Korean Side Dishes- Spinach and Spicy Cucumber Salad

I love eating Korean food, but since there aren't that many Korean restaurants in the Northeast I've had to make it myself.  It's not as good as what we get in Garden Grove, but it's good enough anytime we need a fix.

Two of my favorite sides are seasoned spinach and spicy cucumber salad.  The spinach works well in bibimbap, and the spicy cucumber salad is more like a cucumber kimchi.  One of my friends got me a Progressive grater set to help me slice the cucumbers and I am forever grateful!  If she lived closer I'd make her Korean food anytime she wanted it. 

Thanks to Jenny Kwak, author of Dok Suni, for the recipe!  Many more to come.

Seasoned Spinach

1 pound fresh spinach

1 tsp Coarse salt

sauce:

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 tsp sesame salt

1 tsp crushed garlic

½ tsp minced scallion

1 ½ tsps red pepper sauce

1 ½ tsps vinegar

1 tsp brown sugar

1. Prepare spinach by cutting off the roots and separating the leaves
2. In boiling water, dissolve 1 tsp of salt and blanch the spinach for no more than 1 minute.  Turn the spinach over once in the boiling water and strain immediately.  Rinse thoroughly with water.  Keep aside.
3. In a mixing bowl, stir together all the ingredients for seasoning the spinach.  Then add the spinach and toss with your hands in a massaging motion.

Spicy Cucumber Salad

1 ½ pounds Kirby or Korean Cucumbers

2 tbsps coarse salt

1 ½ tbsps red pepper flakes

1 tbsp rice vinegar

1 tsp sesame salt

1 tsp crushed garlic

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tbsp brown sugar

1. Slice cucumber into thin rounds.  Use a food slicer to make it easier.  In a mixing bowl, evenly sprinkle the coarse salt on the cucumber.  Allow it to sit for 20 minutes.  The salt not only helps to season the cucumber but also to absorb the water from the cucumber.
2. Strain the cucumber.  (use a wire strainer, putting a heavy object on the cucumber to press out excessive water.)  After the cucumber has been strained, keep it aside in a mixing bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, stir together the red pepper flakes, rice vinegar, sesame salt, garlic, sesame oil, and sugar.  Then combine the dressing with the cucumber and toss, using your hands to mix in the seasonings evenly.  Serive it whenever you like, but keep it chilled.

Baked Potato & Hard-boiled eggs

This sounds like the worst breakfast/dinner/snack I could come up with, but I just wanted to catalog these two recipes.  They're really easy but I wouldn't have thought of them myself!  I like this baked potato recipe because it doesn't require copious amounts of aluminum foil.  I like the hard-boiled egg recipe cuz it hasn't failed me yet.  I needed two hard-boiled egg yolks (of all things) for a recipe today, so it came to my rescue.  This totally proves that cooking/baking isn't necessarily intuitive.  I need help with even the simplest of things!

 Thanks to Alton Brown and Gluten-Free Girl for the recipes!  

The Baked Potato Recipe  from Good Eats (Alton Brown)

Ingredients

• 1 large russet potato (If it looks like Mr. Potato Head(r), you've got the right one.)
• Canola oil to coat
• Kosher salt

Directions

Heat oven to 350 degrees and position racks in top and bottom thirds. Wash potato (or potatoes) thoroughly with a stiff brush and cold running water. Dry, then using a standard fork poke 8 to 12 deep holes all over the spud so that moisture can escape during cooking. Place in a bowl and coat lightly with oil. Sprinkle with kosher salt and place potato directly on rack in middle of oven. Place a baking sheet on the lower rack to catch any drippings.
Bake 1 hour or until skin feels crisp but flesh beneath feels soft. Serve by creating a dotted line from end to end with your fork, then crack the spud open by squeezing the ends towards one another. It will pop right open. But watch out, there will be some steam.
NOTE: If you're cooking more than 4 potatoes, you'll need to extend the cooking time by up to 15 minutes.

Hard-boiled eggs from Gluten-free Girl (just from dialogue with her husband, The Chef)
“Start with cold water, a splash of vinegar, six eggs. Bring it to a boil. Turn it off. Let it sit for 12 minutes. Run cold water over them. You’re done.”

Spinach Dip

My friend C is a dietitian, and she does her best to make recipes healthier when possible.  Sometimes this results in disaster (which she never serves us) and sometimes it results in major success.  She made spinach dip for us and I couldn't get it out of my head because it was so good.  I called her the other day to get the recipe, so this is a rough copy of her version.

C's Spinach Dip
Ingredients:
1 container fat free sour cream
1 box of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
half a red onion, chopped
1 packet of veggie dip

Instructions:
Mix ingredients together, serve with chips (tortilla or pita work best since it's a heartier dip)

I am not a dietician, so I made a fattier version.
Tracie's Spinach Dip
Ingredients:
1 bag of fresh spinach, rinsed
1 16 oz container of sour cream
1 packet onion soup mix
half a red onion, chopped

Instructions:
1. Boil a pot of water.  When it's boiling, toss in the rinsed spinach and blanch for ~1minute.  Immediately drain the spinach in a colander and run it under cold water so all the spinach is cool to touch.  Take the spinach in handfuls and squeeze out the excess water (the spinach is gonna reduce in size significantly). Once you've gotten all the water out of the spinach, roughly chop the spinach.  You can skip all of this by using the frozen chopped spinach that has been thawed and drained.  Just make sure you get all of the water out of it.
2. Combine spinach, onion soup mix, red onion and sour cream.  Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes so the flavors meld.  Serve with tortilla/pita/bagel chips/raw veggies.  We also put this on a baked potato to mix things up.

Pumpkin Dip

Part of my job on the cardiology floor was to monitor patients' heart rhythms while they were getting tests done.  It was stressful if the patient's condition was a little precarious, but most of the time it was just a precaution.  I ventured down to MRI one time and noticed that one of the MRI techs had made pumpkin dip for the rest of her coworkers.  I didn't try any but I asked for the recipe since it smelled great.  She graciously printed a copy for me and I made it for my coworkers to celebrate my preceptee's last day of orientation.  My coworkers liked it so much that I ended up printing copies for them, too.

Making sure the cream cheese is softened is KEY.  Microwave it (out of the foil packet, of course) or leave it out at room temperature to get the consistency you need.  I omitted the orange juice and it still tasted fine- I think it's more for color than taste.  I served it with graham crackers, apple slices, and honey wheat pretzel braids.

Thanks to the MRI tech and Sue from Allrecipes!

Pumpkin Dip

Ingredients

• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1 (15 ounce) can solid pack pumpkin
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1 teaspoon frozen orange juice concentrate

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, blend cream cheese and confectioners' sugar until smooth. Gradually mix in the pumpkin. Stir in the cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and orange juice until smooth and well blended. Chill until serving.