First dinner party aka Dave's birthday dinner!

This entry is dedicated to my good, close friend David Chung. How my life would be without him, I'm not sure. Maybe quieter, but definitely more boring! =) All in all, despite certain moments where we probably wanted to hurt each other, I am so happy that God has placed a friend like Dave into my life. It is such an encouragement to see him grow in Christ, and I pray that God will continue to use him as a small group leader and a member of the media committee. God loves you David, and so do all your friends!

So, with that said, what's a better way to celebrate the birthday of a dear friend except by making him food! After all, people do say that "Food is love"! The tenants of 7D--Grace, Monica, and I-- decided to cook food to make Dave feel extra special. So Grace went out and got vanilla frosting and delicious Magnolia's banana pudding for Dave. Monica and I went food shopping to buy the ingredients for Dave's dinner. The dinner course menu comprised of toasted garlic bread and Asian-fusion spaghetti, and it ended with ice cream cone vanilla cupcakes! This meal will impress your friends, but it's quite easy peasy to make~

This Asian-fusion spaghetti is perfect for those Koreans who insist on eating kimchi with their meals. It is a stir-fried kimchi and sausage spaghetti that will appeal your tastebuds for both Asian and western cuisine. Kimchi, to those who are unaware of traditional Korean-style foods, is a side dish that Koreans often eat alongside their main dishes; it's fermented, spicy cabbage leaves. That sounds really unappealing, but trust me, it's a total refresher when you want a different taste from your meal. It's like the Korean version of ginger that people eat with their sushi. 

The garlic bread is super duper easy peasy. All you need to do is get any type of bread that you want to eat--like a baguette or Italian bread-- and you toast it in the oven at 250°F for about 8-10 minutes, until the bread is nicely toasted and slightly browned at the top. Take the bread out, slice the tip of the garlic, and rub the garlic against the top of the bread. The heat of the bread will absorb the juice of the garlic so that you can taste it with every crunchy bite!

Asian-fusion surprise

Ingredients:

-a lot of kimchi

-sausages diced julienne (amount of sausages depend on how much meat you want)

-onions, diced

-spaghetti, cooked al dente

-olive oil

-salt and pepper

1. Cook spaghetti according to the box labels. Make sure you salt the water beforehand to add flavor to the noodles. It usually takes around 10-12 minutes for the noodles to be al dente.

2. While the spaghetti is cooking, add some olive oil onto your saute pan and heat it. Dice your onions and add them onto the pan. Make sure the heat is on medium-low so that you sweat the onions instead of sauteing them. You want the natural juices of the onions to be drawn out so that the sweetness of the onions will be more apparent.

3. Get your sausages and julienne them, meaning cut them at a diagonal angle. 

4. Now, after around 10 minutes, when you can really start to see the onions "sweating" (water is oozing out), and you smell the sweet aroma, toss in your julienned sausages as well. Stir them around with the onions.

5. Add in a lot of kimchi to the frying pan. Stir-fry the kimchi alongside with the onions and sausages.

6. By this point, your spaghetti should have been done already; it should be out of the pot, drained and put aside. This is when you put in your noodles into the frying pan as well. Stir-fry everything together. Add in salt and pepper to taste. And that's it! Voila, you have your Asian-fusion spaghetti right there! =) How easy was that! 

*To add in more color to this dish, at the end, you can chop some scallions and scatter them over the dish, or you can add some basil. 

Now, onto the dessert~ This is such an interesting approach to spice up the typical birthday cake routine! We decided to make ice cream cone cupcakes. Sounds really cool right? They look like ice cream, but they're actually cupcakes! Aesthetically pleasing and gastronomically pleasing, these are a win-win for sure. 

You can make the cake batter from scratch, but since I recently moved into a new apartment, I did not have all my baking supplies with me, so I just bought Trader Joe's vanilla cake mix. This cake mix, by the way, makes the best vanilla cake ever! When you make the batter, you can see vanilla specks in it, and when you bake it, the vanilla specks add extra bursts of flavor in the cake. As Rachel Ray says, it is deeeelish! 

Ice cream cone cupcakes

Ingredients:

-Trader Joe's vanilla cake mix

-waffle cones

-vanilla (or any flavor) icing

-fresh blueberries

1. Follow instructions to make Trader Joe's vanilla cake.

2. Pour batter into the waffle cones. Stop at about an inch from the cone. 

3. Bake in the oven at 350°F for about 15-18 minutes. 

4. Take them out once they're golden brown at the top. Let them cool.

5. Once cooled, pour icing into a plastic bag. Snip the corner off and ice the cupcake tops. Top each cupcake off with a blueberry. And voila~ there are your ice cream cone cupcakes!