Kim Shook

@andiesenji – I loved the idea of the peach cream pie, but that strawberry version is spectacular! Strawberries are my favorite fruit. I’m going to give that a try when we get some good ones. Thank you! @Kasia – the chocolate mousse looks lovely! I am intrigued by the idea of mascarpone and yogurt instead of cream! I’ve copied the recipe to try. We LOVE chocolate mousse. Do you think that the same method would work with a fruit mousse instead of chocolate? This was just a cake mix fix-up idea that I got from the Food Network show “The Kitchen”. They did a chocolate cake mix banana bread with peanut butter chips and a peanut butter glaze. I’ll be trying that one, too, but this time decided to do Strawberry-Bananan bread with a strawberry glaze:

Well, after that story (above), Wegman's was sampling their Irish Bangers today (as was Costco, but, as always, they were seemingly shocked by the number of customers in the store and didn't have any ready when we walked by - are we the only people this happens to at Costco?). So, of course, I had to taste them. Absolutely delicious. Mr. Kim agreed. They were light, but NOT fluffy and perfectly seasoned. The packet says they are 8% bread crumbs, so that may explain it. They may not be AUTHENTIC, but they are GOOD, so I got a packet!

Dinner tonight was Caesar salad: and roasted chicken thighs with BBQ sauce, asparagus, corn muffins and creamed corn:

Welcome, @Kasia! I'm always so thrilled to see someone new from somewhere other than the US! Hope you post in the Dinner thread - that is always a good one. We have lots of very talented folks here and they really show off on the threads about breakfast, lunch, dinner and desserts! I've bookmarked your blog and I'll be looking at it as soon as I have more time! It looks wonderful.

I had a craving for Caesar salad, so that and a single serving frozen pizza: Those little frozen pizzas embarrass me a little, but they aren't really bad if you don't expect them to actually be PIZZA. They are very crispy and it is almost impossible not to overcook the cheese, so they are really more like a tomato/cheesy flat bread. I actually use them a lot as a side to a meal sized salad.

I think you are absolutely right about not using too much. For something so mild, it packs a LOT of flavor - I think it must be the sweetness - really easy to overdo. My mother was THRILLED when my sisters accidentally discovered the similarity. Salad cream was almost impossible to find here in the 70's and really expensive to ship over from relatives in England and it was the ONLY salad dressing they would use!

@blue_dolphin – I grew up eating this. My great grandmother hated cooking, but at times had as many as 15 family members of all ages living with her. She needed cheap food and the entire family got addicted to this stuff. We always had it as a breakfast, but Mr. Kim grew up with it as a lunch or Dad-wasn’t-home dinner. But NEVER peas – canned or otherwise! @Anna N– LOL! I never heard that until I was an adult. I think it tends to be called that by veterans who were subjected to army cook’s stolid versions. I adore that cheese – and it goes PERFECTLY with pears. @Kerry Beal – Your waffle combination would NEVER have occurred to me and it is perfect. It reminds me of a croquet-monsieur. Today’s breakfast was an ET bagel w/ chive & onion cream cheese and sausage with a side of maple syrup:

@suzilightning - oh, that sounds good! Now I have a craving for turkey Waldorf salad. By 'slaw sauce' do you mean prepared Cole Slaw dressing? If, so, which brand do you use? We discovered years ago that it tasted very similar to Heinz Salad Cream - a British product that my English stepsisters and stepdad introduced us to. Oddly enough, I never use it to make slaw - I always mix my own. But I think the purchased stuff would be really good in a chicken/turkey salad. Hmmmm.

I grew up with an English stepdad and his mum used to bring us (quite illegally, I'm sure) a suitcase full of English bacon (swoon) and bangers. I did not care for them - I'm afraid I'm on the all-meat side of sausage making. Fast forward to a vacation in Bermuda years later. Breakfast was included in our hotel package and I found that I STILL didn't care for bangers. When I made the request for only bacon, the cheeky British waiters proceeded to bring me my bacon every morning with elaborate explanations that the it hadn't been near the sausage, causing much teasing and hilarity among our table. Fast forward again to our trip to England in 2011 - and, again, I found the bangers NOT to my taste. Sadly, this Anglophile has found the one British thing that I just didn't like!

Breakfast this morning was creamed chipped beef on toast: Times TWO!!

