House Helper

Episode 13-14
This series has a title that is a bit too bland and not really that exciting. The lead guy, which is the title role, is a good one but the female lead just doesn't match up. Sorry. Good thing there are other supporting female cast which can rightly steal the show.

What made me stick to this is the decluttering aspect. Forget about the shallow love storylines since I have this impression that those were just after thoughts in creating this series. Tongue in cheek here. <sup>The tips and reminders on decluttering sprinkled here and there were one of the things I look forward to. It gives inspiration without overloading the senses. And to have a man actually do that is a big plus! There's less underlying condescending tone as a woman would have plus it's about time that we see men not only cooking but doing chores as well.

I just love the idea that it tries to go against the grain of men doing housechores which is still relatively not the norm in the whole kimchiland. That itself is really worth the airtime it gets. So big step for gender equality!

What got me to write this post is this episode 14, I think. There's this scene in the car with the two leads and a lady after they visited a single-mom-of-two-kids. The lines on the struggles, triumph, reasons, and stigma of being a single parent were rolled into that short scene. Why would a woman choose divorce? What goes inside her to bravely go against everybody's rules and expectations? Sure, it was just a slice of the many probable reasons for such but this is one of the not so controversial and obvious ones. And it kind of ends with that vacuum cleaner. ^^

On that note, I'll end my post with one too! Gotta get the vacuum to work. (albeit an inferior one)</sup>

posted from Bloggeroid

Beat the Heat with Korean Kong Guksu

This one has been on my list for a while and it was just waiting for the perfect chance to try out at home. I've seen this dish in menus along with the other cold noodle Nengmyon before but never got the chance and courage yet to try making one until today.

It so happen that we have the cukes and a bit of leftover watermelon, along with the ever present noodles, that all I need is the bean milk. And I chanced on a store in the downtown market yesterday that sells fresh stuff of everything soy and noodles so it was a no-brainer. I got a 500 ml of unsweetened soymilk at 3000 won that quenched my thirst at that moment and completed my bean noodles today after a day of sweating while doing my batch baking. (Oops! I sure like extending my sentences with conjunctions. ^^)

Oh..on a side note..I tried out my newly acquired pyrex loaf dish with one of the loaves I baked today. It just arrived on time when I was about to punch down the dough for the second rise so after a few moments of hesitation and more minutes of rinsing and drying, the first loaf went in it. The bread rise too much though that it was jard to get it out of the oven without hitting the heating lamps. It will have to be adjusted next time.

The Pyrex came with the Dutch oven and I was almost tempted to try them both today. But no...I would have to save the artisan bread trial for next time. It fits my small oven but I would have to put it in the lowest rack. I may try it with a 3 C loaf next time but that will be a bit later...when the temps gets a bit kinder coz it will need to preheat the pot and not only the oven. Then I need to take it out to slide in the dough and figure out the temperature with only the top heating on.

I will have to think about other stuff that I can use that thing for the time being. It's pretty big to make soups in this sweltering summer but maybe I can try the good old rice and maybe even a decent burnt rice. We'll see when that pot gets tested out in my kitchen.

posted from Bloggeroid

House Chores

Chores and me are not meant to be. I am not that good in an arranging things and keeping them at that so this is really something that I always struggle with. I can deal with people better than things. Truth of matter is my life is full of things. Well, back track on that. It's just hard to let go of things.

One thing hit me today is as I've been brainstorming how to de-clutter and arrange and keep at it, albeit slowly, because it has the problem-solving appeal.

My main task now is the freezer. I really love freezing but hate my freezer. It only has 2 shelves and I've tried to arrange my ziploc bags and whatnot time and again but maintaining it is never easy.  It's really frustrating when I want to buy a few more blocks of cheese and packs of ice cream but I can't coz I'm not sure if I have enough space. hahaha! I cannot plug into making my frozen burritos because of that.

Last week, I managed to experiment making space in the refrigerator area and it has helped a bit. It did cost a bit of extras to buy a few organizing containers but I think that is easier for me than buying a new fridge itself with all those nice drawers and shelves. (Yea, I'm preparing my case now if my husband starts to notice how much I'll be spending in Daiso.)

So onto my next task.

How do I arrange that freezer? Googled and found some hack of using magazine holders but I can't picture out how that will wok unless I use flat freezer containers which is not quite appealing to me. I'm all for flexibility of ziploc bags since they can folded when the contents had decreased or such.

L. First point:
A. What's typically in my freezer?
frozen fruits: tomatoes, strawberries, bananas, chokeberries, and maybe some blueberries?, persimmon juice

1. frozen vegetables: pre-sliced bell peppers, garlic, cucumbers, etc. , mashed sweet potatoes, leftover vegies fo vegie stock come colder days, 
2. meat/mock meat stuff: frozen mushrooms (pre-sliced, and stalks for stock) 
3. dairy: butter, mozzarella block, shredded,
4. frozen bread of all shapes and sizes
5. ice cream and ice cubes since it's summer now

B. How are they stored right now?

Most of these are stored in ziplocs, some in small containers.

The zipbags are again in transparent boxes that opens on top. There's some sort of category going like a box has the frozen fruits, etc.

II. What's the problem now?

• It's hard to get and put stuff back. 
• It's not easy to take out the boxes to open and get some stuff. 
• Not consistent labels. 

III. Possible solutions:

• system/organizer that makes it easy to sort and access each bag
• mini drawers, labels, 
• new set of zipbags to fit the drawers

IV. My course of action:

1. measure my whole freezer space, top and bottom
2. find those mini-drawers that takes up less space -- something that may be flat or tall enough to keep the bags vertical once frozen
3. label each bag on what is it, how much, and when.
4. find a pull out box that can hold irregular sized stuff like bread, etc.

There you are! I've got my plan of action out.
Oops! Before I forget, I must set a budget on how much it should cost me to get this plan in motion. Roughly 20k at Daiso or online soon!