Dolsot Bibimbap!

Say that three times fast! Hard to pronounce name, easy to love dish. It's actually a Korean dish, my favorite Korean dish. . . and quite possibly one of my all-time favorite meals. When I was pregnant with Gabrielle, I craved it all the time. And even now that I'm not pregnant, I still crave it. On the other hand, I also regret the day I fell in love with this dish, as Korean restaurants tend to be hard to come by in most places. . . impossible to come by where we live. And it's kind of a complicated dish to make. . . But sometimes you have to give in to your cravings, or to your husband saying "Hey that sounds good. Why don't you just whip that up one night?" Well first of all, you can't just "whip" up bibimbap. It's essentially a large bowl of rice, covered with a variety of sauteed and seasoned vegetables, such as carrots, cucumber, zucchini, spinach, and bean sprouts . In my house, it's also topped with beef, a fried egg, and a dollop of gochujang (Korean hot pepper paste). The best part about it though is that you put it all in this hot stone bowl, and mix it all together right before you eat it. The bowl is so hot that the rice, egg, and other goodies essentially get fried against the sides of the bowl, causing the rice to have this great crisp texture. And that is my favorite part! What more can I say other than it was delicious even though I had to "whip" it up myself. . . I'd still much rather just order it. I think I did pretty good overall. My biggest ordeal was deciding which type of rice I should use and in the end I decided on a mixture of glutinous rice (sticky or sweet rice) and jasmine rice . . . which turned out to work just fine. I just may have to make this one again some time soon. . . having eaten it only reminds me just why I love it so much!