soy sauce and sesame oil quickly filled my kitchen.  Jacob came in and made a comment about how the marinade was a lot like the marinade for homemade beef jerky.  Which quickly scared me that the steaks would taste like warm beef jerky.  I let the flank steaks marinate over night in the mixture.

Jacob loved them.  He kept talking about how great the marinade was.  I thought they were good, just a little sweeter than I expected.  I did really like the addition of the green onion and the sesame seeds.  The seeds gave it that crunch, and the onion pieces offset the sweetness of the marinade.  I served it over a bed of rice, just something simple since I knew the marinade would be pretty strong.   I think this will definitely be a dish that will be made again.

Recipe from macau1ce on TheNest

• 3-5lbs of flank steak or beef ribs
• 12 oz soy sauce
• 6 oz sesame oil
• 1/4 cup sugar
• A splash or two of hot chili oil
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 bunches of scallions, sliced finely
• 1/4 cup of toasted sesame seeds

Mix soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, chili oil, garlic, scallions, and sesame seeds together in medium bowl.

Combined with meat and let marinade for a few hours.

Grill and serve with white rice or with Lettuce as lettuce wraps.

Green Bean Salad with Salsa Fresca

This week's recipe swap was side dishes.  Jacob isn't really a fan of side dishes, he'd definitely rather eat more of the entree than worry about a side.  So it was nice to break away from the standard side salad.

I was sent a recipe for Green Bean Salad with Salsa Fresca from RedKitchensRock.

I thought this recipe sounded great and have never made my own salsa from scratch, so was excited to get started.

I was in kind of a rush since Jacob had already started grilling the entree from dinner so I threw everything in a food processor.  I learned that this was a huge mistake because the salsa became super fine instead of the amazing chunky salsa that I saw on the example picture.

I used feta cheese and am still getting used to the pungent taste of feta as well.  Our store didn't have a very good variety of cheese though, so my options were limited.

I have to say that the dish tasted okay, but I think I made those two major errors: 1) making the salsa too fine and 2) using feta instead of goat cheese.  My problems with the dish stemmed from these problems just because it became super hard to eat.  The salsa was too fine and slid off the green beans and the feta just seemed like it didn't mix well with the other ingredients and overwhelmed everything to me.

I think I'm going to put this one back on rotation and take better care of my ingredients the next time I make it.

Linguine with Clams

I decided to be a part of a recipe swap to add more new things to our menu.  Growing up, it seems like we lived off the same staples over and over again, and I think it is often fun to branch out.  Thought the recipe swap was a great place to start off. :)

This week was pasta week.  I made Linguine and Clams from Hezzi-D's food blog.

I have to admit that I don't cook with seafood that often and so when I saw this recipe in the swap e-mail, I was a little scared. 

But, I rounded up all of the ingredients and started cooking.  Halfway through the cooking process, the kitchen smelled so good.  I couldn't wait to eat it, and J made several comments about how good it smelled too.

When I served it, J examined it like it was a dish from a foreign country.  I just told him to eat it and not worry about the ingredients.  I sat down and swirled my first bite up onto my fork and was in pasta heaven when I put it in my mouth.  It tasted like something I'd expect to get at Olive Garden and the flavors were complex but not overwhelming.  It was such a great dish and so easy to make.  I'm excited to put this into my regularly made recipe list.