When you're home feeling ill...

...you take on a way-more-elaborate-than-intended lunch idea apparently.

I've been feeling kinda shitty for the last few days - congested, ear's clicking when I swallow or move my head, a little achy and physically tired, etc. I went to bed really early night before last, and then yesterday morning woke up shivering but chalked it up to the extremely cold weather (which makes no sense - we don't shut off the heat over night, we had a pile of blankets on, I slept in sweats and a shirt, and Brett's a freakin' furnace!). I got up anyhow, went in to work, and by the time I got there I felt kinda spacey and like I was seeing things with a bit of tunnel-vision. My cheeks felt warm and a little tingly - I chalked it up to my blood sugar dropping, but a well balanced breakfast of fruit and cereal (and prune cake!)...so, yeah, I guess I was getting kinda sick.

Came home from work yesterday and, as soon as Brett got home to take over entertaining the pooch, I passed out on the sofa until Brett served up dinner (THANKS honey!).

I called off sick this morning and went back to bed til about 10am. Finally decided it was time to make lunch around noon, and looked around for a recipe for either bokum bap or chap chae - I've really been in the mood for Korean food, and both sounded like good comfort stuff. Only both recipes would require either some fancy substitutions or a trip to the nicer grocery store about 6 miles away, and that just wasn't happenin'!

This recipe for chap chae, which is a food I love, seemed like it could handle some fiddlin. I didn't have any mushrooms, but thought a fried omelet sliced into ribbons and stirred in might work. No spinach. Hm. Oh! How about all that blanched-and-frozen swiss chard in the freezer, separated out into leaves (sliced into ribbons) and stalks. The leaves would work just fine. Ok, we're on.

Oh, btw - I just happened to have had some bean thread noodles in the pantry just ITCHING to be cooked up!



These are seriously cool noodles - something I got hooked on while we were living in South Korea during my 9th and 10th grade high school years...


You don't boil them like what we consider "regular pasta" - instead you pour boiling water on to them, and let them sit awhile. The packet said 10 minutes, the recipe online said 20. I guess my hot shower (and getting dressed) took closer to 20 minutes. Bean thread noodles can be like chewing on rubber bands if they're not softened enough, and even after 20 minutes they still had a bit of chew to them, so no complaints there...



Once the 20 minutes was up, I drained them and rinsed them with cold water to stop any additional cooking.

Check these guys out - they honestly look like icicles when dangling in front of the camera (only their texture is like a chewy noodle - my dad would say more like a rubberband!)


Ok, back to the recipe. I had some thinly sliced raw steak leftover in the freezer from a recent halving of a stir fry recipe. Once thawed in the microwave, I added cornstarch, soy sauce, ginger, sesame oil and minced garlic. I didn't have the Thai chili paste the recipe called for, but we DO have some very similar HOT sauce from Taco Tonto's in Kent. (If you live in the area, you MUST try Taco Tonto's - but I don't know anyone who eats the tacos. It's the burritos you want to go get!) We got a few extra small dipping containers' worth awhile back and stuck them in the freezer. They're also great, combined with beer, for a chicken or pork tenderloin marinade!

Once the beef had it's brief marinating, it got a quick saute.


Once the beef was mostly cooked and set aside, it was time to saute the veggies. I used the food processor to cut the carrots into planks, and then I finished the julienning with a knife. I didn't have green onions, but the last bag of regular onions I bought started sprouting within days of getting them home - those green tops were good enough for me! Since I didn't have enough "green onion" I finely chopped one of the smallest onions in the bag... And of course - garlic!


Remember I said I didn't have spinach? The swiss chard worked out great!! (Even if it's a little out of focus)


Once the carrots, onions, garlic etc sauted in some sesame oil, vegetable oil and crushed red pepper, the swiss chard was added and cooked a few minutes. Then the beef and noodles were added, followed by a sauce made of soy sauce, brown sugar, rice wine vinegar and sesame oil, which was heated through.

And just after the chap chae came out of the skillet, I quickly fried up two eggs whipped up with a little water. Once those had set I flipped the "omelet" out onto the cutting board, rolled and sliced.


You can't see as much chop chae as you can the eggs here, and those got stirred into the noodles etc as I was eating. Turned out great! As you can see here, the clear noodles were tinted slightly by the soy sauce, which gave the dish just enough of a salty flavor... Now Brett won't touch this sorta dish, and there's a lot of it, so I know what I'll be eating this three-day weekend. Not a complaint! It's a great cold-weather, not-feeling-so-great comfort dish! Eat up!