I’m not finding the motivation to blog anymore, sorry. Mainly because we feel less like tourists now, and Korea has become our temporary home. We’ve grown accustomed to the culture (for the most part), and feel like we’ve experienced just about everything there is to experience while living in a different country. Photos will be on Facebook, and if anything out of the ordinary happens, I will be sure to blog about it.
Ingredients:
pork cutlets (You can find at any grocery store in Korea. You can buy them frozen or some sell fresh ones in their meat departments.)
Tomato paste or jar spaghetti sauce (I don’t like Korean spaghetti sauce, so I make my own using tomato paste that you can buy at Home Plus)
Penne pasta or any pasta you have on hand
mozerella cheese (You can find at Home Plus, E-Mart, or most small grocery stores)
Parmasean cheese (Costco, or sometimes Home Plus and E-Mart)
If you want to make your own spaghetti sauce out of tomato paste, you simply add water to the paste until it’s a consistency you like. So start out with a small amount of water and gradually add more. I have no set way to season the sauce, I just start adding parsley, oregano, basil, rosemary, garlic powder, pepper, onion powder, and some salt until it tastes good to me. I sometimes add hot sauce to make it a little spicy. Most seasonings I brought from the home, but you can use whatever you can find at Home Plus or E-Mart. Heat the sauce until it starts bubbling then reduce the heat and let the sauce simmer for 20-30 mins. The longer you let it cook the better it will taste as the seasonings and the sauce will combine.
For the pork cutlet, I thaw it out in the microwave so the breading is softer, that way the spices will stick to the pork cutlet, and it will cook faster on the stove. After it’s thawed, I seasoned both sides with italian seasoning, garlic powder, and parmasean cheese.
Heat some olive oil in a pan and let the oil get hot before adding the pork cutlet. Fry the cutlet on both sides. Assuming you know how to boil pasta, combine the cooked pasta with the desired amount of sauce. In a baking pan, put in the pasta, and on top put the pork cutlets. Top with mozerella cheese and bake at about 400 degrees F until the cheese is melted.
Ingredients:
Any pizza dough recipe (You can find yeast at Home Plus in the small baking section)
For filling, I used ground pork and mixed in different spices, most that I brought from home. At Home Plus you can find most italian spices and also a “garlic pepper” seasoning. I also recommend buying some Korean hot pepper powder, and mixing this with ground pork to add some spice. Be careful though, this stuff is HOT!
mozzarella cheese (Which is plentiful in Korea)
marinara or spaghetti sauce for dipping
parmesan cheese (They sell this at Costco or you can sometimes find it at Home Plus)
To make the dough, find a recipe on the internet. Roll out the dough so that you can fold one side over to fit the other side. Mix together your meat, veggies, and mozzarella cheese and spoon on to dough. You can also sprinkle on some parmesan. Fold over the dough and seal the edges with a fork. Make slits with a knife to let out steam. Cook on 400 degrees fahrenheit, for about 20-25 min, depending on the recipe your using.
Result
Ingredients:
chicken: Buy at any market, Home Plus, E-Mart, or Costco. I’ve found buying a big bag of frozen chicken breasts from Costco the cheapest.
spices: I brought an assorment of “grill” seasoning from the US. You can either have a friend/family member mail you some, or go to Home Plus where they have an assortment of different seasonings. Make sure you look through every aisle at Home Plus, there’s not just once section for seasonings, they’re spread throughout 2-3 aisles.
potatoes: markets, Home Plus, E-Mart, etc.
Gravy: I bought a couple packets of instant gravy from home. There is also an international food market in Itaewon (Seoul) that has an assortment of western food items, such as gravy and ranch. Also, if you see these packets in the picture below; this brand sells different sauces and I’ve seen some type of brown gravy that I’m sure will be fine on potatoes.
I’m not going to go in to detail about how to cook the chicken. Cut off the fat, season it, and cook it in a pan or toaster oven if you have one. I clean the potatoes then boil them. Here’s the finished meal!
(The small circular items are some type of frozen Korean mini-pancake things that were not good)
This first post was simple, but there’s more to come including apple-cinnamon muffins, calzones, and chicken parmesan, all which I’ve made and will post soon. If you have any more questions on where to buy items, leave a question in the comments.
I was going to start a separate cooking blog, but I decided to continue blogging my cooking adventures in Korea on this blog. I’ll title the blog entries about cooking: 맛있는! (Delicous).
First, I want to mention that the main purpose of my cooking entries is to advise foreigners in Korea on where to by ingredients and cooking items and show that you don’t have to eat at a kimbap restaurant 3x a day, everyday. These “recipes” are not meant to be gourmet or rated on how well you like the food. The meal will be simple and easy to prepare.
Ian and I arrived in South Korea 2/16 and spent V-Day on the plane. We visited our old city, Dongtan, saw some old friends and also visited our old students. After 2 days in Dongtan we started on our journey to Busan. We arrived in Busan on the 17th. There, we began a week long orientation before starting our public school jobs.
This year, Ian and I will be working at the Busan public schools, rather than a hagwon (private academy). During the orientation, we had lectures all day, went on a couple of field trips, and took some short Korean lessons. We also met a lot of other EPIK (English Program In Kora) teachers, there were over 400 at the orientation. We met people from Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, UK, Ireland, and of course, the USA. We did not have the benefit of meeting other teachers right away last year, so we took advantage of our situation and quickly made friends.
Orientation was over on the following Friday, where our Korean co-teacher picked us up, took us to lunch, and took us to our school to meet come other teachers. After a long day, we arrived at our new apartment around 7 p.m. We came “home” to a filthy apartment, the previous teacher not only did not clean before he left, but we’re pretty sure he didn’t clean the entire year. It was gross. We spent the whole weekend scrubbing every inch of the place. We do however, have a much bigger apartment than last year. We have a separate bedroom from our kitchen and even a spare room.
