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lets-try-cooking-this · 2 years

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The Final Food of the Semester: M&M and Chocolate Chip Cookies

First things first, I want everyone to think about their quintessential treat from their childhood. Like the one treat thing from childhood that transports you back and makes you smile.

Betty Crocker, The Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Well, for me, that treat has to be probably one of the most well known and beloved snacks that's highlighted in so many shows from the 2000s to maybe like mid 2010s (I could also be very much wrong about those numbers). And for me, that is cookies.

I remember eating them a lot when I was growing up. They were always one of the easiest treats my mom could whip up and were always one of the staples of holiday gatherings due to their simplicity.

And it was never just one type of cookies. Shortbread cookies, sugar cookies, chocolate chip, M&M cookies, those cookies from like Walmart with that hella sweet frosting on top. You name the cookie, I most likely had it in childhood and I most likely loved it.

Dorothy Kern, How to Make Cake Mix Cookies

In fact, some of my favorite memories are connected to cookies.

When I was younger (I would say up until around 10), when we would go to the store, we would always browse the bakery and produce section which would always be right next to each other. Most of the ladies there were incredibly kind to me. In fact, when we would stop by the bakery to talk to one of my mom's friends, one of the women back there, I would say in her forties, would always stop to say hi to me. And she always, without fail, would pass me two sugar cookies from the bakery, practically fresh out of the oven. I always found it really sweet, and I was always grateful for the sweet treat when we would go around the store.

And because I don't really have much else to add, I wanted to add a cute fact about these cookies because I always found it pretty charming; that chocolate chip cookies were totally made by accident.

Yup, the favorite treat of childhood was a whoops.

You see, the story is that Ruth Wakefield, the owner of the Toll House Inn (yes, like Nestle Toll House, but we will get there), was trying to make chocolate cookies. However, she realized while she was making the dough that she was missing a key ingredient: baker's chocolate.

Baker's chocolate is very different from normal pieces of chocolate, as one can probably guess. In fact, baker's chocolate is not meant to be consumed casually; it has to be incorporated, whether through melting or combining with other ingredients, and baked in order to be more palatable. If you eat it by itself, you would find its pretty bitter and kind of gross. It's meant to be mixed with things like sugar in order to make it better.

But, Ruth was not having it. She didn't have time to get more baker's chocolate, but what she did have was a Nestle chocolate bar. As a frantic substitute, Ruth took the bar of chocolate, broke it into pieces and added it into the bowl with the rest of the cookie mix. She thought that as it would bake, it would melt and turn into a chocolate cookie.

What she found instead was that the chocolate chunks maintained their place in the cookie, creating chocolate chip cookies. This became an instant hit, and from there, Ruth sold her recipe and the Toll House name to Nestle for 1 dollar.

Which frankly was a rip off. Poor Ruth got cheated for making one of the most well known treats ever.

So, for the final blog for this class, I wanted to make one of my favorite end of the meal treats; cookies. In fact, we're making M&M and chocolate chip cookies. They are very sweet, and are genuinely one of my favorite treats. Whenever I feel down, its easily one of my favorite treats to have.

Ingredients:

2 sticks of softened unsalted butter (basically 1 cup)

1 cup of brown sugar

3/4 cup of granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

3 cups of all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1 teaspoon of salt

3/4 of a cup mini M&M's

3/4 of a cup of Hershey's milk chocolate chocolate chips (you can also use semi-sweet, but this is the one we had)

note* after you make the base dough, you can put any inclusions you want in there. You can put roasted nuts in there for example. Just be careful there's nothing there than can burn.

Recipe:

1.place 2 sticks of your softened butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar into a mixing bowl with a stand mixer or a hand held mixer. Mix the butter until a paste forms.

note* go from level 1 on your mixer then slowly speed up the mixer as you go. This will basically cause the ingredients to either splatter or, as I like to call it, attack, you. This is especially important with the dry ingredients, as it will cause a cloud of your powder and that's not fun to clean up.

2. add your eggs and vanilla then combine (the consistency should be like grainy peanut butter).

