Carey Family

Scott

Christmas Eve PulKogi

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A tradition in our home is having PulKogi (a traditional Korean dish) on Christmas Eve.  I served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Korea and we enjoy having this dish each year.  I hope you enjoy it.

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 tbsp sesame seeds
  • 1/2 bunch green onions, chopped
  • 5 cloves garlic, crushed and minced
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp pepper
  • 1 tbsp sesame seed oil
  • 1/4 cup soy sauce
  • 4 tbsp sugar
  • 1 lb. beef, sliced very thin

Toast the sesame seeds in a dry skillet.  If they get too hot, they will begin to pop, so keep a lid handy.  After toasting, grind or mash the seeds.  Or you can put them in a food processor and process them to a powder.  Combine all the ingredients except the meat.  Add the mixture to the meat and use your hands to thorougly mix together.  Put in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap or a zip-lock bag and let set for at least two hours.  I like to do it for 5-6 hours.  Cook in a frypan and serve with rice.  I like to eat it with leaf lettuce leaves, like lettuce wraps.

In addition to PulKogi, our traditional Christmas Eve dinner includes fresh broccoli and cheese sauce, rolls, raspberry jello with cream cheese balls, and Martinelli’s Sparkling Apple Cider.

Becky Anderson’s Caramels

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I love caramels and a good friend gave us her recipe.  We made them last year to give with our neighborhood gifts.  Here is the recipe:

  • 2 pts. corn syrup – Bring to boil
  • Add 4 cups sugar – Keep boiling
  • Add 1 lb butter – Keep boiling
  • Slowly add 1 pt. heavy cream
  • Carmelize 3 Tbsp sugar in another pan
  • Slowly add 1 can evaporated milk
  • Slowly add carmelized sugar

Cook to soft ball stage (240-245 degrees). Add 1 tsp vanilla.

Pour into buttered pyrex dish or other cookie sheet to cool.

Cool 6 hours and then cut into pieces.

A couple of important tips:

  1. Make sure that the pan you have is big enough.  As the caramel cooks, it will eventually expand to about twice the original size of the ingredients.  You DON’T want it to boil over.  Take it from personal experience!  It will cause massive amounts of smoke in your house and stink up the place, causing you to open the windows in the dead of winter, freezing you out, and giving your wife an asthma attack.   It can also catch on fire as you try and scrape up the burnt remains on your stove, particulary if you left the burner on.  Just start with a bigger pan than you think you need.  The advantage of having it spill over, is that you get a real check to see if your smoke alarms are working.  We found out that ours work just fine.  All of them.
  2. Make sure that you check the accuracy of your candy thermometer before you start.  If it isn’t registering high enough, you’ll end up with delicious candy that is a bit harder than you might expect for caramel.  I don’t know about you, but I like my caramel soft.  You can check your thermometer by boiling some water, inserting the thermometer and make sure it registers 212 degrees.  If it doesn’t, you need to account for the difference when you are cooking the candy.  The caramel should be just barely to soft ball stage, so when it is getting close, drizzle some into a cup of cold water, take it out and see if you can mold it into a soft ball.  If you can, it’s done.  It doesn’t matter what your thermometer says!  Don’t cook it anymore!

Mark hits 6 months

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mark-bayouMark hit his 6 month mark (no pun intended) yesterday (November 7) on his mission.  Already a quarter of his mission is over.  In his first 6 months, he has been in two areas, Del Rio, Texas, and now the southwest part of San Antonio. He is doing great and enjoying his work.

 

 

We just got pictures from Mark.  There is a tradition of burning a tie when a missionary gets to 6 months.  So here is his tie burning!

mark-tie-burning