Eating in a box

I've always been fascinated by fermentation, the idea of little critters that toil away and magically transform food from one form to something else is somehow magical to me. How did ancient man decide curdled milk could be made into cheese and then later yet the moldy blue cheese is edible and delicous? Or that bubbly fruit juice that sat in a jug a bit too long was worth drinking even if it made you feel a bit dizzy and good? I know a lot of it was a preservation technique but if you were the first to opened up a jar of kimchi or sauerkraut would you think to take a big bite of it? I've dabbled in various experiment, some successful, some less successful. But I happened to have a whole head of napa cabbage in my fridge and was pondering what to do with it. I floated the idea of turning it into kimchi with my wife and she was quite eager for me to give it a try. Now if you don't know what kimchi is (I'm not sure what rock you've been hiding under) it's a ...

As usual it's been a busy work season, but that really hasn't prevented me from cooking. In fact I've been doing a lot of cooking over the last few months and I have a pretty big backlog of posts to put up, just no time to post. We've been doing a lot of paleo cooking, it's had modest results on the waistline but done wonders in terms of saving money. Living in a big city it's often easier to walk down the street to grab some food than to buy a ton of groceries and prepare it yourself (especially after a long day at work). I try my best to do a lot of cooking over the weekend but there's only so much leftover I can take. First world problems, I know. Anyways, I saw this Slow cooker Korean Grass fed short rib from Nom Nom paleo (they modded it from America's Test Kitchen), and as you know I'm a big fan of using the slow cooker so I wasn't going to pass it up.  I couldn't get grass fed beef or some of the paleo friendly sauces but I wa...

Work and life have conspired to rob me of my time to cook and blog. Boooooooo. Well I'm finally done with weekend commitments and work travel so I found a moment to put together a bento. I got a request to do Korean food. I've done Korean as a theme in the past and a couple of the dishes are a repeat. Considering there's five items I was very surprised that I was in and out of the kitchen (yes dishes in the dishwasher) in three hours. Not too bad when serving for people. Don't let simple preparations fool you the dishes packed a lot of flavor. I got a few "best bento yet" comments so I guess I am on the right track. I picked up some Tamari sauce so this box is indeed gluten free. Everyone was surprised I didn't do a Bulgogi. Two reasons I didn't: I did it before, and it was the first thing that popped into my head meaning it was too common and predictable. I like to explore new things so I found a nice bbq shrimp: See Woo Gui. The original recipe call...

Sorry about the sparce posts, been dealing with some emergencies here at home. I managed to dig out some time and come up with a Korean inspired bento. This one's been on my list to do for quite some time. I'm not sure why I never got around to building a menu, better late than never I suppose. This box is gluten free box, even though we've reverted back to a normal diet. Ok on with the show. I really enjoy korean food, I think because of all the little side dishes and pickles they serve you, so no korean themed bento could be complete without a bevy of side dishes. Starting from the left we have Sook Ju Namool, its a lightly seasoned bean sprout dish served cold. The bean sprouts were quickly blanched and a bit of salt, garlic and sesame oil are added. Next we have Oi Muchim, or spicy cucumber salad. The process for this and the next dish is a light quick pickling. I managed to get my hands on some korean cucumbers (thank you farmers market) very different from regular...