@rarerollingobject – everything you make (both savoury and sweet) looks astonishingly good -even the stuff I KNOW I couldn’t eat (too spicy), but that char siu bun dish just is making me swoon. I am a fool for char siu and can imagine a more wonderful version of it! @scubadoo97 - oooouuuchhies! So sorry about your mishap. Hope it heals quickly! Steve – I mustn’t let Mr. Kim see your hanger steak. I’m quite sure that I could never get mine cooked so utterly perfect like yours. It would only cause trouble! Dinner last night was DC Half-Smokes for me (Wegman’s Andouille for Mr. Kim – no picture because it looks just like mine), kraut, fixed-up beans and a Kalamata olive and rosemary batard:

Breakfast this morning was sausage and toast from the brioche loaf we bought this weekend:

@Shelby – your dim sum spread looks wonderful. It is making me regret that we gave up after church brunch for Lent. There is a local place that does dim sum only on Sunday and is one of our favorite after church places. Last night was fried shrimp, onion rings and broccoli. Shrimp: Rings: Plated: Both the shrimp and the rings were soaked in buttermilk and then tossed in seasoned rice flour. This, to me, makes utterly perfect onion rings – not to mention incredibly easy. I detest battered rings – I find that the onion just steams inside the batter rather than actually frying and getting crisp on the edges. The shrimp ended up getting a little too much coating on them. It may have been better to skip the buttermilk with them and just let the rice flour stick to the natural moisture on them. I like a REALLY thin and brittle coating on fried shrimp. For dipping, I used a sauce that was a store brand - something called “Yum Yum Sauce” – the ingredients include canola oil, sugar, rice wine vinegar, egg yolks, tomato paste, citrus pulp, garlic powder, paprika, mustard powder, and red pepper: I had it in my head, for some reason, that it might be like a milder version of that Bang-Bang sauce (which is good, but MUCH too spicy for me). It was actually more like a slightly spicy 1000 Island without pickle relish. Not bad, but not what I really wanted. It was better for the rings than for the shrimp, but I’d made some cocktail sauce, just in case, so it was a good dinner.

We were in Charlottesville Saturday for a Virginia basketball game. Came across the Albemarle Baking Co. at the Main Street Market. Wonderful find! I wish we had a similar bakery near us. Incredible looking breads, sweet stuff, cakes and pastries. We got fabulous croissants, an apple hand pie and a hot cross bun: And a loaf of delicious brioche: I love the big ol’ church-lady hairdo swirl! Gorgeous crumb and texture: This made fantastic toast. These things have made up breakfast for the last couple of days.

Don't know if it available to you (possibly online), but I watch the show on "Create" - NO pledge drives, ever!

@Anna N – I love a sweet Dutch baby, but that savoury one looks and sound amazing. Also, it is gorgeous. The idea of a giant gougere is intoxicating! And @Shelby's idea of hollandaise is genius!

Shelby – thanks so much for the link to the beef and broccoli recipe! Hope to try it soon. Incredible meals, as always. I am now craving scallops. I’ve been fighting the flu week, so my food has been a bit dull/store bought. Before I got sick, I made some treats for a dinner-time meeting at church. Cucumber sandwiches: These had a cream cheese/chive and onion spread rather than butter. The other thing I took in was just something I came up with out of my head: Slices of a good, crusty baguette spread with butter and fig spread, topped with deli ham, Havarti and lightly dressed arugula. Both items seemed to be very popular. One night was a comfort food casserole: With Durkee fried onion topping: Inside: This is a Tricia Yearwood casserole. It is kind of like a cheeseburger and potato casserole. Sliced red potatoes on the bottom and topped with a cheese-sauce and burger mixture. I added a few things to up the flavor a bit and it was very nice. Served with a salad: Another night was spaghetti Bolognese (with Italian sausage rather than beef): Night before last was grocery store ribs, Kraft Mac & cheese (with extra cheese and hot sauce), Jiffy corn muffins and collards (those WERE homemade and the pot likker was fantastic): Feeling a little better yesterday, I wanted something tasty: My own version of Chex mix. And pizza from a local favorite!

Have to say that I'm finding that I miss Chris. I never minded him like some did, so that's not a huge surprise. Bridget and Julia have always been my favorite cooks on the show, but I'm not loving them as hosts. I know it was false, but Chris always seemed to stand in for the viewers - I know he was probably as knowledgeable as any of the cooks, but it was a long established thing. Now, having watched expert cooks Bridget and Julia for years, it just seems silly for them to act all surprised at the tricks and techniques that the other cooks are displaying. Having said all that - I have never had a CI, ATK or CC recipe fail me. I guess I am their target audience. Another thing - after watching the corned beef episode last night, I realized that Chris seemed to ask more questions during the prep of the dish that the cook was making. Often, they were the kinds of things that I was wondering about - "why are you doing it like that?", "why not just...?". That doesn't seem to be happening much now.

