Unexpected and delicious surprises

Time for something other than soup or stew, am I right?  Or at least something to go with that stew or soup?  With Valentine’s so close (and a very healthy and breathtakingly good recipe coming soon) our thoughts turn to the sweeter things in life.

Talking about Valentine, I just love this quote from Dr. Tae Yun Kim, and it continues to inspire me.  It’s not only beautiful and poetic, but also very fundamental and true.

“You are who I dreamed of….

And so you came to be.

And you shall be with me beyond time.

I will never leave you,

and 

my love will follow you

as you follow my light,

just as the tail of the bird follows the wing.”

(The First Element, page 121)

So I got to thinking, with all the soups and stews I have been making – so popular in our family with this crazy rainy and snowy weather – what can I make that boosts our regular dinners into something special.  Should still be healthy, yet a real treat.

I already know that cornbread is very popular here, and cornbread muffins as well.  This recipe that Shirley came up with years ago is a well-tested and well-enjoyed taste experience.  You can get the recipe for that here.  I also know that often I get the ‘complaint’ or should we say, suggestion that the muffins are “empty” and couldn’t I put something in them.  Hmmmmm……Dr. Tae Yun Kim also is my ultimate not only Martial Arts teacher but also gives incredible encouragement to try different and new things.

How about some berry filling?

I happened to have some blueberry cheesecake filling stashed – good thing nobody found it – and I used that.  It’s a very simple filling – just get blueberries, fresh or frozen ( and any other berries work great here as well, and I imagine pretty much any fruit filling) boil them with a little rose wine, or water if you don’t like wine, add as much sugar as you need but don’t make it too sweet – and thicken with a little corn or sweet rice starch that you have dissolved first in some water – this will prevent hard little pebbles in the sauce.  Let the fruit sauce cool.

When you are ready, fill muffin cups, or bread pan, or both as I did 🙂 with a thin layer of cornbread mixture, then add a generous layer of fruit filling, and top with another thin layer of cornbread batter.  Bake as directed in Shirley’s recipe and enjoy, and bask in the compliments you are sure to receive!

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Bread baking creativity

Lately, Dr. Tae Yun Kim has not only been emphasizing health and healthy foods, but also to use creativity in cooking and creating new dishes with healthy ingredients.

Dr. Tae Yun Kim has been busy in the kitchen, coming up with some incredible (and incredibly delicious) new dishes that will delight body, mind, and spirit! Here are some pictures, but alas, for the recipes, you’ll have to wait until the cookbook comes out.

Meanwhile, here is something for you to try out, if you like.

For St. Patrick’s day, I wanted to do something other than the usual cabbage and corned beef.  Not that there is anything wrong with it, but there had to be something more exciting than that.

Allow me to digress here a bit.  So often I think of something to cook, bake, saute, broil, etc and then think, nah, that’s just a bit too far out and I let the thought go.

However, Dr. Tae Yun Kim says this in her book, “Seven Steps to Inner Power:”

‘Mistakes are essential to your progress.  How did we humans get the idea that to be perfect we couldn’t make mistakes?  Never making a mistake does not make us perfect.  Never repeating a mistake – after we learn from it – is as perfect as we need to be.”

So, armed with new confidence, I went to do what I had in mind.

See?

I had read a lot about cauliflower pizza dough.  So I thought why not make cauliflower bread?  But I didn’t have any cauliflower, only cabbage.  They are in the same family, right?  Why not cabbage?

Since I had already tried Megan’s awesome bread (recipe here) and knew it is absolutely divine, and I had received comments that it was the best bread they ever had (not even knowing it was gluten-free!) I was going to start with that basic recipe.  By the way, credit where credit is due – originally I was tipped off to this recipe by Shirley of Gluten free easily on one of her awesome roundups here.

I started out with the original recipe, except I only used 1/2 cup of water to proof the yeast (it worked just fine).  I sautéed half a small head of green cabbage, with onions, garlic and salt, and pureed it in the blender with a little bit of water.  I tried to end up with one cup of liquid but it was a little more.

I followed the remainder of the recipe but ended up adding a little more of each flour to make it the consistency in the recipe.  I added a handful of chopped up kalamata olives and a smattering of grated cheese.

And after it was done baking, I received the biggest complement I have received for any bread I ever made.

This is not wet or underbaked – I just am not an expert at taking food picture yet 🙂

Dr. Tae Yun Kim herself said it was THE best bread she ever had.

