Six in Seoul

Last week I volunteered to chaperone a field trip for the middle school to see the show NANTA, which means "cooking" in English.   We saw the "Green Team" perform in a private showing just for the Seoul American Middle School!  This show is a non-verbal performance.  Instead of instruments the actors us pots, pans, knives, brooms, and anything else you might find in the kitchen.  Did I mention knives - SHARP KNIVES! They were slicing food in the air, on the tables throwing the knives around at some points.  I really thought a finger might get sliced off at some point. This show was AMAZING!  I found my head bopping around several times.  The show is interactive as well.  If you are a brave soul, when the time comes and they ask for volunteers, raise your hand.  If you live in Seoul, you MUST RUN TO THE BOX OFFICE , buy your tickets and see this show!  The theatre is pretty small, so there really isn't a bad seat in the house.  This show is for the entire family.  I even plan on taking my 3 year old to see it. 

Below is a picture of my group outside the theatre.  I think I had the best group of kids. They were very fun, rambunctious, loud, but very respectful as well.

 

Boy 1 with a friend....

It is Thanksgiving Day here in Seoul!  The turkey is in the oven, the stuffing, sweet potatoes & green bundles are ready and waiting patiently for their turn to go into the oven - sorry, I don't do that traditional green bean casserole for Thanksgiving dinner. I've made pumpkin crème brulee for ONE of the many desserts we will be having.  Boy 1 made his traditional Oreo Cream Pie; he has been making it for about 4 years now.  The kids just finished cutting out leaves for our "Thankful Tree".  The only thing we are missing is the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!  We will have to wait till tomorrow to see it.  Bummer.  Hubby will have to wait till tomorrow to see the football games as well. 

Today I would like to ask a favor of all of you...please summit a comment on what you are thankful for.  It can be serious or funny.  I would love to hear from all my readers out there!  Happy Thanksgiving to you all!!!

Here is just one thing each member in my family is thankful for: 
 
Me: I am thankful Hubby is home for Thanksgiving.  The past two years Thanksgiving without him was very hard.  I am also Thankful to all our service members and their families; if you are having Thanksgiving without your soldier my heart goes out to you...thanks for all you endure day after day.  I am thankful I have four AMAZING children!  Boy 1 has a heart of gold.  Boy 2 is my funny little monkey.  Girl is my little princess. Boy 3 is my rotten little lover boy.  They are four of the best children ever. I am thankful for my entire extended family, friends included.  OK - I said one thing - I went a little overboard, as always!

Hubby: For family

Boy 1:  For such a good Momma.   I called him a brown noser, and he said "no, seriously."  Ahhhhh....

Girl: Familly

Boy 2:  I'm thankful for playing with people

Boy 3: For my choo-choo!

This past weekend we had another family visit us.  This time it was my friends that used to live in Suwon, remember, the kids and I went to visit them a few months ago?   They have recently moved to Seoul, so after they settled in a little we invited them over to see how the Americans live.

We took them bowling; this was the first time H & S (the boy and girl) had ever gone bowling!  Remember- bowling in Korea is more for adults than children. (I think I have mentioned this before)  After bowling we came back to our house where we walked around the neighborhood, and checked out the all the parks. (Yes they are free from construction now!!)  My friend I said it was "so nice" and mentioned how lucky we are to have so much space in the middle of Seoul.  They, (the family visiting) live in a high rise in Seoul.  Their building has 38 floors, they live on the 24th, or 25th, I forget which one. They were also amazed by the size of our house, 1800 square feet, which by our standard is small, but it was HUGE to them

Here is a picture of I. getting her first "UNDERDOG" from me.  She was very scared, but said it was fun! I ask her if she wanted another, but she politely turned it down!  :)

For dinner I cooked them a traditional American meal of hamburgers, hotdogs, corn on the cob, homemade french fries and root beer floats, (another first for the).  They were amazed by the meal and said it was nothing like McDonalds.  Well, thank God for that!  For dessert I had to go a little over the top and make chocolate moose in chocolate cups.  They looked like I felt when I was having dinner at their house.  It was fun showing them so many first things.   

Boy 1 came home early from school and went to bed because he was not feeling well.  Boy 3, not feeling well either had been lying on the couch watching TV.  I was going about my business around the house when I noticed Boy 3 was missing.  I started looking for him and this is where I found him. 

I renamed these "Devil Brownies" because they are bad, bad, bad!  They are so bad they are really good.  You won't be able to eat just one.  This is why I make them only one time a year.  If you don't have will power, don't make these....Molly, I'm talking to you! :) I make a 9x13 pan and then freeze most of them, taking only one out at a time for consumption. Everyone loves these and every time I serve them to people, they ALWAYS ask for the recipe.  The only problem is this is a more labor intensive recipe - just remember the outcome is well worth the effort.  So, if you do not have patience, just skip this entry.

The original recipe is here, her picture is much better than mine. 

1 ½  cup chopped pecans
12 ounces bittersweet chocolate
2 sticks butter (I use salted, but if you like a less salty taste, use unsalted)
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 bag of caramel bits!
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 ½  cup semi-sweet mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Meanwhile, line a 13×9 inch pan with Release foil or parchment paper. You could also just line with foil and spray the foil. Make sure to spray the sides so the caramel won’t stick to the sides.

