Happy Birthday Muffin!

Despite fart jokes to the contrary my handsome male friend turned one year older this weekend. Even though he's already 25 here in Korea we decided to celebrate his 24th anyway, for old time's sake. Back in the old country I would have baked a cake, I always do, it's usually good. Here in the new country, however, there are no ovens. Things here are efficient; you don't bake cakes, you buy them. You don't putz around on your jet pack, you travel quickly, in straight lines, to and from work. I won't let Asian ingenuity stand in my way though, where there's a cake will there's a cake way, but it was no cake walk.

First problem: I can't read English anymore.


Okay, birthday muffin it is, moving on.

I read some things about how to improve a box cake mix and although I don't think they helped, I'll share them with you anyway.

1. Don't use oil. Melt your butter (or at least margarine) to the appropriate amount. In my case this was eyeballed becuase I still don't have measuring devices.

2. Seperate your eggs, beat the whites stiff (they had it coming) and reserve to be folded in gently at the end.

3. To improve the flavour add the juice and zest of a lemon or a teaspoon of vanilla if you're lucky enough to live in a country that values such things. I'm not. Please send me some.

4. After pouring the batter into the pan pick it up several inches and drop it to ensure it settles out evenly. Then take a knife and draw a pinwheel from the centre to the outide edges. This takes care of that common centre bump. I might try it on my lower abs.

Unfortunately what I ended up with resembled neither cake nor muffin batter, but looked more like cookie dough so I added milk until it loosened up a bit. After 7 minutes in the microwave, checking somewhere between often and obsessively I wound up with this:



Broken cake, awesome. Partially raw in the middle, moving on.

Korea doesn't have cream, but they do have cool whip. Except Korean cool whip comes in liquid form and you have to whip it yourself. All the work, none of the reward, seems fitting. They also don't have food colouring but I put my alcoholic instincts to work and used some raspberry liqour to colour the whip. It worked brilliantly and made it taste better too, less petroleum by-producty. In the end I wound up with this:



I can't say it, but I can sure think it.

I sliced some strawberries and fanned them out to class things up a bit.



All tops, no bottoms = more Kyle than you probably wanted to see.





Happy birthday muffin! And you too, guy I see occasionally.

Korean(ish) Ribs

Stumbling through foodgawker yesterday I saw a recipe for Korean Ribs. Since I had a bag of ribs in my freezer and a world full of Korea at my doorstep I decided to give it a whirl. I basically followed this recipe, except I don't have measuring utensils or an oven and I haven't got paid yet so I also don't have money for pears and 7-up. If for some reason you are in the same weird world as me, you can follow my lead:

Korean(ish) Ribs
- Mix some soy sauce with your favorite lemony flavoured drink. In my case I had some leftover Pocari Sweat, a poorly named Korean sports drink that tastes better than it sounds. In terms of amounts I used more Sweat than soy sauce, and enough of both to cover the ribs in the container.
- Add some crushed garlic and ginger, thinly sliced onions and a little sugar if your lemony drink isn't very sweet and pour it over the ribs to marinate for at least 30 minutes.
- Heat some oil in your pan and then add the ribs, reserving the marinade. Sear ribs on each side until nicely browned.
- Add the marinade to the pan and continue cooking on lower heat until sauce thickens.

Normally I'd serve ribs with rice but seeing as I already eat rice faaaar too often I went with mashed potatoes instead and the sauce acted as a gravy of sorts. Oh, and I had some vegetables in there too, I swear.



Nom nom nom.

What's for Brinner?

Personally I've never been a huge breakfast fan because it happens to fall between the hours of Irritated Beast o'clock and half past Too Groggy to Function. Enter brinner: breakfast for dinner. Hit the snooze button in the morning and save your eggs for suppertime.

Tonight's brinner was a poor man's take on egg's benny. I've never made hollendaise sauce before so I thought I'd leave it for another, more ambitious day. Instead, spaghetti sauce! It was surprisingly good and Korean eggs seem to have more yolk which is always appreciated.


Poached Spageggi on Toast with Home Fries

I used to be afraid of poached eggs, but there's really nothing to fear if you follow a few key steps. First, your water should be just two smidgens short of boiling. Look for the streams of tiny bubbles coming from the bottom of the pot. Second, add a tablespoon of vinegar to your water. I don't know why this helps keep things together, but it does and that's good enough for me. Finally, give your water a little swirl before cracking the eggs in. The whirlpool motion whips the whites around and keeps everything congealed.

