Cooking for kids is an exercise in camouflage, patience and restraint. Now that my daughter has started to go to preschool, she has started to have all the foods that I didn't really want her to have such as pizza, fried chicken, candy, pastries, cookies, sausages, sugary drinks, and much more. When she was at home, her mother and I would make everything fresh and she used to eat more vegetables. Now, if I had packed her lunch everyday, she would have been envious of the other kids anyway. I understand the lunch lady's position as well. They have limited resources and time to make food for many kids. They want to limit waste and they want the kids to be happy. The problem with this is that it develops the child's idea of what is "delicious" and "good." I think they also develop a taste for salt, sugar and, sadly, MSG. I don't really know what I can do except that I need to make the food at home better and tastier than what she has at school....

Homemade Sourdough Bread in Korea Hey world,  I have just a few minutes before my children wake up and in that time I catch up on work, look over my investments and make sourdough bread. I am not a fan of sugary and soft breads from the Korean bakeries and with a bit of time and love, it can be made at home.  This is made from sourdough starter 5 or Evan 5 as I would like to call him. He is a rye based starter that has survived the harsh Korean winter and intermittent feedings (due to my schedule) and come out strong and tasty.  I have been using a banneton which adds a nice crust. When I move, I will try and get a proper oven to make more bread but for now, I am using a tabletop model. It really is nothing special. One day, I will get some fire bricks in order to add a nicer crust, but for now this works fine.  I feel like Betty Crocker these days since I am raising kids (2 daughters). Props to my mom and all moms for doing this. I can barely keep...

So adventures in fatherhood continues. My lovely wife and I have become food snobs because of a few recent disasterous food delivery events. I ordered 7th Street Pizza thinking it would be like New York-style pizza. It wasn't. It had sweet sauce and the dough was made of 11 different grains that made it soggy and purple. Pizza is not supposed to be purple. We also did some Kyochon Chicken which was mostly bone and dry. So...we have decided that I would cook. Usually I do a Mediterranean style meals with salads and brown rice but my wife wanted some pasta. So I decided to do some ziti with pork meatballs.  The best part was that this entire meal came to under 15,000 won (about 12 usd) and it was actually enough for about 6 meals and it only took about 30 minutes. At the store I got about 6,000 won worth of ground pork. Ground pork in Korea is quite high quality so I knew it wouldn't be too gamey and it would cook up nicely.   To soak up the extra moisture in the meat balls and ...

Bacon Siracha Bibimbap! Having a kid makes you have to cook at home. Babies don't want to travel to some restaurant and then sit as adults gab and eat chow. Yeah, they are not into it. So...I cook at home and now I cook more healthy stuff. I am all about the brown rice these days and I've been doing healthier meals that are fast and convenient for myself and the misses. Last week I was lucky since my buddy Chad made some bacon. He cured and smoked his own bacon therefore he is AOK in my book. My Korean wife finds that it is a bit too salty so more bacon for me. So with the bacon I decided to make a fast bibimbap with some kimchi, egg and bacon. Bacon Eggs and Kimchi It was pretty simple to make and I did it with minimal oil. I cooked the bacon first and then used the bacon fat to cook the onions and egg. I added kimchi to the pan to heat it up.  Bacon, Kimchi and Siracha Bibimbap

Hi Seoul Eaters, I know you might think that bacon and toast are the perfect accompaniments to eggs, but I have to say that spam and rice are. The rice sops up the yolk and the salty and savory pairs well with the rice. If I added some kimchi, it would have been the perfect meal. I can't do this all the time, but I decided to treat myself on Sunday. Dan via Instagram http://ift.tt/1Qxc30O

Ok, I will admit it. I was a bad boy last week so my lovely wife was a little upset with me. So on Sunday, I had to make it up to her. While she slept, I cleaned the house (even though I still think it would be easier to hire a maid); I went shopping (in the rain...the sacrifices you make for love) and then I made homemade rice rolls or Korean kimbap.  I have to admit, they turned out pretty darn well. Here is the set up. Spicy Pork Rice Rolls Set up (Kimbap) Now the pork, I got some moksal (meat from around the neck) and then I chopped it up really fine and then cooked it with some oil, red chili paste, plum extract (maesil), garlic powder and a bit of sugar. Just make sure to stir or the sauce will stick to the pan and burn. I simply julienned the cucumbers (take out the seeds) and carrots. For the rice, I took it out, and added some lemon vinegar (my new favorite vinegar in Korea. I also bought some kimbap seaweed, sesame leaves (gaennip) and some yellow turnip. ...

