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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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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Blueberry and nut power drink – Dr. Tae Yun Kim’s recipe

Sometimes I get really lucky.  A couple of days ago, I got to try Dr. Tae Yun Kim‘s her super secret – and now shared – recipe for a very healthy power drink.  You can either have this as a smoothie, or a more liquid drink.  If you prefer a smoothie, make sure your blueberries are frozen, and add some ice cubes.

Here is the original recipe, but feel free to experiment if you have any nut allergies.  The blueberries are there for a reason, as they are helping with antioxidants, fight Alzheimer’s, and do a host of other good things for your body.  But of course, you are welcome to experiment.

Start by assembling the nuts.  To save time, I have made up individual serving baggies that look something like this:

In each bag, there are (approximately) 3 – 4 of each (except more of the pine nuts because they are so small):

Put those in a blender, along with about a cup of blueberries, more or less.  I always use frozen ones.  Add honey according to your sweet tooth, and add enough water to make it your desired thickness.  If you want more of a meal replacement, use any milk instead of water – coconut milk is superb with this.

Blend really really well, and enjoy ice-cold.  If I have this for breakfast, I am not hungry for a long time!

And my quote for the day, by Dr. Tae Yun Kim, doesn’t really have to do with either nuts or berries or even food, but I happened upon it and loved it so much I wanted to share it with you:

“The whole purpose of change, the whole purpose of continuous cycles of yin and yang is to take you higher, to make you grow, to give you more of what will lead you to a truer expression of your Real Self.  Never be afraid of change.  All changes lead you into greater good.  That is the purpose of change and the purpose of life.”  (Seven Steps to Inner Power, page 51)

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Korean Red Bean Ice Cream – non-dairy version

When Dr. Tae Yun Kim was just a little girl, they didn’t have any ice cream in Korea.  They didn’t have electricity, or ice cream makers, or even the concept of any food that wasn’t meant to simply nourish.  Sweets?  Ice cream?  No way.  Just things to keep you alive and reasonably well, especially during and after the Korean War.

With the American Soldiers – to whom Dr. Tae Yun Kim is forever grateful for saving her and her family’s lives, came some things she had never heard of before, such as chocolate, coffee, candy, ice cream, among many other things.

And while she could never even dream of having any of those goodies – she was barely allowed to survive on whatever little food she could scrape and scratch together – she always wondered what they would taste like.  For example, once in a while an ice cream vendor would come through her village, in the summer, peddling his wares, yelling out, “Ice cakes, ice cakes….”

It was only much later in her life that she finally could taste these simple treasures, and enjoy them.  Here is how I have learned to make this ice cream, healthy dairy free, gluten-free version.

First, soak your red Azuki beans.  Soak them in a LOT of water.  They are big guzzlers, so go overboard with the water, and soak them for at least a day.

Boil the soaked beans and you will need to make enough to have 2 cups of boiled beans.

This is what the red beans look like after boiling

It’s ok if you end up overcooking the beans, because most of them will end up in your blender.  Let the beans cool off.

Now, put a can of full fat coconut milk (or use any other milk you like) in your blender.

add 2 cups of cooked beans and keep the leftover beans handy.

Add anywhere between 3/4 cups – 1 1/2 cups of honey.  Traditionally, this isn’t very sweet, so I normally use less than a cup.  But if you prefer it sweeter, use the full amount.  Here is my current favorite honey:

I love how it says “made by American bees!”

This is the inside of my blender, with all the ingredients in place

Set your blender on either Ice cream, or smoothie setting, and process until it’s all nice and smooth.

Put it all into your prepared ice cream maker, and let it go!

Doesn’t it look cool how the ice cream maker swirls around the future ice cream?
When the ice cream is almost done, add the rest of the cooked, cooled, whole beans, up to 1 cup, but you can add as few as you want.

Then, either put the ice cream into popsicle molds (which is the traditional way to serve this) or put it into a container and store in freezer.  My popsicle didn’t look good enough to take pictures of, although they tasted awesome!

Either way, it is a most delicious and healthy way to enjoy a cool treat on a hot summer’s day!

If the ice cream isn’t sweet enough for you, drizzle with honey….

“You have the power to fulfill your dreams!”

Note: Shirley over at GFE gets the credit for me attempting to convert the original recipe – so surprise my teacher with this new concoction.  Thanks for your ice cream recipes!

