Kim Shook

I was out all day finishing my Christmas shopping, so rotisserie chicken, Stove Top dressing and succotash: Mr. Kim smoked some pork butts today for a work Christmas party next week:

Plain old cheese toast made with deli slice American cheese: One of the most satisfying and comforting things on Earth!

That sounds like what I would call Swiss Steak. Funny how families and regions call things so many different names. Last night was breakfast for dinner: Eggs on toast, Benton bacon and sage sausage.

Welcome, Alan! The link didn't work for me, either. Looking forward to your contributions.

I actually quite like the salty, meaty punch of canned corned beef. It was always a breakfast food for us - slid out of the can and sliced and fried in butter. Momma always served it with eggs. As an adult, I decided it needed hash browns on the side, too. I don't ever try to sub it for actual corned beef - completely different thing to me.

Welcome, Bryan! I think that once you establish yourself here, you'll get lots of questions! You should try to get your wife to join, too. We used to have a few spouse teams here, but I don't think they participate anymore. It's always fun!

Another hot dog dinner tonight (still working down the freezer):

So, it's 12:14am and I just finished my shopping list for tomorrow. It includes all of my make ahead stuff for our Christmas Eve party, Christmas morning breakfast and all the sweets and food gifts. It doesn't include the hams (already bought). There is also a "week before" list and a "last minute" list. I don't expect anyone to actually READ it, but I thought it might be fun to see it and compare with other folks' preparations. Keep in mind that Mr. Kim won't be home until about 6pm and I need to try to get this all done before I need to be home to put my mom to bed. Worst comes to worst, I can come home, put her to bed and go back out to Walmart. Not my favorite store, but it's the only one open 24 hours. PRODUCE 8 lb. russets or Yukon Gold 4 lemons 1 large or two small onions DELI ham FRUIT 4 (10 oz.) can crushed pineapple MEAT Bacon 2 lb. B’fast sausage FROZEN Frozen OJ Waffles GENERAL GROCERY 3/4 c. peanut powder - plain, no added salt or sugar sm cider vinegar Mustard BAKING light brown sugar 10 lb. sugar 5 lb. bread flour 2 - 7 oz. marshmallow crème 2 Lg. can evap milk 2 cup dark corn syrup Better Crocker GF yellow cake mix active dry yeast 1 cup slivered almonds DAIRY 1/2 gallon milk 2 doz. Eggs 4 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese, cubed 4 (8oz.) cup sour cream 4 (12 oz.) package refrigerated buttermilk biscuits (10 count) 1 c. heavy cream 3 oz. Gruyère cheese, grated (about 1 C.) Sugar Cookie Dough 4 RX fenof/jenta ASIAN MARKET 6 c. raw peanuts CUPERTINO’S Bagels TRADER JOE’S 3 milk chocolate WMART Depends Green paint tape Marshmallows 11x17pan WORLD MARKET Xmas crackers Cookies $10 ECW gift $ TREE 4 – 13x9 11x17

Mr. Kim’s family has a tradition of serving fondue on tree decorating night. Dessert is always chocolate fondue. Toblerone Honey-Almond fondue: Pound cake and angel food cake: Bananas, cherries, marshmallows, dried apricots, dates and dried figs. Those marshmallows were amazing. I found them wandering around Walmart at 1am a couple of weeks ago. As you can see, they are very girly: I would have bet they were from Mexico or Asia (a friend who grew up in Thailand thought Asian, too), but they are from Spain. The brand name is Yummallow. They are very, very faintly fruity and extremely soft. We toasted them: Ending up with a perfectly charred marshmallow: Dipped in chocolate: Have mercy, they were SO good. They get melty all the way through and are incredibly creamy.

I’ve posted before about Mr. Kim’s family’s tradition of fondue for tree decorating night. Beef fondue and chocolate. The beef part was dinner on Sunday (the chocolate ended up being done last night because we couldn’t face a rich dessert after stuffing ourselves with fried beef! I’ll post that in the Daily Sweets thread). This was the beef fondue part: Steak sauce, BBQ sauce, horseradish sauce and sirloin: Blanched broccoli, steamed potatoes, cocktail onions, and cornichon: Salad: Béarnaise: (Just a packet mix). Beer batter for the broccoli and mushrooms (not pictured): Crusty bread: Samples of the mushrooms and broccoli: Since we knew that dessert was going to be major last night, I served a very simple supper – just cheese, crackers, and soup. Cheddar and Habanero cheeses: And plain old Lipton chicken noodle: With no visible noodles. One of my childhood comfort foods that I still love.

Absolutely, I have. They freeze beautifully.

