Kim Shook

I have been away for some time dealing with family health issues, but I’ve spent the past few days catching up on my favorite threads Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner! As always, I’m impressed and inspired by the food here at eG. I’ve been cooking very little the last few months and not cataloging or photographing what I DO cook, so I don’t have much to contribute yet! Before Christmas I bought myself an electric skillet. I’ve wanted one for a while now. I love to make fried things, but have a problem maintaining temperature in a frying pan. It was on sale and very cheap, so I jumped at it. My first experiment was dinner the other night. Fried chicken – by my regular recipe: 24 hour buttermilk soak, drained then rubbed with a spice rub that includes Sazon, Accent, pepper and unsweetened lemonade powder (!!!): Also liver (cook’s treat – no one else here likes it), whipped potatoes w/ gravy and butter beans. I really like using the skillet a lot – looking forward to trying fish and chips! And it was nice to be cooking again.

I really love this show and her. Ben is a grump, but I like him, too.

I gotta go with Kay - that black bean and corn stuff is fantastic. Yep, I'm BAAAAACK!!!

Just so long as you didn't eat the nasty things.

I bought this issue and I can't agree with you more, Anna. Almost every article advises you to radically change the way you've been cooking. I might try a couple of the ideas, but there was really nothing in the magazine that made me want to get in the kitchen.

Now I know this will sound heretical to some, but hear me out. I got extremely tired of trying to cook a turkey last minute, so I was looking for ways to do it ahead. I don't have a lot of fancy set ups - no sous vide, no combi oven, etc. But I do have one of those old fashioned roaster ovens. And a couple of slow cookers. I use the roaster oven to cook the turkey the day before. I find that, with brining, it makes an incredibly moist and fuss-free turkey. (I have always cooked it whole, but now that I think about it, it might be better to separate the breast and the leg quarters). When it's done, I carve the turkey as I would to serve it. Then it all goes in freezer bags with a good amount of really good homemade stock. I refrigerate it and reheat it the next day in a slow cooker WITH the stock. Since I've started doing this everyone says it is the best turkey I've ever made. And the leftovers make tender, moist meat for sandwiches. I really don't care for roasting already cooked poultry - I always find it gives it a funny texture and flavor, no matter how well it is wrapped.

OC MD is home of Thrasher's French fries, Fisher's caramel corn and Trimper's rides. Doesn't get much REALER than that!

I always steam my eggs now. I saw it on America's Test Kitchen and it works for both soft- and hard-cooked. Easier to peel, too, it seems to me.

I agree completely with less mayo for egg salad. When I was looking for help to make perfect egg salad, folks here advised me to use much less mayo than I thought would be necessary and taste. I probably use a third of what I used to!

Just my 2 cents - a cold Italian sub is the food of the gods and NJ is the place to get one.

Thank you! I'm so glad that you liked the cake! It is a favorite here. Nice to be missed, too!

Hello, everyone! I know I've been gone for a long time, but not by choice. I've been dealing with my mother's health issues and hospitalization. I'm now living with her temporarily and not doing any interesting cooking. I've had some free time in the last couple of days and have been trying to catch up. Really loving all the posts in the dinner, breakfast and sweets threads! Please know that I miss everyone here and I miss being involved! Thanks to those who have missed me and I'm hoping that I'll be able to contribute starting in September.

rotuts – re: the celery – that’s why it’s on the side like that. I actually like celery a lot – just to crunch a stick of it with salt or PB, but I don’t care for it in salads, but Mr. Kim does, so I serve it on the side. Suzi – I LOVE your white trash dinner! I would enjoy that tonight in place of my leftovers (I really don’t care for leftovers for dinner – though I can eat the same sandwich for lunch every day for a week!) kayb – that corn looks great! What’s your secret? Norm – I like the look of your gravy. How do you make it? Shelby – oh, my DEAR! Chicken liver – FRIED! I adore them, but no one else does, so I never make them. Yours look so perfect! Last night I tried a new recipe from Cooking Light magazine for Honey-Lime Drumsticks w/ snow peas and brown rice: The sauce for the drumsticks included soy sauce, honey, oil, ginger, lime juice and garlic and was incredibly flavorful. I will certainly be making this one again. We decided that it would be good with pork tenderloin, too. The rice mixture had some of the lime rind in it, but was still a little bland. I added some ponzu sauce and that helped a lot. The snow peas were the fresh steam-in-the-bag type and the steaming worked just fine, but every single snow pea had a hard string and had to be ‘de-strung’ on the plate. Extremely irritating.