3. Mix your flour, salt and baking soda in a bowl first before adding it to the mixing bowl. Only add half at first then start mixing at level one before building up the speed. You can add the rest of the flour when you feel comfortable that it won't attack with a dust cloud. Mix until it becomes a dough.

4. Fold in your add ons (the M&M's and chocolate chips) until its fully incorporated in the dough.

5. Place your dough in the fridge and refrigerate for 15 minutes to an hour. (I didn't. I just didn't want to.)

6. On a cookie tray with a baking sheet on it, roll your dough into two inch balls and place them on the tray. Our trays were able to hold a dozen at a time.

7. Bake in the oven from 10-14 minutes at 350*F. The cookies will be done if their golden at the bottom.

This recipe makes roughly 4 dozen cookies

And that's it! From here do whatever you want with your cookies! I had a little extra batter, so I may or may not have made two bigger cookies that I'll be turning into an ice cream sandwich when they cool down hehe.

That's the last recipe for this class everyone. Thank you for joining me on this and let me know what your favorite treats are!

Milk Jar Cookies, "The Amazing Invention of the Chocolate Chip Cookie" milkjarcookies.com, accessed 6/28/2022

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lets-try-cooking-this · 2 years

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Keep it (Kinda) Simple Garlic Pasta

Everyone knows the staple "college foods".

Basically anything and everything simple: pastas, ramen (or ramyeon depending on what brand you get), pizzas, ready-made meals, sandwiches, the works. If it can't be thrown in a microwave or easily made then its a no-go.

Jennifer Bui, College Food Pyramid

Well, unfortunately for me and those probably like me, that's not so simple. Due to some health problems, the foods I get have to either have to be insanely specific or have to be relatively fresh. So I can't rely so heavily on the keep it simple meals that so many college kids eat. So nothing that can just be tossed into the oven or put into a drawer that can last for a few months (with maybe the exception of pasta).

Last year, when I was diagnosed with IBS, I knew that my options were going to be more limited and more expensive. If I wanted to use butter in recipes, I was better off getting the avocado butter than the cheaper kind. Pasta (which I have yet to find a gluten-free alternative for that I actually like) had to be treated as something to make more on the weekend so I can deal with it at my dorm. Ice cream in general was a no go.

To put it simply, it sucked.

So I started trying making my own recipes using ones I already knew. If I wanted to make pasta with a type of meat sauce, it wasn't going to be simple; I was going to add garlic, onion, a bunch of spices, mushroom and spinach (for the fiber). Instead of using normal lettuce for sandwiches, I just used spinach. Burgers were to be kept more vegetarian if I could help it. Potatoes were made with avocado butter and a bunch of spices. You get the idea.

During this time, I was also teaching my roommate how to cook. I was showing her the basics, what spices go together and how to make sure she didn't accidently poison herself.

One day, she asked me what she could make out of pasta. I blinked at her as if she had grown a couple of extra heads and said, "Uhh... literally anything? You can toss it in sauce, butter, a sort of pesto, it doesn't matter."

Well she told me she didn't want any of that. We ate pasta with sauce a lot, we don't necessarily have pesto just lying around and butter was too boring.

I told her it didn't have to be so simple, the easiest thing to incorporate with other things would be the butter. So I told her to saute some onion and garlic in the pan with butter while cooking the pasta and then toss it all together with spices.

Needless to say she slow blinked at me and I had to walk her through how to make it.

Eventually, it was done cooking and she had the garlic butter pasta for the first time and... she really enjoyed it. She really liked the garlic and it wasn't boring like she was expecting it to be.

This recipe is essentially how I taught her to make it, only with more vegetables to give it some variety.

Recipe:

Ingredients

1 box of spaghetti

butter (I use avocado butter as an alternative, olive oil butter is also good)

3-5 cloves of garlic, minced (I added 6 but that's just because I love it)

1 small yellow onion, thinly sliced

1 grated carrot (you can also use match sticks)

4 oz of white mushrooms

1 small bag of frozen broccoli

1 tablespoon of olive oil

salt

pepper

garlic powder

onion powder

basil

crushed red pepper

*NOTE: I did not include measurements to the seasoning nor did I do it to the butter because I feel its to ones preference how much they add in this dish. I added the seasoning pretty liberally but that's purely because I prefer to be slightly more heavy handed in seasoning because that's how I like it. You do not need to do this. Add however much of one thing or another as you like. My only precaution is to not completely coat everything in seasoning, since that will overwhelm the dish. Roughly 1 teaspoon of each seasoning with each new vegetable added may be more than enough for some of you.

