A month went by and I've forgiven myself for being a truant blogger. This is my favorite time of year after all. Frequent rain makes candy colored sunsets and cool mornings beg to be stretched out and savored.
Isaac and I have just been enjoying our time recently. On the weekends, we fall asleep in the living room and laugh as Cookie takes turns hopping around and over us, cuddling with us and completely ignoring us. I put on my fuzzy jacket, sat on the balcony sipping hot tea, doodling and painting. We work out and enjoy free Chickfila breakfast entrees on Saturdays thanks to coupons galore.I've been making soups and Korean food non-stop these past weeks. Soup just makes the heartiest and easiest lunch to take to work and Korean food always satisfies some craving.
One treat we enjoyed a few times in September was a classic rainy day combo - kimchi pancake and makeoli. It's fun just to alternate tastes between the spicy savory pancake and the sweet fermented rice drink. Inspired by a cookbook we bought in Korea, I started adding a handful of sweet corn into the typical kimchijeon batter. When we tasted the new and improved kimchi-corn-pancake that first time, it felt like I had leveled up my cooking skills.
And then dakgalbi - a spicy stirfry with chicken, chewy rice cakes, sweet potato, carrot and cabbage. Wrapped up with the kkaetnip leaf, it tastes perfect. I used a recipe I found online and loved it, but the next time tweaked my ginger usage since Isaac is not keen on the stuff.
September is also Isaac's birthday month, so I cooked the traditional Korean birthday meal miyeokguk (seaweed soup). The leftover kimchi-corn-pancake went well with this calming, not spicy soup.
But of course we weren't going to celebrate his birthday with just one measly home-cooked meal! We went to Bonefish Grill for dinner on Friday, and also went to Fresh Market over the weekend where he picked out a beautiful steak specimen and grilled it to perfection.
Isaac's birthday cake was a special rendition of the J Cake - a tasty chocolate cake that my family has savored since first befriending the Jones back in, gosh, 1993 maybe?
The past weeks also featured treks to pretty woodsy places like these.
But there's plenty more of that to come, hopefully with some fall colors to speckle the sky lines.
As you can now see, we have been doing well, just enjoying our days one after another.
