Granny's Pink Stuff

My first recipe to share is one of the easiest things ever. Seriously. This is my granny's recipe for 'pink stuff'. It's essentially an ambrosia salad. When I was small, they kept telling me the name of this junk and I couldn't ever remember so eventually I just kept saying "I want some of that pink stuff!"...well the name stuck. It's my favorite thing in the world.

1 can Eagle brand sweetened condensed milk
1 can crushed pineapple (make sure to drain it so the juice doesn't water down the salad)
1 small can mandarin oranges (I made this alteration- granny's originally has no oranges. Make sure to also drain oranges.)
1 smaller container of Cool Whip
1 can strawberry (or cherry) pie filling
*Optional: Coconut and/or pecans

Mix with a spoon, chill and serve!

The kids in our family (aka me and sometimes my little brother Bradley) are picky... REALLY picky, so granny doesn't use coconuts or pecans. We love pecans, but she just keeps it strictly fruit for us! And I don't mind it one bit!
When I made this, I used fresh whipping cream and whipped it myself. It turns out just as well and maybe it's a tad bit fresher or healthier, but hell- when you throw in sweetened condensed milk, you kinda throw away any healthiness. We tend to use strawberry pie filling. I'm not a big fan of the 'fake' taste of the cherry pie filling, but I've had it both ways. It's good no matter what.

See? What did I say. Easy Peasy! Just make sure to drain the oranges and the pineapple!

Fourty-Seven

I've decided that I am going to add recipes to our blog. Recipes that I love (or that Joshua loves...or that his friends and family/my friends and family love!) with alterations or notes (and possibly even pictures!) to go along with them.
I always try to make the title of the blog post coincide with the number of posts total. This is my ONE (or maybe seven) exception(s).

xoxo,
Hannah

Fourty-Six

^^This is a picture of me and a few of my students from the place I volunteer with on Thursdays. These girls are super fun.
Things have been busy here in the Delp house. I have continued my volunteer work 3 days out of the week on top of making sure that the house is taken care of (for the most part at least ;)) and making sure dinner is cooked/prep'd. I juggle all of this on top of Joshua's crazy schedule of "Oh, I have to work late" and "We go to the field in 3 days". It's quite the juggling act, but all fun for the most part.
I have been trying my hand at different foods. I've made garlic bread sticks, homemade cresent roll stuffed crust pizza (Yes, it IS as good as it sounds! Yum!), different kinds of pigs-in-a-blanket, what I like to call "grown up grilled cheese", and just today I tried my hand at homemade butter. I got my hands all gooey and buttery for the cause! It looks good although I haven't gotten the chance to try any!
Last Monday, I made homemade lasagna. It was good! And it made SO much more than I thought it would so we invited some of Joshua's friends over to eat with us the next Wednesday to help us clear the leftovers. Boy did they eat! They ate the entire 9x13 pan of lasagna, devoured about 20 bread sticks and about half a bowl of my granny's pink stuff for dessert (my favorite-and so easy to make, too!). Tonight, we are making dinner again for some of his friends. I'm making Joshua's step-mother's famous broccoli, rice and cheese casserole, fresh corn cut off of the cob (all fresh: shucked and de-silked by yours truly!), homemade butter, and some cresent rolls. For dessert, we are having a Mountain Dew cake. A friend of mine over here gave me the recipe. You use an entire can of Mt Dew so I KNOW Joshua is going to love it.
I have been on a roll lately with the cooking and I am loving it. It's such a good hobby although it is SO bad for my waistline. Eeek! Oh well. At least it tastes good in my belly before it hits the waistline LOL.
About two weeks ago, we found out that we are headed for Fort Carson, CO when Joshua's tour here in Korea ends! We are stoked to say the least :) It's not Bragg and it's not Hood, but from what everyone else had been receiving, we count ourselves a part of the lucky ones! I am just excited to live less than 1000 miles away from a Walmart!!! WOO HOO!
We are about a week and a half away from mom coming to visit. She will arrive here on the 27th and will be staying with us until the 8th of June. I am excited she will be coming to visit! She is going to help me attempt to make Shrimp Gumbo with the fresh shrimp we bought in Busan a few weekends back. Should be delicious :)
Signing off for now. Got a lot to do before all those hungry boys get here in a couple hours!

