Kim Shook

@C. sapidus - I can't tell you how happy it makes me to open a topic and see your beautiful swimmer! Lunch was leftovers from dinner a couple of nights ago: Pork schnitzel turned into pork Parm 😄, with fettucine Alfredo and a salad.

@BeeZee - I've noticed the prices going up, too. I'm not good about remembering prices at different places, but my feeling is that the price difference between Lidl and "regular" grocery stores isn't as wide as it once was. Though, I did recently shop at Lidl and then Kroger right afterwards and compared the Kroger prices against my Lidl receipt. All but one thing was cheaper at Lidl. Not by a huge amount, but enough to make a difference.

I am one of those people who delight in laughing at dumb people. Clumsy ones, too. I can barely get the concerned "are you ok?" out around my gasps of ill-stifled laughter. Just ask my daughter.

Supposed to last a week. 3/7 - 3/9 is only three days - a bit short of a week.

@Shelby – you really should try the biscuits. I promise they are simple to make. Just remember to dust your scoop with flour – this is VERY sticky dough. @Kerala – I love the idea of fish pie, though I’ve never had one. I just did a quick BBC GoodFood search and discovered that a package of mixed fish for fish pie is sold in Britain. Is this awful or convenient? Ok, have a seat. It’s time for another episode of “Kim Bitches About A Cooking Fail”. There are a few things that well versed home cooks seem to have down. Among those things are pasta and pizza. I have never had any luck with either of those. BUT, I had some “fresh” mozzarella I wanted to use up, so I decided to try pizza again. I use the quotation marks because it wasn’t truly fresh – it was the packaged, sliced Bel Gioioso soft mozzarella that is labeled fresh. It is soft, but not that almost oozy stuff that’s packed in water. Anyway, like I said, I have a history with pizza dough. A history of it becoming the most resistant to stretching bunch of stuff I’ve ever handled. To try to avoid that, I bought at ball of the already made up at Publix and found a set of instructions online. As instructed, I let the dough sit out for an hour before trying to roll it out and I heated my oven to 450F. The website recipe that I was using said to pre-bake the stretched dough before topping. Stretching the dough brought back bad memories. No matter how much I rolled and stretched and knuckled, it seemed to snap right back. I finally got it stretched out to a somewhat reasonable size (developing major gluten, I guess, from all the handling). I didn’t measure, but I’m guessing it was about 12-inches. I put it in the oven on my pizza stone (I know it’s ridiculous, but I’ve had a pizza stone in my oven for years – sometimes I’ll crisp bread on it, but mostly it just sits uselessly in there) and after seven minutes, this is what I pulled out of the oven: This can’t be right. That thing looked like a badly risen round loaf. I pressed it down as much as it would go and proceeded to top it, as instructed. I brushed the edges with olive oil, spread about 1/4 cup of tomato sauce in the middle, topped with Boar’s Head sandwich pepperoni, the aforementioned mozzarella, and a shower of Parmesan. I shoved it back into the oven (which had been raised to 500F) for about 10 minutes. This was the state of the pie at that point: That excrescence at the bottom left was a burnt bubble. Bubbles are perhaps my favorite part of a pizza, but this was just black and sad. I waited 5 minutes to cut it and in that amount of time, it cooled off enough that the cheese was chewy and didn’t stretch at all. I forgot to get a cross section photo until the 7th when it was cold, but it didn’t change much: It was dense and chewy (not in a good way). On a positive note, it all tasted good. I wouldn’t mind so much if we lived somewhere we could get great pizza, but the pizza here is, at best, good. There was also salad: Sigh. Dinner last night was an easy version of “veal” Parm. Aldi seasonally stocks some decent frozen pork schnitzel. It’s raw and breaded and you fry it. We had some left and I was inspired. Mr. Kim’s plate with fettucine and broccoli: It also helped use up more of that “fresh” mozzarella. It melted a little better this time. My plate with Alfredo sauce instead of marinara on the pasta (better for my potassium intake), though I did put a dab of the marinara on my “Parm”.

It took me forever. Pie WEEK. From 3/7 - 3/9.

@Kerala - for some reason the only Wensleydale that I can find (Richmond VA US) is the kind with fruit, which I love - on a cracker. I'd love to find it without the fruit so that I could incorporate it into other things like eggs. I'm pretty happy with the bagels we are able to get here, but the European deli that I've recently discovered supposedly gets bagels from NY every day. I'm looking forward to trying those. My thinking is that no matter how good they are, they're still day old bagels. And are day old NYC bagels going to be better than fresh that morning local bagels? We'll see. We did a three local bagel place tasting last year. Maybe to a winner of that head to head with the NYC ones. Yesterday: OM eggs with some with some bits and pieces of leftover country ham and some toast to pile it on. This morning: Lidl sausage links, IP eggs, and toast with the lovely and delicious Little Scarlet preserves.