Directions

Boil your water for your pasta and add a tablespoon of olive oil in the water to prevent the pasta from sticking and salt to the water before adding the pasta. Cook that per package instructions.

While waiting for the water to boil, prep your vegetables.

In a saute pan on medium heat, add butter then slowly add your vegetables, starting with your onion and garlic. Add a dash of salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and basil to your pan and toss together.

*important note: if you feel you need to add more butter to this dish, feel free to do it. I added butter with the addition of every new vegetable added to the saute pan. I used roughly 6-7 spoonfuls of butter in this, but that's because I added roughly a spoonful for every addition to the pan and wanted to make sure it was buttery and delicious.

4.After 1 minute, add your carrot and mushroom to your saute pan and add another dash of the spices mentioned above.

5.Add your broccoli to your pan, adding one more dash of garlic powder and onion powder.

6. When the pasta is finished cooking, drain the pasta and slowly start adding it to the pan, making sure to coat the pasta with the butter and vegetables each time.

7. Add 1 1/2 teaspoons of basil and red pepper flake. Serve immediately.

That's it! This dish is incredibly simple to make and tastes delicious. This can be served with chicken, beef, or just by itself for something simple and flavorful to eat. Plus, because this recipe could realistically feed four people, its perfect to save in the fridge for the few days and eat more later. And try adding your own favorite vegetables into it to see what combinations you like and let me know your favorites too!

#food recipes #food #simple #recipe #simplerecipe #garlic pasta #garlic butter pasta #garlic #broccoli #carrot #pasta #fun recipes #easy recipe #easy pasta recipes #delicious #tasty recipes #college #probably not good for me #oh well

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lets-try-cooking-this · 2 years

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Bulgogi and BTS

So, I am a BTS fan. For anyone that has met me, this is definitely not news. For the past few years, I have not been afraid to voice that I enjoy their music. I love their music, their content, their connection they have not only with each other but their fans as well and I genuinely enjoy their personalities and the messages that they have produced over the span of 9 years as of yesterday.

To give some context as to why I became a fan, my story is similar to a lot of armies stories; I found them when I was approaching/at my lowest point. I was in my junior year of high school, having a sleep over with my friend when he asked if I had heard of BTS. At the time, I hadn’t. The only K-pop songs I knew was Psy’s Gangnam Style and a handful of songs that would occasionally come up in fanmade videos. But besides that, their music was outside of my bubble. So, when I told her that I hadn’t and that I was willing to listen to a few, I saw the mischievous grin spread across his face like the Cheshire Cat as his fingers whipped across the keyboard of my laptop, onto YouTube and selecting BTS’ Blood Sweat and Tears Music video.

And trust me, if ya know, ya know.

gyfcat.com, imgur.com

I was captivated. It was outside of many of the music videos or music in general that I had encountered before. Sure, I had encountered a lot of music videos by that point with a story to them and artwork, but it was extremely different from what I had encountered before. The elegant costumes, the references to artwork, the gorgeous colors and color schemes used and the story they told was as intriguing. It was essentially about how evil tempted the members to choose the wrong path.

youtube

BTS, Blood Sweat and Tears

And you know what? I loved it. I found it to be a lot more interesting than a lot of the music videos I found in the United States and it felt more poetic than a lot of the music that I listened to before.

The more we explored the album it came from, the more connected I felt. Between First Love, a solo by Suga, reminiscing on his first memories of the piano and how it became a place he always returned to while Mama, J-Hope’s solo, about the relationship between a mom who tried her best to make sure her son succeeded at what he wanted and her child who wants to be there for her now and so many other songs from their discography, I felt more connected to them than I did any other group I listened to before.

