Cooking: Breakfast Burritos

I normally make a casserole for potlucks, but this morning I wanted Mexican and something different:  breakfast burritos.  I had boiled a can of black beans last night for an hour with French onion soup mix and squeezed the juice of a Meyer lemon.  I also took out leftovers and bits from my fridge and scrambled up six eggs and heavy cream in butter and olive oil until they were soft curds in my grand new green pan--love it, love it, love it--and don't regret my impulsive purchase.

I had also bought a package of flour tortillas, 10" diameter.  Into each tortilla, I spread sour cream, salsa verde, chopped cilantro, black beans, soyrizo, and scrambled eggs.

I then took out my cast iron frying pan and poured a little vegetable oil in order to crisp the burritos and melt the cheese inside.  Don't do what I did below!  I crowded too many burritos in the pan and couldn't rotate them enough to brown all around.

I almost burnt them, but thankfully not.  They were just on the edge of burnt and so pretty tasty.

The burritos were deemed delicious by my clay mates, and I was happy to not have brought home leftovers.

Clay Surface Decoration Problem-Solving and Cooking: Kimchi Fried Rice

Yesterday's kiln reveal was rather disappointing for the ceramic pieces I had glazed the Saturday before:  the bumblebee decal came out great, but the decal I adhered outside the yellow-striped mug smeared; the beetle decal looked cool, but the floral decal adhered outside the pink striped mug didn't adhere completely in the middle though other parts of the floral band were sharp; and the Rottweiler on my brown clay mug smeared.  However, I had 3 bisque mugs on which I underglazed teal and sky blue stripes, adhered a floral cherry blossom red band decal, underglazed with yellow with a wide band of white.  The plan and hopefully better-looking results?  High gloss glaze on the teal and blue mug on which to adhere a commercial decal or two, sponge on the first layer of overglaze to my red flower rice paper decal image to set the underglaze and then brush on the next two coats, and bisque fire the underglaze yellow mug before adhering the yellow rice paper decal and then using the sponge and then brush technique of overglazing.  Try try try again.  That is the definition of research.  Search and search again.

When I'm not obsessing over clay and textiles, I'm experimenting in the kitchen.  This morning, I tried my hand at making the BEST Kimchi Fried Rice.  My husband gets annoyed by all the condiments I put in our pantry and refrigerator.  I justify them this way:  we don't go out to eat because I cook more flavorfully than a lot of restaurants if not better, and I can do so if I have an arsenal of ingredients on hand.  Hence, a bottle of Gojuchang recently joined all the bottles and jars in my fridge.  Luckily, I also had this jar of kimchi as well as leftover rice for one and scallions and single servings of Spam too.

 The no-recipe I went to called for adding sesame oil to the rice to coat as well as squeezing the fermented juice from the kimchi and setting aside to sauce the rice.  After I chopped the kimchi, I added a little more toasted sesame oil, soy sauce, and Gochujang to the pickled cabbage juice to blend and diagonally chopped the green onion.

To the nonstick frying pan on which I had fried my Spam slice which I had set aside, I fried the kimchi in the residual meat grease.

I pretty much just cooked the pickled cabbage until it released most of its water or stopped steaming and then added the rice to the pan.

I cooked the rice and vegetables again to almost crisp before adding the sauce.  Again cook to release more steam or the right ratio of dry and moist to your liking.

 I dislike a very dry fried rice (sorry Dad!) and heaped it on the plate while still a bit steamy.  And then fried the egg after adding a little cooking oil to the pan.

I like a runny yolk but dislike slimy white, and so I tilted and whirled my pan to get most of the egg white on the surface of the pan--it helps to pierce the white and let more white run into its hole.

 Kimchi fried rice is delicious y'all, and I plan on making it again for dinner for the hubs to try.

Ceramics: Conversation Hearts

Clay Body:  Bmix

Underglaze:  Leslie Soft Petal Pink, Western Banana, Western Melon, Leslie Chartreuse, Western Light Blue, Western Pumpkin, Western Light Blue, Western Fire Engine Red, Western White

These are the leftover hearts from my ceramics pop-up sale last weekend that I strung with red ribbon and then festooned on my Valentine Tree.