What more could I have asked for?

PS: After the meal, not a crumb remained, so I can’t tell you how long it would last……

 

 

 

 

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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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The Birthday cake!

Yesterday I showed you my Birthday Dinner.  You may have wondered, “But what about the cake!”

Well, of course.  There was cake.  Wanna see?

Dr. Tae Yun Kim, when she grew up, never had any birthday cakes.  In fact, her parents were so ashamed to have a girl as their firstborn child, that they never even celebrated her birthday – until she was 50 years old!

To Dr. Tae Yun Kim a birthday cake is not about indulging in sweets for the sake of it, but it is a symbol of all the sweetness in life for the coming year!  So of course we want a good cake!

Now, since we are all focused on healthy foods, we try to make healthy birthday cakes as well.  Especially diabetes friendly ones, since some Jung Suwon warriors have diabetes.  Did you know that there is no such thing as a “Diabetes Diet?”  One doctor pointed out that what diabetics should eat is what everyone should eat – it’s simply a healthy and balanced diet!

Now, how can you have a healthy cake?  Isn’t that a contradiction right there?  Not necessarily.  There are a few requirements of course to make it healthy.  For this blog, it has to be gluten free.  It also needs to be low in carbs and reasonable in fat content.

My go-to cake, ever since I went gluten free 4 years ago, has been “Shirley cake.”  You can find this genious recipe here, right on Shirley’s Blog “Gluten free easily.” It’s pure genious because no matter what I have ever added to this cake recipe, it always, and I mean always, has come out perfect!

It’s of course gluten free, so that’s covered. But what about carbohydrate content?  On first look I was worried.  I mean, after all, it’s a pound cake.  But after I found this nifty little tool on the internet, a recipe calculator, I found out that one slice only has 12 grams of carbohydrates per slice, and only 134 calories.  (Now to be honest, who can ever stick to that serving size….. that wouldn’t be me….)  Also, I have very successfully substituted half of the gluten free flour with almond flour, and that would lower the carb load considerably.

Still, you get the point.  So, yes, Shirley cake is practically a health food!  🙂

Since Dr. Tae Yun Kim‘s birthday was February 2nd, and since she was out of town for this, we’ll celebrate upon her return, and guess what cake I’ll be making!

 

 

 

 

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My Birthday Dinner

Today was my 58th Birthday, and this is what I had for dinner.  Looks delicious and I can vouch for it that it sure was!

Dr. Tae Yun Kim has encouraged all of us Jung Suwon warriors to focus on our health this year, and that of course starts with a healthy diet.

This above warrior feast has all the good stuff in it – a mixture of veggies: brussels sprouts, broccoli, onions, garlic, red bell peppers, yellow bell peppers and mushrooms.  Of course you can use a medley of whatever you have on hand, or whatever you like.

I started by sauteing the tofu with the onions and garlic first, added some gluten-free soy sauce, and added the rest of the veggies.  I added a little water too, and covered and let it simmer for about 5 minutes, then topped it with 2 very fresh eggs and covered until the eggs were done – in this case done meant still a little runny inside.

If you either can’t have tofu or simply don’t like it, you could easily substitute boneless chicken for it, just make sure you cook it all the way through.  Or, to change it all up, you could use any meat you have left over from another meal.

Dr.  Tae Yun Kim has been encouraging my self-imposed weight loss – I set a new Year goal to get back down to 130 lbs, my ideal weight – and I enjoyed this meal without rice – although it would have been superb with some brown rice, or even noodles, for sure.

Go ahead and try it out – let me know if you like it!

 

 

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Healthy and Great Tasting Food

The beauty of this great tasting dish is that it takes only a few minutes to prepare, and is very healthy!  It is low calorie and low carbohydrates, and happens to be gluten free.

Dr. Tae Yun Kim has been focusing on healthy meals, especially those that can be prepared with minimal efforts, because who has time for a lot of cooking?

To prevent us from falling back on just stopping by a fast food place or grab other ready prepared foods (that are often full of unhealthy fats, have too many carbs and are otherwise not optimal choices) Dr. Tae Yun Kim is constantly coming up with wonderful dishes that not only taste good but also please the eyes!

