Since seeing SusanV’s Korean-Style Cucumber Salad on Fat Free Vegan the other day, I’ve been thinking about it. Although I probably could, like SusanV, eat it as a meal, I accompanied it with a quick hot meal that used up some veggies I need to get rid of.

Korean Cucumber Salad
adapted from Fat Free Vegan

2 cucumbers, thinly sliced
1/2 white onion, thinly sliced
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 tsp salt
3 Tbsp Korean red chili flakes (these are pretty mild; if you can’t find them, use much less cayenne), or to taste
1 Tbsp sesame seeds
1 tsp sesame oil

Thinly slice the cucumber, using a mandolin, food processor, or your trusty chef’s knife:

Do the same with the onion.

Juice the lemon half.

Combine all of the ingredients in a bowl.

Refrigerate for at least half an hour.

Thrown-together Korean-like vegetable meal

My premise with this dish was if I was going for a Korean theme, I could clean out my crisper drawers and just toss the veggies with some gochujang. So that’s what I did. I had much of a very large zucchini, which I sliced on the mandolin (thicker than the cucumber):

I sliced up a couple of carrots:

And two small heads of broccoli, the florets of which I microwaved for a minute because I prefer to partially cooking my broccoli before stir-frying.

In a small bowl, I mixed together 2 tablespoons gochujang (Korean hot pepper paste), 1 tablespoon rice vinegar, 1 drop stevia, 1 teaspoon sesame oil, 1 tablespoon sesame seeds, and 1 tablespoon water.

Then I heated up a wok, added some oil and then the carrots, which I stir fried for a minute or two:

Then I added the zucchini slices (which I chopped in half first, as they were very large), and fried for about three minutes:

I added the broccoli and cooked just long enough to heat it …

… and finally added the sauce, stirring to combine and heat.

Served with rice made in a rice cooker, this meal took maybe 15 minutes to prepare. Not the most exciting meal in the world (and probably very inauthentic), though the cucumbers were yummy, but it was filling, healthy, and tasted good. And I’m free of cucumbers and zucchini!! (Until I visit the farmer’s market Wednesday morning…)

I know I said not to expect me to post for a couple of weeks, but I found time to make a quick dinner tonight, so here you go.

Korean rice cakes may not be for everyone. Completely unlike the crunchy styrofoam-like health food snack that no one likes but Mark (who will eat anything with the word rice in the name), they have a texture that puts some people off, including myself to some extent. I don’t like overly chewy things because I have bad dreams involving chewing gum and my teeth (which is why I don’t chew gum). Rice cakes are about the limit of chewiness I can tolerate. Mark loves them, however, and I like the spicy sauce they are served in. The first time I tried to make this, I overcooked the rice cakes. NEVER overcook rice cakes. Err on the side of undercooking!

The reason I didn’t make an Irish meal in celebration of Bloomsday is because we’re leaving for the beach on Saturday and I will likely not be cooking any more meals between then and now, so I’m not hitting up the grocery store for any fresh food and am eating what’s on hand. Ordinarily, I’d have used fresh ginger and added scallions to this dish, but again, I’m a lacking some fresh supplies.

Korean Rice Cakes (Ddukbokki)

1 package rice cakes
3 heaping tablespoons gochujjang (Korean red pepper paste)
1 Tbsp soy sauce
2 gloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 Tbsp grated ginger, or 1 tsp powdered ginger
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp Korean red pepper flakes
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
1 small onion, thinly sliced
4 leaves cabbage, chiffonaded
1 cup water
1/4 cup vegetarian ‘fish” sauce, or 2 Tbsp soy sauce + 2 Tbsp water
3 scallions, chopped

Bring a medium large pot of water to a boil and add the rice cakes, stirring so they don’t stick.

How long it takes to soften them depends on the size and shape of the rice cake, but will probably only take a minute or so, so don’t walk away from them. Slightly undercook them because they’ll be further cooked later. When they are soft enough to chew, drain and rinse with cold water.

