Cooking: Sesame-Orange Chicken

Hello Universe! Meera here! 

The other day, I was browsing one of my favorite websites, which I have mentioned before http://www.elleandblair.com/! I wouldn't mention it so much if I didn't go to their website as often as I do. Anyway, I am getting off-track. Like I said I was on the website and I saw that Blair had written about a recipe she really liked, which was Sesame-Orange Shrimp. I was really excited when I saw it and decided to make it for dinner. The results...... *insert drum roll here*.....the dish turned out really well. I thought it was delicious. I tweaked the recipe a tad, adding less sherry and more orange juice. Rice is definitely a must  to accompany this recipe. Also when making this dish I would recommend using black, or white and black mix of sesame seeds instead of just white. The black seeds will stand out better and give the final product a more finished, fancy-restaurant look. The bottom-line is I would make this recipe again, it was pretty easy and very yummy. 

<3 Meera

Chocolate Bananas and Blueberry Syrup

Hello Everyone!   

     I have two cooking... experiences to talk about. I guess I'll start with the most recent one, which was this morning. 

Chocolate Banana Wontons

 I was craving crepes with bananas and nutella, but as goes for most cravings, I usually get them when I am feeling particularly lazy, so I did not feel like making crepes. But alas, light bulb, etc, we had spring roll wrappers in our fridge!  So like any normally person I decided to use that instead of crepes. The spring roll wrappers were very hard so I soaked them in water which made them very slimy. I spread some nutella on the wrapper, then sprinkled some diced bananas on, then topped that off with more nutella. I made two more and then I heated up some oil in a pot. A trick that my mom taught me today to check if the oil is ready, is to sprinkle a little bit of water in the oil. If it crackles and pops it is ready. So one at a time I fried each little wonton ( I decided to call my creations wontons, I'm not exactly sure what is defined as a wonton ... but I'm sure this qualifies). The first one worked pretty well, but the other two kind of fell apart and the last one did not get cooked very well and became saturated with oil, I think I did not have the oil hot enough. I toweled the wontons off and took a big bite of the first one. It was amazing! Crunchy on the outside fried banana on the inside surrounded by melted nutella ! Yum! It was like banana chocolate bliss, the banana had so much flavor!  As for the other two, they weren't as good, but I don't care because the first one was so good. In my opinion, it was better than a crepe stuffed with bananas and nutella. I would add a picture but I ate the first one before I remembered, and the other two were quite ugly. 

Greek Yogurt with Blueberry Syrup

This next one I made yesterday. We had Greek yogurt in the house, which made me really excited because the last time I had Greek yogurt it was so delicious and smooth, like some sort of pudding. So boy was I surprised when I took a bite of the Greek yogurt we had, and it was super sour! Since I served myself a big bowl of the stuff I figured I had to eat it. I decided to make a quick blueberry syrup to make the yogurt sweeter. So I threw a couple handfuls of blueberries in a pan with some water, sugar and vanilla. I brought the mixture up to a boil and poured it over the yogurt. And it was really good! But I have now learned to serve myself a small amount of something before I'm sure I like it.  

<3 Meera!

What?!?! Back-to-School Commercials?!?!

Hi Everyone, 
   Recently I have noticed that there are a bunch of back-to-school commercials, ads, everything. You just can't get away from them! Stores may be all excited for the new school year so the can make a killing on school supplies, but I'm not! I am still enjoy my summer so please take the commercials back until September, or at least late August! 
    So that's my little rant on back-to-school ads. Mostly I don't like them because I don't want to school to start yet and my summer to be over. But side note, I really do enjoy shopping for back-to-school supplies, just not in July! 
   That is all for now :P 
<3 Meera 

Teen Choice Awards 2011

Hi everyone, 
   So  today I just felt like writing a post about the Teen Choice Awards. I forgot about the award show until two of my favorite youtubers,Elle and Blair Fowler wrote a post on their website http://www.elleandblair.com/ about how they were nominated for choice web star. After hearing about this I decided to check out the Teen Choice Award Website  after perusing the site for a bit I saw some other people in different categories that I wanted to vote for. To vote you have to register, which doesn't take too long. After that you can vote everyday once a day in each category, their are four choices in each category.  
   