Since then, I listened to more of their music, watched their variety show called BTS Run, where they would play games and try to beat challenges for prizes, watched their funniest moments and their saddest moments. I have been listening to them for years. They even grew my interest enough to look more into the culture they came from and, combined with other factors, began learning Korean and learning about Korean history.

Brian Friedman of Variety, BTS at the 64th Annual Grammys

And for five years, its been similar to that. I’d listen to their songs when they came out, used their music to build vocabulary from, watch their content and continue on with my day. Although, at the same time, I felt bad. With comebacks practically every six months, I was wondering when they ever got a break in. I mean, they are one of the biggest groups in the world, if not the biggest depending on who you ask, taking a break, even if its for a few months, wouldn’t be the end of the world or their careers. I also knew that this would not be that easy.

The thing about big groups is that if they bring in a lot of money like BTS has, there is a huge pressure to continue producing music and to not fall out of spotlight. In Korea, this is amplified due to the nature of how the work industry, and by extension the Korean entertainment industry, works. In the back of my mind, I hoped one day they would have a chance to do something outside of the group to extend their careers outward, but I also knew it was easier said then done.

BIGHIT Music, BTS-Proof

However, with the promotions of their new album and the introductions of the songs on the album, it felt a little too much like a goodbye. Their album, Proof, goes over not only their entire discography, but also some new songs of their own, fan favorites and demos of some of their most popular or some of their more mischievous songs. Their promotion photos depicted things very different from their usual image. Like the shields in the background of their first set showing 8 rings with bulletholes, scratches and significant damage, indicating the hate and major problems they faced in the past. Their photos, using see-through curtains with a soft, but somber color palette reminded me of reminiscing a person from their past.

But this was just me, right? Most people that were seeing that this might be a goodbye were being told it wasn’t like that, it just meant a second chapter to BTS. Yet it still didn’t feel right. Usually a second chapter doesn’t just indicate a new change, but sometimes a significant one. No one else was saying that though, so I thought I was overthinking it. That it wasn’t a goodbye like I thought, but a new chapter for new music like everyone thought.

And in a sense, we were half right.

Over their festa dinner, where they usually celebrate their anniversary, talk about old memories and in a sense “hang out” with ARMY, it was revealed that BTS would be going on hiatus. While how long they will be on hiatus is uncertain, it is clear that the members wanted to pursue their own solo careers. RM made a statement saying that, “‘I always thought BTS was different from other groups, but the problem with K-pop and the whole idol system is that they don’t give you time to mature…’” (BBC). Also, during this interview, BTS made it clear that while it wasn’t a goodbye, since they want to come back when they are more mature, find their own identities outside of the group and come back stronger than ever.

Rappler.com, BTS says they’re taking a break before heading to their next chapter

This, while it is sad to know that they won’t be producing music for a while and it would be a while before content like theirs would be made again, I am excited to see the start of their new chapters. So, to show that, I wanted to find a recipe of a food that the members enjoy. And, through rewatching some of their clips, I found that they all really enjoy meat. So while I can’t make samgyeopsal (a.k.a. pork belly), which is what many people enjoy, I decided to go with bulgogi, which reminds me a lot of the group’s music itself.

Bulgogi (불고기), which directly translates to fire beef, is a Korean barbeque dish that is vastly enjoyed across much of Korea and, conversely, Korean communities and restaurants around the world. Often times seen using a form of steak, bulgogi is rich in sweetness and spice depending on how you make it and it can be eaten many different ways. The two ways I chose was with rice and with some lettuce and other banchan (반찬) to make it into wraps. The sweetness of the pears used in the dish reminds me of the loving messages they often send to ARMY when they teach self love, growth and kindness while, at the same time, the heat of the gochujang (고추장) reminds me of the savageness they can display against their haters (like through Mic Drop and the Cypher tracklist). I used the beef bulgogi recipe from Damn Delicious as a base, as it was the best one with what kitchen gadgets I had available to me.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

1 pound of boneless ribeye steak

Around 10 ozs of shitake mushrooms

½ of a small pear, peeled and coarsely grated (I used the Korean pears I found at my local market, but pears and similarly apples work just as well).

