The Yum Yum Factor

It's the holiday season and I have decided to take off the last couple of weeks leading up to Christmas so that I can get back in my own kitchen and just cook for my family after a busy year of cooking for other people. My family, understandably, is thrilled. The cobbler's family has no shoes syndrome is real. One of the first things I tried last week was the Instant Pot Beef Dip from  Amy and Jacky at pressure cook recipes  . Their methods are so well tested and always work like a charm, and this one was fabulous, as expected. Looking for something with a bit more kick, I used their recipe as a jumping off point to make this Korean Beef Dip. I often make really sloppy, delicious grilled cheese sandwiches out of my Korean Meatloaf and immediately thought that I would LOVE to make a Korean Beef Dip - all the same flavours in the meatloaf grilled cheese with with a spicy jus to dip the sandwich in? YES PLEASE This sandwich is perfect - sharp cheddar and kimchi/gochuja...

I really wanted Korean food the other day but I didn't feel like leaving the house, which happens. It was overcast, cold and dreary, I didn't have the car so that would also entail cramming my body onto the subway to go downtown...not today, Satan, not today. Luckily, I keep a pretty full pantry of Korean ingredients and had a couple pounds of chicken thighs in the freezer. I decided I could manage throwing a coat on over my pjs for a quick trip to the fancy pants organic market on the corner for some vegetables if it meant that I was going to be able to whip up some Spicy Korean Chicken Stew (Dakdoritang) Instead of the more traditional carrot, I threw in a sweet potato since they are both orange and added daikon because I like the texture and worked backwards on my math to adapt my regular recipe to the Instant Pot because not only did I not want to get dressed or leave the house, I also wanted it immediately. The one major change was to skin and debone the c...

Oh my, what a spring/summer I have had. For the last year I have been working as a hired gun, cooking for a local caterer, teaching classes as well as hosting pop ups and private dinners around Toronto.  To be honest, I have had a hard time balancing this new schedule so it was not a huge surprise when i fell ill, mid April. What was not expected was spending  6 weeks on my ass with a lung infection followed by a family situation that took me away from home for the last month. At this point, I kind of feel like a brand new, baby blogger, brimming with fun ideas for some new, tasty treats and I have promised myself I will slow down a bit and make time for The Yum Yum Factor as well as washing my hair regularly and eating while sitting down. First up are these Spicy Koreanish Meatballs that I served with this addictive  Kimchi Fried Rice by fellow blogger, Diversivore  . These babies are sooooooooo good. The sugar/chili pepper coating is a spin on my ...

Holy crap, I have been so busy cooking for other people that I have not even had time to cook at home, apart from a grilled cheese here and there. I have a few down days before plunging back into the fire next week so, in an effort to practice what I preach, it's time to get into my own kitchen. I have some interesting recipes that are not quite ready for prime time that will be coming soon, but, in the meantime,  I am still going through some of my favourite crock pot recipes and adapting them to the Instant Pot  since it is supposedly almost mid November and should be feeling like winter by now. I know that most of you think of ribs as a summer BBQ dish but for me, it's always been more of a winter thing so  I have started eyeballing the pork ribs at the butcher. I used to either do them slow and low for hours and hours, wrapped in foil in a low oven or all day in the crockpot for days when I am going to be out too long for that. The problem with the crockp...

this version was topped with a bit of red onion and more sesame seeds  It is no secret that we love ceviche around here but I only have a couple of actual recipes on the blog because, for the most part, I make straight up, Mexican style ceviche and the only thing that usually changes is the type of seafood I use. I always use raw fish, scallops or shrimp and let it "cook" in lime juice and although none of us have any issues about eating seafood prepared this way, many people still view it as raw and don't want to try it.

