Kim Shook

They are SO good!!! I'm thrilled: I have a question, though. I only have instant yeast and the recipe calls for active dry. It never occurred to me that would make any difference. But I just noticed in the comments section on the recipe that if you are using instant, you should use 1 2/3 t. rather than 2 1/4 of active dry. In other words I used more than I was supposed to. But they are perfect. So, I just ignore that instruction, huh?

Here they are: I really hope they taste as good as they look!

Going into the oven with some Trader Joe's ET bagel seasoning: It occurred to me, almost too late, that I should leave the seeds off a few so we could decide what we prefer.

Thank you, @ptw1953!! Your mouth to God's ears! After the second rising: The bottom of the rolls: After the final rise they get sprinkled with cornmeal and flipped. I did that thing where you roll the dough balls around the board in a circle inside your cupped hands, so I'm hoping that the other side with be smoother.

After the 1st rising of my brioche: After pushing it down. I'm hoping this is a good sign. It is having it's second rising in the proofing room (that would be the half bath off of my kitchen with the space heater turned to 72F - 😁).

No one I know will eat other people's food except for Mr. Kim's dad and stepmom. They are deniers who drop by after wandering around Walmart because they are bored and want to visit, even though they've been told not to. They even try to visit the grandchildren, one of whom is a 5 year old who had pneumonia in February. 😠 So, I'm not feeling too kindly towards them. Let them make their own goodies. 😉

Pray for me. I am attempting brioche buns today. 😳😉😁

@SLB - Just wanted to say how sorry I am about your loved ones. You will be in my thoughts. Glad that you have your loved one in Maine to help and that she has you! I felt your comment about not being able to bring a dish. That is my first instinct when someone I know has any kind of trouble. And we can't even do that now.

Go for it! You won't be sorry. BTW and off topic, Mr. Kim and I were planning a trip to NOVA before the world fell apart and were going to come to the Green Zone. We still plan on it. Hope things are well with you!

Yesterday's breakfast of salmon cream cheese and ET bagel seasoning was so good, I had two of them today: I will probably be having this for awhile now. I'm the only one who eats smoked salmon and I just started another loaf of the ATK bread a few minutes ago. I won't post it anymore, I promise. LOL

Happy Birthday, @TicTac! 🎂 🎈 🤡 Dinner started with a salad: It was just my basic salad with the addition of arugula. What a difference. NOT boring. Garlic toast pizza and CSO bake/steam broccoli: We had everything on hand for the pizzas – sauce, pepperoni, frozen garlic toast. All except mozzarella cheese. We did have string cheese, which is mozzarella, so I used that. I discovered, to my surprise that string cheese doesn’t melt. As you can see from some of the ends of the strands, it does burn, but no melt. Still good, though. And improvising is the name of the current game.

When saw them, I immediately thought of you and your perpetual search for leeks.

I thought I would post some pictures of our Kroger when we went shopping yesterday. I thought it might be interesting to see how things are in different parts of the world. I am in Richmond VA - central VA, 2 hours south of Washington DC. The produce is seemingly not affected at all: This is the organic section. Just a couple of voids that I can see. Honestly, I don't think you could tell the difference between these pictures and ones taken a year ago. The meat department looks a little thinner, but not bad. Plenty of breasts. But, oddly enough, no wings, backs, or thighs. The gaps are mostly fresh pork and, all the way to the left, the marked down almost expired meat. But this is VA, after all, so plenty of cured pig. 😁 Also lots of frozen turkey: No more pictures, but dairy seemed well stocked (I forgot to look at eggs - didn't need any). By and large the center food shelves were decently stocked - very little flour, but what there was was AP and self rising. The limit on TP and paper towels was one package per customer, but they did have some. Plenty of soap, clothing and dish detergent and even some spray cleaner. NO wipes at all.

A couple of recent snacks. ATK sandwich bread: Not sure how smart it is to keep homemade bread around all the time. A really good Sumo mandarin: Such good citrus this year.

