I was looking through my pictures to see what I could post about this week and I realized I haven’t been taking as many pictures lately, oops~ :) it has been a little crazy at work, which makes it harder for me to feel motivated to do much when I get home. When it slows down, I’ll try my best to get back on track with my picture taking…
So, today… I’m going to show you a clever trick I learned from one of my friends. In the Korean stores around Seattle, they don’t sell jalapenos individually, you have to buy a pound or more that they have prepackaged for you. This is nice for bigger families that use a ton of jalapenos, but for my family of two… it can be a bit much. For a while, I was slicing them all up and using 1 or less and freezing 90% of them, but after a while, you get the ice chunks and freezer burn… and all of a sudden it hit me 
One of my friends were over for a BBQ last year and showed me how to pickle jalapenos, like that kind you can get from a can in the Mexican food aisle of most grocery stores.
I got an old spaghetti sauce jar, filled it with sliced jalapenos
pour in white distilled vinegar (I always have vinegar on hand for everything, from cooking to cleaning :))
cover and refrigerate.
It should only take a week or so for the color to change to a dull green. After it’s done pickling, I like to chop it up and put it over nachos or on sandwiches, one time I tried putting it on Boboli pizza crust bread with mozzarella and cheddar cheese and regular deli ham chopped up (bake per instructions of course) and it was seriously delicious :). It’s also delicious on quesadillas. oh the possibilities
I wanted to make some banana muffins to freeze, which meant I needed overly ripe bananas. Whenever I need over ripened bananas it seems to invite all the fruit flies from the neighborhood into my house. So I heard about this remedy and tried it.
- 1/4 cup of grape juice
- 1 tablespoon of water
- a drop of dishwashing liquid
Combine the water with the dishwashing liquid- then mix it into the grape juice in a small bowl.
The fruit fly will drink and the soap will kill the fruit fly.
Here’s proof that it worked, but the only problem was that I had to make a new batch every time I found a fly, not only because it was gross, but because for some reason, the other fruit flies didn’t seem interested after one was already in there…
This past week I was out with the flu, since I was too weak to do much of anything, my home became pretty messy. Kleenex everywhere, dishes started to pile and Mark had to bring home take-out for me a couple of the days, the rest of the time I warmed up some canned soup :) While I was at home I watched a lot of TV. One of the shows I watched was a short informational show about how the swine flu pandemic would effect everyone and how everyone should have a plan. Part of the plan was stocking up on foods since you really shouldn’t be out and about spreading your germs. I had started writing a list of foods I keep in stock- for my sister a while back, but I thought I would post for all of you too. She once asked me how I’m able to whip out dinner without too much stress when people stop by last minute
I always have the following things in the freezer in a zip lock bag as flat as possible so it’s easier to defrost:
- shredded rotisserie chicken-from costco (I like to keep at least one breast whole just in case I need cubed chicken)
- ground beef (precooked and uncooked)
- chicken breast (uncooked)
- bag of assorted seafood (Korean store)
- beef brisket or flank steak (used a lot in Korean cooking)
- minced and whole garlic
- sliced jalapenos
- cut up green onions (I always buy to much, so this helps me from wasting…but you can only use this to add flavor, always best to use fresh when you want the green onions to look pretty in your dishes)
- frozen bag of organic: green peas, corn, green beans*I like the longer green beans vs. short just looks prettier in dishes, and broccoli
- dried anchovies
- hot pepper flakes
- dah shi dah (anchovy and beef flavored)
for the fridge:
- potatoes
- carrots
- onions
- zucchini
- green onions
- tofu (soft and medium)
- hot pepper paste
- deng jjang (soy bean paste?)
- kimchi
- eggs (costco)
*Once I bought one 5lb bag of potatoes and 3/4 of it ended up shriveling. Now I stick to buying 2 or 3 at a time and refrigerating them. When we have kids some day far in the future, I might be able to buy the 5 lb bag, but for now… it doesn’t keep well in our home, since we don’t use potatoes in a lot of my dishes yet. (same with carrots, onions, zucchinis and green onions)
I hope this is helpful ^__^
One of the hardest fruits for me to pick is the watermelon. I’ve tried knocking on them and trying to hear the subtle difference in hollow sounding-ness, but they all sound the same to me… This summer one of my coworkers taught me at trick, that worked the one time I bought a watermelon this summer. ^__^
do you see those ugly scars? supposedly those indicate that the watermelon is seeping sugar, which also means it’s super ripe ^__^
you can’t tell by this picture, but it was pretty delicious
one last tip is the cut off the corners so it’s easier to eat without getting watermelon juice all over your cheeks.