Miso Corn and Bacon Hand Pies

I’ve always had this image of summer – picnics with a lovely dainty basket (tied with a bow), a bright blanket, a bottle of wine, sandwiches, potato salad, pie, sun, intimacy, a light breeze with no humidity, and flowers. Can’t have a picnic without a bright bouquet of flowers, wildly picked or brought. In reality, the picnics (a rare happening in Boston humid summers) usually consist of a cloth shopping bag, wrapped up sandwiches, and our rambunctious canine companion Annie. When Alanna and Sarah came up with the idea of a picnic-themed collaboration, I jumped on it. Unashamedly. We each made a different hand pie. I made miso corn and bacon hand pies. This can’t be surprising- you all know my love affair with corn, my predilection for miso, and my obsession with hand pies. Head over to Sarah’s blog for rosemary peach hand pies with white chocolate marscapone, and Alanna for eggplant parmesan hand pies .

Kimchi + Pork Belly Mini and Hand Pies

Happy Monday, lovely friends! Since the start of wedding season I’ve been feeling a bit bedraggled.  I often feel like I’m chasing the minute hand on a big clock, furiously trying to get ahead of it even while the hour hand inescapably moves on its path. Where did the hours go? How is it already almost July? July is an important month for me – it’s always been the mark of mid-summer, the month of July 4^th celebrations, my birthday, and anticipation of humidity in Boston. But it’s in JULY. A month far in the future, to be anticipated. Now it’s right around the corner. June is crazy. It’s officially the crazy but beautiful month. Morning dashes to the shower, dragging Annie to the park telling her to hurry up and do her business while pretending she’d understand and comply, converting to Bostonian traffic-isms and finally letting out my road rage. But it’s also the ultimate wedding month. We have weddings every single weekend plus engagement/rehearsal dinner sessions. No matter how busy we get and how little sleep we manage to steal, it’s worth it. We’re photographing love. Sorry for the sap, but we just had an amazing awesome love-filled wedding. Having done so many weddings, I think I’m pretty seasoned and won’t tear up during ceremonies anymore. But this. This one was so beautiful, so touching, and so darn magical that I couldn’t help but being to tear up. I love these guys so much. I can’t wait to blog about it on my photography page. And this little tidbit about their reception really hit home for me: As part of their centerpieces they had pots of herbs: cilantro, mint, basil. They provided little scissors next to these pots. Guests could use said scissors and snip some herbs and distribute it in their drinks or food!!! Isn’t that just so cute and amazing? I love it. Now I want to have a dinner party with basil as the interactive centerpiece.

This little outburst brings me to this post: kimchi pork belly pies. I actually made these several weeks ago but just didn’t have time to edit all the photos and put it together in a post. With everything going on I’ve had difficulty finding time to really blog. I have so many ideas floating in my head, but each idea takes hours to execute. Food blogger friends – am I right?? There’s recipe development, then testing, which arguably is the most important and time consuming part, then photography, editing, and writing. Then all the social media stuff that makes my head hurt sometimes. However, it’s FUN!!!!! I love fiddling around in the kitchen with a challenge – to make something new and weird and hopefully awesome. Of course, new being the relative term – hand pies exist but I wanted to do a riff of it, in my own way. Then photographing it and styling – you know how much I love doing that! I had leftover kimchi and bossam from last time, so stuffing them in pies was the natural next step.

Red Bean Hand Pies

Red bean is the stuff of my childhood. I’ve eaten it as a paste stuffed in sesame balls, daifuku, japanese treats, mochi balls; I’ve had it flavored in popsicles, ice cream, even sweet zhong zi (although I much prefer savory ones); I’ve had it in a thick sweet soup, dotted with glutinous rice balls. If you’ve visited China at some point, you probably have encountered this ubiquitous flavor. It’s made from sweet red beans, which is purchasable from any asian grocery store. The paste can be bought pre-made as well, but I find that making it myself is much more preferable, as I can control its consistency and sweetness.