@gfweb – gorgeous brisket. What method did you use to cook it? It looks tender, but you got nice slices, too. When my brisket is tender enough to eat, it falls apart like pot roast. The bacon wrapped halibut (I adore halibut) that you posted reminded me of the prosciutto-wrapped cod that I haven’t done in way too long. I will have to remedy that! @Duvel – love the pizzas. How I wish I could visit some of the folks here who make such wonderful pizza crusts to have a lesson! (The fact that you are in Germany and @Ann_T is in British Columbia has nothing to do with the two of you being my first fantasy stops.😉) The flank steaks from @BKEats, @ddelima, and @tonyrocks922 influenced me. Couldn’t find flank, so there’s a London broil in the fridge for tomorrow! For dinner Friday night I was planning on making Hamburger Helper (which is a guilty pleasure for both of us), but discovered that we had hamburger, but no helper. We did have Kraft deluxe mac and cheese (another guilty pleasure), so I Googled and came up with a rather dismal sounding recipe including both of those and catsup and mustard. Mr. Kim looked stricken and appalled and begged that I just make hamburgers or something (something he never does). LOLOLOLOL. Not sure what these ended up being, but they were tasty: I made a sauce with fried onions, Bisto, a little red wine, thyme, pepper and, at the last minute, a little sour cream. Served with the mac and cheese and some leftover broccoli: And some ATK sandwich bread: Saturday night: Chicken thighs done in the CSO, leftover potatoes and broccoli, and dressing. Fixed up Bisto gravy. Very good, especially the chicken. Mr. Kim went on and on about it. With my MIL’s somewhat denuded hot cross buns: Sunday we had a late lunch at Arby’s after grocery shopping, so a very late dinner: Mortadella on white with yellow mustard, black grapes and Pringles.

@Duvel – I love rabbit liver! I had it for the first time at Cochon in New Orleans. It was fried and served with pepper jelly. So incredibly good. I have an abundance of chicken livers in the freezer portioned for one since no one else here likes it and I think it is time to thaw a packet! @rotuts – “Chef forgot the béchamel , and the ricotta w fresh basil” made Mr. Kim and me chuckle! It also started a wonderful conversation about eating canned pasta as children and what a treat it was. And how we still crave it occasionally . On Saturday, it was our groups’ at church turn to make 100 lunches for 3 homeless shelters in our area. For safety’s sake – to limit everyone’s exposure to other folks – Mr. Kim and I did the lunches alone: 100 bags – turkey sandwiches, snack bags of pretzels, bananas, Little Debbie snack cakes and drinks. When we were done delivering, we picked up our lunches from Lulabell’s Café. I had the Lee: Roasted turkey, beef, bacon, Cheddar and BBQ sauce on a brioche roll with an apple salad. Mr. Kim had the Marjorie: Roasted turkey, Swiss, sauerkraut, Russian dressing on rye. With potato salad. Today: A craving that I was lucky enough to be able to satisfy. We had some Campari tomatoes and two slices (one was the heel) of squishy white bread leftover from making sandwiches for the shelters on Saturday. A lot of Dukes and S&P and I had a right drippy sandwich.

That one looks like a 3 egg to me. That's about the limit of what I can fit in my 7-inch saute pan. Sometimes if we want the same kind of omelet, I'll do 4 eggs and split it between the two of us. The fluffiness is really just whisking thoroughly. We had an omelet in NOLA at the Camellia Grill that looked perfect, but was a little dry. They mixed those in a blender. Mine are still pretty moist. I do add about 1 tablespoon of water per egg (I used a half eggshell, so that's approximate 😉).