¼ cup of reduced sodium soy sauce

2 tablespoons of light brown sugar

2 tablespoons of toasted sesame oil

3 cloves of garlic (I used 4 for this recipe because I’m a sucker for it)

¾ tablespoons of ginger

1 tablespoon of gochujang

2 tablespoons of vegetable oil

2 green onions, sliced

2 teaspoons of sesame seeds (again, I’m a sucker, I added more, you can use less)

Directions

Wrap up the steak and put it into the freezer for 30 minutes. This will allow the steak to be easier to manage when it comes time to cut it.

2. In the meantime, in a medium bowl, add pear, soy sauce, brown sugar, sesame oil, garlic, ginger and gochujang. Combine together. (from this point, taste the sauce you are working with, add more or less of some ingredients depending on what you are going for).

3. To a ziplock bag, add your thinly sliced beef (sliced to a quarter inch thickness) then pour the marinate inside. Seal it tightly, mix it together, then put it into the fridge.

Side note: This step is dependent on how long you want to marinate your steak for. For this recipe, I only did it for an hour, so I mixed it together in the bowl, covered it in plastic wrap and let it marinate in the fridge, but typically you should marinate it for 2 hours-overnight.

4.Place your pan (typically you would use a cast iron skillet, but I do not own one so), heat 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil on medium high heat. Working in batches, add your beef into the pan in a single layer and around 1/3rd to a half of your mushrooms at a time to the pan with it, flip it once until the meat is cooked or until it is charred if you are using a cast iron skillet; roughly 2-3 minutes per side. Repeat with the remaining tablespoon of oil and steak.

5. Serve immediately, garnished with green onion and sesame seeds. (I added it on top of rice, you do not need to)

And there ya go! You can play with the recipe, with any type of banchan and can experiment however you wish. Let me know what other recipes I should try and see you next time!

Citations:

HYBE LABELS "BTS (방탄소년단) '피 땀 눈물 (Blood, Sweat and Tears), YouTube, 9 October 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmE9f-TEutc

Genius English Translations "BTS - First Love (English Translation)" Genius, Genius Media Group, 14 June 2022 https://genius.com/Genius-english-translations-bts-first-love-english-translation-lyrics

Genius English Translations "BTS - MAMA (English Translation)" Genius, Genius Media Group, 14 June 2022 https://genius.com/Genius-english-translations-bts-mama-english-translation-lyrics

Chungah, "Korean Beef Bulgogi" Damn Delicious, 2019

"BTS announces break to grow and pursue solo projects" BBC, 14 June 2022 https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-61803343

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lets-try-cooking-this · 2 years

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Japanese Fruit Sandwich for Pride Month

Well everyone, its Pride month. In a way, this time of year reminds me of when Christmas; where as at 11:59PM of May 31st, its dead silent and then once the clock hits midnight nearly every company known to man comes out pride flags raised with carbon copy statements and messages about how special this time of year is while pride merchandise is plastered everywhere across their homepages. So, I figured as it is pride month, I’d put my own flag out there as someone who’s part of the LGBTQ+ community, only making it into food as you do.

American Charities, LGBTQIA+ Pride Month 2022

When I was younger, I didn’t exactly have a grasp on the concept of relationships. I knew they existed. I knew that people got into them. I just didn’t fully understand why people went into romantic relationships, especially after witnessing some of the drama I saw my friends and classmates got into. It felt like every day there was a new romance and that it wasn’t really anything I wanted to do.

But in a sense, I felt like I was also falling behind the curve. I was witnessing so many people my age enter into relationships and some even making it a priority. Meanwhile I was more focused on Pokemon, art and music. I felt like I was on some imaginary time clock, like I was passed due on an assignment I didn’t know I had to finish. I had to sit on it for the longest time. When I imagined myself in a relationship, I realized I didn’t mind who I was in a relationship with as far as gender went. I didn’t mind what their gender was. So, up until a few months ago, I figured I was either bisexual or pansexual.

Yet, even with this revelation in mind, this label didn’t feel… complete. It felt like I was still missing something important about my identity. I knew I didn’t care about gender, that much was clear. I noticed that I still didn’t form any sort of romantic feelings for anyone. I just didn’t understand.

