I made this version of Hamburger Jun or Korean Beef Patties a while ago but forgot to post. These turned out delicious and Chris, who wasn't very excited at first, ended up loving them.


Hamburger Jun

1 lb. Ground Beef
3 Green onions minced
1 Garlic clove minced
1 tsp. Fresh ginger minced
2 tbs. Soy sauce
1/4 tsp. Pepper
3 Eggs
2 tsp. Brown sugar
1/2 cup Flour
1 tsp. Sesame oil


In a bowl mix all ingredients except 2 eggs and the flour and form the meat into patties. In another bowl take the remaining two eggs and beat with a fork. In a separate bowl add the flour. Take each patty and dip first into the flour and then into the egg. Add some cooking oil to cover the bottom of a pan and fry the patties until cooked through.

Sauce

2 tbs. Soy sauce
1 tbs. Chili garlic sauce
1 tbs. Rice wine vinegar

Mix all the sauce ingredients in a bowl.

I served my patties in lettuce cups with the sauce poured over the top. Delicious!

Here is Penelope's panda bento. It is a rare pink nosed panda, probably the only one of it's kind...

Top tier: Panda made with rice, olive ears, nori face and a bologna pink nose. Chicken strips and soy sauce in the fishy container.

Bottom tier: Baby carrots, mixed greens, cherry tomato and ranch dressing.


Yep, looks just like him.

I made some bean-less chili the other day for Chris, who loves chili but is trying to eat a low carb diet. It came out really good, piled on some all beef franks with cheese and jalapenos! I am rather fond of Weinerschnitzel's chili cheese dogs, and he said my chili was better then their hotdog chili. While that may not mean much to some of you, to someone who has cravings for Weinerschnitzel chili cheese dogs it means a lot.

Bean-Less Chili

1 lb. Ground beef
1 Onion chopped into small pieces
2 Garlic cloves minced
4 cups of water, divided in half
15 oz. can of tomato sauce
1 tbs. Tajin 
1 tbs. Cumin
1 tbs. Red pepper chili flakes
1tsp. Paprika
1 tsp. Salt
1 tsp. Pepper
2 tbs. Oil

Put ground beef in a bowl and add 1/2 of the water (2 cups) Squish it around with your hands until meat is loose and it looks like a squishy mess. Add all the spices to the bowl and mix well. Set aside.
In a pot over medium heat cook onions and garlic in cooking oil util soft, about 10 minutes. Add the meat mixture and turn up heat to high. Mix everything well. Add the remaining 2 cups of water and the tomato sauce. Stir and bring to a boil. Once it begins to boil lower heat and simmer uncovered for approximately 2 hours, stirring occasionally. The chili will start to thicken up as it simmers.



We had leftovers and Chris and Penelope enjoyed a bowl of chili topped with cheese, sour cream and olives for lunch the next day.

Last fall Chris and Penelope decided to plant their pumpkin seeds from Halloween in our backyard. Penelope does this with pretty much anything she eats that has a seed. Watermelons, avocados, cherries, so far nothing has grown except...






her pumpkins! Check out our mini pumpkin patch! We are so going to be ready for pumpkin season.

For those of you that don't k now my husband Chris works on the Arctic Circle in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. He works in the oil field on a 3 week on 3 week off rotation. The other day they found this cutie roaming around camp.


He was probably out looking for some lunch. Don't you just want to snuggle with him? They also have polar bears up there, but no penguins, that's the other pole people. Think this is frightening, take a look at this.


Those are Alaska's state bird, the mosquito. Eeek!

After all the hoopla all over Pinterest and foodie blogs, I finally made cloud bread. The recipe is everywhere just look it up. It's basically eggs, cream cheese and cream of tartar mixed and baked to resemble something like bread or more like buns. It's soft and pillow-y hence the name cloud bread. It's a great substitute for bread if you are low carbing it. I made sandwiches for the family on cloud bread and everyone loved them.


Chris thought it tasted like soft white bread and couldn't believe what it was made out of. Just to warn you ahead of time, this does not have the texture of real bread, it's kind of like a meringue but with a little more consistency to it. Still for those of you trying to limit your carb intake and are tired of lettuce wraps this is a nice change. Just try it!

A few weeks ago I purchased spring roll wrappers to make fresh shrimp spring rolls.


I had so many wrappers left over and I was over my desire for fresh spring rolls so I thought maybe I could fry these instead. Not sure if it was possible I did some research online and sure enough, yes, these can also be rehydrated and fried. Nice! So here are some Crispy Chicken Spring Rolls I made.


While not very pretty, they were pretty tasty so here's my recipe.

Crispy Chicken Spring Rolls

I had a little less then a pound of ground chicken.
1/4 cup of chopped green onion
2 Cloves of garlic minced
1 Carrot shredded
1 tbs. Hoisin sauce
Powdered ginger
Five spice powder, a mixture of five spices used in Asian cooking. You can buy a five spice powder that contains all five spices already or if you are feeling daring you can make your own using star anise, cloves, cinnamon, Sichuan pepper and fennel seeds.
Salt & Pepper

In a pan cook the ground chicken along with the onion, garlic and carrots. Season with the remaining ingredients to taste. Cook until the chicken is completely done. Fill a large enough bowl for the wrappers to fit into it with water and a teeny amount of sugar. Take a wrapper and dip it into the water rehydrating it for about 15 seconds until it becomes pliable again. Place on wax paper. Fill the center of each wrapper with the chicken filling and then start by folding over the top side of the wrapper then folding in both left and right sides and then rolling it up into a little burrito. Does that make sense? I didn't think so... here I found this online. Once you roll up all your spring rolls, by the way I was able to make about 10 of these guys but I stuffed them pretty good, cover them with a paper towel and press down a little to soak up some of the moisture. You want to make these ahead of time so they dry out a bit before you fry them. Once they are ready to fry up heat some oil in a pan until hot and then drop your spring rolls in making sure that you only fry a few at a time. Don't let them touch as they will start to stick together if they do. Remove once these are brown and crisp and place on a paper towel to soak up some of the cooking oil. I served these with a dipping sauce.

Soy Sauce
Rice wine vinegar
Chili garlic sauce
Honey

I just combined a little of these ingredients in a bowl until it tasted good.


This is the chili garlic sauce I used.