It’s been wayyyyy too long since I’ve posted! Since my last post 5.5 months ago, so many wonderful things have happened. My beautiful niece Mae was born, I went on my bachelorette party to Portland, I got married in Vail (!!!), celebrated bemilymiracle part 2 in Taiwan, honeymooned in Japan, took 26 flights, attended 5 other weddings, attended 2 baby showers, attended 2 wedding showers, and helped celebrate my nephew’s 2 year birthday with a construction themed party with vests, hard hats and all. WHEW! Things are finally starting to wind down and I’m beginning to have more free time in the evenings just to SIT. (and write blog posts!)

My friend Julia just had her second baby, Thomas. Congrats!! Given the 35-45 degree weather in Dallas this week, I decided to make some healthy congee, juk, rice porridge (whatever you want to call it) as part of the meal delivery rotation. Typically I make my congee with just ground pork, thousand year old eggs, and green onions, but I wanted to go a little more Korean and copy some of the juk dishes from this awesome restaurant in Carrollton called Charm Juk. Improvised mostly with what I already had in the fridge.

Ingredients:

• 2 medium stalks of carrots, peeled, finely diced
• 1/2 white onion, finely diced
• 1/3 box of medium-firm tofu (you could use more, but this is what I had)
• 3 green onions, finely chopped
• one bunch of enoki mushrooms, chopped into 1 inch strips (I was planning on using shiitake but forgot to buy them)
• 1/2 broccoli crown, separated into smaller crowns
• 1 cup of finely chopped stalky and leafy Chinese vegetable, something like bok choy would work (not pictured below)
• 2 cups of medium white rice that have been pre-soaked in water for 1 hour
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 4 cups water
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1/2 tablespoon salt (for taste)
• 1/2 tablespoon white pepper (for taste)

In a large stockpot (around 8-10 quarts), saute the onions and carrots (or any other vegetables that take more time to cook) on medium-high for 2 minutes, just enough until the onions are translucent. Drain the water from the rice and add the rice to the stockpot. After 2 minutes, add in 2 cups of chicken stock and 2 cups of water. Cover until the mixture comes to a boil, stirring occasionally so the rice doesn’t stick to the bottom of the stockpot. After 10-15 minutes, or when the rice has absorbed a good amount of the water, add the remaining chicken stock and water. When this comes to a boil, add the tofu, mushrooms, and Chinese greens.

Fill up a separate small saucepan with up to 1.5 inches of water. After this has come to a boil on high, turn down the heat to medium, add the broccoli, and cook for 2-3 minutes until the broccoli is done. Drain and set aside. You are welcome to cook the broccoli with the congee mixture, but I was afraid of overcooking the broccoli or that the mixture would turn green-ish, so I just cooked it separately to be safe.

When the mixture has absorbed most of the water, add in the sesame oil, and then the salt and white pepper for taste (aka as much as you think tastes good). Fold in the broccoli and chopped green onions. I peeled some shrimp and boiled them whole for 1-2 minutes. Afterwards, I folded them into the congee as a final step. Total cooking time on the stove should be roughly 35-40 minutes.

total batch = 2 large containers + 3 small bowls (not pictured)

Along with two large containers of congee, we also added a bag of holiday grapes, 2 cupcakes, 2 egg tarts, and 2 pumpkin beers to our delivery package.