That was until a few months ago when Jaiden Animations released her own coming out video that it made sense.

Jaiden Animations, Being Not Straight

Essentially, her story boils down to that she’s aroace, which is slanglang.net defines as, “... a person who has no interest in neither romantic, nor sexual relationships” (slanglang.net, Aroace). She also explained things I strongly identified with.

She explained the feeling of feeling behind the curve, not finding people attractive, thinking relationships meant you wanted to be “best friends” with someone, even some of our own anecdotes aligned. Like scanning through the classes to see who my “crush” would be, saving Valentine’s day cards like that was going to mean something and that being in a relationship meant being that person’s number 1 best friend.

In a way, it all made sense, but I knew there were some discrepancies between my story and Jaiden’s, I still feel attraction to people, but it took a long time and the right kind of connection with a person for me to feel those feelings. So, I went researching and discovered the term demi-sexual/demi-romantic. These two are attached to the ace spectrum, the main difference being that you can form these feelings, but you have to have a strong emotional connection in order to feel those feelings (asexualitytrust.org, Demisexuality and demiromantisism).

It finally made sense, and I understood what that meant for me. I had a name for it and, combined with the pansexual label, I knew I had found the right name for me. I finally knew what I was and it was like a rush of relief to finally have that name.

Reddit, u/PyschoMoon_

Aromantics Wiki, Demiromantic Flag

So, for my first pride month with all of my labels clear, I wanted to make a dish in honor at least one of them; the demi-romantic flag. So, when I found a dessert from Japan called fruit sandwich, I knew that this was the best dish for this project. The Japanese fruit sandwich is a relatively simple dish, composed of either white bread or milk bread, whipped cream, and, you guessed it, fruit. These sandwiches can be made with a variety of different types of fruit, most commonly strawberries, muscat grapes, apples or mangos and can use different types of bread, like milk bread, white bread, raisin bread or chocolate chip bread.

While its known that the first appearances of this dish comes from Japan, where exactly it originated is unclear. According to an article on web-japan.org, fruit sandwiches either come from cafe in Kyoto or a fruit snack store in Japan. Either way, the fruit sandwich is a simple and enjoyable and can be loved by any group, regardless of age. For mine, I’m going to use grapes and kiwi for the colors represented on the flag while using a whipped topping as opposed to the traditional whipped cream. Either way, regardless of fruit, this is a fun and easy to eat dish that’s perfect for the summer.

Japanese Fruit Sandwich

Ingredients:

2 slices of white bread

Seedless Red Grapes

1 Kiwi

Whipped cream (For this, due to availability, I’m using non dairy coconut Reddi-Whip)

Black food coloring (if you plan on coloring the icing, traditionally it isn’t done)

Instructions:

Add ½ cup of whipped cream into a bowl and mix some black dye to the whipped cream. Mix it thoroughly and place in the fridge to prevent it from melting. Set aside for 20 minutes.

Cut the crusts off of your bread and set aside.

Peel and slice kiwis to about ¼ of an inch, set aside

Cut one grape into a triangle. (It does not need to be sliced in half)

Take whipped cream out of the fridge and add one/two spoonfuls of colored whipped cream on one slice of bread.

Add cut grape onto one corner of the bread with the point of the triangle pointing inward on the bread

Add kiwi onto the bread down the middle from the start point of the grape to the end of the bread.

On the other slice of bread, add one/two spoonfuls of uncolored whipped cream.

Put the bread together to create the sandwich.

From the corner where the grape is, cut diagonally across the bread leaving two halves. Pick up to reveal the inside of the bread.

And that’s it! She's not the prettiest sandwich, but I hope I did the flag justice. I hope you all enjoy your dessert sandwich and let me know what other recipes you would like me to try!

Citations:

youtube

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lets-try-cooking-this · 2 years

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Hi, my name is Aurelia Geerer, my pronouns are she/her and I am a senior majoring in Korean Studies at Binghamton University. And welcome to Lets Try Cooking This where, you guessed it, this is going to get a bit random.