For this particular dish, start with a medium sized frying pan, and cover about 1/2 inch high with chicken or beef broth; or water seasoned with garlic and ginger if you don’t have broth on hand.  Add some gluten free soy sauce – how much depends on how strong a taste you like, and sliced tofu and/or sliced chicken – and let simmer and soak in.  Add some red pepper flakes, amount will depend on how spicy you can handle.  Add a small handful of sliced onion, small handful of broccoli, mushrooms and spinach.  Add an egg or two and let is set – and you are done and ready to enjoy!  You can eat this with brown rice, or plain.

For the year 2016,  Dr. Tae Yun Kim has asked her students, and all her friends to please focus on good health, and to this end, she has been creating many new recipes!  Stay in tune!

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

 

 

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New Beginnings

It’s been a couple of years since I have come to this spot and shared some great food creations with you.  It’s not that there hasn’t been any new food in my life, but that wonderful life things have kept happening and there simply wasn’t any time to do any  writing to do these special meals justice.

But Dr. Tae Yun Kim has been coming up with a myriad of healthy and very tasty breakfast, lunch and dinner meals that just blow the mind. Maybe we can even talk her into putting it all together into a cook book!

Dr. Tae Yun Kim has a very unique cooking style as you might remember. She goes by Ki energy, and will put together whatever works best for the people she cooks.  The above dinner was a spur of the moment kind of dinner, naturally gluten free, and some of the most delicious and healthy creation ever.

Not only did it taste heavenly, it was also very healthy, full of protein, vitamins, fiber and all the good stuff.  There was lots of ginger and garlic in the sauce, and it was made creamy by the addition of ground yucca, another of Dr. Tae Yun Kim‘s additions.

Because this dish is naturally low in carbohydrates it is great for diabetics and those that want to reduce their carb intake.

I will get you the basic recipe tomorrow.  For now I just wanted to let you all know – this blog is alive and well and will supply you with great new recipes!

Thanks for sticking with me, I look forward to more happy bloggings!

 

 

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A different kind of unity, and a very special dessert

This blog entry was meant for Valentine’s Day, but somehow, its spring time now but this is still a most wonderful creation.

Like so many things in our modern life, this started out with an innocent sounding phone call from a dear friend who also trains under Dr. Tae Yun Kim.  She herself doesn’t cook much, but loves desserts.

Here you can see my friend Holly on the rare occasions she ventures into the kitchen:

So, one day she calls, telling me she has received an extraordinary amount of homemade caramels and she couldn’t possibly eat them all – would I be able to come up with some dessert that combines the caramel and chocolate?  And with a dreamy voice she continued – and maybe you could put all that onto some cookie base…..”

I thought this was a perfect opportunity to put into practice – at least with food – one of  Dr. Tae Yun Kim ’s teachings – unity!  At Jung Suwon, we learn that in order to be effective, we cannot just use a finger, because each finger individually, is weak, but put together into a fist – what a powerful weapon!  Also, unity is important for our whole being – body, mind, spirit as one!

Aha!

And rather than comparing items, this time, I was going to join them!

So, this is what happened:

I made a batch of Brittany’s fabulous pie dough (and yes, it IS fabulous).  It is very easy to work with and tastes very wonderful and rich and just awesome!

I patted it into a pan,

sprinkled walnuts on top:

I liberally put on the caramels and melted them just enough to spread them:

Then!

Then I made a batch of Shirley’s flourless chocolate cake and put that on top and put it in the oven for some final magic.  This chocolate layer is amazing.  It is everything you want chocolate to be.  It’s great by itself, and it’s beyond wonderful in this dessert.

See the caramel bubbling up?

Looked a bit messy right out of the oven, but after being dressed up a little…

And here a closeup of all the incredible textures…

The outcome?

A most delightful, delicious, out of this world rich creation that is best shared with lots of people lest you get tempted and eat it all!

See?  This is what unity is all about!   😉

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

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The scientific Cookie investigation

So, you would think that right after Christmas I wouldn’t want to bake any more cookies.  However, since simply didn’t have time for cookies during Christmas, I really wanted to catch up on the unbaked cookies, waiting to happen.

Besides, Dr. Tae Yun Kim, just recently returned from 2 months in Korea, always emphasizes that we determine when there is a season – let the season serve you, don’t become a slave to it.  Just because Christmas is usually December 25th – if your circumstances prevent you from celebrating on that date, why not do it another day?  Isn’t that the very message of Christmas?

