Bountiful Spring Soup

One of my favorite things to do is gather wild vegetables and herbs – and use them.  This time of year offers abundant wild vegetables, and what to me and so many other people looks like just another weed, to Dr. Tae Yun Kim they are very precious foods.  When I am lucky enough to get to accompany her on a wild herb picking adventure, she talks about how when she was little, those herbs saved her life.  If you follow my blog you might remember that when she grew up, she was rejected and abused and eventually abandoned just because she was a girl – and during the time of having to fend for herself she relied on those wild herbs.  Later on, when Dr. Kim was training under a Buddhist monk in the Martial Arts, he passed onto her an amazing treasure of knowledge, not just what you can eat, but how to use all manner of herbs for healing all kinds of conditions.

In the above basked you can see some herbs that are easily available in most places, such as young dandelion, shepherds purse, purslane and more.  This particular basket includes a few green onions that had gone astray and grown way outside the actual vegetable garden.

In addition to the great taste, wild herbs also help detox your body after winter.

To use them in soup, soak these herbs well in apple cider vinegar for about 10 minutes, change the water, and repeat.  Then chop them up into big pieces, including the roots if you can, and boil until barely tender.

For the soup base, you really can you use any broth you like.  Chicken soup is a great one as is beef.  The most traditional way to eat the herbs is boil them briefly in “bean paste soup” or Deng Jang chigae as it is called in Korean.

Let’s go outside and gather some herbs!  Just be sure you know which ones are edible.

 

 

 

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Turkey Soup

On a rainy/snowy/rainy day like today, soup for dinner is a must!  Want to see what today looked like?

Turkey soup is very popular in our family and while I am positive that pretty much every family has a perfectly good recipe for turkey soup, this one is worthy of trying.

It just so happens that it is one of the many versions of soup that Dr. Tae Yun Kim has created.  It is easy to prepare, outstandingly delicious and happens to pair perfectly with her brand new gluten-free bread recipe.  The fresh herbs really make this superb!

Don’t worry – not these girls!  Those are quite safe.  Those are wild turkeys roaming the area.  They get to live on Dr. Tae Yun Kim‘s property freely and nobody bothers them.

To make the soup, here is what you need

Ingredients:

2 whole turkey wings

about 1/8 c raw minced garlic, or more if you can handle it 😉

Himalayan salt to taste

black pepper to taste

1/2 medium yellow onion, cut into small strips

2 stalks celery, peeled and cut into bite sized pieces

1 medium size carrot, cut into bite siz slices

1 cup mushrooms, thinly sliced

1 small zucchini, thinly sliced

3 stalks broccolini, cut into bite size pieces

4-5 stalks of asparagus, cut into pieces

2-3 sprigs of fresh Thyme

1 large sprig of fresh Rosemary

1/2 cup chopped parsley

1/2 cup chopped green onions

Before you get started with the actual soup, you’ll need to pre-boil the turkey, as Dr. Tae Yun Kim recommends, to get rid of as many impurities as possible.  To do this, cover the turkey wings with water, add 3Tbs Kosher salt and some crushed garlic and let come to a boil – boil until the foam stops bubbling up.  This probably will take about 10 – 15 minutes.  Drain, rinse, rinse your pot well and fill with about a quart of water.Cut the turkey wings into sections, and add to pot, season with salt and pepper.

Let it come to a boil, and cook for about 15 -20 minutes; then add the onions, herbs, carrots and celery, let boil for 5 minutes, and add rest of vegetables, adding the parsley and green onions just before serving.  You can serve this with any kinds of (gluten-free) noodles and/or bread.  It is most delicious with this particular bread! The blend of herbs and mushrooms and all the other flavors really makes this soup special.  Go ahead and give it a try!

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Memory or future vision? Sweet and Spicy

So yesterday I shared with you a quick and easy, yet tasty and very healthy dish that will help you get back on track after all the Holiday feasts we’ve been having.

Dr. Tae Yun Kim has many such recipes.  Today, I am sharing another one of her gems.  This is more for hot summer days, but I am thinking, if you are in a cold weather area like I am right now, and look outside and see snow in big piles, maybe you would want to re-create summer in your heart and stomach, and try this delicious beef-noodle salad that is sure to delight your taste buds and make you think of balmy summer afternoons.

So how do you make this beautiful salad?  Very simple!  If you have some leftover beef roast, or chicken, tear it into bite sized pieces. If you want to use eggs, boil a couple, peel and quarter.  Cut your veggies and fruits into bite sized pieces, smaller is better – tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, kale, cabbage, cucumbers or any other combination you like.  Add some berries, we had home grown blackberries and strawberries.  But apples, oranges, or pears work well, especially now in the winter when you may not have fresh berries available.