Another lunch with Mr. Kim, who is not a lady. Our favorite Charlottesville, VA restaurant - Al Carbon. We shared – charcoal rotisserie chicken: The best rotisserie chicken we’ve ever tasted. Breaded beef cemita: With avocado, Oaxaca cheese and ham. This sandwich is probably my favorite sandwich ever. The meat is incredibly tender and flavorful. I can’t imagine how they manage to make it as good as it is. Street corn with mayo, cotija cheese, chili powder and lime zest: Where in the world do they get such amazing corn in FEBRUARY? Little tiny kernels that just burst with sweet corn flavor and moistness. Charcoal-oven roasted sweet potato topped with sweet cream: Everything is just ridiculously delicious. I said to Mr. Kim while we were eating that there is something different about the diners at a restaurant that truly focuses on food. Whether it is a high-end restaurant or a hole in the wall doesn’t seem to matter. In a non-food focused restaurant – an Applebee’s-type or chain fast food folks can be having a wonderful time, but they aren’t really experiencing the food. In a food focused place they seem to all be truly INTO what they are eating. I was noticing the diners around us and how much they were enjoying what was in front of them. One lady (obviously her first visit) kept insisting on giving tastes of her chicken to her friends and at every bite she would close her eyes and slightly shake her head as if she couldn’t believe that it was that good.

Lazy-ass fixed up grocery store "Italian" sub:

@Shelby – your broccoli beef looks gorgeous! Would you share the recipe (I don’t have an IP, though)? @liamsaunt – I am NOT allergic to seafood and I’d devour and adore every single thing on that pupu platter (one of my MANY guilty pleasures).

I admit to a secret love for those patties. I buy the mild ones when I can find them. 7-11 often has them already warmed up (blush-blush). Even the mild ones are a little spicy for me - I have to also buy an apple or banana and alternate bites!

A few nights ago dinner was Brunswick stew from the freezer: Brunswick stew never photographs well! With asparagus and Dorie’s brioche buns: Valentine’s dinner. Started with spiced almonds, petit toasts, crab spread and Gorgonzola Dolce – both from Wegman’s. We’ve become addicted to this Gorgonzola – it’s like a mixture of Gorgonzola and Brie: Dinner was Cider Braised Pork Chops (a Cook’s Country recipe). Thick chops are browned and oven braised in a sauce of onions, garlic, thyme and apple butter. The chops: After the braise the sauce is strained and more apple butter and a bit of apple cider vinegar is added. The sauce: I served it with a butter lettuce salad: Honey-Balsamic Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Long Grain and Wild Rice with Cranberries and Orange (without sauce): With sauce: Absolutely delicious pork. The prep was really easy, but very elegant – I’d definitely serve this to company! Dessert was all purchased at Wegman’s – Mini Chocolate Amaretto Mousse Cake and Mini Opera cake: And a couple of strawberries that they were dipping as I walked by – I couldn’t resist them:

@Kay – I found this re: chocolate and paraffin – 12 oz. chocolate to 2 oz. paraffin. I remember this method and using it years ago because I’ve always felt that truly tempering chocolate was beyond me and I can’t afford the machines. What I do now is to melt the chocolate VERY slowly in the microwave – trying to keep the temperature under 94F. I then set a heating pad to medium, put it in a bowl and put the chocolate bowl on top of it. It stays nice and ‘dip-able’ and as ‘in temper’ as I’ve ever been able to achieve! @shain – that Knafeh looks and sounds so wonderful! I did a project with a batch of @Dorie Greenspan's Bubble-Top Brioche. Though they turned out fine, I had some trouble with the brioche. It started with the kneading. The dough never would come together in a ball and pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl like it is supposed to. I didn’t have this problem when I made them before. They didn’t rise very well, either: They were flat and oozed over the sides of the baking cups: I just tucked it all back into the cups and went ahead with the baking. They turned out a little flat, but otherwise fine: The bottoms were a bit pale: This DID happen last time and I just flipped them and toasted them lightly under the broiler. The crumb and texture were great: Toasted: The project idea started with some show I saw on The Cooking Channel – Unique Sweets, I think. One of the bakeries did a bun of some sort, split and spread with lashings of whipped butter and lightly toasted. Then they were spread with sweetened condensed milk and toasted until it caramelized. Then topped with a sprinkling of sea salt. The result: These were amazing. Not overly sweet, but just exactly enough. The sea salt was perfect! I would like to know what I did wrong with the brioche, though!

I'll try to address your question, @Kay, but I am a hit and miss soft boiled egg chef, at best! First, THIS is how I make them - it is a method from Cook's Illustrated and is the most dependable method I've ever found. Once they are done, you have two choices - you can either put them (unpeeled) in egg cups and snip off the top with a sharp knife (you first tap around the top 1/4 of the egg to break the shell) or use one of These nifty little things (I want one!). You then eat them with wee spoons and toast fingers. OR - say you want to serve them on toast - you hold them in a towel in your hand and using a teaspoon gently crack them all over and peel. I slip the tip of the spoon up between the egg and the shell and assist the peeling this way. This is all probably needlessly complicated and someone else may have a better way of explaining.