Xoxo
Hannah

Fourty-Five

Don't have a long time to post today as I have my volunteering today and I've got to get lunch ready for when Joshua gets home from work since he only gets such a short time. We had a great Easter. We went to an Easter Egg Hunt/get together for Joshua's battalion. There were about 35 families there. Joshua and I just hung out with some couples that we knew. It was fun to watch all the kiddos run around. After we had lunch and watched the kiddos run after the eggs, we had a get together/cookout that afternoon with some couple friends of ours. They had a little Easter Egg hunt for their kiddos and then everyone cooked and brought lots of food. There was SO much to eat and it was all SO good! We never walk away from those cookouts feeling hungry, that's for sure! I am feeling quite blessed that I've come across this group of friends. They are all funny and so nice. I'm not sure how much I would be hating life right now if I hadn't found all these ladies.
Only 4 months and about 4 weeks until we get home! *whew* We are SO excited to finally be getting this close. I've only been here 4 and a half months and it already feels like a year! One of Joshua's closest friends found out where he will be stationed after Korea just recently so we keep hoping that we will find out soon!! We hope to go to Ft Bragg, NC or back to Ft Hood.... Those would both be ideal so we hope that's where they will send us!
Anyway, off to prepare some 'tuna cakes'. Recipe: here. Should be good....plus it's cheap! Win-win ;)

Xoxo
Hannah

Fourty Four

Sorry for such a delay in posting. I have been a busy bee. In fact, this week is the first week in close to a month that I actually sat around for two days straight.

The beginning of April brought my 23rd birthday. I spent the day out with some girls. We went and got our toe nails painted and had some good Korean food. They had Joshua working an overnight schedule so he was sleeping while we went out. Even though Joshua didn't want to be awake much on my birthday, it was nice that there were some cool girls to keep me distracted!

Volunteering is going great. I'm volunteering three days a week, each at a different place. Korean children are so fun. They aren't afraid to ask questions. They ask me why my hair color is the way that it is, why my eyes are green and why my skin is so white. They are SO curious. It's so fun though. In Korea, everyone has straight or wavy black hair and dark brown eyes so to see someone with dirty blonde hair and green eyes is very odd to them. In Korea, everyone strives to be fair skinned. Their prejudice is that the darker your skin, the poorer you are. I explained to the kids that it's opposite in America. Everyone wants to be tan, not white. I told them that I was the sad one because I couldn't tan! Haha They didn't believe me! Then they said "Well what about your president? Did he tan too long?" Haha They have no idea about political correctness. I explained to them that he wasn't white- that's why he was darker! Nothing to do with tanning. "Ohhhh..." was all they had to say about that. They are talkative and I am starting to understand them better. I learned a new word. 'Sorry' in Korean is pronounced Mee-yun-sam-nida.

I have also started riding the city bus. I've never ridden a city bus in the states... I mean, ew! But here, it's not nearly so bad. It's pretty easy (even though nothing is in English) and it saves money, which is always nice!
In other news, Easter is fast approaching! We are planning on a cook out with some friends at the nearby military housing base about 30 minutes from us. Mom sent me some confetti eggs for Easter so I'm going to take it to the little ones who should have a blast with it! I'm going to cook some corn casserole (Aunt Nancy's recipe) and make some little Easter rice crispy treat snacks! I'll have to make sure and take pictures of the snacks! They should be lots of fun!



This weekend, we went to a nearby city (about 50 minutes south of us) of Cheongdo and saw bull fights!
It's kinda like a rodeo in Korea. Two bulls would come out and they would be led in by their trainer. They lead them in by having a rope looped through the bulls nose. They lead them right to eachother and the bulls head-butt eachother until one gives up! We got there around 1 or so on Sunday afternoon. The first couple fights were pretty quick. They would start head butting and then one would give up very quickly. The fights got more intense as the day went on. By about 3, there was a fight that lasted probably 30 minutes. They would just sit there and push on eachother. At one point we thought it was over because one started to be pushed in the opposite direction and then he would catch himself and start pushing back. They took forever! But it always made it interesting. Our rodeos are more exciting, I think, but this was definitely something to remember! Glad I got to experience it here. We all had lots of fun. The boys enjoyed ice cream and they even had an "intermission" where they had a singer come and sing. We got pictures of her because she was so close to us, but we didnt' have any idea who she was and what she was saying lol. People near us told one of the guys we were with that she was "Number one!!!" Ha! So maybe we saw someone famous!
Anyway, we are trying to enjoy our time here as best we can (even though I would love to be sitting in Austin, TX typing this!!) and will continue to try and do so. About our bed time so signing off for now.
Lots of love.
XOXO,
Hannah

