Kimchi Cucumbers, Crock Pot Kalbi Ribs, Purple Rice

There's a new player in the social media game, named Pinterest. Have you heard? Pinterest is quite addicting. I am addicted and proud of it. Maybe because I'm using Pinterest to browse for recipes, exercises, gardening tips, and home decor ideas, most of which I apply to my everyday life so I find my addiction to Pinterest to be productive. I've now cooked up a slew of new dishes and the window sill is lined with sprouting greens in jars. What's there not to love about Pinterest?! Here are a few things I've tried:

Kimchi Cucumber

Look at that fiery red pepper powder.

Mixing and jarring. The cucumber kimchi turned out good and crunchy. Phil really enjoyed it. Overall I liked it but I could have used a spicier kick. If you have a recommendation for a spicier pepper powder of pepper paste, please let me know.

Crock Pot Kalbi Short Ribs - I first saw this on someone's Facebook and not on Pinterest. Since I used marinade from a bottle, I don't think any online links get credit for this one.

JES brand marinade, its the best! I've also experimented with making my own marinade too which has been successful and delicious but JES is so good, you can't go wrong.

This is almost 3 lbs of ribs, one bottle of marinade, onions, garlic, and crushed pineapples with their juice.

Mix it, set it, and forget it! This picture was taken through the lid as it was cooking. I put the setting on low for 8 hours. I thought the ribs were tasty enough but not the optimal way to cook short ribs. The meat did fall off the bone and the dish had plenty of sauce which was my intended texture. The taste was not the usual savory JES taste that I'm used to. Maybe I had too much garlic? Maybe cooking for 8 hours is too much? How do you get everything to cook evenly in a Crock Pot? The on top was dry and burnt while the meat at the bottom stewing in the sauces turned out tender. Next time I will stick to grilling.

Purple Rice - Also did not find this on Pinterest.

Purple rice with slow cooked short ribs

I've had purple rice at Kunjip in NY before and have been curious about it since. It's made from mixing white rice with black rice. A Google search revealed conflicting directions on how to make it and the bag only had Korean directions so I experimented. I made 50/50 white to black rice, rinsed it 6-7 times, soaked it for 30 minutes, and cooked it normally in the rice cooker. The above is the resulting color. Too much black rice, don't you think? Next time I think 1 cup white to 1/4 cup black is enough. Maybe even less. I put more water than usual, overanticipating for the black rice. Turned out a big soggy. Taste-wise it was good with a bit of sweetness like sticky rice and with some refinement, has potential to be in my regular grains rotation. Phil hates it though.

Here's the lunch I packed containing all the above foods. I love packing lunch for work. Lunch is my favorite time of the work day.