Kim Shook

Welcome, MoonChild! I think it has been some time since we've had an active member from Hawaii! I'm decidedly NOT a chocolatier, but enjoy watching the folks here - expert or not. Have fun!

@robirdstx – I noticed on your burger wrapper that it says “Frozen Custard”. I am a custard fanatic and will choose it over any ice cream/froyo/gelato anywhere. But sometimes I find that it is really just soft serve and NOT true frozen custard. How is the custard at Freddy’s? Because I notice that they have one in Fredericksburg VA – not too far to go for really good custard. @blue_dolphin – lovely looking TJ’s potato pancakes. Certainly better looking that mine ever are. I’ll have to look for them. Lunch (brunch) after church yesterday with Mr. Kim. He found a new (to us) place he thought I'd like: The couple who started this place have a fascinating backstory. They have a successful Brooklyn restaurant and decided that they wanted to start one here, where neither of them is from. We really enjoyed the meal and the staff and the feel of the place and plan to go back. It really is one of those places that you wish you lived close to. We live out in the suburbs and always planned on moving back into the city neighborhood that we love when Jessica got out of school and the neighborhood priced themselves right out of our range! Bread service: Bottom piece was focaccia and the bean thing had olive oil, herbs, and red pepper flakes besides the (slightly too al dente) beans. I had the Chicken Parmigiano with spaghetti pomodoro: So perfectly classic and SO good. The chicken was a beautifully pounded out paillard – very tender. Mr. Kim had the Eggs Polenta: Poached eggs w/ shaved fennel, prosciutto di Parma and Parmigiano: It was a great combination and tasted lovely. We had no interest in dessert. Then we saw that the servers were carrying around a large copper saucepan full of chocolate sauce and ladling it over various desserts. We got vanilla gelato: Today (because I forgot that I had the other half of my chicken Parm and spaghetti in the fridge ☹️), I had frozen shrimp and some copy-cat Bang-Bang sauce for dipping:

Leftovers this week. Saturday, I just put out a bunch of bits and pieces. Crackers, beef stick, and Cheddar: Artichoke and spinach dip with chips: Shrimp and Crab Bisque and buttered toast: Last night was salad and a re-run (though, except for the sauce, not actually leftover) of the Aldi pork schnitzel we had the other night:

I love all the beautiful mixing bowls that I see everywhere. My mom had some lovely Mason Cash ones that my English grandmother started bringing Momma when Nanny started developing arthritis. But I have arthritis, too, so lightweight is what I have to go with. I have some very rigid plastic nested ones that have pour spouts, but my favorite are the cheapo metal ones I found at a Dollar General probably 20 years ago. I bought them in every available size - I ended up with 4 for probably less than $20. When we were cleaning out my grandmother's house, I grabbed her biggest metal bowl: It is the perfect size for mixing up dressing or party-sized salads. Not sure how much it holds (I don't want to waste that much water), but I did measure it. Seems odd that it is so big and only 6-inches deep!

I can honestly say that I've never felt "funny" dining anywhere alone in the US. Of course that only includes DC, VA, MD, NC, SC, NYC, FL, IN, and Chicago. I've also never dined alone at a truly upscale restaurant.

Stories and memories like this are my favorite part of eG. Thanks, @chromedome!

Mr. Kim just had a good idea: Pretzel Pop Tarts with cheese filling.

I think about this subject fairly often, but especially when I am thinking about converting a slow cooker recipe to sous vide. While I love the texture and juiciness I get with sous vide, I find that I often want a sauce. And I have quite a few slow cooker recipes that I know have good sauces, but the meat tends to be a little on the dry side. Thus my ideas about converting. I thought this might be a topic with legs if other folks are having the same questions. I'd like to make this recipe: Cranberry Pork Roast. I found a nice little pork loin roast (2.88 lb.) and have rubbed it with Penzey's Ozark seasoning and sucked it (family lingo for vacuum bagging). My thought is to sous vide it and make the sauce on the side and just serve it with/in/on top of the sauce. Advice? Thoughts? Warnings? Also, if you think that this is more of an IP thing tell me that, too. And, considering that the sauce is sweet, would you do it in steps in the IP? Thanks so much!

Store brand 'veeta.