So, what is congee, you might ask? It sounds exotic but it's really just a nice, soupy, savoury rice porridge that is the perfect remedy for frigid winter mornings. Even though we go for dim sum regularly, we don't usually order this because it's really filling and it cuts down on the amount of dumplings I can scarf so it's something I save for home, but, pre , I didn't make this as often as I would have liked. Since my wizard pot truly lets me set it and forget it, I plan to make a batch of this every weekend over the winter. I am NOT a sweet breakfast girl but any porridge that lets me garnish it with crispy pork, chilis and other savoury treats is the food of my cold, dark heart. You can make congee with any sort of broth but chicken congee is a great way to use up the leftovers from a roast chicken, whether its a bird you roasted yourself or a bubble chicken that you picked up at the supermarket. Just throw in the entire carcass, all leftover meat, some ...

*I don't know what is going on with my template but at this time, I can't do anything about this damned all caps sitch, so my apologies in advance. I am not screaming at you. I haven't met a pulled pork that I don't love. I love South Carolina style with a mustard mop, I love it with tomato based BBQ sauce and a carnita will never be kicked out of my bed for eating crackers. All that said, the one I like to make at home is this recipe - gochujang is my spirit animal.  Before getting this pressure cooker, this was another one of those dishes that required planning a day before. Even if I didn't marinate the meat overnight, I had to get it ready first thing in the morning so it could sit for at least an hour or so and then get into the crock pot by mid morning to make sure the meat was cooked by dinner time. Frankly, I am just not always that together so it means that I don't make it all that often. The pressure cooker means that I can actually ru...

Some pretty fun stuff is on the horizon for this old gal and one of the things I really excited about is my stint as the guest chef at an upcoming drop in dinner at The Depanneur on Friday, October 16. Diners will be eating my BiBimBap Sopes  as well as a whack of banchan and I have been recipe testing like a mad woman for the last couple of weeks. The only thing that hadn't occurred to me, was that I was also going to need a vegetarian version of my dish as an entree. A vegetarian option to pulled pork???  I work with a knife, not a wand! I will be honest and admit that I was about to throw in the towel and just make a second, entirely different dish to feed to the vegetarians when I remembered reading about jackfruit and how it's THE go to ingredient to replace pulled pork in recipes. One google search revealed that this is absolutely a thing and by the way everyone raved about it,  I figured it was worth a try. Of course,  I was  highly...

I don't totally go out of my way to make food healthier, for the most part. We eat butter, lots of olive oil, all the meats and full fat milk and cream always has a place in my kitchen. We try to make sure that the largest slice of pie, in our diet pie chart, comes from whole foods, leaving room for the odd Dorito, Fresca and ramen. As long as we are eating mostly real food, I am pretty happy about what we are stuffing into our bellies. Okay, that said, it doesn't mean that I still don't look for ways to cut down on saturated fats or excessive white carbs like delicious pasta and white basmati rice when I feel like we have been over indulging. One striploin serves all of us, we can get three meals out of one roast chicken and apart from a bit of an ice cream problem, dessert is not something we see in this house very often.  In the grand scheme of things, as long as the flavour is not compromised, I am good with lightening up some of our favourite dishes and this is ...

I have added a new feature to the blog, right over there ------------> It's a yummly button so that you can save my recipes straight to your yummly box. I have been using yummly, myself, forever and for some reason I just never got around to adding The Yum Yum Factor to their gene pool. If you aren't using yummly to search for recipes, it's time to change that so go over there and check it out but first, go straight to The Yum Yum Factor page   (don't worry if there isn't anything there yet - this is a new venture so it will take time to get it going) So, let's move on to something to eat, I am starving. Char siu is that sweet, sticky Chinese BBQ pork that you see hanging from hooks in the window of any decent Chinese restaurant. I make my own version of char sui all the time at home so it made sense that my first attempt at doing some sous vide pork tenderloin would be a batch of this stuff, right? I didn't really change anything, apart from t...

This is my first attempt at using one of my own recipes for the sous vide cooker and I am kind of going rogue with the technique which is probably why it was a mix of mainly success with some bumps in the road. I have been wanting to make another asian flavoured meatball like my Vietnamese meatballs but with a nod to Japan for a long time now. We LOVE our little Vietnamese meatballs made with chicken or pork but it's really easy to bake them just a smidge too long and dry them out. Now, with sous vide, they never overcook so, like the sausages, all they require is a little kiss with a hot pan afterwards to brown them up.