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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Midnight miracle muffins

We had some unexpected guests over, and it was late.  Very wonderful people, but I had nothing to offer, and I was about to get stressed about this situation.  But just in time I remembered something Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim shared with us in  Jung Suwon class, (thankfully it’s also written down in her book, “Seven Steps to Inner Power:”

“Ideally, your awareness should be like a pool of water.  Light travels easily into still water, and you can see right into it.  It becomes very clear.  But when the wind blows and the water is agitated, or when the water is polluted, you can’t see what’s in it clearly.  So how can you make your mind like a pool of still, clean water, undisturbed by turbulent surface thoughts, free from polluting feelings and emotions, so that the light of your consciousness travels easily into your awareness?”

I calmed down and went to work.  The guests, even though not Jung Suwon warriors themselves, would appreciate something reasonably healthy, so my initial thought was to make my “go to” pound cake recipe, but as muffins for shorter baking time, and add fruit and nuts.  But, halfway through mixing it up, I realized that I didn’t have some of the key ingredients, such as buttermilk or even milk.  Oh, and it was a gluten containing recipe too!  Stress returning – I had already creamed the butter and sugar (half of the original recipe) and eggs!  Now what?

“You are creative energy,” these words from Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim rang through my head.

I gathered all the different kinds of flours I had at home, and meanwhile turned on the oven to a safe, all purpose 350 degrees.  Lined muffin pans with cute butterfly liners and went back to the mixing.

Want to see the result?

Want to try re-create them?

Here is what I did – and feel free to substitute to your heart’s content, as long as you know what you are doing!

Recipe for gluten-free, Midnight miracle muffins:

2 1/2 sticks butter (I imagine coconut oil would work, 1 stick butter = 1/2 cup) and 2 sticks would work well too I imagine

1 1/2 cups brown or palm sugar

4 eggs

3 1/2 cups flour total, I used 1 cup almond flour, 1/2 cup Teff flour, and 2 cups of Shirley’s gluten free flour

1/2 tsp Xanthum gum,

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 cup yoghurt, strawberry banana yoghurt (you can, of course, use any flavor you like!)

cream together the butter, sugar and add eggs one at a time.  Slowly mix in yoghurt and rest of ingredients, but make sure all the flours you use are blended together well before incorporating into the batter.

Bake for about 15 – 25 minutes, then share these wonderful morsels with those you love!

If you train at Jung Suwon, remember to bake up a batch and share with your fellow Jung Suwon warriors (hint 😉 )

Credit where credit is due: the very original recipe I started to work from was from here.

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Sometimes you feel like a nut….

As some of you might know, I have had some foot surgery and haven’t been in the kitchen a lot the past week.  Unfortunately, no regular Jung Suwon workouts for me!  And of course, I’ll have to watch what I eat even more as a result.

Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim recommended cashew nuts.  As is her style, she just sometimes mentions things along the way.  “Try some cashew nuts,” Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim might say, “see how you feel.”

Right off, I liked that idea.  I mean, I always give a try to Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim’s suggestions, but this one was really easy – I already love cashews!

I was a bit concerned about the high fat content in nuts – but as it turns out, Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim was right on the money even with that:  The cashew nut is nick-named the “low fat nut!”  Even so, it’s a good idea to not overdo it.

But just a small handful has a lot of nutrition in it!  Number one, it’s naturally gluten free and the most allergy free nut there is.  Number two, the fat it does have, is good for you!  Number three, it has a high amount of magnesium, which we all know is good for the heart.  And so the list continues.

Come to think of it, a perfect Jung Suwon post-workout food!  Just a small amount gives you a lot of nutrition, and after a hard workout, I don’t like to eat a large amount!

So then, Great Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim encouraged me to find “more things to do” with cashew nuts – and find I did!  I had no idea you can make so much with them – beyond the obvious, like cookies and breads – you can even  grind them and make cheese!  But before I pass on a recipe for that, I better make it myself first and get it Jung Suwon warrior appetite approved!

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Jung SuWon preparedness: no stress dinner – Italian Pot Roast

Here is the ultimate “be ready for dinner” recipe. One of the things Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim teaches her students is to be ready any time, any place.  So, whether you come home after a Jung SuWon class by yourself, or if you have some friends drop in, or you have to go to a meeting and won’t have time to cook when you come home, here is something you might want to try.  It’s healthy, simple, and easy, and something fool proof for even the most beginners of cooks.  You start this, of course, before you go to class, for example or to a meeting, and when you get home after a couple hours, dinner is all ready!

When I cook, I like to visualize the finished product while I cook.  And here is a favorite quote from Grandmaster Tae Yun Kim, from her book “Seven Steps to Inner Power“:

“Creative visualization is not idle day dreaming or wishful thinking.  Yes, you could say that it’s like dreaming, but it’s more than that.  It is focused imagining, with the power of your  will and persistence behind it.  It is an immaterial activity that takes form first as a mental image, then as a material image.”

So, here is the result of some creative imagery:

Prepare a good sized beef pot roast, by rolling it in a mixture of regular flour that you mixed with some salt, black pepper and ground garlic.  I prefer a rolled chuck roast encased in a net since it holds its shape very nicely.  Quickly fry the roast on high heat from all sides, a couple minutes each side, preferably in the same pan you are going to put it into the oven with.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. 

Cut up tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, olives, parsley and fresh basil leaves.  You can also add green peppers, carrots, zucchini if you like.

When the roast is browned on all sides, add the onions around the meat, tomatoes, mushrooms and rest of ingredients.  Add about a cup of red wine and enough water to make it come about half-way up the height of the roast.   Cover tightly, and put into the oven.

Now walk away and do whatever you need to do for the next  2 – 3 hours and this will depend on the size of the roast.  With this style of preparing the roast, you really can’t go wrong.  It tastes great rare, but if you leave it in longer, it won’t be bad either, it just seems to get more tender.

If you really want to do yourself a favor, get your rice pot going at the same time you put the roast into the oven.  When you come home, smile and prepare to eat a most delicious dinner!

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