What's for Dinner Tonight? Korean Mixed Vegetable and Seasoned Rice (BiBimBap)

I love a lot of things about Korea, whether that is Korean dramas, Korean music, Korean actors and actresses, Korean weather...okay, scratch that last part. But I'm sure I share this passion with a lot of people from all over the world.

If you haven't heard of Nanta (Cookin') Show, I highly recommend you to watch it, it's been performed all over the world. It's similar to Stomp but with a cooking-related twist. It's so great of a show that you never get bored watching it, I know because I had seen it twice (both in Seoul and in here). You can see the preview here


Back to my love for all things Korean, Korean food especially. Most people, if asked about Korean food, Kimchi is usually the first thing come to mind. It's the most known dish from Korea, and Koreans always have Kimchi on their meals.

Anyway, yesterday morning I was watching ArirangTV's show last night where they did a coverage on Korean food in New York. I won't go on the detail of that show but basically my mouth was watery from that coverage, so I decided to do the most basic Korean dish : BiBimBap, which translated to "mixed meal". It is served as a bowl of warm rice with sauteed vegetables and red-chili paste (gochujang). At Korean restaurant, you can usually see the on the menu "Dol Sot bibimbap" which is Bibimbap in a "dol sot" or stone bowl for extra crisp and crunchy rice.

It was say that this dish was introduced back in the war day where the soldiers needed a quick meal before going to war and that was how the women mix everything with the rice for convenient. Later on, the dish was also created out of all the leftover food from the ancestor's ritual ceremony. Source : my Korean friends.

So this is my version of it.
Ingredients :
1/4 cup Ground beef
1/4 cup kimchi
1 handful of bean sprout ( I use regular bean sprout)
1 handful of spinach
1/2 carrot, cut in stripes
3 pcs of mushroom, thinly cut
1/2 zuchini, cut in stripes
1/2 onion
1 egg
2 bowl cooked rice

Beef Marinate:
1/2 tsp (sugar, cooking wine, soy sauce, sesame oil)
1 clove mince garlic
a pinch of salt and pepper

For the bean sprout:
1/2 tsp sesame oil, a pinch of salt

For the red-chilli paste:
3 tbsp Red pepper paste (Gochujang)
1/4 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp vinegar
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp sesame oil
3/4 tsp sesame seed
1/2 tsp minced garlic

Directions:

1. Mix beef with marinade in a bowl, set aside.
2. Wash and remove the end of the bean sprout. Put bean sprout in a medium pan with boiling water, cover and boil for about 10 minutes, when they are done, mix in a bowl with sesame oil and salt.
3. Sautee individually each vegetable (carrot, zucchini, mushroom, onion) in a small amount of oil for about 10 seconds, add salt.
4. Fry the marinated beef until they are done.
5. Fry the egg, you can do a sunny side up or omelette and then thinly sliced.
6. Mix all ingredients for the red-chilli paste and give it a good stir.

To assemble:
Put warm rice in a bowl, and start arranging your vegetables forming a circle on top of the rice.
Put the ground beef in the middle and the fried egg on top of it. Last, put the paste on top of the egg.

To eat:
Mix everything with a spoon until all mix and red in colour, and....dig in.

Warning : the sauce is spicy, so if you're not familiar with spicy food, it's best to avoid this dish. But only if you are sure you won't regret this because it is so deliciousss.

Recipe: adapted from Aeris Kitchen.
Aeris Kitchen put an excellent video on how to make this dish, you can view it here.

Easter Carrot Cake

To celebrate Easter, I tried (and i mean really really tried) to bake Easter cookies because I'd seen hundreds of jaw-dropping, mouth-watering Easter cookie decoration all over other people's blogs, and here I thought, hey why not? I would like to give it a shot. Easter cookies are cute, adorable, and most of all, you can give them to friends and family to celebrate Easter.

So, I did and I did terribly, i gave up. I don't know if it's the lack of proper equipment, lack of patience, or both that made all my Easter egg cookies looked like they came out from the grasp of cookie monster (okay, maybe i exaggerated a little bit). All I can say is they were not blog-picture worthy. One good thing though, they tasted great, even without the Royal Icing on. However, I promise to improve on my cookie decorating skill and that will be my half-year's resolution.

Anyhow, since I failed terribly on the cookies, I decided to bake a cake. There's a carrot cake recipe that I have been wanting to try and I think: Easter = Easter bunny = carrot cake. They are very moist and exactly how i want my carrot cake to be. For the decoration, I've been wanting to learn to use buttercream frosting, so when I looked at this beautiful Hydrangea cake from I am Baker, I knew I got to try making them. You can see the tutorial here. Enjoy!