Cuttng Kimchi at Home Looks like Murder I made kimchi chiggae for dinner tonight but before I could, I had to cut some kimchi. My mother's kimchi is quite sour and spicy so it leaves a dark trail of red in my sink. My favorite instrument to use to cut kimchi is my butcher's knife and because I don't want to get all the stuff on my hands, I wear pink rubber gloves. Don't worry folks, nothing Sweeny Todd-esque went on in the kitchen.  Dan

It's summer time, so I don't really want to cook. Actually, since I work all the time around food I almost never want to cook at home. That's why I was so happy to find a quick meal that was somewhat healthy that could easily be prepared at home. Ottoggi Naengmyeon can be found at most supermarkets and you get two packs for bag for about 4,500 won. To make one serving, you get a bag of buckwheat noodles, some turnip kimchi stock and some vinegared mustard. It's easy enough to make. Boil the noodles for 40 seconds rinse and cool off and then pour in the chilled broth and season with mustard. It literally took 1 minute. Ok, maybe 2. And the taste? Very good. I mean it would have been better with some slivered cucumbers and some pear and a hard boiled egg, but...my refrigerator doesn't have that sort of stuff.  Plain was just fine.

Popcorn Popped in a Brown Bag I love popcorn. It's my go-to snack at home because it is easy to make and not too unhealthy. I often like to top this nutritional yeast and some cayenne pepper. Now making it at home is easy to do and this is a trick that I learned from my hero Alton Brown of Good Eats. All you need is a brown bag (white are treated with chemicals to bleach it). Regular popping corn, peanut oil or soybean oil (anything with a high smoke point), and salt. I just put two palms worth of popping corn into my brown bag and then pour about 1 tablespoon of oil, and two dashes of fine salt. Just shake the seeds around to get the oil to evenly coat the seeds. I then just fold over the top (about 1 inch) and put two staples to seal it in. Afterwards just pop it like regular popcorn. 3 minutes in the microwave and it's done. Top it with nutritional yeast if you have it and enjoy. Popcorn topped with nutritional yeast

I am not the best cook, but I am good at making homestyle American food. Almost 31 people came out for the first meet-up. It was a lot of fun. Thank you Sooji for helping us plan it out. If you are interested in learning about future meet-ups join the Seoul Eats Facebook Page at  http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5539724983 . 

I love to cook and I used to do it professionally, but these days I really don't get much of a chance. Between work and all the restaurants I have to review, I don't really have an opportunity. (This might also have something to do with all the weight that i have gained.) Anyway, when I went home, I decided to do a lot of cooking for my family. My parents are retired and living in Florida so they like things simple and easy. The BBQ grill is the equipment of choice or a terracotta microwave bowl that you can roast a chicken in 25 minutes (For real, it exists and it works pretty well). I like to cook with what I have and there were lots of toys for me to play with in my parent's refrigerator. For example above is my ham-hock soup with lima beans. We had the ham bone leftover after eating our honey baked ham so I threw it in a pot with onions and carrots and stewed it until the marrow just oozed out. The soup was delicious for it had a hint of maple, smokiness from the ham....

Salmon with Mango Sauce These days language exchange class with my Korean friend turns into...hmmm...let's learn how to cook delicious food. In our last meeting, I made curried Singapore Noodles with vegetables and I made Roasted Salmon with a Mango Sauce over Broccoli. It was a great lunch and very simple to make. For the mango sauce, I took one bottle of mango juice and cooked it down a bit and added a corn starch slurry to thicken it, and finished it with a bit of butter. That reminds me, I should eat more Salmon... Singapore Noodles

Toasted wheat bread with a dash of warmed butter on each slice, egg yolk dripping, topped with sprouts. Simplicity at it's best. yum.

Tomato Soybean Stew It's good. Add a tomato the next time you're cooking Soybean Paste Stew. Cheers, Dan

Kimchi Fried Rice made with Brown Rice and pork, topped with egg. It tastes great on a sesame leaf

Green Eggs You've heard of Green Eggs and Ham, well, I made green eggs somehow. I think the mushrooms changed the color of the eggs through their exposure to air. At least it didn't taste bad^^ Dan

Maangchi of the very popular website: www.maangchi.com mentioned my daktoritang video on her website as one of the videos she's interested in for the K orean food video contest run by the Korean government. Here's what Maangchi had to say: 7. Spicy chicken and soybean sprouts and spinach side dish A popular blogger Daniel Gray is making dakbokkeumtang (spicy chicken with vegetables), spinach, and soy bean sprouts side dishes in this video. Fast, simple, and delicious looking recipes! If you haven't seen the video yet, here it is again:

Spicy Braised Mackerel: I first dusted it with corn starch before pan searing. Then I added the red chili paste sauce (gochujang) mixed with sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic and mixed that it with a bit of water. I added some white radish (daikon) and cooked it down a bit before I put it in the oven. Delicious. I also made some yakisoba. I stirfried the soba noodles with some pork cutlet sauce and pomegranate vinegar. for flavor. Here are some bean sprouts in soy sauce topped with crispy shallots.