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The healing powers of a Blueberry Buckle

…When the dog bites, when the bee stings….who hasn’t had days like that?  Days when you just need a little something to eat, something that soothes you, and makes you feel happy inside and out, and that makes you forget whatever troubles, worries or bad things you have gone or are still going through.

My Martial Arts teacher, Dr. Tae Yun Kim, has this to say about those times:

“Rejoice in the lesson of pain and hurt, it gives you strength, it gives you freedom!”

And why not have some food to help with the rejoicing?

Strangely enough, in the winter, this can be a nice bowl of home-made chicken soup.  But in the hot summer, what to do?  Real comfort food, when I myself need comfort, needs to be fast, easy and have that taste that spells home-made, and makes you feel the world is ok.

When nobody is around, I like to resort to a mug cake, or mug cookie or mug anything – they are so quick and easy and one-portion goodness.  But when family is around, I like to make something that everyone can enjoy.

So, I make some concessions.  While I could easily make Shirley’s perfect pound cake over and over (and over and over) again – it is that good – I realize that this will not work for everyone.  But, I just discovered her Blueberry Banana Buckle (recipe here) and it surely hit the spot.  It’s summer comfort food to the max.  Check it out!

This time, I did something new:  didn’t add anything, didn’t change anything – but I left out the topping!  My recently cast-less foot was starting to hurt and so I just figured this cake will be just as good without – and it was!

Enterprising family members informed me that it was the perfect “underneath” for ice cream as well 😉

And because I just love this part of one of Dr. Tae Yun Kim‘s motivational books, I thought I would share it with you:

“You are complete, peaceful, and fulfilled.

Being complete does not mean we have nothing more to learn, do, be, or become.  Being complete means we have the potential to accomplish anything that is naturally a part of the universe.” (The First Element, page 88)

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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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How homemade ice cream can help you take charge of your thoughts!

A few years ago Dr. Tae Yun Kim went to Jeju island, Korea.  I got to come with her, as videographer.  All was well, except it was extremely hot.  Hot and humid, as in, over 100 degrees, and about 80+ humidity.  Dr.  Kim was cool as a cucumber, in her black, knit St. Johns pantsuit, not even breaking a sweat, while the rest of us were moaning and groaning and sweating like crazy.

Add to that the fact that most Koreans do not like air conditioning, so the rooms and lecture halls that she was giving speeches in, had no A/C, and the fan, if there was one, operated at a speed slower than snails.

Your thoughts create your reality!  This is one of Dr. Tae Yun Kim‘s signature sayings.  She also said that if you focus on the heat, you will feel the heat a lot more.  If you focus on being cool, the heat will not get to you.

Dr.  Tae Yun Kim also says that “The first step in taking charge of your life is to learn to take charge of your thinking.  The difference between a limited you and an unlimited you begins with your attitude and state of mind.” (Seven steps to Inner Power, page 17)

So, in furnace like weather like today – mid 90s – I thought about that a lot.  And among other things, ice cream came to mind!

Armed with a recipe for ice cream from Shirley (You can find it here) I got our new blender ready – love this totally insanely great machine!  No, they don’t pay me for writing this and they don’t even know I exist, but here is the beauty:

Look at all these helpful buttons!  I have used almost all them and this is really great machine!

I put all ingredients into the blender, and had some fun.

I even went outside to get some roses for the ice cream bowls.

From my taste tests during the preparation, I knew I had a winner!  It was completely wonderful!

So, when it’s hot out there – do yourself a favor – make this ice cream and chill!

New note to this blog: this is indeed the best ice cream ever!  It was just declared such by a 16-year old ice cream afficionado/connoisseur…

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A beautiful breakfast surprise

As you might know, I have had foot surgery a couple of weeks ago, and I haven’t been very mobile as a result.  So, because we live in a very busy world, I have been having cereal for breakfast – gluten free, nutritious and delicious cereal.  I do cook still, but it’s all a lot simpler than what I would normally do.

You can imagine my complete, and delighted surprise when this appeared for breakfast this morning:

Gluten free French Toast!

Delivered with a big smile by a wonderful, 16-year old Jung Suwon warrior.  He not only had the idea all by himself, but also had made it all by himself!  And this from a kid who had been a notorious trouble maker, but whom Dr. Tae Yun Kim has helped transform from a troubled youth to a true warrior!  How beautiful this is!

I was filled with gratitude – and not just for the delicious breakfast – also that there are people who care, and that Dr.  Tae Yun Kim is one of these people.  But not only does she give youngsters a chance – she does so repeatedly.  This young man has had some “relapses” as we shall call it, however, Dr. Kim isn’t one to give up.  With the patience of a Saint she keeps helping.

