St. Patrick's Day fun + Kookin' in Korea: Breakfast Skillet + Artichoke & Olive dip

I've been back to work for two full weeks and it's looking like it'll be a pretty good year! Why? One, within the first week I received our school's schedule for the year. THE YEAR! I never received a schedule last year and never knew what was happening until it happened. Two, my first encounter with my new co-teacher was me walking into the English classroom watching her frantically clean and organize everything. How awesome is that?! Today, I attempted to clean and she yelled at me to stop and physically made me sit down. She doesn't really speak English and my Korean is horrible, but with a few hand gestures and sounds we still manage to teach pretty well together and have a laugh doing so.

I spent the weekend in Seoul with friends celebrating St. Patrick's Day. It was a blast. Actually, probably too much fun considering I was not feeling well the next day. At the festival they had a raffle with the first prize being a trip for two to Dublin, Ireland. I don't usually win things, but Vanessa and I decided to split the tickets. We took our chances and we WON! Okay, we didn't win a trip to Dublin, but we did win one free nights stay at the Sheraton Hotel. We'll take it!

Kookin' in Korea - Breakfast skillet

As a teen I spent a lot of my time at work. 

Like any other youngster wanting to start working at the tender age of 14 HyVee was one of the few places which allowed this. Don't worry, I didn't actually start working until I was 16. If you're from the Midwest especially Iowa, you most likely worked at HyVee. The place where there's a helpful smile in every aisle. I worked as a cashier, but also spent my Sunday mornings working breakfast. They have awesome breakfast skillets. Not only do I love breakfast, but the other day I found myself really craving a skillet. It wasn't exactly like HyVee, but still pretty good!

Need:

potatoes

bell peppers, assorted color

onion

ham, can also use sausage or bacon

cheese

eggs

salt, red pepper flakes, 

pepper, garlic, parsley

*All items can be purchased at any mart. They are very easy to find.

1. Cube potatoes, both bell peppers, onion and ham. Add a small amount of vegetable oil to the pan and only fry potatoes. Add the seasonings you wish to use and cook. Cover with lid so potatoes will cook from within and not only the outside. Once potatoes are soft add all veggies and ham to the pan. Let cook. Add more seasoning if desired.

I've never seen breakfast sausage in Korea, but if using bacon I suggest cooking this first, chopping then adding it into the pan once the veggies have cooked.

2. While veggies are cooking make an over easy egg. Once egg is cooked and veggies are completely cooked top the vegetables with a little cheese and let melt.

3. Top skillet with egg and eat up!

Kookin' in Korea - Artichoke & Olive dip

Once a week I meet a few friends for dinner, but instead of going out to a restaurant we take turns hosting at our apartment. With eating rice and kimchi basically everyday it's a nice opportunity to enjoy a few foods from home. This week I desperately needed something to bring. After realizing I had a jar of artichokes in my cabinet I quickly googled recipes using artichokes. I came across this dip and hoped it would be good. Not only is it super super easy to make, but it ended up being absolutely DEL*licious!

Need

1 1/2 cup artichoke hearts

1/2 cup olives

1 tbsp chopped garlic

1/4 cup olive oil

*Lemon and plain olive oil is pictured, but I didn't use these items. Was completely fine without.

1. Pour all ingredients into blender. As I said above I did not use lemon or plain olive oil. Instead I used the olive oil from the jarred artichokes and that seemed to add a little more flavor. Recipes online said to use green olives, but I could only find black. Still think it worked completely fine. Blend and bowl.

2. Eat...a lot! Bread is homemade by my friend Suzanne. Like I said, very easy and really good!