The noodles in the picture are Korean acorn noodles, they are superb with this dish.  Since they are not gluten free, substitute any gluten free pasta, or you can leave it out altogether.  I just happen to think pasta adds nice texture and flavor, and Dr. Tae Yun Kim explains that noodles are a symbol of long life, and who wouldn’t want that?

Now that you have your ingredients ready, make the dressing.  This is pretty spicy, so use as little or as much red pepper and garlic as you need. You start with apple cider vinegar and lemon juice, about 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar and a few Tbsp lemon juice, add a teaspoon toasted, crushed sesame seeds, about a Tbsp raw sugar, red pepper flakes, and a touch of (gluten free) soy sauce , and add a bit of water and some olive oil.  Mix the sauce with the veggies first, then add the meat and the noodles.  Toss well, and put on plates and decorate with the cut up eggs. Enjoy!

Doesn’t that make you feel like digging out your bathing suit and going for a swim?

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Lunar New Year!

Happy Year of the Monkey to you all!

We just celebrated Lunar New Year on February 8th.  Did you know that this is Dr. Tae Yun Kim‘s Birthday?  Traditionally, her birthday is on a different calendar day each year, as the Lunar New Year date changes.

Dr. Tae Yun Kim‘s story has a very sad start – back in those days, in a small rural village in Korea, girls were considered lower than cattle – at least cattle were useful, you could milk them and eat them and trade them for other goods. Girls, on the other hand, required a dowry to marry them off as quickly as possible.

Not only did she never get any birthday cake, but she also was never allowed to taste the traditional New Year rice cakes.  Only once was she able to catch a little crumb of a rice cake that contained sorghum flour instead of rice flour, and now she reminisces how much she loved it, and would love to have again.

What a challenge!  I browsed through some Korean cook books an blogs and tried to get an idea how to even start on such a thing.  The above picture is the result of that experiment, and it sure brought a big smile into Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim‘s face!  It was close to the traditional “rice” cake and very delicious!

Here is what I did:

Boil (or pressure cook) small red beans until soft and mushy, mash them up with enough honey to make it slightly sweet, and a dash of cinnamon, walnuts and/or boiled chestnuts.

This is the filling.

For the outside dough, I did something entirely non-traditional.  I did not want to use sweet and sticky rice flour – not good if you have to watch your carb intake and have diabetes.  So I ground up some yucca root total of perhaps 3/4-1 cup and boiled that until it was all gluey.  I added enough sorghum flour to form a soft but pliable dough.  Then formed small pieces of dough into balls the size of a walnut and flattened them out.  I boiled these for about 5 minutes and then fished them out – let them barely cool off and then flattened these pre-cooked disk until they formed a very thin dough.  Be careful though, the dough is very fragile.

I then put a good heaping teaspoon of filling onto these disks and closed them like you see in the picture, and steamed them for about 1/2 hour.

The result is certainly delicious and worth every moment that you spend making them.  They may not be traditional, but you will love the chewiness and sweetness and knowing it’s all good for you!

HE CAN DO, SHE CAN DO, WHY NOT ME!

 

 

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Childhood comfort food – Apricot dumplings

It’s still hot here – in the 90s.  But I was inspired to cook a favorite childhood comfort food after Dr.  Tae Yun Kim invited us to help pick and taste test her apricots and early plums.

While picking this most delicious and sweet fruit, Dr. Tae Yun Kim talked about patience – as in, when you want to harvest your own fruit, you have to be patient and wait for it.  There is no speeding up the process!  You cannot harvest the flowers, or the hard green fruit – you must wait!

I couldn’t get apricot dumplings out of my mind.  I hadn’t made them in a very long time ( such as, about 30 years or so) and now there was the added challenge of making them gluten-free.

Following the basic recipe, I boiled 5 medium potatoes, whole, skin and all, until they were soft, and let them cool off.

After peeling them, I forced them through a strainer (mashing them doesn’t work well here), and added 2 medium/large eggs, a couple of tablespoons olive oil, 1/2 cup almond flour, and enough gluten-free flour to make a soft, pliable, but not sticky dough.

I covered the dough and prepared the apricots, by cutting them just enough to get the pit out and putting in a half tsp of honey, more if you like it really sweet.

Then, I wrapped each apricot into its own piece of dough.  Sorry about the fuzzy picture.

