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Korean Fried Chicken Sauce – The Sauce of Things to Come
As I disclaimed in the video, this is just my take, and while I think it’s pretty classic, there are a couple of things I do differently. I like to add lots of green onion and garlic, as well as not cook this quite as long as most recipes call for. The result is a sauce with those ingredients a little more up-front in the flavor profile. The only drawback is you don’t get quite as deep a red color, but I can’t even pretend to be concerned with that.
By the way, you should try to find some Korean chili flakes and/or paste if you can. I’ve used them before, and the flavor is great, and obviously more authentic, but if you can’t, any hot chili flakes or paste will work. Now, all we need is some “KFC” to spoon this over. Stay tuned, and as always, enjoy!
Ingredients for about 6 servings:
1/2 cup ketchup
2 green onions, chopped fine
4 cloves of garlic, minced fine
2 tbsp honey
1 to 2 tsp red chili flakes, to taste
1 tbsp sambal chili sauce, or other ground chili sauce/paste, to taste
1 pinch of salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 lemon, juiced, or more to taste
1/4 cup water to adjust thickness, more as needed
*Note: everything in this is “to taste,” so adjust until you think it’s balanced between sweet, sour, and spicy.
-- Combine ingredients and simmer on low for about 5 minutes. Cool and serve at room temperature.
*Click here for the Korean Fried Chicken recipe!
*Click here for the Korean Fried Chicken recipe!
Wood planked coffee table
Hey hey all! It’s about time to get some DIY going up in here! With the family room under construction, our blogging conference a couple weeks ago and just basic summer slug-ness, I haven’t done much lately.
I’ll have plenty to do starting later this week – the big stuff is almost done in the family room. Then it’s my turn. :)
We haven’t had a coffee table in that room for a while – I took out our square one about a year ago and loved how open it felt, so it stayed that way. (It now lives at my sister’s.)
When I moved the furniture around to the way I’ll have it when all the construction is done I realized I really wanted one again. But I needed it to be long and skinny. I don’t have any long and skinny so I’ve kept my eye out for something that might work.
A few weeks back I found this at a local antique/thrift shop and it had me at WHEELS:
You know how I love wheels. They are my jam.
The top of the table was a mess though, and I couldn’t figure out what to do with it as I stood there, so I left it. (No returns so I had to make sure it would work.)
Fast forward a few weeks and I couldn’t get that table out of my head. I went back, it was still there and it came home with me. I still didn’t know what I was going to do with the top but I had to have it.
Initially I was thinking of sanding it down lightly and restaining the damaged parts, but when I got it home and took a closer look I realized it was a real mess:
I thought about keeping the leather top – for a minute. Then I got it cleaned off and saw it was beyond repair. The leather was cracked, which didn’t really bother me. But it also had paint and what looked like burn marks on it as well. And when I got it cleaned off I realized it was a very unattractive puke-brown color. Not so sad I couldn’t salvage it after that. :)
We have enough natural wood in the family room anyway, so my next plan was to paint it. I turned it over and realized I could take the top off:
Grody. I lightly sanded it to get more grime off:
Then took it outside to spray prime it -- I just used a basic gray primer. By the way, I mention this a lot but it’s worth saying again – make sure to clean any piece you’re going to spray paint! If you don’t you’ll get the dreaded crackle.
I picked up another gray spray paint called silver fox by Valspar for the main color – I figured it would be easiest with the detail on the table.
Outside it looked decent, but when I brought it in I realized it was BLUE. Like, baby blue. What the??:
ARGH. Spray paint lids not matching the color are quickly becoming one of my biggest pet peeves. DIYer probs.
So I grabbed some chalk paint, which is what I should have done from the start. (But I still would have primed – these reddish stains can bleed through.) I used my CeCe Caldwell gray that I already had:
I shared my thoughts on this paint and how to apply it here – I really love these paints. It dries much lighter:
But when you apply the wax it gets richer and darker. I did have issues with the wax this time though, more on that in a minute.
I came up with a plan for the new tabletop – first I grabbed some scrap luan and cut it size with my jigsaw. I stained it just in case you’d see it under the new tabletop:
Then I used some very thin boards from Lowe’s (they are called craft boards) that I stained dark walnut by Minwax (one of my favorite colors):
The boards were more than I planned to spend but I needed a very specific thickness and they also had to be decent, stainable wood.
I put a little bit of glue down on the luan and then laid the craft boards down:
And nailed them in as well:
I took the old tabletop with me to the hardware store so I was able to find a combination of boards that fit the top almost perfectly. These boards aren’t all the same size – two are the same, the other two are different sizes. It didn’t bother me and I actually like that they aren’t all the same:
I’m not thrilled with how that skinny board stained up – I used conditioner on all of them and that one doesn’t look as good as the others. But it looks rustic…that’s what I’m going with for anyway. If it bugs me I’ll replace it. Or live with it. :)
The top is super smooth – I stood back when I was done and was SO happy with how it turned out:
I LOVE it:
The sectional will be moved soon so ignore the rug placement and all – this will get flipped to face the fireplace when the TV can be moved over. Hoping this week!
