Korean Bibimbop - Rice and Vegetable Medley

Bibimbop is one of the most popular Korean dishes. For the purposes of our September 2008 Gourmet Club, each person coming should make one of the following six parts of the dish: 1) Beef, 2) Zucchini, 3) Cucumber, 4) Carrot, 5) Spinach, 6) Egg, and 7) Daikon Turnip. Let's plan on doubling the recipe since the recipe below is to serve 4. On the evite, let us know which you plan to make so we don't have overlap. However, here I will also write up the entire recipe (some of which I'll prepare for Gourmet Club) for future reference:

1) Beef
Ingredients: 10 ounces of lean beef, 2 T soy sauce, 1 T rice wine, pinch of crushed garlic, 1 t sesame oil, pinch of black pepper, 1 t sugar
Instructions: mince beef and tenderize it by beating it with the dull side of a knife. Add all ingredients, mix thoroughly. In a frying pan or skillet, cook until browned.

2) Zucchini
Ingredients: 2 medium zucchinis, pinch of crushed garlic, 1 T vegetable oil, pinch of salt
Instructions: scrub zucchini and clean well. Half the zucchini, Cut into thin slices, Using 1 tablespoon of oil, a pinch of garlic, and a pinch of salt, saute lightly over a low flame.

3) Cucumber
Ingredients: 2 medium cucumbers, pinch of salt, pinch of crushed garlic, 1 t rice vinegar
Instructions: clean and slice cukes into thin slices. Using a pinch of salt, a pinch of crushed garlic, and 1 t of rice vinegar, mix well with cukes.

4) Carrot
Ingredients: 4 oz carrots
Instructions: clean and shred the carrots in a food slicer. In a saucepan with boiling water, blanch until semi-hard, about 2 minutes.

5) Spinach
Ingredients: 4 oz spinach, 1 t of salt, 1 T soy sauce, 1 t sesame oil, 1 t sesame salt, 1 t crushed garlic, 1/2 t minced scallions
Instructions: prepare spinach by cutting off roots and separating leaves. In boiling water, dissolve salt and blanch spinach for 1 minute. turn spinach over once in the boiling water and strain immediately. rinse thoroughly with water. in mixing bowl, stir together the rest of the ingredients and mix spinach in well.

6) Eggs
Ingredients: 4 eggs
Instructions: Fry eggs sunny side up.

7) Daikon Turnip
Ingredients: 4 oz daikon turnip, pinch of salt, pinch of crushed garlic, 1 t rice vinegar
Instructions: clean and slice daikon turnip into thin slices. Using a pinch of salt, a pinch of crushed garlic, and 1 t of rice vinegar, mix well with daikon turnip.


8) Red Pepper Sauce:
Ingredients: 2 T red pepper paste, pinch of crushed garlic, 1 t rice vinegar, 1 t water, 1 t sesame oil
Instructions: using a wooden spoon, mix together 2 T red pepper paste, pinch of crushed garlic, 1 t rice vinegar, 1 t water, 1 t sesame oil

In each of the four bowls, place a small mound of rice, then make an even arrangement of all the parts. Add red pepper sauce to your liking.

Italian Mac-n-Cheese

As mentioned, I got my Italian Mac-n-Cheese recipe from Rachael Ray. And although it was on her 30 Minute Meals show, it took me over 2 hours. Obviously Rachael didn’t have two toddlers on the set limiting her ability to multitask. She had the luxury to boil the pasta, cook the sausage and mix the sauce all at the same time, without interruptions!

Jimmy Dean Sausage Cheese Dip

Jimmy Dean Sausage Cheese Dip

INGREDIENTS
1/2 pound ground beef 1/2 pound ground pork sausage 2 pounds processed cheese food, cubed 1 (10 ounce) can diced tomatoes with green chile peppers, with liquid
DIRECTIONS
Place ground beef and ground pork sausage in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt processed cheese food. Stir in diced tomatoes with green chile peppers while processed cheese food is melting. Drain ground beef and ground sausage. Mix into the processed cheese food mixture. Transfer to a medium dish and serve warm.

October GC at the Melting Pot

In order that we try to accomodate everyone in GC for our trip to the Melting Pot, it would work best if we move the date to October. We are currently thinking the 23rd. Please comment on this as to whether that will work for you.

September GC will be at Christines on Sept.4. She is going to make a post with Korean recipes that we can use so check back and add a comment if you will be using one of Christine's recipes!

Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberry Shortcake

1 large angel food cake
For the custard: 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk 1 (12-ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed
For the glaze: 1 cup sugar 3 tablespoons cornstarch 3 tablespoons strawberry gelatin (recommended: Jell-O) 1 cup water 2 cups fresh strawberries, cut in 1/2 (if berries are extra large, they can be cut into quarters) Whole fresh strawberries and mint leaves, for garnish
Slice cake, using a serrated knife, horizontally into 3 equal layers.
For the custard:
Mix together cream cheese, condensed milk, and whipped topping in a bowl; set aside.
For the glaze:
In a medium saucepan, stir together sugar, cornstarch, and gelatin; add water. Cook stirring over medium heat until thick. Remove from heat and allow to cool completely. Fold in strawberries.
For assembly:
Place 1 layer of cake in a large clear bowl. Top with a layer of glaze, followed by a layer of custard mixture. Repeat layering in this order for remaining cake, glaze and custard. Top cake with 3 whole fresh strawberries and fresh mint leaves.

Welcome to the GC Blog

This is the offical blogspot for Gourmet Club. I think we all know the login and password, and if you don't just email someone and they can give you the scoop. There is also a gmail account created where you will be able to find everyone's email address (login and password is the same). I added mine to the contacts section and would ask that you all go into the gmail account and add your appropriate contact information as well. If we all manage this ourselves we will be sure that we are sending evites and stuff to the appropriate addresses.

I think that an evite is still the best way to make sure we all know the date chosen for that months GC. Then whoever posts their recipe first for that month will create a blog called, for example, September recipes, and we can all just log in at some point and add to it. I found Susan's recipe online so I've posted that under the blog called August Recipes. If you have your recipe from August you can post it, otherwise we can start with September.

If you want to send out a note to everyone, like I am with this post, just make sure that you send it out after you publish it. Its not necessary to send it out when adding recipes - we can just reference the site at our own leisure if we want to look for a recipe.

Hopefully this makes sense to all. This blog does not need to be limited to GC. If you want to make a post about something else (new baby photos, awesome restaurant found, great vacation spot reco) just feel free to create a post! Hope this works out and if anyone can think of a way to enhance please feel free to do so!