The traditional recipe calls for boiling the dumplings in water.  However, I prefer to steam them.  Here they are all lined up in my steamer:

I steamed them for about 20 minutes and sprinkled them with ground pistachios.  (Traditionally you would serve them with breadcrumbs, fried in butter, and liberal amounts of powdered sugar.)

Now try this, and enjoy!  Let me know how you like them!

Note: I made this with Shirley’s gluten free flour mix, which you can see here, in her notes after the recipe.  I am pretty sure it would work with a lot of different combinations!

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What you can learn from making Nutella cake

I was going to blog about the great, delicious crab-mushroom cakes I made the other day, but then this happened.  My good friend Shirley from Gluten free easily talked about her banana Kaluha coconut cake, complete with picture and everything.

Well, I felt this incredible pull tugging on me and sure enough before I knew it I was back in the kitchen.  I had to smile to myself. Dr. Tae Yun Kim always reminds us that we need to be flexible, and not just physically.  When your environment changes, when the situation changes,Dr. Tae Yun Kim says, we have to change according to the situation.

Dr. Dr. Tae Yun Kim illustrated this with a story: one of her students had planned a cruise to the Bahamas for a long time, and was all packed and ready and beyond excited.  However, the day she was about to travel to the port of departure, a hurricane was forming and there were already travel warnings going out.  Rather than cancel, she still went ahead, because she had already paid for the cruise and didn’t want to just cancel.  Within a day or two of the cruise, the hurricane manifested in all it’s nastiness, and not only did the travelers have to get off the ship in a hurry, they were also stuck for almost a week at a hurricane stricken island, with minimal food, water and worries about the storm.  Not an ideal vacation!

While granted, my situation wasn’t nearly that drastic, I still didn’t mind changing direction, and went ahead to make this delicious looking cake.  I mean, it was a good excuse to make that cake, right?

Fresh out of the oven…..

Here is the original recipe, go check it out!

I could already taste the cake, while I was mixing the ingredients together.  What aroma!  What smooth batter!  I did make a minor change  – I used double the amount, so I could bake it in my bundt pan, and I substituted – for the double recipe – 2 cups almond flour, and for the rest used Shirley’s gluten-free flour mix.

When I reached for the coconut, to add that to the batter, I couldn’t believe it.  None there!  Impossible!  I knew I had 3 bags!  Someone, who for the sake of peace in the household will remain unnamed, had thrown it out because “a mouse had gotten into each bag.”  Hmmmmm.

Once again I thought if a very fitting quote from Dr. Kim – don’t carve in your emotions – instead, let them flow away like water, and get rid of all negative feelings!

Ok, but what to put in the batter instead?  In checking out the pantry, I saw a nice jar of Nutella sitting there, and without much thought started to spoon in gobs of Nutella into the batter, which now looked a little too thin, and I added another 3/4 cup or so of almond flour.  and about one cup of Nutella total.

I put that into the bundt pan and baked this experiment at 350 for about 45 – 50 minutes.

The result was out of this world!  As in, so good it was unbelievable.

And this brought back to mind another gem ofv Dr. Tae Yun Kim’s sayings (quote from “The Silent Master”)

“Clinging to a good picture you have created possibly keeps you from expanding into an even greater good.  Clinging to a disagreeable picture keeps you there!  So, don’t hold on to either as though it is the final story.  You don’t hate, resent, fight, or quarrel with an undesirable situation, and you don’t overly love or cling to a desirable situation.  Detachment means you are always ready, open, and willing to experience change.  That is how you develop.”

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Korean Summer delight

It’s been very busy here, and temperatures have been climbing.  I am more of a cool weather person, so coming up with nourishing and healthy, satisfying food that doesn’t make me melt away into a puddle, has been a challenge.

Dr. Tae Yun Kim shared a very old, traditional Korean recipe with me.  It’s one of her very favorite summer foods and I love it.  This is also very light, and won’t weigh your stomach down, so it’s ideal both before and after a heavy-duty workout in the heat.

Once you have the ingredients, the rest is very very easy to make.  I start making the acorn “jelly” in the morning, when cooking is still ok, and then it’s all set and cool come lunch and dinner.  I also boil the eggs, at that time, and have them ready.

So, here is how you make Korean mook, or acorn jelly, according to Dr. Tae Yun Kim.  The description is long, but it is really a very simple and quick process.  Trust me, if you can make pudding, you can do this!  He can do, she can do, why not me!