Shelby – thanks for the bean information. I’ll be trying that! Dinner last night started with a salad, of course: Very bland looking plate: But it tasted great. Oven fried pork chop, whipped potatoes, Dana’s broccoli and cauliflower (mostly cauliflower) au gratin and rolls. That gratin is wonderful – one of our favorite side dishes:

rotuts - Never, ever green peppers! No celery, either, if Momma makes it. I don't mind a little celery, chopped fine and sauteed. I detest big crunchy hunks of it in soup. This soup is just potatoes, carrots, peas, corn, green beans and cabbage. Simmered long with canned tomatoes and some pasta added towards the end. I sometimes grate some Parm over the top before serving. Or I'll toss in a rind if I have it.

Anna – gorgeous sandwich! Makes me wish I had a chicken! Lunch a couple of days ago was my mother’s vegetable soup: And a fried egg sandwich:

I make tahini cookies, too. The recipe I use is slightly different. Darienne gave me the recipe originally. They are unusual and delicious. I made them for our church Holiday Market last November and they sold VERY quickly. One change that I made was to use smokehouse almonds. Nice!

Thanks for the Crepes – it was nerve wracking! And, yes, I think that your pan should be much easier. I’m not sure I’ll ever want to cook anything but a chocolate cake in this pan. I don’t think I’d care for the same thickness of flour as a coating. Shain – love the idea of using tahini paste in baklava! Thanks to everyone for the nice comments about that cake. Brownies for the youth group at church: I'm embarassed to say that they are just Ghirardelli mix, but I’ve yet to make a from scratch recipe that is as good as this mix.

Lunch yesterday: This sandwich is my old standby. It has been my go-to comfort food since I can remember. I’m really into tomatoes lately, it seems.

I am among the few that actually like CK. Not wildly, but I enjoy watching him. I also respect what he created. But, I LOVE Bridget and Julia and am disappointed when they aren't on a show. So I will be fine with the change.

Here you go, rotuts: I neglected to mention that it is topped with generic 'marshmellows' that I got at a bulk store, has two packets of Equal and a mere dribble of milk (I don't care for milk much and hate soggy cereal).

On Saturday Mr. Kim and I went to Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to see the Rodin exhibit and then an early dinner at Metzger’s (http://www.metzgerbarandbutchery.com/). It has been open awhile and we’d heard very good things, but it just hadn’t come up in the rotation. Mike’s brother had given him a gift certificate, so we decided to try it. So glad we did. It was a remarkably good meal! After our first three things we were already planning our next visit! We started with the rye brioche and caraway butter: This was beautiful bread. Perfect brioche texture and crust, but with the tang of rye flour. The butter was very salty (in a good way) and the combination of bread and butter was almost pretzel-like. Then the bierkase soup: With pretzel croutons and thyme cream. Bierkase is a beer cheese (named so because it is traditionally eaten with beer, not made with beer). I’m sure there was beer in this soup, as well. This was the smoothest, creamiest and most delicious cheese soup I’ve ever eaten. The chicken liver mousse: (Didn’t realize the picture was so crappy). The mousse came on an everything bialy, with bacon, pickled figs and frisee. As good as every single thing was, this was the standout dish. Incredibly smooth and light mousse and the combination of the mousse, the fig and the bacon was genius. For our mains, we chose the chop: Beer brined pork chop, herb spaetzle, jus and dressed salad greens. Probably the best pork chop I’ve had in 40 years. And the spaetzle was perfect. Sometimes it can be a little bland. This was very flavorful and had a nice crust on the edges. Just fabulous. Mike ate the leftovers for lunch the next day and said that it was still delicious and juicy COLD! The choucroute garni: Sausages, smoked pork, duck fat fingerlings, dressed salad greens. The sausages and pork was perfectly prepared. I don’t know if they make their own sausage, but it is so wonderfully spiced and smooth. And those crisp, tasty potatoes! Fantastic.

We didn't make it to the butcher shop in C'ville, but have made a note of the one in Richmond and will be going by as soon as we can!

Lunch a couple of days ago: Sandwich made with leftovers from a club I ordered the night before. Club sandwiches are the most economical thing for me to get at a restaurant (not to mention, I love them). I eat a 1/4, Mr. Kim eats a 1/4 and the other half comes home to make at least one more meal for me!

Shelby – your ham and beans look like perfection. Mine always get so mushy that they are almost a paste. Care to share the recipe? Academy Award snacks – Jessica made coconut shrimp dip from a mix she got at the wine expo: I did crab Rangoon pizza on naan: Slice: Totally ersatz dish, but we happen to adore crab Rangoon. This was good, but no better than actual crab Rangoon. The crust was naan, which will be my go-to pizza crust for quick pizza from now on. The roast beef is still not gone. Dinner night before last: Stew-ish dish. Sigh. The cauliflower was really nice, though: