Happy Korean New Year

Those of you still in Asia who get a chance to check up on the blog, I was fortunate enough to celebrate Korean New Year!  And it was a feast!  And it was tasty.  Sometimes, the food alone makes me want to go back to South Korea.  A friend of mine from high school and I met up last year while I was home for a bit.  I hadn't seen him in forever and it turned out he lived in Korea for quite some time.  Even crazier, his mom was from Korea.  Last year he invited me over to the feast, but for some reason I was unable to make it.  This year, I wasn't going to miss it.  The food was delicious and I ate way too much, which happens.  There's just something about it...  A special thank you to the Werner family for hosting as well as for the invitation.  It was greatly appreciated!

Happy New Year!

(Here you get a sense of the spread.  In addition to all of the food on the table we had duk mandu guk or rice cakes with dumplings soup.  It's a tradition in Korea and is supposed to bring good luck for the New Year, kind of like Pork and Sauerkraut for those Pennsylvania Dutch people out there.)

(There were a ton of little sides, mainly consisting of veggies, mandu, the dumplings, bit sized batter fish, galbi, which is marinated ribs, kimchi, kimchi pancakes, clear noodle pasta, fried zucchini, Korean shish kabobs, marinated tofu, and a lot of other food!  It was AWESOME!)

(Here you can see the fried zucchini, kimchi pancakes, and mushroom pancakes of sorts)

(Here's a plate of the mandu)

(The day before Stevie and I were on Mandu duty.  Here are all the mandu we made.  It took about 2 hours to make about 200 with 2 people.  I don't think we were the fastest mandu makers nor were we trying to set any records.)

(These mandu were stuffed with kimchi, clear noodles, tofu, which I hand pressed, some eggs, sesame oil, and a few secret ingredients...)

(Here were all the mandu wrappers - a bit overwhelming when we first started)

(Here's a close up of the mandu stuffing - tasty tasty tasty!)