Korean House and Garden

With our various ailments and our quest to save money, we've had a quiet weekend. We bought some bathroom stickers a while ago but never got around to putting them up. For whatever reason Korean people love decorating their bathrooms with brightly coloured stickers. Flowers, animals, and inspirational English phrases are all popular. Anyway, now our bathroom looks like this:

Next, I'm going to show you how to make kimchi boegeumbap. This is a popular Korean dish, essentially stir-fried rice with kimchi, topped with a fried egg. I made it for the first time last night and it turned out pretty well. It's easy and the only hard to find item is the kimchi, which you might be able to get in an Asian supermarket.

To make it for two people you'll need:

• two cups of cooked rice, ideally cooked the day before. I'm using brown rice, but white rice is the normal Korean way
• 3/4 of a cup of chopped kimchi, plus about 1/3 cup of kimchi juice. 
• one medium sized grated carrot
• 3/4 cup bean sprouts 
• two eggs.

This will be the last of a huge container of kimchi that my co-teacher gave us when we arrived seven months ago. Fortunately a friend of ours gave us some that he was given and didn't want, so we're set for kimchi for the foreseeable future.

Heat a small amount of oil in a frying pan on medium-high heat and fry the kimchi for a couple of minutes. Throw in the grated carrot and bean sprouts and stir through. Cook for about one minute. Turn the heat down to medium and add the rice. Stir fry for a few minutes until the rice is lightly fried and the kimchi and carrot are mixed through. Serve with a fried or poached egg.

A fried egg is standard, I used poached eggs instead because our stove isn't wide enough for two frying pans.

We also got a few more plants. The rosemary and lavendar came from the friendly people at the plant shop next to our local grocery store. The blue pot is basil. It was a kit (pot, soil, seeds) from a cool Korean stationery store called Daiso. I really miss fresh basil so I can't wait for it to grow. We can get most of the herbs we need here but they are always dried. I miss having a herb garden.

Also, Anna made this delicious cake. . .

There's really only one way to finish this. . .