Chunky cream of broccoli soup

Did you make bechamel? You did, right? And now you have some in your fridge and you're wondering what to do with it?

You've come to the right place.

I think my favorite revelation about bechamel is that it is more or less like those "cream of" condensed soups that we ate as kids (or at least I did). I sort of stumbled upon this in one of my earlier attempts at a simple mac and cheese with mushrooms - I sauteed some mushrooms then added some bechamel and lo and behold, cream of mushroom soup!

Bechamel, and simple mac and cheese

It's March. And, as I usually do at about this point in the year, I drifted off my health plan which, this year, consisted of calorie counting. Because of this:

Bechamel.

Swiss chard and poached egg, two ways

I'm having a bit of an identity crisis... in my kitchen. It's what happens when you are Korean and you spend the first decade of your life in Kansas - you grow up eating Korean food at home and 'American' food at school or friends' houses.

Years later when you're stocking your own kitchen, you discover that you have two or three versions of everything - Western (i.e. balsamic and champagne vinegar, olive oil, basil, rosemary, etc.) and Korean (sesame oil, rice vinegar, gochujang, etc.). Even rice! I currently have basmati and Japanese, and only by sheer will power did I resist buying some brown rice and wild rice. Couple this with living in New York, a can of coconut milk and a jar of chipotles in adobo sauce and you have one overwhelmed pantry.

Polenta in a rice cooker

That's right - I made polenta in my rice cooker. And it was fantastic.

I used to complain about this rice cooker because I felt like it was really slow, taking nearly 40 minutes for a batch of rice, whereas I only needed 20 minutes to make it on the stove. (My mom said that was the sign of a really good rice cooker, but I think she was just trying to make me feel better.) Certainly I can make polenta on the stovetop, as I can with rice, but you have to pay attention more (and I burned the last couple of batches of rice that I've made on the stove, which, as an Asian, is kind of embarrassing). So I like this method because it's totally hands-off and I can do other things while it's cooking.