This is what you start out with:

This acorn starch.  If you are gluten-free, make sure there are no glutenous additions in the flour – acorns themselves do not contain gluten.

You will need:

5 cups water

1 cup acorn starch

a few drops of sesame oil

a sprinkle of salt
Bring 4 cups of water to a gentle boil.  Meanwhile mix the acorn starch with the remaining cup of water,

and slowly add, while constantly stirring, to the boiling water.

Stir vigorously the entire time it’s cooking.  Boil until the bubbles look like this:

quickly add a sprinkle of salt and a couple drops of sesame oil and make sure it’s all mixed in well.

Then pour into a pan, and smooth out top:

Time to let it cool off – this might take several hours in the refrigerator, until it is solid, and chilled through.

Then cut into strips, like this:

Then, cut a pickling cucumber, or any cucumber, into thin strips, and put onto the jelly:

You can get creative now and add things, like thin strips of beef, cut up, hard-boiled egg, cut up tomatoes, even strawberries or thin melon slices, small young lettuce leaves, watercress, cut up kim chi – it’ll all taste fantastic!

Now, take some raw seaweed, a sheet that hasn’t been toasted yet, and toast, like this (if you don’t have any, it’s fine to serve without, just adds more authenticity)

Crumble the seaweed and put over the acorn jelly.

Serve with some of this sauce:

And some chilled kim chi juice, and a bowl of ice water.

To eat, mix with the sauce ice, and kim chi juice, to your taste.

Dr. Tae Yun Kim told me that after the war, in her teen years, she would get this as a very special treat, once in a very long while, and she still enjoys this simple, healthy treat now.

I love this a lot, especially on a hot summer day, and if you are lucky enough to live near a Korean store or restaurant, you might be able to find ready made acorn jelly, and all you have to do is to add the sauce!

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Possibly the best chicken salad that I have ever made/tasted

Don’t go by the picture please and trust me on this.  Ok?  This is really really good!

I was going to insert an appropriate quote from Dr. Tae Yun Kim, something to the effect of “don’t be fooled by your 5 senses” but then I read the end of her book, “The Silent Master,” and it is simply beautiful, and I wanted to share it with you, so bear with me please.

“We live in a wonderful time called now.  In this moment, everything true about you is waiting to be recognized and expressed.  Everything in the past is gone. Tomorrow will never come.  There is always only now.  You can take charge, take action, and create freedom for yourself.

Right here and right now let’s start celebrating!  Freedom is real.  Freedom is possible.  You have power, truth, beauty, and potential within you alway waiting to be discovered, always waiting to be expressed.  Brighter and more precious than diamonds, warm as the spring sun and beautiful like spirals of galaxies sprinkled over this vast universe, your Silent Master awaits your return, so that together you will come forth as one radiant being in charge of your destiny.  What is stopping you?  What is holding you back?  You are free to be free!  Spread your wings!  Fly and be free!”

So, now, back to making an awesome chicken salad!  We had some very hot days last week, and cooking wasn’t on my mind.  Yet, with a summer-time Jung Suwon potluck in the backyard, something had to be done!  This was one of those dishes that came together simply using what I already had at home.  Luckily that included an organic, roasted chicken, from Whole Foods!  I quickly boiled about 6 – 7 eggs and chilled them.

I started by taking all the meat off the chicken and chopping it (several of our Jung Suwon warriors have to watch their cholesterol, so I didn’t use the skin.)  into bite size pieces.  NORMAL bite sized pieces please, not hulk, and not ant sized either!

After that, I chopped up the eggs, again, not too fine and not too huge, and add to the chicken.  Chop some celery (washed and peeled) maybe a handful, and add, and also add a handful of chopped tomatoes (firm ones, and take out the liquidy part.)  Chop some olives fine, and add, as well as a good handful of green onions, both white and green parts, chopped finely.  Add some marinated artichoke hearts, chopped into small pieces, a total of a good handful ( 😉 ), and a handful of marinated mushrooms, also cut into pieces.

Now, gently mix it all together, and add gluten-free, organic, olive oil based mayonnaise, just enough to make it moist.  Add salt (I use Himalayan salt) and garlic pepper to taste, and let sit in refrigerator for a couple of hours, to let the flavors do their thing.

Of course, there are hundreds or even thousands of ways how to make a chicken salad.  This one just happens to be my current favorite.  With  Dr. Tae Yun Kim’s own words, “it is your life, and your world!  Don’t let anyone stand in your way!”