Place chocolate and butter in a double broiler until melted. (you could also do this in the microwave) Let cool for about 5 minutes. While chocolate cools, in a separate bowl beat sugar and eggs on high speed of an electric mixer for 3 entire minutes. Beat in vanilla. Stir chocolate mixture into the egg mixture. Using a mixing spoon or wire whisk, stir in flour and salt. Pour about half of this batter into the lined pan and bake for 20 minutes.

Cool for 20 minutes. While first layer cools, prepare filling.

Put caramel bits in a saucepan with the 1/3 cup of cream. 

Heat on medium low, stirring often, until caramels are melted. Stir about half of the chopped pecans into the caramel. Pour the caramel mixture over the brownie layer.

Spread the remaining brownie mix over the caramel filling. It is kind of tricky, so do your best, but don’t worry about covering all the caramel. Scatter chocolate chips and remaining pecans over the top.

Bake at 350 degrees for another 20 minutes or until the top batter appears set but not dry. Allow brownies to cool completely (this should take a few hours). I like to cool them and then chill them because it makes slicing easier.

Lift brownies from pan and place on a big cutting board. Slice into whatever size you feel like, just be warned, they are VERY rich!

I'm so excited - look what Kraft FINALLY came out with!  No more peeling the plastic off the caramel squares.  That was one tedious job I did not like!  Sometimes I would ask my kids to do it for me, but when I did I would always need a second bag of caramels because they would eat too many.  So, thank you Kraft! 

Coming soon to a blog near you, the recipe for Caramel Filled Brownies....AKA - Devil Brownies.   But for now I must now head out the door to help chaperone a trip to NANTA for the middle school!  Woo – hoo!! (Really I mean that in an excited way!!)

This recipe is adapted from a recipe I found on the McCormick website. This is a great cake to have around for the holidays!  Hubby and the folks at his office LOVED this cake.  The kids were not so keen on it.   

1 package chocolate cake mix
1 small package chocolate pudding
4 eggs
1 TBL ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp allspice
½ cup vanilla yogurt (the recipe called for sour cream, but I didn’t have any on hand)
½ cup vegetable oil
½ cup molasses
½ cup water
1 cup mini chocolate chips

White Chocolate Drizzle

1 cup white chocolate chips
4 TBL milk
½ tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Mix all ingredients except chocolate chips in a large bowl until moistened, then beat on medium speed for 2 minutes.

Stir in chocolate chips.  Pour into a 10 cup bundt pan that has been sprayed with cooking oil.

Bake 50 minutes.  Cool in pan 15 minutes, invert cake onto wire rack, cool completely.

For drizzle, melt white chocolate chips and milk in double broiler (or in microwave), stir till smooth, stir in vanilla.  Immediately drizzle over cooled cake.

 When we got here 7 months ago (WOW...can you believe we have been here 7 months?!?) I inherited a job of talking on the phone. I started in July, and have been talking to "my people" 3-4 times a week since then.  I speak in English with 5 Korean people for 5 minutes each night.  Two of them are women about my age, and 3 of them are children, ages 11 & 12 (13 & 14 in Korean years).  At first I was a bit intimidated, I mean how do you talk to someone EVERY night when you have no idea what they are about, plus, I have a 12 year old of my own & I know how hard it is to get him to talk sometimes!  Well, everything fell into place and speaking with them each night is actually a joy.  We  laugh so hard on each end that sometimes my husband wonders what I am really doing.  I have had a great time learning about their culture and they have had a good time learning about ours.   It has been two fold, even though I am here to help them with their English, they often times help me with my Korean.  

This past weekend we invited my friend Y. & her family to our house for dinner.  She brought her 2 sons, who both speak pretty good English.  We took them bowling, played WII sports at our house and had Blackened Chicken Pasta for dinner.  I know the BCP is not very "American", but it is our favorite dinner dish.   A great time was shared by all. 

Below is the picture Y wanted me to put on my blog...... 

But here is the real deal....she is so tiny!

I have decided fall is my favorite time of the year!  I love when the weather starts to cool off and the mornings turn crisp! I love watching the leaves on the trees start to change colors. Each morning this fall I would wake up, fix a vanilla latte for myself, grab a blanket and head out to our back porch, where I would sit and listen to the birds chirp and take in the beauty of my first Korean fall.  The colors were spectacular! These are the tress I would look at each morning.

This is one of my favorite trees in our neighborhood....

And this is what I would see each day asI  rounded the corner to our house...

Fall is over here, the past three nights the temperature has dipped to below freezing.  Immediately the leaves fell off the trees, and today people have been working hard to collect them all.  We had our first snow fall here today.  It only lasted 10 minutes before it turned to rain.  I will miss all the beautiful colors, but I welcome the winter season!

Ok, here is the skinny on Korean age.  This is from a friend of mine that is Korean; born and raised here.  When you are born into a Korean family, you are 1 year old at birth. Now, if you are born in January, December, or any month in between, the following January 1st, when the new year starts, you age, you are now 2 years old.  So yes, if you were born December 31st, 2007,  on January 1st, 2008, you are considered 2 years old, when you are actually 2 days old.  Crazy huh?  Birthdates do not age you, the new year ages you.  Also, when you are 100 days old in Korea your family has a huge celebration for you (as long as you are healthy), because at 100 days, you are expected to live.  They get this from long ago when there was no modern medicine & many infants died.  Koreans do celebrate the day of their birth, typically the same way American's do with a birthday cake, and going out to dinner.

So, be warned, if you ask a Korean their age, (which is very common in this country, and not considered rude at all) you may get up to a 2 year difference.  Instead you should ask their birth date, including the year to get a more accurate (American) age.