Hydrangea Carrot Cake

Ingredients :
4 eggs
1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
3 cups grated carrot
1 cup chopped pecan

Cream Cheese filling:
1/2 cup butter, softened
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
4 cups confectioner sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped pecans ( I omitted this)

Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C). Grease and flour your pan, I use 2 8-inch round pans, you can use 9x13 inch or cupcake, but to make it bouquet-like, I used round pans so I can carved them later on.

In a large bowl, beat together eggs, white and brown sugar, and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract. Mix in flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Stir in carrots, fold in pecans. Pour into prepared pans.

Bake in the preheated ovens for 40 - 50 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto wire rack and cool completely.

To make frosting: In a medium bowl, combine butter, cream cheese until well blended. Add confectioner sugars 1 cup at a time. Finally add in vanilla extract. Beat until smooth and creamy.

Resource : slightly adapted from allrecipes


As you can see, I need to improve my piping skill, and holding the tip backward doesn't help it at all. My hubby still loves the look of the cake and most important of all, it tasted great. Hmm..another thing to put on my to-do list : Improve my piping skill.

Strawberry Parfait

It's been a while since i posted here, last time i checked, it was year 2010, and hey..look at what year now, 2011. Though it's only been the third month of the year, I feel time are moving so fast. Before you know it, bam! it's christmas time. Though for some people in tragedy who are desperately need helping hand, time seemed to move slower. My heart goes to all victims in the recent Japan's natural disaster. They are still waiting for our helping hand, so do whatever you can to help...donate to your local donation center or even here to help them. Every prayer & help do count!

Aside from the tragedy, I had made a resolution to lead a better life, including eat the right food. Our body is our temple, right? Well, i haven't take care of my temple in a while, i eat what i feel like eating, and the holiday festivities craziness made to too lazy to go exercising my temple. Anyway, now that I gained 2 kg, it's time to get back into shape. I stumbled upon someone's blog (can't remember which one now) but it inspired me to create this strawberry parfait, which not only is healthy & nutritious, but delicious too! What more can you ask out of that?


Strawberry Parfait
Makes : 1 individual serving glass

Ingredients :
3-4 pieces of strawberries (cut in halves or however you like)
1 tsp sugar (optional)
1 cup of greek or natural or vanilla flavor yoghurt
1 tbsp honey
1/2 cup oatmeal cluster / your fav. oatmeal cereal

Different varieties of your fav. peanuts can be added (optional)

How to:
1. Mix pre-cut strawberries with sugar, set aside for 10 minutes. This step is optional, some people do like their strawberries fresh-out-of-the package but with local strawberries here are so sour that I prefer to coat them with sugar and let them give me a little bit of juices, yum...
2. In a small bowl, put yoghurt and honey, and mix them with a spoon until blended well.

Now it's time to assemble.

Put half of strawberries in the bottom of the glass, pour half of the yoghurt, topped with half of your oatmeal clusters. Repeat the layers and finally, dig in...!

What's good about this is, you can eat it at anytime of the day, for breakfast, lunch, dinner...and you'll be guilt-free! At least that's how i feel.

Pet Society Theme Cupcakes

What?? two posts in one day??? is it a miracle?
I've been trying to catch up with all the cakes & cupcakes that haven't seen the light of this blog yet and so yeah.. two posts in a day..who knows i might post the third one in a few moment..(but if lunch are calling me, then sorry..two posts they are..!) ^^So one of my best friends from high school was going to celebrate her birthday with us friends, so we decided to give her cupcakes for her birthday. so we were thinking to give a Pet Society theme cupcakes, seeing how she really loves that very-popular game on Facebook where people from different parts of the world, different genders and ages, come together to play it, me included :)) She, can be described as the guru of Pet Society with our other friend as her apprentice.

So, i started to open my pet society account (after a long time) and researched on her pet character, and here's the result:

It's sooooo harrrdddd to create those little characters including the mayor, who supposedly the mayor of the society, and the logo which I had to hand crafted it carefully. But all those hard work paid off when we saw she was really happy with the cake. wheeeww...*wiping sweats* Here's a picture of her with the cake:

Ben 10 cupcakes

Which kid doesn't love Ben 10 cartoon, the alien-fighting 10years old kid with the famous omnitrix watch that turn him into 10 different shapes of alien with different powers and capabilities? My nephews are practically glued to television when it comes to Ben 10. Sure, the stories are great, the images are excellent, but let me tell you a secret, it's every bakers and cake decorators nightmare he..he..i mean, have you seen the shapes of all those aliens?