My first post in this topic. I planned to go to Popeye's for a chicken sandwich (rumour has it that they are back again in our area), but so did every construction worker in the county. So, I decided to try out a place that I've been wanting to go to for a long time. It is called Skrimp Shack. It is a semi-local family owned chain. It started in Newport News VA (about 75 miles away from us) and the chain is mostly in VA and NC. I ordered the lunch shrimp (am boycotting the whole "skrimp" pronunciation) and haddock with a drink and mac n cheese. It was just over $10. I was really pleased. The shrimp were very big and I couldn't finish the fish, the serving was so large. Same with the really, really good mac n cheese. The tartar sauce and cocktail sauces were their brand and in sealed pouches and very, very good. I was happy about that. I'm always surprised and disappointed in FISH restaurants that serve rubbish sauces. I had a good book and a topic I started in FB was blowing up with friends/family on opposite sides having at each other. 😁🤣😊

We definitely need that "WOW" emoji.

The cinnamon one is still one of my favorites. I like the berry ones, too. It's funny that we never got Pop Tarts or junky cereals because my mom wasn't the Healthy Homemaker at all. Honestly, I probably didn't think to ask for them. Most of the time, she shopped alone on the way home from work (smart lady), so I wasn't there to ask for stuff when I saw it and she just bought what she needed. Cereal was almost always Cheerios, Wheat Chex, or Rice Krispies; bread was "diet" - Hollywood or Roman Meal and toasted pastries never happened. Once I went to college and had my own apartment, though, I went to town. Lucky Charms, Wonderbread, and Pop Tarts! My cabinets looked like toddler shopping.

I can't figure out why the yolk (eyes?) are sunken in - it's happened in both the eggs and the cheese!

Are you vacationing in Area 51?

I would definitely try these. I think they've missed an opportunity, though - they need to make one with peanut butter filling. Those PB filled pretzel nuggets are super popular.

I, too, wish to be re-run as Moe. This morning:

I don't know who will remember Doddie - @Domestic Goddess. She hasn't visited in almost 10 years. She did a wonderful food blog back in 2007. She is Filipino and was living in S. Korea. I got a recipe from her almost exactly 10 years ago for Ham & Crab Salad. In my list of ingredients I have listed "fake crab" - what I call Krab or surimi. I always saw it as a cheat - a guilty pleasure. I ate it as a poor college student when I wanted shrimp or crab. I discovered on my own that it made a very good "Krab" Louie. I remember Doddie saying that it was very popular in Asia and that I should think of it not as fake crab, but as @heidih said on the Dinner thread "its own thing". I put it in a bisque last night and it was fine, but probably not it's best use - it is so mild that the flavor kind of gets lost if it is in something too complicated. I think it works best cold and in salad-type applications. I'd love to hear what others do with this. Listen, if Spam can have it's own thread, surely surimi can😁! One suggestion, though - I had no idea what kamaboku meant and probably wouldn't have come to this topic without your post in the dinner thread, @heidih. And, seeing @CatIsHungry's post, it seems that there are other names for it, as well. Could the name of the thread be changed to include the other names, maybe. We might get a bigger response that way.

Salad with the usual stuff plus apples and bleu cheese: With Panera Mediterranean Lemon vinaigrette. They were sampling this dressing at Publix the other day and we liked it a lot. Nice and tangy. With some oregano, it would make a great Greek dressing. Crab and shrimp seafood bisque: This redundantly named soup started with a recipe from a friend’s FB post that looked good. When I finished making the base, I was a bit underwhelmed. So, I started playing with it. I ended up adding hot sauce, Old Bay, nutmeg, Worcestershire, and some lobster stock I had in the freezer. I already had most of what the recipe called for at home and decided to economize by using surimi instead of blue crab. I have unabashedly embraced surimi ever since Doddie ( @Domestic Goddess ) told me how popular it is in South Korea and to NOT think of it as imitation crab, but as its own thing. It is NOT crab. But it is good in lots of applications that call for crab. And I can have those things a lot more often if I use surimi. So – surimi and shrimp bisque! It turned out quite good. My tongue is still acting weird – everything feels (but doesn’t taste) spicy. Still, we both liked it very much. Hawaiian rolls: I need to remember to cover rolls with foil in the CSO – I’ve burnt the last few batches. ☹️

I adore dining out alone! I am almost never without a book and sitting enjoying a meal and reading is my idea of heaven. Since I quit smoking 9 weeks ago, I am missing the end of meal light up as soon as I leave the restaurant, but I'm getting used to it. Most of my lunches out are guilty pleasures (buffets, meat and 3 joints, etc.), but I'll be happy to play!

