hodgepodge

I'm a bit tired tonight. It was a rough week, and I was a bit under the weather. I think I'm suffering from food allergies. I'm trying to narrow my diet for a while.

Last night I made kimchi fried rice, which is a great way to use up random leftover veggies and grains/rice. I used sang jaeng mi, a mix of grains and beans. (left)
In a cast-iron skillet with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, I sauteed the veggies (kimchi, onion, grated carrot, chopped lettuce and Swiss chard), tofu cubes and rice, let it crisp a bit and added 2 eggs, soy sauce and sesame oil to taste. It's so comforting and delicious. I love fried rice. Our favorite BBQ place in Seoul served fried rice on cast-iron grills. They'd clean the grill after you ate the meat, oil it well and add the veggies: onions, garlic, carrots, kimchi... then the rice, sometimes tuna and lettuce, seaweed (laver) and sesame oil. They'd mound it in the middle, then create a well and add an egg. The egg would coat the rice and veggies, and caramelize the rice on the bottom. With spoons when the time was right, we'd scrape up spoonfuls of the rice, savoring the crispy and creamy bits. Washed down with bamboo soju, ah, a perfect end to a Korean BBQ meal.

Oh, and another picture of my antique store finds: A Depression glass canister that's holding the sang jaeng mi grains. I love the Brass Armadillo!