I've been slacking when it comes to blogging, but I have a list of fantastic excuses. For example, Dan and I adopted a puppy a few weeks ago. When you're waking up at 5AM to walk the dog, and training that baby animal to control his bladder, you care much, much less about taking photos of your dinner. Also, I've been traveling for the holidays and sitting back while family members cook for me, so my dutch oven has gotten a well-deserved rest. But now it's time to get back into the swing of things. Perhaps I can even write about the challenges of cooking in a tiny NYC kitchen while a four-month-old lab weaves in and out of my legs.
One of the other, joyful challenges of this time of year is using up all of the foods Dan brings back from his trips to visit the 'rents. Like any beloved, adult son, he comes home from visiting mom and dad with bags upon bags of groceries. I am grateful to be the beneficiary of his mom's epic Costco trips-- we have enough frozen dumplings, spanikopita and chicken fingers to get us through winter's coldest, darkest nights. These grocery hauls, however, also mean lots of kimchi.
You might be saying to yourself, "kimchi is delicious! There's no such thing as too much homemade kimchi, you ingrate!" In theory, I agree with you completely! But in reality I'm sitting on about five gallons of kimchi (I'm not exaggerating; I'll tweet a photo tonight to prove it!) and I don't know what to do no more! It just keeps coming and we can't eat it fast enough. We've made kimchi fried rice, we've put it into soup, we've accompanied every meal with a bowl of kimchi-- from bulgogi to grilled cheese to, well, spanikopita-- and it feels like we've barely made a dent.
So, really, I'm writing this as a plea for ideas. What's your favorite way to eat kimchi? Are there ways to use kimchi without having to eat it at every meal; a kimchi bath, perhaps? Do you want to come over and eat some kimchi?