@CantCookStillTry – I think that corned beef pasty (because, basically…right?) sounds fantastic. Gorgeous looking pastry there, too! @Okanagancook – lovely lamb chop dinner. I just finished putting together the base for crab and shrimp chowder and now I’m dying for a giant baked potato with everything! @lindag – I will offer no advice on meatloaf. There is nothing else in my culinary world that I like so much and suck so bad at making. Mr. Kim says my meatloaf makes a lovely base for Bolognese 🙄. Nine times out of ten, it doesn’t hold together at all. Sigh. Best of luck with all of the GOOD advice. @BonVivant – the dogfish looks so good. I’ve given up trying to get it here. Even the high-end fish monger doesn’t get it. When I asked, he said no one will buy it. ☹️ Dinner last night started with a salad with Momofuku ranch: Pork schnitzel from Aldi (breaded and frozen, but raw), leftover noodles and Brussels sprouts au gratin and some cinnamon peaches that we were gifted: Pork with some sauce that we won’t ever be able to have again because I just tossed a bunch of stuff in the pan and didn’t take any notes😁: Fond from pan, butter, pepper, lemon juice, shallots, Dijon, whipping cream, and a jar of pork gravy from the cupboard. The pork, which was bought as an emergency freezer item (there a many things that constitute an emergency in the Shook household - including culinary ennui 😉), was surprisingly good. I'm sure that my "seat of the pants" sauce helped, but it was pretty tasty all by itself.

Thank you so much! I do make the green apple ice in an ice cream maker, but if you look at the recipe, you'll see that @Lisa2k says you can do it in a shallow tray. I happen to have a little cheapo ice cream maker (a hand me down from my MIL's neighbor) that doesn't make very good ice cream, but comes out once a year to make THIS. 😁 I, too, love the fact that it is made with dried figs. The window for fresh figs is so small and it never comes along at the same time as good apples in my area. I love finding dried fig recipes! I hope you get a chance to make this and enjoy it. The recipe looks a little complicated and there are a few steps, but each step is really simple and most can be done ahead of time.

@suzilightning– so sorry you are feeling bad. The bottom crust trick is a good one – I never thought of it. Hope you are feeling better soon. @Anna N – lovely lunch. I wish I could find such gorgeous terrines around here. @lindag – sounds delicious! I noticed mince tarts at Wegman’s last week and put them on my Christmas Eve shopping list. Lunch today was just leftovers from last night’s take out. I seem to be developing some kind of crud – coughing and my tongue feels weird – so Mr. Kim went and picked up Chinese. Shrimp fried rice and hot & sour soup:

Here you go! It was under his 'real' name rather than his eG handle!

We really love it. I am starting to sniff that "Well, if it is SO popular, how good can it possibly be?" attitude. I try not not be swayed by either raves or denunciations. I know you'll make up your own mind, too!

We had some folks over for dinner last night. The calm before…: Started with @Michael Ruhlman's cheese souffles: Bourdain’s Boeuf Bourguignon: I served it with what the package called “spätzle”: They weren’t, but they were good. I usually buy kluski noodles when I want a sturdy egg noodle but couldn’t find them anywhere. These were a good substitute. I also did Jessica’s roasted mushrooms on the side, so folks could add them, if they were so inclined: They smelled so much like escargot that I tasted one. They were decidedly NOT like escargot. 🤢 Butter lettuce and tomato salad with the Momofuku dressing: Brussels sprouts au gratin from @slkinsey: Bread machine brioche: @Lisa2k's Fig/Mascarpone/Apple Tart with Green Apple Ice for dessert: For lunch today we went to a new cheese shop. Dinner tonight was just stuff set out from the shop and leftovers from last night made into soup: Baguette and cheeses: Taleggio, Red Dragon (Cheddar and mustard seeds), Valdeon, and Robiola Bosina. Butter, pimento cheese (a homemade brand I got at a local Holiday Bazaar), dates, fig jam, oatcakes, and dates. Dessert was a triple chocolate croissant bought at the same bakery that made the baguette: