Kim Shook

Afternoon snack board: Tillamook Cheddar and Fig “Salami” with orange zest and Aleppo pepper.

Completely agree. LOTS of otherwise good chefs oversalt.

Here you go!

This. I'm ready to start researching electric/battery can openers and pepper grinders. What's really bothering me is how hard it is to use my knives and to grate cheese. I bought one of those chopper things, but hate digging it out. I can foresee lots of changes to get used to. I can remember being really snotty and arrogant about gadgets (not quite as bad as that twit Alton Brown), but now that I am older and have hand issues, I am much more understanding about many of them.

It's weirdly pale.

I cook bacon in the oven on baking sheets covered with the large heavy duty foil. No mess, no trouble. I never cook less that the entire package. It will get eaten in a week.

What about those things that you ordered, @Shelby?

Pretty sure it would. I think the point is that it shouldn't be the really low-fat stuff - just doesn't melt right.

@Franci – in all the crab and pasta talk, your fried cod got lost! It looks so good. @Anna N – so how did you make your nice looking gravy😄? @robirdstx – I love smashed burgers best of all! Not sure where this belongs. I remember a discussion of this somewhere. Almost 2 qts. of corn cob stock: Now I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to do with them. Appetizer tonight: @robirdstx's Pan-Fried String Cheese. So good and surprisingly filling. I only ate one and had to wait awhile to have the rest of my dinner! Salad: And penne rigate with meat sauce:

Biscuits (US kind)? What temp and what setting, please. Thank you!

I've been many times. The original store was directly behind my college dorm and every time we could afford it, my boyfriend and I would skip the dining hall and go get a box lunch. I've never had anything that wasn't delicious. As a matter of fact, Mr. Kim and I celebrated our quarantine wedding anniversary back in March with Sally Bell box lunches - as chronicled here. It's a wonderful tradition that I hope carries on as long as I do! Thanks so much for posting that wonderful video.

I hesitate to post this here. All I did was bake biscuits from frozen, macerate some berries, and activate some aerosol coconut whipped cream: It was really good, though.

I did not. I found them at Wegman's. I need to get some rings and make my own and English muffins, too.

The VA Diner peanut pie is just exactly that. And it is incredibly good. Just make sure to use REAL VA peanuts. They are the absolute best.

@Ann_T - Every time I see one of your posts, I get a new craving. @CantCookStillTry – The vegetable mix is sold here as “Veg-All” in the US. Here you can also get it in cans. I have to say that yours looks like better quality vegetables than the bags I’ve purchased in the past. It’s not a bad start to a quick soup. Hot dogs for dinner with fixed up canned baked beans and fruit: And corn (it’s August):

@Duvel – lovely pictures. That church reminds me a little of one that we saw in New Orleans: And the crackling is just incredible. @chefmd – as you can see, you influenced my lunch yesterday: Bologna on white with Duke’s and lettuce.😁

@blue_dolphin – loved reading about Fettuccine Alfredo vs Pasta all'Alfredo. I realized after seeing the video that while I may not have eaten much Fettuccini Alfredo in the past (see dinner thread), I have been eating Pasta all’Alfredo all my life. In my family, Pasta all’Alfredo is what you give to babies who aren’t ready for tomato sauce yet and to sick people and to yourself when you need a little comforting. It’s funny to sometimes find very Italian things still happening in my extremely assimilated Washington DC via Mississippi Delta via Genoa Italy family. Like the fact that they ALL put cabbage, white beans, and pasta in their "vegetable" soup. @Ann_T - gorgeous blueberries. We love picking them in the summer and stocking the freezer with local ones. On the Great British Baking Show whenever someone tries to bake with blueberries, one of the judges always says, “Blueberries don’t really have any flavor, do they?”. Lead me to wonder where in the world they are sourcing tasteless blueberries! 😄 My breakfasts are all looking same-same, I know. But the truth is that I am just not adventurous by nature and especially not in the morning. If I eat at all, I want crunchy, buttery bread, eggs, and pork. Potatoes if they are very easy or if someone else is making them. Yesterday: English muffins, NC sausage, IP eggs. Today: IP eggs, crumpets, and some of a ham slice that was languishing in the deli drawer.

I really wish these sauce mixes were better than they are. I'd really love to be able to use them to make a gravy or sauce without a lot of fuss. But, I find, like you did, that they tend to taste like chemicals. One of my sisters fairly brags about her turkey gravy - she makes no secret that it is just made by the book McCormick powdered mix. I do like the Knorr mixes better than the others I've tasted. I confess to using the Knorr hollandaise and Bearnaise when i want a quick sauce. And I do use some of the powdered mixes to either begin a sauce/gravy or augment it when I want gravy in a hurry. The Heinz Homestyle Roasted Brown gravy mix is the start for a truly delicious IP braised beef recipe I developed. My uncle was a regional manager for McCormick for his entire working life. He (and therefore WE) got free McCormick products all the time. So, I grew up with them. But none of us used the gravy mixes straight - they were always "fixed up" in some way. I love having homemade stocks in the freezer, but life doesn't always give me the freedom to make sure that happens. When I want gravy and haven't planned for it, I will use the mixes, but I will play with them - using boxed stock or "Better than Bouillon" rather than water, wine, herbs, and often a little Gravy Master to food the eye!

And Kim.

It is a long name. Mr. Kim was calling it "Le Cockaigne", but I just said apple souffle! 😁 Peeling the almonds was a bit tedious, but incredibly easy. You just cover them with boiling water for one minute, then rinse in cold water to cool them off. Then all you do is "pinch" them and they pop right out (sometimes across the kitchen!). I got to a point where I would kind of twirl each individual almond between my fingers and thumb and they would just slip right out. I wouldn't want to do it as a job, but I won't avoid recipes that call for them anymore. 🙂

Another date use that is SO good.

Some lemons, limes, Valencia oranges, potatoes: https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts/freshouse-ii-llc-voluntarily-recalls-select-mesh-bags-and-bulk-shipments-potatoes-limes-valencia Possible Listeria contamination.

@Shelby – How do you do your broccoli beef? The beef looks so tender and the sauce looks the perfect consistency. @liamsaunt – it is only 10:30am and I want that fish sandwich right now. I like that you serve it with slaw. If I ever get around to making it for us, I’ll remember that slaw. Found some massive pork chops the other day. Rubbed with Penzey’s Ozark seasoning and sous vide, then seared in an iron skillet in ghee: I also did green beans and those Melting Potatoes again, except without the chicken stock. Mr. Kim suggested doing some caramelized onions to go with the pork chops – that evolved into adding some of the pork juices from the SV bag and some Sam Jones NC BBQ sauce that he’d gotten at a BBQ competition he judged awhile back. The chops and sauce were wonderful. Also corn and rolls leftover from our Italian/Greek meal:

Found some massive pork chops for a great deal at Food Lion the other day. These were $4.99 for almost 2 lbs.: I rubbed them with Penzey’s Ozark seasoning and sous vide them at 144F for 4 hours, then seared in an iron skillet in ghee: They were very good and tender and had a lot of flavor for a supermarket pork. We wished we'd bought more - I'm going back today to see if they have any left!

@gfweb – nice texture on your pulled pork. And pretty slick work on that flat iron and potato picture! @TdeV – those beans and potatoes looks SO good! Do you do them separately and put them together to serve or cook them together. If together, when do you add the potatoes? @shain – beautiful, beautiful pizzas. The bottom of the crust is just perfection. @pastameshugana – I’m glad you waited to take a picture because I love your plates. Those were the dishes that my paternal grandmother had and I love seeing them. @robirdstx – that is one gorgeous steak! I daren’t let Mr. Kim see that picture! @Duvel – here’s hoping that we get to go to Germany once in our lives. I will be eating EVERYTHING! Friday night dinner was all the goodies I brought home from a trip to Wegman’s set out on the counter: This is one of our very favorite cheeses: It is like a marriage of bleu and Brie. My plate: Saturday dinner started again with Ruhlman’s Lemon Drops: Tried a recipe I found for Melting Potatoes. After the first turn: Done: They look a bit burnt, but truly are NOT. They were lovely. You basically roast them in butter for 30 minutes, then add chicken stock and garlic and roast for another 15 minutes. They absorb the stock and garlic and get very tender and tasty. They don’t stay as crisp as they are before you add the stock, but still taste fantastic. I might try them sometime without the stock. Salad with “Greek” dressing: Plate: Monkfish with miso/mustard sauce, Melting Potatoes, marinated cucumbers, and Hanover tomatoes. I had never cooked monkfish before. I used my recipe for Scallops with the same sauce and just subbed monkfish for the scallops. It was amazing. Much better than it looks like in the picture. And, with the monkfish being under $7 for two large pieces, incredibly affordable. Last night we stopped on the way home from my MIL’s and picked up dinner from one of our favorite Greek restaurants. It is actually owned by a Lebanese family. I was told once by the Lebanese owner of a café in a building that I used to work in that all the best Greek restaurants in Richmond were Lebanese owned. And, with one exception, he seems to be right. Their incomparable bread and salads – a Caesar and a Greek: Appetizer platter: Tomatoes, cukes, kalamata olives, feta, tiropita, spanakopita, pita wedges, dolmades, hummus, and tzatziki. Mr. Kim had the Chef Micheal (stet): Basically, baked spaghetti with all the meats. Possibly the best, most tender and flavorful meatballs I’ve ever had. I had chicken fettuccini Alfredo: I’ve been craving this for a couple of weeks. Mr. Kim’s been laughing at me because I’ve never, ever ordered this at a restaurant and never made it from scratch at home. But suddenly, I was dying for it. Very, very good!