Bowl is ready…well, sort of

So, here I was, looking at 2 recipes for chocolate chip cookies, undecided which one to bake, when a bunch of Jung Suwon demo team members stormed into the kitchen.  “What are you gonna bake?” they wanted to know.  When I told them I hadn’t made up my mind yet as to which of the recipes, they gleefully told me that I should do both, with their help.  We could do a very scientific comparison as to which recipe would produce the best cookies!

How could I say no to these budding scientists!  So, we went to work, busily measuring, mixing, shaping and baking cookies.

Here are the two recipes we used:

Shirley’s gluten free brown sugar chocolate chip cookies

and

Worlds Best Chocolate Chunk Cookies – unfortunately the website for this recipe doesn’t exist anymore, so use whatever recipe you feel like comparing 😉

The first taste test, starting with testing the cookie dough (science is all about being thorough, right?) proved that both recipes had superior tasting dough and we had to cut short this test in order to have enough left for the baked version.

Then the real test started.  I couldn’t believe some of the vocabulary I heard from these kids, that normally don’t have such refined and amazing words!  I heard “ethereal”, “light as a feather”, “melt in your mouth” and a lot more of those kinds of expressions.  When asked which of the cookies produced what reaction, I felt a certain resistance.

I was informed that after just one test, you couldn’t really tell, right?  So on they went, to round two of the very scientific test, munching down another set of cookies.  After a lot of head tilting and squinting and looking like they were deeply thinking, they announced another round of testing was necessary for statistical reasons.

And so it went.  After they couldn’t possibly eat any more cookies, and with a mischievous look on all their faces, it was decided that another batch of each was needed to make sure the quality is consistent and that the goodness wasn’t just a fluke.  😉

Ok, and as for my opinion?  Well, I am not being politically correct here, I am just saying as it is:  each of those recipes makes a most outstanding cookie, and it just depends what you are looking for.  If you want something nostalgic that reminds you of afterschool cookies and milk, or when you just plain in need of something comforting, my vote goes to Shirley’s cookies.

If you look for something airy and ethereal, and melt in your mouth quality, then Brittany’s cookies are your choice.

So, there you have it, from the experts.

And here is a word from a more universal expert, my Martial Arts teacher Dr. Tae Yun Kim:

“Each person, each being, has their own beauty.  A daisy is just as beautiful as a rose, but it is very different.  It should never try to be like a rose, but be the best daisy it can be.  And a dolphin will never be able to fly like an eagle, and neither should the eagle try to swim like the dolphin.  Each has their own unique beauty and place in this world, and each needs to fill their very special place in this Universe.”

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Nutty Christmas cookies, gluten free

Since Dr. Tae Yun Kim, my Martial Arts Grandmaster and Mentor, will be celebrating Christmas in Korea, her home country, this year, I really wanted to send some healthy cookies that also hold up well during their long trip.  Not only do they have to be sturdy enough to not disintegrate, but they also cannot spoil along the way.

What to do?

I saw this recipe, and this inspired these absolutely marvelous, incredible, irresistible cookies:

http://www.confessionsofacookbookqueen.com/2012/12/red-velvet-peppermint-blossom-cookies/

Pretty, huh?

So, first order of business, I had to convert them to gluten-free and that seemed pretty simple.  Just take a gluten-free cake mix.  Although – be careful with that, not all gluten-free cake mixes are created equal and you have to do your homework to make sure you get one that is actually certified gluten-free.  I happened to have a Betty Crocker mix at home, and just used that.

But then I wanted to make double amount, and I only had one gluten-free cake mix.  I didn’t have time to go to the store – they cookies had to go out that day – and so I measured the amount of mix in the bag.  Instead of another cake mix, I used half almond flour and half Pamela’s baking mix and doubled the rest of the ingredients.

In addition, I added about 3/4 finely chopped walnuts, and about 1/8 cup maple syrup.

And the rest I just followed along the original recipe, times 2.

They tasted wonderful, nice, tender, yet very “cookie.”  You know, comfort food cookie.  And from what I heard, they survived the journey beautifully!  So, give it a try and see if you like it!

And because I happened to read and really like this one today, I thought I would share with you:

“Doesn’t a flower bloom just by being true to its own nature?  What if it tried to be a potato for some reason?  Wouldn’t this be a senseless waste of energy?  It takes far less effort to be your original self and far more energy to fight against your true reality!” (The First Element, by Dr. Tae Yun Kim.)

I hope you all had a most beautiful Christmas, and I wish you all the best in 2013!

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