Our Valentine's Dinner

Things are not the same for us with the two kids around. One which a bit hard to do now is eating out or dining in a restaurant. Well our daughter loves to eat in a restaurant, but it is somehow hard to find a family-friendly restaurant in town, especially on specific days like during the weekends. This year, Valentine's day was on Saturday. The fact that it was a special day when people like to have fancy dinner at restaurants and it was on the weekend made all the restaurants were packed with people. So when my husband asked me where to go for dinner, I said no where. We decided to have dinner at home, considering it will be hard to book a place in a family-friendly restaurant or if we could get one, it won't be so comfortable to bring our two little ones. Having said that, it does not mean that we do not love to have kids around nor we regret to have kids. It just something that we must act and see it differently. And we are thankful to have two beautiful kids. Moreover, eating at home does not lessen our love toward each other. In fact we appreciate our partner more while working together to prepare the dinner.
The menu was Korean bbq short ribs and salad. My husband prepared the bbq and I made the salad.

The recipe of Korean bbq short ribs can be seen here.
The salad recipe is as followed

Ingredients:
- bunch of lettuce
- 3 stalks of celery, cut into 4cm in length
- bunch of mini carrot
- 2 tomato, cut into 12 pieces each
- Thousand Island salad dressing
- bacon bits

Directions:
Mix all of the veggie in a salad bowl and then pour the dressing and sprinkle the bacon bits on top.

Korean BBQ Beef Ribs

We love to do bbq-ing, even during winter and Korean style is one of our favorites. This time I used short ribs and marinated it with Korean bbq sauce and grilled it in an oven. The aroma of burnt and the sweetness of the juice is a perfect combination.

Ingredients:
- 8 cut of short beef ribs
- 100ml of rice cooking wine
- 3Tbsp of granulated white sugar
- 250ml of Korean bbq marinating sauce

Directions:
Mix well sugar and cooking wine in a big container. And then add the marinating sauce and stir it well. Marinate the ribs in it for at least an hour in the fridge, the longer the better (I prefer to do it overnightly). Grill it in an oven at 350F for 30min, flip it over in the mid way.
Serve it hot with baked potato and salad.

Korean BBQ

All of a sudden my husband wanted to do bbq-ing at home, so one of those quite evening we did it on our balcony...just us, my husband-my Bianca-and me..
The menu was simple...but it was soooooo good!

Ingredients:
- 1kg of pork ribs
- 450ml of Korean bbq sauce with sesame seeds
- 100ml of red wine (we used fine ruby porto)

Side dish:
- tomato
- lettuce, cucumber (I did not have it that day)
- hot chili sauce
- baked potato or steam rice



Directions:
Mix the bbq sauce and red wine in a big container, and then marinate the ribs for at least an hour. Grill it for 25minutes or until it is done the way you like...
Better to eat right after it is done, do not keep it for the next day, it won't taste as good. Serve it with baked potato or steam rice, hot chili sauce and some veggies.

Modification of Beef Bulgogi

Last Sunday we went to Korean BBQ restaurant for lunch. Since then, I really wanted to make bulgogi myself. This morning when I checked the freezer, I found some beef and decided to make this Korean meal.

Ingredients:
- 800gr beef, slice thinly
- 1 clove onion (Indonesian-bawang bombay), chop
- 1 package of mushroom, slice thinly
- sesame oil for saute

Spice for marinating:
- 1 clove onion (Indonesian-bawang bombay)
- 6 cloves garlic
- 4cm of ginger
- 1 Tbsp of ground black pepper
- sugar
- salt
- 2 Tbsp of soy sauce
- 2 Tbsp of sweet soy sauce
- 4 Tbsp of sake
- 1 Tbsp of sesame oil
- 300 ml water


Prior to marinating, grind the onion, garlic and ginger until smooth. In a big bowl place all the ingredients for marinating and mix it evenly. Put the beef in it and marinate it for at least 3hours (the longer the better!).
In a hot skillet, saute the chopped onion for 1minute. Add the marinated meat and cook until tender. Add the marinating liquid. Continue to cook until the water thicken. At last add the sliced mushroom. Continue to cook for another 2 minutes.

Note: Sometimes bulgogi is made by barbecuing. Some people like to sprinkle some sesame seed and chopped green onion on top of it.