Prep the cabbage, onions, garlic, and scallions (if you have them).

Mix the gochujjang, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, sesame oil, red pepper flakes, and sugar together in a small bowl.

Stir the soy sauce or vegan “fish” sauce into the water.

Heat a wok over medium high heat and add some oil. I used canola plus a bit of the toasted sesame oil for flavor. When hot, add the onions and cook for a minute or two.

Add the cabbage and cook for 30 seconds.

Pour in the water and soy or “fish” sauce and bring to a boil.

Scrape in the mixed chili paste …

… then stir to combine.

Bring to a boil and simmer for a couple of minutes, until the sauce begins to thicken.

If your rice cakes are sticking to each other, run cold water over them while rubbing them apart from each other. When they are all free from each other, dump into the wok.

Bring the sauce back to boiling and cook just long enough to heat the rice cakes and thicken the sauce.

The sauce should be sticking to the rice cakes. Do not overcook! Stir in the scallions and remove from heat.

These must have been good because Mark informed me he would be taking the leftovers in for lunch tomorrow and he never takes lunch in.

Hello. I’m just checking in with the ole blog. I haven’t cooked anything all that blog-worthy this week. What I’ve been doing, in fact, is making soup from random things I find in the refrigerator all week because I haven’t felt like going to the grocery store or having a big to-do in the kitchen. Tonight I used up the rest of a batch of kimchi and some tofu I made that ended up (somewhat curiously) much softer than usual by making soon tubu jjiggae.

I didn’t follow my recipe from last time. I put 4 cups of water on to boil with a piece of kombu. After letting that simmer for 5 minutes or so, I added 1/4 cup vegetarian fish sauce (just omit if you don’t have it) and 2 vegan “beef” bouillon cubes, as well as some shredded dulse, what was probably about a cup of kimchi, 3 big spoonfuls of gochujang (Korean red pepper paste), and my too-soft tofu, chunked, and let it all heat up. Then I removed the kombu and topped with scallions. REALLY fast and easy. Almost ridiculously so.

The whole spread; I also made some rice and I’d stopped and picked up a couple of items for banchan:

I didn’t take a photo, mostly because it didn’t look very pretty, but last night I cleaned out half the refrigerator by making soup. I had most of an onion in the fridge that had been peeled and needed to be used, so I chopped that up and sautéed it with a couple of carrots that were getting old, adding in a bunch of halved grape tomatoes near the end. What I didn’t have, *gasp*, was garlic, so I added a bunch of garlic powder (I shudder at the thought, but fortunately Penzeys’ stuff is good) and also some asafoetida just to be on the safe side. Then I added 6 cups stock and what was probably about 3/4 cup leftover homemade pizza sauce, some red pepper flakes, thyme, and parsley and brought to a boil. Then I dumped in maybe 1/2 cup lentils de Puy. and the rest of some savoy cabbage I had to get rid of, maybe a cup or so, chopped. At this point the soup actually looked fairly decent. However, after putting a lid on it and simmering for 20 minutes, the lentils made it all muddy and it didn’t look as pretty. Then I added 1/2 cup alphabet pasta and a chopped zucchini that was about to see better days and simmered until the pasta was done. I tore up some stale sourdough bread left over from the weekend’s baking, put it in a bowl, and ladled the soup over it. It wasn’t pretty, but damn did it taste good. Sort of shockingly good considering practically all of it was leftovers. It was so good I ate three bowlfuls and then could barely move the rest of the night: it was that filling. I polished the rest off for lunch today.

And that is my pretty boring post. Have you noticed a trend here? When I don’t know what to make, I throw things into a pot with some stock and call it soup. Bizarrely, it almost always tastes amazing. I don’t know why. Luck, I guess.

I’m about to build an ark here in Northern Virginia. How I miss that 90-degree weather from a couple of weeks ago. It’s hard to believe I’m having the pool opened in a week. I’m going to be out there cleaning the pool while wearing a winter jacket if the weather doesn’t start cooperating. I’m wondering if I should invest in a wetsuit.