Pure and Simple Love.

The horror which has been my life as a student has finally ended (for a little while anyway) so I am now ready to re-join the rest of civilization. I am able to stretch my legs, back away from the textbooks and take a deep breath. I have decided to not share what has happened in my life the past while since I last wrote because frankly, there is too much to explain so I will just start with a clean slate and try to forget the amount of stress I have been put through since I last wrote a post on here.

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So how do you know you’re in love?

Butterflies in the stomach? Heart palpitations? Simultaneous shit-eating grins and sweaty palms?

For me, it was the first bite.

Let’s go back to the beginning. A couple weeks ago I was perusing the aisles at Costco (alright, I was scoping out the tasting booths and stumbled into the packaged meat and cheese area of the store while getting some samples of aged cheddar cheese). That was when I noticed the monster sized tubs of kimchi sitting on the shelf. When did Costco start selling kimchi?? How had I never seen it before? These details really didn’t matter because frankly, I was just stoked at the idea of buying one of these monstrous tubs of fermented vegetables.

In case you are not aware of what kimchi is, it is a fermented Korean side dish made with various vegetables, such as cabbage, radish and scallion, plus other ingredients like fish sauce, garlic, hot pepper powder, shrimp and salts. Many years ago when I lived in Nelson and worked as a baker, one of my bosses was a mad lover of kimchi and he taught me all about it. It’s super pungent and spicy but there’s something about it that I enjoy very much. Normally I absolutely hate anything with shrimp in it, but this is the one exception to my shrimp distaste. 

So back to my massive tub of kimchi which has been sitting in my fridge for the past couple of weeks. I’ve been slowly munching away on it but decided that I needed to make something with it. Enough was enough. School was over and it was time to do something delicious. I Googled recipes for what people can do with kimchi (apart from the obvious) and the one that caught my attention was a Kimchi and Avocado Quesadilla. I switched it up a little bit and I really wanted to take some pictures to show you that I actually made it and am not just sitting on the couch with a fork and a tub of kimchi…but it was so delicious that I scarfed it down before I could go and get my camera.

It was love. Simple and pure love, wrapped in a crisp tortilla with gooey gouda cheese and a whole lot of yum.

Kimchi & Chicken Avocado Quesadilla

½ cup Kimchi, chopped

½ cup cooked chicken, chopped (a mil bean would be equally delicious)

½ cup mild Gouda cheese (or Havarti would be nice too)

½ of an avocado, sliced

A good tablespoon of chopped cilantro

1 tortilla

Plain Greek yogurt

1) Over medium heat, cook the chicken and kimchi in a small pan for about 5 minutes, until heated through and some of the liquid cooks off.

2) Heat a large skillet over low heat and place the tortilla in the pan. Sprinkle the cheese over the entire tortilla. Spread the kimchi & chicken, sliced avocado and cilantro over half of the tortilla. The cheese should be melted at this point. Fold the tortilla in half, remove from the pan and place on a cutting board. Cut into 4 slices and eat with the Greek yogurt. YUM!!!