The last thing that will die on me is my laugh. In the depths of depression, grief, despair, and fear I laugh. It is part of my make up from a very young age. When I was a young women I used to say that I could put up with a lot from a man except for cheapness and no sense of humor. So we may die broke, but we'll still be laughing. In my family we laugh at everything. My mom and I completely embarrassed my grandmother once by getting the giggles (we were BOTH adults) in church. So, yeah, I appreciate this thread and laugh at food that takes a weird or sordid turn on the way from conception to the plate.

Mr. Kim will love this. Thanks for posting the link. His favorite cookies that I make also use all three sorts of ginger. I got that book from the library and it is definitely going on my wishlist.

We’ve been snacking on this stuff for three days and still haven’t definitively decided if we really like it or not: By and large, we do. But every so often there’s some funny back flavor (the kind you only tastes when you exhale after a bite) that makes us wonder. In a few days I'll be snacking on these - my grandmother's "Quick Pickles". She said they were a cheat to get sweet, crisp pickles that were better than you could buy. Start with small kosher dills that you slice up: Add sugar and vinegar: and refrigerate and flip over every day until the sugar dissolves and "cures" the pickles. Crazy recipe, but she was right - these are better than any sweet pickle I've ever bought. I brought these up years ago, either here or at Chowhound (that tells you how long ago it was) and someone inquired in the snottiest tones possible, "So...you used PICKLES to make...PICKLES?" LOLOLOLOL Twit.

@Dejah – thank you! Just as I thought – I’ve never seen that brand before. I’m betting they are only available in Canada. @Dante – your “turtle” soup looks delicious. “Mock Turtle Soup” is a tradition in the area of Southern Indiana that we lived in many years ago and a friend was kind enough to invite me to help her make it and gave me her family recipe. I haven’t made it for years, but your soup has me thinking about it now! @Ann_T – well, you may not have loved it, but that pizza looks like an excellent version of Detroit pizza. I don’t much care for deep dish, but I think I’d love the crisp edges and crust on a Detroit. Last night was breakfast for dinner – sausage and Cheddar quiche: Blackberries, grapes, and mandarin oranges: Two ingredient Cream Biscuits: This was my first time making these. I think it was @Dave the Cook who mentioned them. This was Kenji’s recipe on seriouseats.com. Lovely and fluffy. Really good, but not suited to a biscuit sandwich. Made me wish I had some clotted cream! Served with some Benton’s country ham: I discovered that, as much as I love Benton’s bacon, I really prefer Edward’s country ham.

Actually, I’d like some of both, please. (I’m not big on choosing.) 😁 @rotuts – I’m glad you found your lower salt Spam. I’m not a fan, but it looks so good that I just added canned corned beef to my shopping list! Just another salty mystery meat guilty pleasure! @C. sapidus- So happy to see you back, Bruce! You have been missed here at eG. I have thought of you so often and wondered how you and your family were doing. I’m so glad to hear that everyone sounds happy and healthy! @Ann_T – I can’t imagine many things I’d rather sit down at breakfast to than those gorgeous tomatoes and your bread toasted. @kayb – I do bacon and cream cheese all the time but I’ve never thought of pepper jelly! Thank you, ma’am! This morning: Leftover two ingredient cream biscuits – slathered with butter and honey – and sage sausage.

@Ann_T – the turkey dinner is gorgeous! And the hot turkey sandwich and fries is even better, if that’s possible. If good people go to heaven, good turkeys go to hot sandwiches with gravy😄! @Shelby – everything looks so good. And I like that way of serving the wings. That would be perfect for me – I could just drizzle a little sauce on my wings and they wouldn’t be so spicy. Have you ever tried @Norm Matthews' Korean-Style Wings? You really should – they are amazing. You can make them as hot as you want or make them not hot and pass gochujang for the spice fans. I transformed 2 little picky girls into wing eaters with them. Also, they stay crispy a LONG time. Like HOURS. And I’m saving those IP poached egg directions. Do you think a silicone cupcake pan would work? I think I mentioned last month that one of the Xmas gifts we gave Jessica was a three-month cheese share from our local cheese shop. Mr. Kim picked it up a couple of nights ago and adding some other stuff that was dinner Tuesday night. The cheese/meat tray: From twelve o’clock: Schlossberger Aged – Kaserei Eyweid (cows milk, unpasteurized, from Switzerland, aged 18-23 months); Piave Vecchio (cows milk, Italy, pasteurized); Albala Tierno (sheeps milk, pasteurized, Spain); beef sausage, “fresh” mozzarella, and aged Gouda. The three with the little stickers on them were from Truckle. We also had a baguette from Lidl and raw vegetables: Dessert was some German goodies I picked up after Christmas at Lidl:

If anyone wants any of the recipes from my pasta class, I’ll be glad to put them in my own words and post them. Not feeling great today and needing some culinary TLC: Ham, salami, and American cheese on toast and Lipton chicken noodle soup.