Fourty Three

I have officially started volunteer work at a Hakwon (english teaching school) in Korea. I am helping teach little children English. I met a man who owns a Hakwon and he asked if I wanted to volunteer and help the kids with their pronunciation. Of course I said yes! The children are elementary school age through middle school age. It all seems so easy to me. Pronouncing english words. SO easy. The Korean language has different sounds than English. For example, they don't use the sound "r" so they don't know how to use their mouth and tongue to create the sound. That's part of my volunteer work- showing them how to shape their mouths and where to put their tongue. It's interesting. 'B', 'D' and 'V' all sound the same when they are first learning. In fact, they have a hard time with those letters for a while. They can't say 'o' very easily, either. The word "doll" is hard for them, as well. They pronounce it like the word "dull". What I have learned is that the middle schoolers are hard to teach. They are in the "we have to look cool" phase so they won't listen as well, but the elementary kids are so fun. I make silly faces and give them high fives often. They go right along with it. Since they know the names of body parts, I taught them that song "head, shoulders, knees, and toes". The middle school girls didn't really want to participate but the elementary boys thought it was hilarious! We even got their teacher to join in! It's neat to see them learn and hear them say the words correctly.
When I talk to them in basic sentences, I always try to think of funny things to ask them. Today, I asked each of the boys if they had ever kissed a girl. They all giggled profusely and said "No, no, no, no!!" Haha. Very precious.

Other than that, nothing too exciting has happened. Two days ago, we officially surpassed our 6 month time period. We are less than 6 months away from being home! I can't wait. Korea is too much for me sometimes. It has some really great things to offer us, but other times it just is too far away from being like home. I hate not being able to communicate with most people I come in contact with and I will be glad when I can read all the signs in English. It has been a nice experience but these last 6 months can't come fast enough. I've been here about 3.5 months, so total I will have been here about 9 months once we make it back to the states.... *Whew* I'm ready to go! lol

We are going to try and see a movie tonight. Mom mailed me movie popcorn salt from home so I am excited to go eat some tonight. Yum!
xoxo
Hannah

Fourty Two

*Whew* We are almost completely settled into our new home :) I have been trying to be Susie Home-maker as much as possible!
We haven't eaten out (except once when I went to visit Joshua on his break for lunch one day) since we have moved into our new casa. We have kept right on eating home cooked food. (I'm actually pretty proud that we have been able to continuously save some money by not eating fast food or eating at restaurants!) I'm a pretty awful cook. I can bake like no one's business but cooking is not my strong suite. I have been cooking some pretty simple things since we've gotten the house: meatloaf, sloppy joes, etc. Every time I try to make some major meal, I always fail at it. I just can't get it quite right. [Although I will say all of my desserts have been fabulous :P I even made some yummy cinnamon roll cupcakes with homemade icing. They were divine.] I just hate cooking because I always worry that I won't cook the food thoroughly and someone will end up sick! So I always seem to undercook things in an effort to not OVERcook them... Ugh. Who said it would be this complicated?! :P If anyone has any cooking tips, please feel free to email me lol.
I have fallen in love with a certain part of Korean life. The fish market. It's an covered outdoor market that (you guessed it) sells fish. Different vendors set up to sell fish and they also sell fresh fruits and veggies. The first time I went, I bought about 2 lbs of strawberries for 7,000 won (about $6.00) and bought 3 good sized heads (with the stalks) of broccoli for 2,000 won (about $1.50). Fabulous deals. Today I went with one of the wives that has come to visit. I bought 4 large sized potatoes for 3,000 won ($2.50) and for one head of broccoli for 1,000 won ($.75). The first set of broccoli that I bought, I steamed. This one that I bought, I am going to use in a batch of broccoli, rice and cheese. Joshua's step mom gave me the recipe so I'm very excited to try it out.
At our new apartment, we have a little playground for all the little kids in the complex. Every day when we leave the apartment, we walk right past it. It amazes me how similar children of both cultures are. I will walk past and the Korean children will be playing the same games as you would see American children playing. It's amazing that both sets of kids are unique yet still the same. Ever since I have been here, I have felt like an outsider, but everytime I walk past those kids I feel like I fit in. Those kids are no different than how I was as a child. They roller blade, play on the see saw and they swing like crazy. They even play little fighting games.... Love it.
Off for now. Going to see Joshua at work for a bit as he is still working extra duty with his soldier (it's 9pm here).
xoxo,
Hannah