When i was to do a birthday cake for a 5 year old boy, my first question is always, what character does he like? and as expected, Ben 10 was the answer. So, racked my brain on how to do a good Ben 10 cupcakes and here's the result:


What do you think? My sister thought i did a good job and requested one for her son (no problem sis, i figured not much pressure coming from my own 3 year old nephew) ^^. But from what i heard, the 5 year old birthday boy loved it too. Yayyyy...i think cake decorators are alien fighting heroes too!

Red Velvet Cake & Cupcake Review

I don't really know what is it exactly that l like about red velvet. For some reason, I am always attracted to the radiant of its color, what ever the shape it comes, thus..the name of this blog. They are always so appealing. So when I was a local bakery and buying breads, I saw that they carried red velvet cakes, yaay!! You see, here I seldom see bakeries nor coffee shops carry red velvet cakes or cupcakes for that matter. So, I definitely bought that red velvet cake (plus they were already calling me :)) despite the price of Rp. 20,000 (about $2.20) per piece that they charged for that one little piece of cake, which made me all more curious. Is it really thattt good? Anyway, here is the picture of the cake :

The Verdict : It is thaaaattt goood!! I know that the picture doesn't do its justice, but you just have to believe me. The color is that exact red color that I like (some RV cake turns out to be dark red which is not really my preference). What I really like about this cake is they have chopped up walnut in its filling (I'm a nut lover), so it feels crunchy, in addition to that, the cream cheese frosting have, what i think, to be coarse sugar? because once your teeth sinking into it, you can feel little bit or crunchiness. It's hard to explain but how is that for an idea? I can only think one weakness of this cake: no chocolate flavor, but i guess that is how they get that bright red color.

On another occasion, i got a chance to eat @ this restaurant in Plaza Indonesia, a local upscale shopping mall famous for it's world-known brand like Louis Vuittton, Hermes, Gucci, etc. The restaurant itself serves mostly western food, famous for its thin & crispy crepes. It always packed with people looking to grab a bite or just simply hang out. They serves excellent fresh lemonade too while you are waiting to get a seat. Don't they just generous? ^^ Anyway, after our dinner, I always looking for a chance to try out new desserts and when I was looking their display, I just this lovely Red Velvet cupcakes. Of course, at that instant, other cakes and desserts were invisible to my eyes and I immediately ordered one to go. Here is the picture :















The verdict: For a shocking price of Rp. 40 or 50 thousand (I forgot how much is exactly), I feel that it worth a little off the price. Sure the cupcake was moist and all, but that was all about it. I would've expect more flavor or variance out of it, but i was wrong. The frosting was okay, the shape was cute and attractive, but no cheese flavor or any other flavor other than sweet and if you eat the strawberry on top, maybe a little bit sour. One thing that i like about this cupcake is the exact red color, and perhaps the shape of the frosting. But if you are in the vicinity, i think this cake will do good for a dessert, just don't expect many flavor out of it.

So that's all my review for red velvet cake&cupcake this time, folks. In the meantime, I will continue my search for more delicious red velvet I can get my hands on. Enjoy!

Little Miss Birthday Cake

I realized that i've been busy that i haven't posted in a while, and i don't know maybe the stress from living in the big city had caught up to me recently that my brain freezes a lot these days. Just yesterday, i was holding a plastic bowl in one hand and a trash in another, and when i was in front of a garbage can, i almost threw out the bowl in it...^^ Luckily, the brain works at that last minute so i didn't do what one my hand was about to do. *sigh*

All the hardwork of baking & decorating will always be paid off when the people that you baked for smiles happily and that is the case with this cake. A friend asked me to bake a cake for her daughter's 8th birthday and she liked the idea of a rainbow cake i did before. She asked me if i had any proposed design for the cake and i asked her if her daughter likes any certain characters or stuffs, and it turned out that her daughter likes Little Miss characters so...Little Miss characters it is.

Did you know that Mr. Men came from children's books in the 1971? The author, Robert Hargreaves, created the female version, Little Miss in 1981 as accompanying characters. I think it has more than 40 characters! Wow..and i only know them from my t-shirt ^^ I decided for this cake, i choose Little Miss characters that are happy & cheerful, we don't want Little Miss Bossy or Little Miss Naughty to be on the cake, do we?

So here's the cake, hope you enjoy it..and Happy 8th Birthday Moira, thanks for liking the cake.