@Ann_T -thanks for the instructions. I’m looking forward to trying those soon. Cheese Whiz is also one of my guilty pleasures! It is my “cheeze” of choice on a cheesesteak and I just discovered that one of my favorite sandwiches (loose, seasoned ground beef cooked on a griddle and mixed with processed cheese) is called a “Chopped Cheese” in NY. @DianaB – Like you I hadn’t ever tasted Spam and I confessed that at large here in 2019. One day I received an anonymous packet of a “Spam single” (a large slice in a foil-like envelope). It turned out that it was sent by @suzilightning❤️. Another sweet, generous gesture like sending folks her read through magazines and discarded cookbooks. I had to confess to not being a Spam person after trying it. I pan fried it and it was nice and crisp outside, but unpleasantly (to me) mushy inside. I did like the flavor, though. Yesterday: Mini quiche, waffles (frozen), and link sausage. This morning: Sausage and English muffins with my beloved Tiptree Little Scarlet preserves that Santa brought me for Xmas.

Jessica went up to spend the day in Washington yesterday to do some Smithsonian-ing and brought back some British goodies from a shop in Union Market: We’ve been indulging in one of our favorite things we do when we have British toffee – chewing up the toffee to soften and then biting into a Granny Smith apple. It’s like the best caramel apple in the world! For Americans who aren't familiar with British toffee, it's like very firm and very intense caramel. Gorgeous!

Welcome, Tim! I'm so glad you found us. We are a pretty friendly bunch and we are happy to share any expertise we have (like @kayb, mine wouldn't be candymaking 😁 ).

Epic combination! Salty ham and sweet oysters (I know that some are a little salty, but they are sweeter than country ham). I do a small plate with fresh succotash, cornbread, country ham, crabmeat and jalapeno cream and it has that same profile - now I'm thinking of subbing little fried oysters for the lump crab!

Great picture! I grew up going to the Eastern Shore of MD a LOT. We vacationed in Ocean City and Rehoboth and when I was in HS we had a place on Chincoteague, home of some truly great oysters. My mother's best friends family ran a seafood restaurant in DC back in the 1950s and had a home at Beverly Beach where they cooked crabs and oysters every weekend when I was a kid. And, somehow, I never got the raw oyster bug. I've tried them over and over again and, while I don't hate them, I don't really like them. Fry them or grill them or put them in turkey stuffing and I'm all over them.

I started this thread waaaaay back in 2007 and, oddly enough, never came back to update on my solutions. I have these little gadgets in a kitchen drawer that I use all the time: My dad gave me the one on the left many years ago - it works like a bottle opener and releases the vacuum on a jar so that the lid can be turned more easily. The blue one was a freebie from my physical therapist when I was having some PT on my hand after surgery. It had three working parts, but two have broken off. The notch on the left is what I've always used anyway. It is for those pop ring, pry-off types of lids. Once you pop the ring, you place the notch around it and it helps with that hard pull. A few years ago, Mr. Kim got me one of these under cabinet jar openers. It is fantastic and opens most all of the jars/bottles that I have trouble with. The only issue I have with it is that the teeth sometimes leave a sharp edge on certain lids and can scratch you if you aren't careful.

I am addicted to a youtube channel of a German couple that live in the Chester area and produce weekly shows about their travels in the UK and their adventures decorating their Victorian terrace home. On one of their Q&A's they expressed their frustrations about when they go back to Germany and people go on and on about how awful British food is. She said she always asks if they've ever actually HAD British food and the answer is almost always "no". I can say that we never had a bad meal the entire trip. Even eating in a convenience store! LOL

Red beans and kidney beans are different. Kidney beans are larger than red beans and have a stronger flavor. Red beans are what they use in Cincinnati for chili beans. I get them from Kroger.

I really wish I hadn't posted it. I didn't mean it in a derogatory way at ALL. I thought it was funny (and true) that treyf foods are often favorites.

The book is a compilation of contributions by a bunch of different people on "Jewish" food. Some of it is historical and some anecdotal and personal. There are Jewish people who can explain better than I can, but I have known many Jewish families who kept kosher in their homes for the sake of grandparents, community, etc. but didn't keep kosher elsewhere. One of my HS best friends married a southern belle shiksa who plied him with sausage gravy and biscuits and collard greens. His parents met at a Chesapeake Bay crab feast. So it's a kind of "in joke", I guess. It's funny precisely because it is forbidden and yet a favorite of so many Jewish folk. Jewish people excel as self-deprecating humor and this is, I think an example of that. Does someone want to help me here? I feel like I'm not explaining this very well!