Chap Chae…gluten free too.

:: Take care when chopping. Uniformity makes a nice presentation.

:: Don’t ignore the nuances, squeeze all that water out of the blanched spinach before you begin the sauté.

:: Never bother to measure your seasonings…let the nose and tongue be your guides.

:: Be sure to make the dish your own. Let it’s flavors, textures, and smells, suggest your personality, style, and heritage.

:: It is never too late to learn. I learned how to prepare this traditional Korean dish, in addition to how to locate those sweet potato noodles in the Korean grocery, in my 30s.

Here is my recipe.

**Chap Chae**

• 2T cooking oil – like expeller pressed safflower oil (don’t use olive oil, you’ll get a weird Tuscan-Korean blend thing going on.)
• 1 med yellow onion julienne
• 3 med carrots julienne
• 1 lb ground beef, browned and drained
• 8 oz fresh shiitake mushrooms julienne
• 1 lb spinach, blanched, drained (squeeze all that water out) julienne
• 2T minced fresh garlic
• 1 lb sweet potato noodles, cooked per package directions and rinsed 2-3 times in cold running water, then drain
• 2T sesame oil
• 1t sesame seeds
• 1/4C soy sauce (use a wheat-free variety to make this dish gluten-free, yes, wheat is the second ingredient in soy sauce after water…and before soy.)
• 3T sugar
• salt and ground black pepper to taste

1. Heat cooking oil in a 12″ heavy bottom fry pan over medium heat. Add onions and carrots and cook until onions are translucent and soft but not brown.
2. Add beef, shiitake mushrooms, spinach, and garlic and heat through.
3. Add noodles, sesame seeds, sesame oil, soy sauce, sugar. Toss and heat through.
4. Taste! And season with salt and ground black pepper as needed.
5. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Serves 8

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And to change continents, with the help of my husband, I prepared Tacos al Pastor for dinner. You can find this deliciously smoky, spicy, and sweet recipe here. The zesty lime flavor and fragrant ancho chile salsa took me back to the time my friends and I stopped at this road-side taco stand on the side of a highway not far from Tampico, Mexico. Under a killer sun and among sandy grasses they ordered tacos, un kilo de puerco. We drove in a beat up vintage VW bug back to an apartment with folding chairs and aluminum edged card table to feast. Roasted onions–blackened to beat the pungent bite into sweet, mild submission. The salsa was a smoky mix of flavors and the heat lingered only for a moment. Fresh, pungent cilantro and the smoky charcoal pork clashed to make a fresh, slightly mysterious explosion in the mouth. Beautiful I say. Mind you there were 8 or so of us that finished those 2.2 lbs of that tasty barbeque.