     In a couple of different categories it was hard for me to choose who to vote for because I like a couple of the nominees very much, those were: 

Choice TV Show: Action   

NCIS: Los Angeles                  vs.   Hawaii Five-O                                                     

 

Choice TV Actor: Action 

  

Daniel Dae Kim, Hawaii Five-O                        vs.                          LL Cool J, NCIS: Los Angeles 

Choice TV Actress: Action 

Linda Hunt, NCIS: Los Angeles                           vs.                            Grace Park, Hawaii Five-O

 

There are some other tough choices, but for me these are the hardest to choose between. So each day I alternate which person I vote for. I am a huge fan of crime shows, Hawaii Five-O and NCIS: Los Angeles are two of my favorite shows. One other thing I want to say is I hope that Harry Potter wins the categories the movie and actors are in, and I really hope that Twilight does not beat them, because in my opinion Harry Potter is way better. So that is all I have to say about the Teen Choice Awards. The Teen Choice Awards are on Fox, Sunday, August 7th, at 8/7 central.   

<3 Meera 

The pictures (in order) are from:  

1. Hawaii Five-O http://www.cinemablend.com/television/Hawaii-Five-0-Watch-Palekaiko-28634.html 

2. NCIS: Los Angeles- http://coverlandia.blogspot.com/2011/05/ncis-los-angeles-season-2-official-tv.html 3. http://eleanorjane.dreamwidth.org/43256.html  

4. Daniel Dae Kim, Hawaii Five-O http://www.beyondhollywood.com/tv/cast-promos-for-the-new-hawaii-five-o/hawaii-five-o-new-5/ 

5. LL Cool J, NCIS: Los Angeles http://blog.zap2it.com/kate_ohare/2009/11/atlas-cannot-shrug----ll-cool-j-of-ncis-los-angeles.html 

6. Linda Hunt, NCIS: Los Angeles http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2009/09/ncis-los-angeles-review.html 

7. Grace Park, Hawaii Five-O http://www.oneasianworld.com/2010/08/grace-parks-hawaii-five-o-character-poster-revealed/

Things I Love ~ Soft Serve Ice Cream!

     

 

     So today while I was out shopping with my family, we stopped at a place to get lunch. And guess what?? They had soft serve ice cream!! I was so excited and knew I had to get it. I love soft serve ice cream, I even ate it before I ate my lunch. Soft serve ice cream is so good! I think I like it so much more than regular ice cream is because it is softer, smoother, and lighter which makes it all that more refreshing! Sometimes when I am eating regular ice cream i purposely let it melt a little bit so it will taste more like soft serve ice cream.  

      Because I love soft serve ice cream (wow I use that word a bunch) so much I decided to do a little research on it. Which means consult Wikipedia! In school they won't let us use Wikipedia because they think it is not a credible source since anybody can write on it. But since school is out I can use Wikipedia as much as I want! Anyway it seems to me that the main differences between regular ice cream and soft serve ice cream, is soft serve has less milk-fat, is kept at a warmer temperature, and has more air in it. I also learned that soft serve ice cream was first sold in 1938 by the co-founders of Dairy Queen.   
  
    Thanks for reading! ~Meera 

Works Cited 

Photograph. Http://hstrial-kcsicecream.homestead.com. Comp. Karen Costello. KC's Ice Cream. Web. 25 June 2011. <http://hstrial-kcsicecream.homestead.com/AboutUs.html>.

"Soft Serve." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 29 Apr. 2011. Web. 25 June 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_serve>.

Vietnam War and Korea.

Hi everybody!
Su here!