Us, too. It just depends on how I feel when I'm ready to plate. Sometimes I want it all gooshed together and sometimes I want a little of that plain pasta to contrast with the meaty sauce. My bolognese tends to be very "saucy", so after a couple of bites, it mixes in anyway. My MIL makes a delicious bolognese that is much less liquid - very chunky with meat and vegetables and I especially like that one "un-mixed". @Ann_T - I'm so glad that you have Moe home now and that he is doing better. I'm sure that it will have to be watched, but I'm so glad that it was caught when it was. Please know you are both in my thoughts (actually, you all are already in my thoughts - I talk about your bread and Moe's breakfasts a LOT😊).

I'm so sad to hear about this. Katie is such a light!

Last night started with chopped salad: Then pot roast soup: We never can decide if we prefer the original dish or the soup. We love this soup a lot. and crescent rolls: Something about the pillowy warmth of these things just seems to go with soup to me.

My sad emoji was for throwing candy away.

I liked the cinnamon corn flakes, but then I am a Seinfeld level cereal lover. I am also a kid when it comes to cereal - my very favorite is Lucky Charms 😊. I think that it comes from having a mom who only bought Wheat Chex and Shredded Wheat 😒. I almost never eat it for breakfast, though. To me, cereal is a dinner replacement or a midnight snack.

I made @andiesenji's cream biscuits tonight. I didn't have any self-rising flour, but did have cake flour, so I added salt and baking powder. They were very good and incredibly easy: I think that I undercooked them slightly because a couple of them tasted of flour. I will definitely be making these again.

Anyone tried or know anyone who has tried an oil-less turkey fryer?

I have two pints of whipping cream left over from Thanksgiving. No one felt like making whipped cream for the pies and my MIL brought some canned stuff. Anyway, there was a discussion elsewhere on eG about @andiesenji's cream biscuits. Decided to make them: They were incredibly easy and very tasty, but I think that I undercooked them a bit – a couple of them tasted of flour. In the midst of trying to use down the freezers. Found a big chuck roast and made Trashy Pot Roast in the slow cooker: With leftover Sour Cream/Cheddar potatoes and green beans:

Temp? Time? Making these tonight. Thanks!!!

This has been on our shelf for a long time: It was a gift to Mr. Kim some time ago. We both thought it was something to rub on a pork belly before smoking. We were mistaken. It is just a sugar/cornmeal/spice mixture to put on slices of bacon before roasting. Gave it a try this morning on some Benton bacon: It was…fine. Certainly no better than my candied bacon. And I’m sure it wasn’t cheap. You only use 1 tsp. per piece of bacon and we won’t always want it that way, so this will most likely last us the rest of our lives. We need to put it in the will, I guess. A couple of slices with raisin challah for breakfast:

Was that regular cat litter? Because I'm wondering if the clumping stuff would work. Unless, of course, that was clumping litter.

At Jessica’s request, we hosted Thanksgiving this year. Table for 10: Jess and I made most of the food, but everyone brought something. Jessica made the starters - Liptauer cheese and pumpernickel cocktail bread: And Brown Sugar Rosemary Cashews: Dinner – relish tray and crudité and dips: Olives – Castelvetrano, kalamata, green Pickles – my MIL, Jo’s pickled green tomatoes, baby kosher dills Williamsburg Peanut Soup (Jess): This was good, but we both agreed, it needs some work. The recipe was supposed to be the same one served at the Kings Arms Tavern, but that’s got to be a lie. The predominant flavor was peanut butter. The recipe calls for regular peanut butter – so it was too sweet. We are thinking no sugar added PB and maybe some acid and shallots. I found a WAPO article that calls for no PB at all, only peanuts. My turkey breast: Made the day before, sliced and stored with some chicken stock and reheated today in a slow cooker with stock. Moist and tender. My sour cream potatoes with Cheddar: Made last week and frozen. Just thawed and reheated in the slow cooker. Jessica’s sweet potato gnocchi w/ browned butter sage sauce: My MIL, Judy’s broccoli casserole: Jessica’s roasted mushrooms: The hit of the night (so I heard – I didn’t eat them). Jessica’s challah dressing with dried fruit: Jessica’s corn pudding: My SIL’s fruit salad: My cranberry and orange sauce: My gravy: My MIL, Jo’s rolls: My niece’s pecan and pumpkin pies: My MIL, Jo made an apple pie, but I missed getting a picture of that.

Sausage.

Had this egg and sausage casserole for breakfast yesterday morning: We wanted the leftovers this morning. Leftover egg casseroles never taste very good. Microwaving overcooks and toughens the egg custard and the oven just dries them out. So, I did the leftovers in the CSO on convection/steam at 350F for about 10 minutes. It was JUST as good this morning as it was yesterday.