These past weeks we’ve been busy teaching, lesson planning, and reconnecting with Soju. I even had my first work “meeting” where I respectfully took shots of Soju with my co-teachers and watched them get drunk and stupid from 5-7 p.m. Only took 2 hours. I am at an all girls middle school, and Ian is at a co-ed middle school down the street. We walk up a huge hill every morning. We also work from 8:30-4:30, and co-teach with Korean teachers. I see over 400 students a week, and each class only once a week so I do not plan on learning any names this year.
We haven’t done any traveling yet but in the past weeks we’ve done a lot of hiking and checking out things to do in Busan. We’re about a 45 min. subway ride from the beach, so we’re more than ready for warm weather, although it usually doesn’t get below 30 i the winter in Busan. This weekend we’ll be going to the Kite Festival and also what Korea claims as the “world’s largest water fountain”. (http://www.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_1_1_1.jsp?cid=992306)
Class time. Next class topic, “Making Excuses”.
Ian and wrapped up the summer and are in our last 2 months of our contract teaching in Korea. I still can’t believe how fast this year has gone by. We had 5 days off for the Chuseok holiday, which is equivelant to American Thanksgiving. Koreans flee the city to visit their home towns and relatives. Some traditional things to do during Chuseok is show respect to your elders by bowing and visit the graves of those who have died. Ian and I planned on going to Sokcho on the NE coast of Korea, but the weather was too rainy and the bus we planned on taking was cancelled for the holiday. Because most Koreans travel during this holiday, the traffic on the interstate is horrible. So Ian and I decided to stay local and do some sightseeing near Dongtan. I posted a slideshow of our vacation rather than posting photos. For one day, we went shopping in Myeongdong (the fashion district of Seoul) and also to the N. Seoul Tower. We took cable car to the bottom of the tower, where we “locked our love” on the fence that runs along the tower. Next, we took an elevator to the top where we overlooked Seoul. We snapped some photos of the city. One of the photos in the video is from the men’s bathroom, that also had huge windows overlooking the city. We ended the night at Pizza Hut :-P The next day it rained pretty much all day, so we stayed in Dongtan, watched the new TV premiers, then went bowling later where I got my first turkey in the 10th. frame! On Wednesday we went to Everland, a theme park in Korea. It took 2 buses and the subway to get to Everland, which totaled 3 hours of transportation. By the end of the night we were exhausted so we split a cab home and it only took 15 mins! We went to Everland with some other English teachers and had a great time. On our last day of vacation, Ian along with a few other people wanted to go bungee jumping so we took a bus to Bundang, a city about 45 mins away from Dongtan. However, the bungee jumping was closed when we arrived so we took a stroll through the sculpture park and saw some interesting art. The end is near! ~Chelsea
Hello family and friends. Finishing up a day of work and trying to kill some time. We are in our last full week of summer intensive schedule. The summer has flown by with work and our vacations. We are at 15 weeks and counting! (Can you believe it?) I’m looking forward so much to seeing my family, friends, and new nephew. It’s strange feeling knowing someone new has entered your life, and you haven’t even met them. That’s the sacrifices that come with traveling though.
Ian and I have done some more exploring in Korea, to the west coast of the town Boryeong, and to the southwest city of Busan. In Boryeong we went to Mud Fest, which is pretty much a huge party for foreigners. The town is known for their mud products, which include beauty products and mud chicken. Mud Fest was a blast despite the rainy weather, but we caught a lot of sunshine before we left for the train on Sunday.
Mud Fest!
Colored-mud
Boryeong Beach
For our 5-day vacation at the end of July we went to Busan, which is the second largest city in Korea. Our activities included the beach, boating, hiking, and shopping. We also did some sightseeing at the Busan tower, and learned a lot about the history of Busan and it’s importance during the Korean War. Busan is a large city but had some beautiful views of mountains and the sea.
We have decided to work in public schools next year. With public schools you cannot be guaranteed a certain city, but can make your top choices known, which for us is Jeju Island (also spelled Cheju Island) and Busan (also spelled Pusan). We want to live by the beach next year because we figured this would be the only and best time to do it in our lives.
Song-do beach in Busan
At the top of Busan Tower
Gwangali Beach in Busan
With the end of summer comes a lot of goodbyes. We already said goodbye to our friend Giacomo from the state of Florida (but who is actually a native of Italy). At the end of August will come many more goodbyes, but of course we are making new friends as new English teachers arrive in Korea.
We’re ready for fall to begin, easier work schedule, 1 year wedding <3 anniversary, and another 3-day holiday.
Angyeonghaseyo!
So…it’s not very common to see Korean girls wearing low-cut shirts, I would say mainly because they don’t have a lot going on in that area. However, they wear SHORT shorts and skirts. It’s even very common to see girls wearing daisy dukes to school and teachers to be wearing pretty short skirts. Is there still a 2 inch rule for skirts and shorts in the USA for “business casual” dress code?
(via roketship)
We headed to Seoul to watch the first game of Korea vs. Greece. The cities throughout Korea set up huge screens for crowds to watch the game. We watched it near City Hall in Seoul. Despite the rain, we had some of the most fun this night since we’ve been in Korea. Korea played a great game and won 2-0. We stayed out for the night to celebrate and watch the US game later at 3 a.m., so we didn’t make it home until 8 a.m. Korea has great public transportation, but it all ends at 12 a.m., so you have to stay up until 5:30 a.m. when it all starts again. We ended up finding a perfect bar to watch the US vs. England game, it had couches! Which is exactly what we needed by 3 a.m. that night.