So, today I wanted to share my gratitude.

“A very powerful expression of love is simple gratitude.  Why is gratitude powerful?  When you express gratitude, you are acknowledging that something good exists.  This action energizes that good thing and gives it momentum to continue existing. “

(The First Element, page 140)

Thank you, young warrior, for such a delight!  I will always remember this day!

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The carrot cake redemption

I found this on the counter one night when I came home from work.

No, this isn’t an evil sign.  Someone very creative was asking for some carrot cake!

Dr.  Tae Yun Kim, my Martial Arts teacher, is fully embracing an all organic and gluten-free life style, and as a result I have been cleaning up my diet as well.

There are countless carrot cake recipes out there, but good gluten-free ones are hard to find.  I found a great recommendation on Shirley’s blog, http://allglutenfreedesserts.com/dreamy-carrot-cake-gluten-free-spinner/

If you want to make a really really good carrot cake, follow the recipe.  It is the best I ever made.

All went well.

had the eggs ready…

Mixed all the dry ingredients together

mixed the wet ingredients together

and put it all together.

Then, after it looked like this

I baked it until it looked like this

So far so good!

But then, when I cut the cake into two layers – disaster struck!

The top layer crumbled all to pieces!  O no!

After taste testing some of the stray crumbs, I realized that yes, this was indeed a most outstanding carrot cake.  But what to do now?

Well, I thought about a quote from Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim:

“People and events can shape someone for good or bad.  But you alone have power over these things, more power than you realize.  It does not matter how bad circumstances may seem.  What I discovered was that how I dealt with circumstances was much more important than the circumstances themselves.” (Seven Steps to Inner Power, p xxi)

So, next step – I made the frosting.  Except instead of all that sugar, I used orange blossom honey.  I carefully used it as glue and it worked for holding it all together.

But it sure didn’t look good!

This didn’t help much either!

But then….I had some fruit in the fridge, and this happened:

End result: the best carrot cake indeed!

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

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My first ever product review: new super wave oven

Did I mention that my Martial Arts teacher, Dr. Tae Yun Kim, is very cool?  Although she teaches very traditional Martial Arts, she always lives in the here, and now, and encourages me to try out new things!

“Making changes helps set you free by opening up many more alternatives and options for you.  A person who knows just one way of doing something, just one way of being, is not as free as the person who can choose from many options.” (The Silent Master, page 142)

So, I tried out this new cooking device, which I had seen in Dr. Tae Yun Kim‘s kitchen.

isn’t it a beauty?

Here is what the claims are:

• This machine completely reinvents how we cook! It uses special, Tri-Cooking Technology high-tech lamps to cook from the inside out while searing food and sealing in the juices!
• It can even cook frozen food straight from the freezer! No defrosting or preheating needed!
• Uses a combination of halogen, convection, and infrared heating to deliver nutrient rich, flavor packed food without the use of added fats or oils.
• Or you can try healthier options like broiling, grilling and steaming – All using the SAME appliance!

• Super Wave Oven is the healthy way to bake, barbecue, roast & even fry!
• Plus it’s self-cleaning, so clean up is a breeze!
• It cooks up to 3 times faster than a traditional oven, while using up to 80% less energy!

I found that most of the claims held true, but cooking straight from the freezer – I do not recommend it!  At all!  I tried it with a perfectly good steak, and it did not turn out well – was more like shoe leather!

Also, the claim of not using any fat isn’t entirely true.  For example, for the “fatless French fries” you really need to coat the potatoes in some oil – I use olive oil in spray form – they will come out perfect, but without the oil, they are dried out and not very tasty.

I roasted a whole, 15 lb turkey according to the directions in the booklet that came with the oven, and it turned out perfectly cooked, beautiful, tasty and juicy.  Not a hint of dryness, not even in the breast!

I have also roasted a whole chicken, and chicken parts, and have made French fries – and everything turned out beautiful.

And while it only takes 3 hours to roast a 15 lb unstuffed turkey – be aware that you will need to turn the bird every 30 minutes.

But as you can see – well worth it!

As far as cost for the oven goes – I have seen it as low as $ 79 on Amazon.com, and up to $ 100 on various internet sites.

My summary: If you don’t want to fire up an oven for a long time, especially in the hot summer months, and if you want to spend less time in the kitchen, and want to cook with less fat, this might be the tool for you.

For a busy Jung Suwon warrior, this could be a great time saver!

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