WHEELS:
I’m bugged out by the wax this time – this wax has done this the past two times I’ve used it. It gets blotchy and doesn’t dry well in some spots. Most of it looks great – it’s just certain areas. Usually this happens when you use too much, but I wiped this sucker well so I know it’s not that.
It’s frustrating because I’m going to have to sand down a couple spots and do another coat of paint and wax to correct it. But I LOVE the look – the dark wood combined with the gray is luscious. So it will be worth it. :)
There were a few issues along the way but I ended up with a coffee table I love in just the right size. The table was $20 and I spent about $25 on wood (those smaller pieces get expensive!) – not bad at all! Don’t overlook those pieces that are a mess – they can be turned into beauties!
Have you made over any messes lately?
Next Up: Korean Fried Chicken Week!
The vacation is coming to an end, and while I certainly enjoyed my time off, I'm really looking forward to getting back into the swing of things this week by featuring the mind-blowing awesomeness that is Korean fried chicken.
Tomorrow, I'll ease back into it by showing you my take on the traditional KFC sauce, and then Wednesday, we'll cover the actual chicken recipe. With apologies to the Colonel, this is the world's best fried chicken. Stay tuned!
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Tomorrow, I'll ease back into it by showing you my take on the traditional KFC sauce, and then Wednesday, we'll cover the actual chicken recipe. With apologies to the Colonel, this is the world's best fried chicken. Stay tuned!.
Haven 2014
Hello all! Wow, this week went crazy fast. Only one more month of summer for us – I’m not ready for it to end yet. :(
Last week I was away in Atlanta for our third annual Haven Conference:
I don’t know that any of us imagined it would become the success it has four years ago when we started planning the first one. We had all been attending conferences and none of them touched on topics we were interested in as DIY/decor bloggers. So…we created one that did. :)
Our team consists of five bloggers and one event coordinator and I can honestly say we couldn’t do it without each of us. AND our incredible speakers, attendees, sponsors and volunteers.
Stuffing four hundred swag bags is no joke:
Once again our main sponsor was Home Depot and they knocked it out of the park:
Our keynote speaker this year was Chip Wade from HGTV:
His designer Cristi joined us too – I met her at another event years ago and her designs on the show are awesome. Their show is called Elbow Room – I’ve loved it since it started last year – you may remember Chip from Curb Appeal too. He does some of the coolest projects I’ve seen anywhere!
And Ballard Designs did another fabulous job at decorating our “living room”:
We use this space for booths and sessions and parties and it’s so wonderful to be able to plop down and relax for a bit:
We may or may not have laid down on one of the beds for a while at one point. Exhaustion sets in. ;)
The sessions were awesome this year – I think the best we’ve had. I’ve been blogging for six years and I learned more at this year’s conference than any conference I’ve ever been to. There’s ALWAYS something to learn.
Our sponsors rock – when we walked into the Procter & Gamble luncheon on Friday there may have been a few squeals:
Bubbles! Our friends Brooke and Mandi did the decor and they did SUCH a great job.
We had some amazing parties every night where we danced till…uhhhh, late. :) Rustoleum threw a great one Friday night and we ended the event on a fun note at the Ryobi party on Saturday:
Yeah. They know how to throw a party. Need a party planner? Ask them. ;)
I couldn’t imagine making this happen without these ladies every year:
(L to R: Beth, Chris, Kristin (our awesome event planner!), Traci, me, Rhoda)
It is still funny to me that some of my closest friends are ones I only see once or twice year. But those rare times are so incredibly special.
We’re already making tweaks for next year and then we’ll take a little break before planning starts again for 2015 this fall. Whew!
This year we kicked off a special initiative in collaboration with Habitat for Humanity. Next Saturday, July 26, will be “Hands of Haven” day:
The conference has donated towards a build that day and Atlanta-based bloggers will be onsite, but we want bloggers and readers from all over the country to join in! If you’d like to donate to our effort click here or to purchase a HoH t-shirt you can click here. We started selling them at the conference but wanted to make sure everyone could purchase.
On the 26th we encourage everyone to join in on build in your community, shop a ReStore or just donate some household items to one. We’ll continue the spirit into September as well if you can’t make next Saturday! Make sure to tag #handsofhaven if you join in in any way.
Have a wonderful weekend all!
Summer Drinking
I know, I'm supposed to be on vacation, but I wanted to post links for a couple of spectacularly refreshing summer drinks. Not only is the timing perfect for either of these beautiful beverages, but I was getting really tired of looking at that hairy, photoshop'd beach guy. To see the full post, and get the ingredients, click on the title, and away you go. Enjoy, and see you next week!