From there on out it's just a matter of timing:
- Heat your oil, put the potatoes on.
- Get your water up to temperature.
- Crack in your eggs when the potatoes start browning.
- Heat the sauce.
- Know how long your toaster takes; act accordingly.
- Watch those eggs.
- Fries on the plate, toast on the plate.
- Get the eggs outta the bath when the whites are firm and the yolks are still runny.
- They go on the plate with sauce and into your belly before they cool down.

Skip the coffee or you'll be up until Supperfast!

Groan...

Corny Chowder

Although Daegu is the warmest city in the country we recently had some snow in our fair area so I got it in my head that the perfect solution would be a nice warm bowl of corn chowder. I decided this before I got to the grocery store and realized they didn't have:

- chicken or vegetable stock
- celery
- cream
- bacon
- thyme or sage or cumin or paprika or bay leaves

I also couldn't identify which bag of white powder was flour or cornstarch but damned if that was going to stop me. This is what I can up with:

Makeshift Corny Chowder

- onion and leek, chopped
- carrots, chopped
- garlic, crushed
- potatoes, peeled and cubed
- beef bone stock (it was that or fish)
- milk
- 1 can of corn
- salt and pepper to taste

Saute the onions, leeks, garlic and carrots in butter or Korean 'buttery' spread until translucent. Add stock and potatoes, bring to a boil. Add corn and milk,salt and pepper, bring back to a simmer and serve with the green leek parts as garnish. Ha-za!

Spagetti Western

Grocery shopping in Korea is a strange and terrifying thing. Attendants peddling their wares throughout the store shout for your attention like Costco sample ladies on crack. They know I can't understand them but still earnestly encourage me to purchase their sea slugs or frozen cow tail's. However willing I might be to try these 'delicacies' I simply have no idea how to prepare many/most/nearly all of these things; bean paste on toast? Boiled, fried, or raw seaweed? (Answer: all of the above.) The added bonus of being functionally illiterate turns the simple act of buying salt into a 15 minute staring contest with multiple bags of white powder (which is also how I got hooked on coke). So for now I'm going to ease my way into the boiled baby octopods and try to make some familiar things in the meantime. Enter: spaghetti.

My kitchen was lacking a cutting board but that's nothing an old pizza box and a good attitude can't fix.



All garlic comes pre-peeled which is basically the greatest thing on earth.

The other important thing to know about my cooking efforts is that I have only two burners, one frying pan and no oven. However, where there's a will there's a way to make pan fried garlic bread. Not too shabby ifidosaysomyself.



The sauce came from a jar because the spices I once thought were universal are not. Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme are the inventions of western pop duo Simon and Garfunkel, who have not yet gained popularity here. I added zucchini so it wouldn't be completely nutritionally vapid and some milk because the marinara sauce was surprisingly spicy.





Pan Fried Garlic Toast

1. Dice or crush several cloves of garlic, depending on how much you like your breath to smell.
2. Mix into softened butter or, in my case, whatever non-dairy 'buttery' spread you can find.
3. Spread onto bread and fry both sides on low heat until garlic is browned and bread is crunchy.
4. Locate chopsticks, enjoy!

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to my new home, B is for Cookie 2.0! I'm so glad you could make it. Mi casa es...actually it's pretty much just mi casa, but you're welcome to come over for dinner anytime. Help yourself to some scotch mints on the table in the den while you're waiting and try not to knock the decorative spoons off the wall, okay?

B is for Cookie 2.0 is my way of keeping the fart jokes out of the food related portions of my day. Think of it as a choose your own adventure blog:

- Are you easily offended? Please keep to version 2.0 and I'll try my best not to horrify you.

- Do you laugh at the word penis, penis shaped objects or actual penises? Please keep visiting the original site and I hope you have a great 11th birthday.

- Do you enjoy corndogs even though/because they are penis shaped? Great news, you'll probably like both blogs and thus double your fun, like slutty twins or eating last night's soggy meatloaf again for breakfast! Except better than that.

Alright, well, I smell something burning so just make yourself at home, unless of course you think home is some kind of naked hippie colony in which case please wipe off that chair and exit through the back door.