Growing up, I had many different passions and interests. I found passion in creating things, making and viewing art, writing while also finding joy in science, meteorology, history and cultures. And for the longest time, I thought one of those avenues were definitely part of the path I was going to take. My hobbies and interests stretched from artwork, cartoons and books all the way to science, medicine and meteorology. It was definitely like I was playing hot potato with my future, but that’s because I knew who I was. For me, success meant joy and it still does. And I knew that the things that gave me peace, like gaming, art and writing, would have been taken away because they wouldn’t give me joy anymore, it would bring frustration at becoming a chore.

Thankfully, I did find my joy, where I could continue learning and not get tired of it because it was always going to be a new challenge. Studying languages and cultures with Korean being the one that I found the most interest in. I loved learning more about different places outside of the small world I grew up in and wanting to know more about other people. Suddenly, I was trying my hardest to go overseas to South Korea and learn more. Explore the culture, study the history and understand just what shaped the country into what it is today. Hearing voices of people from different cultures, discussing their love for their own cultures, their struggles and their own identities made me want to learn more and want to continue studying on about the history and lives found in them to better understand their voices. This, combined with my other interests, like art and science, created a lot of fulfillment and motivation I didn't have before.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto

But, in the background, my life was not that great. To make a long story short, I was being dragged down by multiple factors in my life. Multiple forms of stress from schooling, family life, personal life, mental health and Covid culminated into pretty nasty reactions. And, over time, I found that things would get exponentially harder when I started having problems around eating. There were days where I couldn’t eat or have a meal with my mom or my friends without nearly folding myself in like a chair in pain. I would literally fast for over a day or so and be terrified over eating something in the event my body couldn’t handle it. One day, it boiled over when I made some pork chops, rice and asparagus for dinner and, as I was walking around campus, I ended up doubled over to the point where my roommate got her car and we went back to the dorm where I proceeded to wish death upon myself and curse out whatever mythological being thought it was funny to mess with me like this. By the next day I had made an appointment with a doctor and by the end of that week, I learned my symptoms were consistent with IBS.

This threw a huge wrench in many different ways. For one, I could no longer enjoy the foods I used to eat, not at the same capacity as I could when I was younger. I ended up being able to pluck away different foods that I knew would cause reactions with certain measures of how severe it would be. No more pork or dairy, garlic and onion started to become more limited, even ol’ reliable foods like pasta and eggs were started causing problems.

Financially, I could no longer just get the cheap options like Kraft, ramyeon, pizza, pasta, cheese, essentially anything that wouldn’t be too hard on the wallet. I was being recommended to eat more fresh foods, avoiding processed foods, being careful and monitoring what I take in. And this was frustrating. I couldn’t just enjoy a meal anymore or toss something together, I had to be careful or else goodbye function.

In terms of my own home life, my family is full of tried and true meat and potato lovers. If it has a milk product, starch or meat, it was good enough for them. Meanwhile, I had to shift to more vegetarian meals, meals with more vegetables and non-dairy products. And it was miserable; not because I had to shift in foods, I actually quite enjoy those options, but having to suddenly worry about whatever product I had and having to make alternate meals became frustrating, since I felt like I was being more trouble then what it was worth.

But, I also knew this was an opportunity to learn how to cook away from the restrictive diets I grew up on as a child, that was chocked full of processed foods, dairy and everything in the same range. I took notes from other cultures, tried foods and recipes that were outside of the realm of what I grew up on. I used recipes from different cultures to create foods I could not only enjoy, but could eat without feeling ill later, largely focusing on Korean foods like kimchi jjigae (kimchi stew), gimbap and pajeon (a Korean vegetable pancake).

Courtesy of Maangchi’s Kimchi Jjigae

And in a way, this blog is going to explore that. My plans for this five week blog and potentially beyond is to try new recipes, themes, interests and cultures to make new foods and find what works best for me, all the while, also delving into the things that I find joy in and what makes me me. Maybe these recipes I find and share will inspire others to try it too, maybe it will give people the chance to find out about different foods and the history behind them. Who knows? Sometimes, it can be fun being just a little bit random.

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