Norm Matthews

Pork ribs were on sale for under $7. a slab. I wanted to put them in my smoker and do them 'my' way. Son wished I'd do Daeji Kalbi with them. Heck they were cheap so I got two slabs and did one of each. We will either have to give some away or freeze some because there is more than we'll eat in the next couple of days. Korean Spicy spare rib were from the KoreaTown cookbook. One thing I discovered was that the convection heat diffuser I put in my smoker last year didn't work very well. Just before I put the ribs in the smoker this year, I moved the diffuser away from the heat box by about 3 inches and the thing worked quite well. There was generally less then 10 degrees difference between the thermometer in the middle and the one higher up and back by the smoke stack.

Yesterday a chicken wings recipe from a friend in Seattle, today chicken thighs from a friend in Florida as well as green beans from the English language version of The Silver Spoon and a recipe that says it is a Japanese style potato salad.

I looked up a recipe for Vietnamese Chicken Wings and they look good. I will try them. Thanks for the suggestion. Nyonya wings looks good too.

Sartoric: Here is the recipe for the chicken wings 40 wings INGREDIENTS about 3 pounds chicken wings cut apart at the joints and pat dry. 2 tbsp baking powder ¾ tbsp salt ½ tsp pepper 3 tbsp chopped spring onions (scallions) Sticky Asian Sauce: 1 tsp vegetable oil pinch of salt and pepper 1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and minced 1 tbsp sweet sauce chilli 2 tbsp honey 4 tbsp brown sugar 5 tbsp soy sauce 1 tsp lemon grass paste In a zip lock bag, combine baking powder, salt and pepper and chicken wings and toss to coat. Bake on rack with parchment or non stick foil at 250º for 30 minutes, then at 425º for 45 min. Meanwhile combine sauce ingredients and bring to boil for about 10 minutes to reduce and thicken. Place chicken wings in bowl, pour sauce over and toss to coat. Serve with a sprinkling of chopped green onions. PS I think my son uses toasted sesame seeds as garnish.

There is a Korean restaurant in Junction City that has sticky, crispy chicken wings that my son loves. He has a recipe that he does once in a while that is very close but it is quite long and involved process to make it. Not too long ago a friend posted a recipe that looks like it but is baked, not fried and the sauce is so much more simple. I made it today and Charlie says it is good. His is a little better but this one is so much easier that I think I'll be making it again. We had kimchi and rice with it.

We had dinner early. It was Shrimp Etouffee adapted from a recipe for crawfish.

Dinner was breaded pork chops, sugar snap peas, and potato pancakes with a salad.

Using up the last of the chicken with chicken scallopini. I forgot to garnish it with arugula and parmesan.

I just cannot go into the Asian store without impulse buying something I have never tried before. This time it was a jar of Instant Duck Flavored Paste. Directions said to mix two spoons with three cups of water and simmer duck, chicken or pork until done. I cooked the dark part of a whole chicken then pulled off the bones and let the meat sit in the warm sauce for an hour before son got home. He really liked it. He said it didn't taste like a jarred sauce. And it was easy. For a side, I made sausage stuffed mushrooms.

I got some pork loin chops yesterday and was looking on line for something to do with them. Then my son opened my new cookbook KoreaTown, to a Kalbi recipe and offered it as a suggestion. It is for ribs but he said it's meat from the same part of the pig. He's right so I made them and grilled them today. I also made some quick kimchi with baby bok choy and bean sprouts. We also had some store bought kimchi and rice.

We had a chicken thigh recipe from the KoreaTown cookbook along with some kimchi sides.

At the end of the cookbook is a chapter of recipes from non-Korean chefs who use Korean flavors in their cooking. I made one with gochujang and coca-cola for dinner tonight. We had it with traditional Kimchi & banchan.

I ordered the book as soon as I saw you mention it and it came today. I am excited about trying some of the recipes. Even though my wife and I owned a Korean restaurant, she and her mother did the cooking and I just helped out when they got busy after I got home from teaching. I chopped stuff but didn't cook Korean. I didn't have to when I could just ask for it. After she and her family left, I started to learn to cook Korean for my son who was only about 4 at the time. He likes to cook now and knows more about the food of his heritage than I do. BTW here is a picture of my son and a picture of a chef from the book.

If Cassie were still here, we'd have a cake and a birthday party, but since she isn't, we had cake without a party. It is a white cake with lemon curd in the middle, cream cheese icing, and sugared peaches on the side. Main course was grilled rib eye steaks, broccoli salad, the last of the leftover bulgar salad, and something called a blooming potato. It's a potato cut so after it is baked, it's crispy on top and pulls apart like a blooming onion. This was the second time I have tried it and think I need to do it again and again until I get all the kinks worked out of the recipe.

I put half a salmon in the smoker at around 180º for a couple hours and we had it with a bulgur salad, carrots cooked with mushrooms and onion, and a baked potato.

We had enough steak leftover from last night for sandwiches tonight so I made some cheesesteak fixings and a provolone-parm. sauce.

After it stopped raining, it was nice enough to grill outside so I did steaks and corn. Inside I made a baked pototato (not on the table yet), salad and mushrooms. Earlier I made some sourdough bread with white whole wheat flour. When it came out of the oven the crust looked darker that it should but it was done to 190º so I knew it wasn't over baked. When I cut a slice, i was surprised at how dark the bread was. It looked like regular whole wheat bread, not like other bread I had made with white whole wheat flour. I checked the bag 4 times and every time it said "white whole wheat" All I can figure is that they put the wrong flour in the bag or their definition of white is different than mine.

My camera battery went dead right after taking this picture so I did't get a shot of the inside. It's sour dough French bread with poppy seeds. PS I used white whole wheat flour. I am guessing that's why it turned out a little darker than usual.

We had sesame chicken this evening.

Elsie, in a further attempt to answer your question, here is a wider view of that end of the kitchen. When we moved in, it was a breakfast nook with the ceiling light coming down a lot lower and no storage in that end of the kitchen. My son and Cassie built in the counter and cabinets for more storage. There wasn't enough space to put all our stuff before then.

ElsieD, I don't know what you should call it. Portable kitchen cupboard is a pretty accurate way to describe it. It is on wheels and has storage underneath. The cutting board on top is rubber and makes a good place for kneading dough.

Since Cassie has moved out, I have turned her cake decorating station into my bread making place. After a disappointing effort to make some pumpernickel bread, I got some advice from some of you folks here as well as a recipe from Anna N. I didn't use that recipe but gleaned some good information from it and used a recipe for one loaf from King Arthur Flour and here are the results from today. Yesterday, in anticipation of making this, I cooked some corned beef and we have been having sandwiches with it and the bread today.

In my defense, feeble as it is, I bought half a dozen different flours that day and put them all in the freezer.

I opened the freezer this morning to take out some coffee and noticed a small brown paper bag which I didn't remember. When I took out the contents, I discovered it was a small bag of Bob's Red Mill Dark Rye flour. When I was driving around looking for pumpernickle flour, I found this at the second Whole Food store i went to, put it in the freezer and forgot about it. I need to start taking some memory pills.

This is what my Farm Journal Homeade Bread cookbook said about Pumpernickle bread. "Named for Swiss Baker Pumper Nickel, who first made it to stretch the limited amount of flour during a wheat shortage. You will notice that our recipe calls for corneal, mashed potatoes and whole wheat flour in addition to rye flour"