Today I will talk about the part Korea played in the Vietnam War, since I am learning about this topic in history class:)


When the Vietnam War was going on, Korea was devastated because they just finished the Korean War.
Many people lost their house, family and jobs.
They were starving and there was no food.( At that time Korea's GDP was 103dollars a year.)
President ParkJungil offered young Korean men money to fight in the Vietnam War.
Most of the young men were sons of farmers.(Korea's primary industry was agriculture at that time.)

"Mom, I'll be back home safely. Please be careful until I come back.I love you mom."

"My sweet son, I will wait you with warm rice. Please be careful. I love you my son."

 

~~~

Here is a story that my father told me:

During the war many Korean soldiers could not be educated because they didn't have enough money to pay for an education. Because of their lack of education the Korean soldiers did not know that the chemical (Agent Orange) the US army was spraying in Vietnam, was being spread to kill the plants in the jungle (even though Korea and the US were on the same side in the war, the Americans did not notify Korea about the chemical).

Vietnam consists of many jungles which was of great benefit to the Vietnam soldiers in the war. 

The Korean soldiers who survived from the Vietnam War are suffering from the side effects on the chemical, Agent Orange.

 

~~~

There is one Korean army team that is called "Tiger".

My uncle was part of the team although he passed away:(

They were the largest fear present against the Vietnam army.

If the Vietnam army conducted a mission, Tiger went to the village they were at and burned it down. 

" I'm sorry but I have to survive and see my parents."

'In front of body which is burned.'

To check the nerve, the team stripped the skin of hair. This can be seen very terrible thing. But at that time, it was for coming back to Korea. I think they did this to be more strong. (It didn't mean that I think it was a necessary thing.)

 ( Korean army massacred the Vietnam people. These days, many Korean NGO work for 

 However! In Korean school, the history teacher didn't teach us about Vietnam War  not that much.

In contrast, I learned how cruel Japanese for us in history class. I think it should be changed.!) 

There would be nothing left if the team called Tiger wasn't there.

 

 Scared children running away after hearing a bomb's drop. 