@blue_dolphin – so freaking weird! I have had a bag of pão de queijo in my freezer for a few months. I saw them in the grocery store and was intrigued. I finally made them a few weeks ago and wasn’t impressed – they were very bland. I happened to mention them to a friend who is an incredible cook and has even taught cooking classes. I asked if she’d ever had them and what she thought. She had (of course) eaten them. Actually IN Brazil. She loves them and offered to send me a recipe, which I received Saturday – the day you posted your message about them. I can't wait to try them. A question, though: is tapioca flour the same as tapioca starch? Breakfast this morning was an improvisation. Toasted thin-sliced ATK sandwich bread, spread with Salmon cream cheese and sprinkled with Trader Joe’s Everything Bagel seasoning and an IP hard cooked egg: That toast was great. Not exactly an ET bagel and lox, but close enough in taste that this qualifies as a wonderful breakfast or snack!

We are fans of the single fold big, fluffy omelet. Filled to the bursting point with goodies. Mine are mostly pig and cheese. Mr. Kim likes those, but also vegetables and hot stuff, being a stunt eater par excellence. Here's a good example from last year:

My heart was quaking reading your post and I was trying to figure out how to respond. And then @donk79 said it all - more eloquently than I ever could. All I’ll do is repeat that you are much more than a screen name!

@DanM - we already have a lot of information on that subject. There are multiple threads on it. Lots of good information for you. A veritable rabbit hole!

As some of you know, our church participates in a food program for 3 local homeless shelters. We share this project with other Episcopal churches in our area. Once a month, we make 100 bag lunches to deliver to the shelters. We have enough volunteers that each group only has to do it every three months. Mr. Kim and I are group leaders of one of the groups and we also deliver the lunches to the shelters. I am a shopper for the supplies, a job I share with one other person. This month was my turn to shop and also to make lunches. To lower the exposure, Mr. Kim and I decided to do the lunch prep by ourselves. He took yesterday off and we did the shopping together. Our church has a Sam's credit card and tax exempt ID card which also works at Walmart. The other shopper and I agreed that if we couldn't find what we needed at those two stores, we'd shop where we could and just get reimbursed. The regular lunches include a sandwich (bologna in cold weather, PB & J in hot), a snack bag of pretzels, a snack cake (Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies), and a banana. We take large soda bottles to each home plus apple juice to the one with children. We managed to get everything we needed but had to sub turkey for bologna, as Sam's had none. And since I'll be making 100 sandwiches by myself while Mr. Kim stuffs each lunch bag, I was not about to do PB&J! I had not experienced the whole line up outside situation until yesterday at Sam's. There were maybe 50 people in line when we got there and they were letting folks in in groups rather than one out, one in. We only waited about 1/2 hour to get in. People were being good about keeping distance and most folks were wearing masks. There are some changes I will make to my method when I do my next shop. In general, the stores in my area seem to be pretty well stocked. If you want fresh produce, you are fine. Meats, chicken, and fish are available if you are willing to go to multiple stores. TP and paper towels, also. What cannot be found at all, it seems, are disposable disinfecting/sanitizing wipes, cleansers, etc.

Lunch a couple of days ago - a lazy egg salad sandwich:

I would have gladly traded my whomp biscuits last night for @kayb's muffins, @Ann_T's biscuits, or @shain's Syrniki (which has me craving pancakes yet again!) This morning: Bacon, ATK sandwich bread, and IP soft cooked eggs. I confess that it seems a little self-indulgent to pull out that giant machine to make breakfast for ONE, but they are so good. My mom was a pretty good cook. She didn't stretch herself, but what she cooked, she cooked well. (Except for pork - she was under the spell of the "cook it all to hell or you'll die from trichinosis" people). She could make a soft boiled egg perfectly. I used to tease my English stepdad that that was why he married her - his favorite breakfast was soft boiled eggs and toast soldiers! Until I got the IP, I have never been able to do a predictable soft cooked egg. I'm sure the novelty will wear off, but for now, I'm in a gooey, yellow heaven!

I have got to make some char siu! @Shelby – question re: crawfish tails. Do they come pre-seasoned? Or can you adjust the heat on them? I detest spice, so I’ve steered clear of them since people always seem to talk about the spiciness. Breakfast for dinner last night: Regular bacon, mini pierogis, scrambled eggs, and leftover whomp biscuits. With some fruit: