Throughout my blogging “career”, I’ve had many moments where I’ve just wanted to disconnect and just take everything offline. Lately this feeling has been triggered by what I’ve been reading online about friends and fellow bloggers getting their material plagiarized or being harassed by meanies. Such a waste of energy, don’t you agree? Ninety percent of the time, I bide my time in my food blogger bubble surrounding myself with who I think are good and hardworking folks (namely the Sunday Supper crew!), but I need to be reminded that as much as there are jerks (I’m being nice) out there, there are as many good people.
I’m not perfect and believe me, I have my not-so-nice moments, but I really don’t understand those who consciously spend their energy and time harassing strangers. It just does not make sense to me. As bloggers, writers, creators, we all striving to have our work seen or voices heard. I’m all for the encouragement and support for each other. It took a lot of courage to make that first step into the blogging world, and certainly a lot of heart, soul, and energy goes into maintaining our work. Life’s too short to be crapping on others for no good reason. Let’s move on, shall we?
I can’t offer any Can’t We All Get Along Cookies like my friend Nance, but I can give you a recipe for beans. Maybe I should call these Let’s Hug It Out Beans. 🙂
Notes: Kongjaban is a little salty and a little sweet with a lot of nuttiness and perfect with a bowl of rice. They are so addictive, you can’t stop at one. If you don’t have corn syrup, just double the amount of brown sugar. Also note that the resulting beans should be firm, not rock hard nor soft.
Kongjaban
8 ounces (a little over 1 cup) dried black beans
Water
1/4 cup soy sauce
3 Tablespoons brown sugar
3 Tablespoons corn syrup
2 Tablespoon sesame seeds
1 – Soak the beans in cold water for about 2 hours.
2 – Drain and rinse. In a large pot, add beans and add enough water to just cover the beans (about 2 cups of water). Bring the beans to a boil. Simmer on high for about 5 minutes. Stir in soy sauce, brown sugar, corn syrup.
3 – Lower the heat to medium and let simmer for another 25-30 minutes. Taste and make sure the beans are firm and not rock hard nor mushy. The water should be mostly gone and the beans should be glistening.
4 – Take the beans off the heat and stir in the sesame seeds.
5 – Once cooled to room temperature, the beans can be transferred to an airtight food storage container and refrigerated. It’ll keep for a while. 🙂