The photographer who took this picture was awarded Nobel Prize. 

~~~

Scared children running away after hearing a bomb's drop. 

The photographer who took this picture was awarded Nobel Prize.

 For this war, Korea industry could develop with the money made by Korean young's life.

Korean thought "If we try, we can make it whatever it is." after this war.

This thinking made people to build this road.

I hope many Korean realize our bad and sad history about Vietnam War and to try to say sorry to people in Vietnam.

"I'm sorry."  Sukyong

Happy Mother's Day

It's Mother's Day!! I hope everyone did something nice for their mothers or the mother figures in their life. All my sisters and I made brunch for our mom and grandma, but also for our dad, grandpa and uncle. Dad, Saritha, and Sukyong helped me so much in making the brunch! Together we made potatoes, quiche, coffee cake, and crepes with Nutella, bananas, and strawberries! Yum! When I was planning the brunch, I thought of all the foods I consider brunch foods, which are coffee cake and quiche! Crepes are just fun and taste good! The recipes I used were:  
Pecan-Streusel Coffee Cake http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Pecan-Streusel-Coffee-Cake-352072 It turned out we didn't have any pecans, so I just left them out. Also the recipe called for whole milk or plain Greek yogurt. We didn't have either of those, so I substituted vanilla bean yogurt. And it turned out great! 
Speedy Spinach Quiche http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Speedy-Spinach-Quiche-2049 This recipe asked for Monterey Jack and Parmesan cheese, we had none so dad recommended I use cheddar cheese. We also added spicy chicken sausage for more flavor and protein.
Crepes http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/basic-crepes/Detail.aspx The crepes were good, but a little runny and not very sweet, so after I made one I added a tablespoon of flour and a tablespoon of sugar to the mixture.
And my dad made the potatoes. You can see that two of the recipes are from epicurious.com! That is because I love that website, and whenever I'm looking up a recipe, thats the first place I look! 
So the brunch was great and now I'm stuffed. I think I'm going to go hang out with my mom now! 
<3 Meera

The Title of our Blog

Hi Everyone, 
   I wanted to write a quick blog post about the name of our blog, Sume. When Sukyong and I created this blog together, we wanted to show both of us in the title. So we combined our names together Sukyong and Meera. And we got Sume, pronounced su-me. The first time my friend saw the title of our blog, she said something like 'Why did you name your blog some blog?' On top of that, the title of our blog sounds like 'Sue Me.' We never thought of that when we thought of the name. And we definitely don't want anyone to sue us, so please don't! 
Anyway so that is where the name of our blog came from! Check back soon for more posts! 
<3 Meera

The Magic Flute

Omg, Su here


Yesterday May, 5th, 2011
I went Opera with my host sister, Saritha to watch an opera called The Magic Flute.

Although some operas are only good at one singing or visual aspects, "The magic Flute" was good at both.

And the opera was not  hard to understand because when I was 13 years old I had seen an animated video version of the opera during music class:)  Because lyrics were German, there was subtitle on the top of the stage setting. 

It was interesting that I could understand German without subtitle sometimes since I have learned German:)

"Mutter Mutter!" "Meine liebe" kind of things! there was bunch of words that I could understand during the opera.

I loved the part that the Queen of Night, Aria because Sumi Jo who is the most famous opera singer in Korea is well know for this song:)

I heard that although her acting skill is not that strong as other opera singer, her intonation and rhythm are very accurate.

My second favorite part was when Papageno and Papagena decided to get married and design their future.
In that scene six cute boys and girls came out and followed Papageno and Papagena's dancing.
They were soooooooooooooo cute:)


I love this opera:)
I hope I have the chance to see more operas!


so cya,
Sukyong

Su's Spring Break Part 1

Hi guys Su's here:)

I'm sorry for posting late.
My spring break was kinda boring but I got to spend time with my friends, so that part was fun! 

March 14- March 17
I had a sleepover with my friend, Jin-Ju.

In the morning Jin-Ju's host father gave me a cup of cinamon apple tea.

and also he gave me a xylitol sugar which is good for health and sweet:)

Anyway it was really good tea.

And I love the pot

Jin-ju and I made muffins and a brownie for sitting around the campfire. For Jin-ju, it was her first baking.
Because we thought there was not enough chocolate in the muffins, we put more chocolate on the top of muffins. The shape reminded us of aliens.

Before we went to the campfire, we watched the play of Jin-ju's host sister, Noel.

She was an amazing actress. I love her expression :)

I hope she will continue to act.

On Saturday evening we had a campfire.
Mr.Steven told us a few stories about his Japanese friends.
We put marshmallow inside of crackers and added chocolate (S'mores).