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More cherries, and what to do with them

This has been a most abundant cherry year!  The trees went crazy, the birds were kept out with bird nets , and as a result, buckets of cherries keep coming into the kitchen!

In addition to tasting great, did you know all their incredible health benefits?  Dr. Tae Yun Kim points out that cherries contain very powerful antioxidants and anti-inflammatories, which makes them ideal for heart health and to fight against arthritis.  They also contain natural melatonin which regulates your sleep cycles.  In addition, they help regulate your blood sugar, which is a great benefit for people with diabetes.  Cherries contain a lot of fiber and therefore help proper digestion.  And the list goes on…and at only 87 cal/cup they are a great snack for Jung Suwon warriors after class – energizing, healthy, but without putting on the weight you just lost in class 😉

Here is a great recipe for healthy, individual serving, cherry cheesecakes:

I saw this recipe in the magazine from America’s Test Kitchen “Best Summer Desserts” on page 58.  (I tried to find this online so I could link to it, but wasn’t able to.)

However, I made a few changes to make it healthy enough for a Jung Suwon warrior dessert, make it gluten-free, and most of all, incorporate some of those cherries!  This was also approved by Dr. Tae Yun Kim, for health and taste!

For the cheesecakes, line 2 12-cup muffin pans with a paper liner. In a blender or food processor, put 3 large eggs, a couple of tablespoons lemon juice, 1/2 cup coconut milk, and some coconut sugar.  How much sugar depends how sweet you like it.  You’ll most likely not need more than 1/4 cup.  Blend this at high-speed and then add, a little at a time, 8 oz softened cream cheese.  Beat until very smooth.  And yes, it’s ok to use low-fat cream cheese, which is what I did.

At Jung Suwon, we like to keep our desserts as light as possible (of course there ARE exceptions to this) and so the crust is optional.  If you do want one, just crumble any kind of gluten-free cookie into the bottom of the liners, or if the cookies are the right size and thin, plunk one down into the liner.

Next, pour the cheesecake batter into the liners, about 1/2 – 3/4 full.

Bake at 325 until firm, about 10 – 15 minutes.  Let cool completely.

Meanwhile, make the cherry topping.

Pit a LOT of cherries, and put them into a pot.

While you pit the cherries, it’s a good time to listen to Dr. Tae Yun Kim’s audio books, or the Jung Suwon terminology CD.  Or sing, if you want.  Cook over medium heat, adding water if not enough juice in pot.  Add a sprinkling of coconut sugar, or any other kind of sugar if you prefer.  Taste and add more sugar if needed.

Mix some cornstarch (or tapioca starch, or even potato starch or rice flour) with some water, and slowly pour, while stirring, into the cherry mixture.  Let boil for a few minutes, stirring constantly.  It should be thicker but still pourable and not like pudding.

Once cooled, spoon on top of the cheesecakes, and serve!

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Korean noodle soup

Today is a sort of guest post from a wonderful Korean lady that came and cooked for Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim a couple of days ago.  This was really great, after a hard Jung Suwon workout nourishing food is always wonderful to have!   I had the pleasure to watch her prepare this soup, and it looked like a special art form to me!

She was certainly applying Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim’s teachings while she was cooking – to focus with love and care on the food you are making, and to only think beautiful, positive thoughts about how much this food will bring health and happiness to the person receiving it!

First, to make the broth, boil water with crushed garlic and roughly cut yellow onions.  Add small dried fish (you can get those at most Oriental markets) and some anchovy sauce (it is naturally gluten-free.)  Let this boil gently for about 20 minutes, being careful to not let it boil down too much.

Meanwhile, cut carrots, green onions, zucchini if you have them, into matchstick size pieces and saute separately in olive or sesame oil.

Beat a couple of eggs, fry gently and cut into thin strips when they are done.

Boil the noodles, being careful not to overcook.

If you are gluten-free, be careful as to what noodles you use.  If noodles come in packages like this:

without any label, don’t use them!  These might taste good and look fantastic, but without any description and documentation, you will have no idea what is in them!  And yes, these were the noodles this lady had brought.  Luckily she didn’t cook the noodles in the soup, but in a separate pot, so all was well.

I like to use brown rice noodles and my family enjoys those as well.

Now you can start assembling this delicious soup:

Into each bowl, put one serving of noodles, then arrange the sautéed veggies and eggs beautifully on top.  Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim emphasizes how important it is for the food to look good, it needs to have eye appeal, like in the picture:

Gently add the soup (only the liquid part) and top with some crumbled seaweed.

Now, after a prayer of thanks, open mouth, insert spoon………

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