It was delicious!


Mr.Steven told us that we can be friends with each other no matter the age difference.
It was impressed talking.

Jin-ju put golden color nail polish on my nail that night.

On Sunday we rode bikes.

Near Jin-Ju's house there was flat rode that made it easy to ride the bike.

The weather was gorgeous on Sunday:)

Until here it was exciting sleepover with Jin-Ju :) 
 Bye, 
Sukyong

St. Louis Zoo

Hi Everybody, 
   I know spring break is over, but I hope you had a good one! :) For my spring break I went to St.Louis, and we decided to check out the zoo while we were there (which I'm glad we did). First off the zoo is Free! The fee is paid for by taxes.

 

   The picture you see above is of the little train in the St.Louis zoo, that takes you around! For the train, you do need to buy tickets, but I would definitely recommend buying them. 1) Because the zoo is really big and it is easier to get around with the train 2) Because it is really fun! The train takes you through tunnels and past water features.  

   The day we went was really great because it was very sunny and all the animals were out! At my hometown zoo you are hard pressed to see the bigger, more exotic animals such as lions and tigers. I only got shots of the male lion, the female was hiding.

Tigers!   

 

After we saw the tigers, we went over to the zebras. The last time I went to the St.Louis Zoo (which was about four years ago) a boy about eight years old climbed into the zebra exhibit. Thankfully his mother got him out before the zebras even noticed him. Anyway, I have a nice picture of a zebra butt for you. 

 

Next we saw the leopards. There was a baby and a Mama, so cute! 

 We walked away from the exhibit for awhile and I look back and the baby was nursing! I tried to get a video of it, but they were already done. But the video is still cute! Here it is:  

Next we saw a snow leopard on it's back:  

 

  

Here is a camel, I think there really cool. I'm mean what are those humps for? And where did they get them? Hang on a sec. I'm going to go look it up....Okay, I'm back. Looks like the camels humps are to store fat. And they get energy from it when there is not enough food or water around. If you want to know more check out this website, that is where I got my info. http://www.worldstory.net/en/camel.html 

 

While we were at the camel exhibit we heard some kid making the weirdest noises. When we looked around we saw it was a donkey!

  

After that we saw a giraffe nursing. Did you know giraffe's have purple tongues?  

When we went into the bird exhibit i saw one of the prettiest birds I have ever seen. A Golden Pheasant! 

Do you see the green and orange tiger stripes on it? So cool! 

Then we saw Wattled Cranes, I was really excited because Sukyong, Mia, and I had been making origami cranes (expect a post on that coming up!)

  

 

  

Chimpanzees! They look so wise! And resemble humans so much, especially with how they act and their facial expressions! 

So that's it because the zoo was starting to close. But we had so much fun! For more information on the St.Louis Zoo check out their website: http://www.stlzoo.org/ 

  

Thanks for checking out our blog! Blogging has been so much fun for Sukyong and I! 

<3 Meera

  

  

Mia's Drawing!

 

Hey Everyone, Meera here! 

  My friend Mia is staying at our house, and while she was putting off her homework she made us this picture! I love it so much!!! The 'me' side of the picture has my favorite colors! They are the same colors as my room! Wow, I used a lot of exclamation points! Any way thanks Mia! 

Bye Guys, 

     Meera 

P.S. I love posting! Between Su and I we have posted three posts today! And she plans to post more!

Su's Second Cake- a New York Cheese Cake

 New York Cheese Cake

Hello, I come back with a New York cheese cake!
I had to bake two cakes in a week. Isn't it so cool? 
(Actually I have to bake tomorow April 10th, 2011 for Gennevi's birthday too!)

New York cheese cake's recipe_ in Korean

I used this recipe for baking the cheese cake

By mistake I put the cake in the refrigerator after taking it out of the oven
so....... The cake became really thin :)



BUT!  This cake was really good with 'Mom's homemade raspberry jam'. (Raspberries picked by Meera!)

We ate this with Dad's work friends.
We had a really good time:) April 8th, 2011

 xoxo luv Su

Su's First Cake- a Panda

Panda Cake

Hey guys, Su here!

Su made the first cake in her life for her friend Angie.

It took me 4 hours to make it. 

So I couldn't study Japanese test and skipped the tennis practice.

It was really cool!!!!!!!!!

I used 'Best Supreme cake mix's Devil flavor' for baking cake and put icing on the top.

To make black color icing Meera added food coloring, Cocoa powder and vanila.

For white color icing Mom mixed butter, powder sugar and whipping cream

April 6th, 2011 , Happy Birthday Angie!

This video helped me a lot:)

xoxo Su

Sume Artwork

Hello everyone,  

   You may not know this, but there are two of us behind Sume Blog. Su and Meera. The person writing right now is Me(Meera)! But the Beautiful artwork you see above was done by Su! We have a post coming up about a Panda Cake, so check back soon.  

         Thanks! 

  Meera (but Su sends her wishes too! :)