Kim Shook

Franci – your cakes are absolutely lovely! I did Valentine’s cupcakes to share with family, friends and neighbors: The yellow ones are from a sugar-free mix for the diabetics in my life.

The fish plate is gorgeous. I would have bought it, too. Even if I never used it, I’d want to have it!

Okanagancook – your Brussels sprouts comment made me laugh, because your feelings about sprouts are my feelings about most vegetables. The list of the vegetables that I don’t like is so long that I mostly don’t bother to tell folks, I just eat what I’m given and wrap something I like around it. And of all the vegetables to like, I like sprouts! Every kids detested veg enemy! Stir fry tonight: Beef, snow peas, water chestnuts and onions with a purchased “Korean” stir fry sauce. Served with an Asian chopped salad kit from Fresh Express. Someone at our church pot luck brought it and it was very good – Savoy cabbage, carrots, cilantro, sesame ginger dressing, fried noodles and slice almonds among other stuff:

The recipe that Mr. Kim cooked last night (the feta and bacon stuffed chicken) turned out well. But in putting it on my recipe site, it got me thinking. As I said, the directions were a little wonky, as they sometimes are at unvetted sites. Some of it could be put down to differences in taste – it called for 1 tablespoon of dried oregano to season 4 chicken breast halves. To me, that seems quite excessive. But, again, that is taste. Other things bother me more – like the fact that she never explains what to do to a chicken breast in order to stuff it. And the original directions call for placing the chicken into the baking dish, pouring the sauce on it and THEN stuffing the breasts with the cheese and bacon. She also says to stuff the chicken with slices of feta and bacon. I decided that crumbled was a better way to go – I figured by the time you’d stuffed a slice of feta into a pocket in a chicken breast, it would be crumbled anyway. I knew all of this stuff and was helping him, but would a novice cook? All of those things are exactly why I would never send a newish cook to a place like allrecipes to find something. If an experienced cook never looks at the recipe, there are a million things that can go wrong. Who’s to say that the recipes are even safe? I know that there really isn’t a solution to this issue, but it is something I hadn’t really thought about until I was cooking this recipe side-by-side with Mr. Kim. ETA: I am quite sure that I have committed the same kinds of errors at my own recipe webpage, so I'm living in a glass house here. Some of those recipes date back many years - long before I was a mediumly accomplished home cook.

Unusually for me, I felt like breakfast this morning: The sausage is Jimmy Dean fully cooked patties. CI rated them as the best – over any of the uncooked tubes, but only if you pan-fry them – no microwaving. I had a coupon and decided to give them a try. They are very good, better than any national brand I’ve ever tasted. But pretty expensive. Without a coupon, I think I’ll stick to the tubes.

I think that if I did it right away, the pre-scoring would just melt back together, but your idea of cooling and pre-scoring just the chocolate layer would work. I could do all that before refrigerating. Thank you! I'll try it next time I make these. They are always going to be a bit of a mess with gooey marshmallow creme and (normally) the peanuts, but I'd like them as neat as I can get them.

Mr. Kim came home from work last night with a recipe that he wanted to try for feta and bacon stuffed chicken breasts. It turned out very well. He served it with Brussels sprouts and rice pilaf: It was from allrecipes.com and was oddly written as a lot of them are at that site. The first step was to make a sort of marinade/cooking sauce. The second was to place the chicken breasts in the baking dish and cover with the sauce. The third step was stuffing the breasts. Lucky for him, he had me to interpret . Mr. Kim has a great palate and is actually better than me at figuring out ingredients in a restaurant dish. But he is also a very literal cook. He follows directions precisely. If a recipe says something will take 30 minutes to cook, out it comes at 30 minutes on the dot! We’d have eaten raw chicken if it were up to him, because it said that the breasts would be done in 30 minutes. So we checked the temp at 45 and it was perfect. Bite: Definitely a keeper!

Franci – that cake is tremendous! What impresses me the most is how lovely and even your layers are – all SEVEN of them (if I’m counting correctly). It looks utterly delicious and beautiful. Modified Tin Roof Brownies for a co-worker of Mr. Kim’s birthday: He always requests them without the peanuts, which is a shame since the salt help balance out the otherwise extreme sweetness. I did make them with dark chocolate this time, which was a bit better. I need a little assistance here. These are made by baking a pan of brownies, taking them out and spreading with marshmallow crème. Chopped chocolate is sprinkled over the top and they are put back in the oven for a couple of minutes for that to melt. That is spread to cover and they are cooled. I always refrigerate brownies to make the cut neater. Every time that I make these, the tops break apart when I cut them. They seem to be impossible to cut neatly – you can see how only on one of them is the top chocolate layer in one piece. I do use a knife that’s been heated in hot water. Any advice?

JoNorvelleWalker – I’ve failed at lima beans before. Even frozen ones. I’ve burnt them, cooked them to complete mush and cooked them forever and had the skins never get tender. The fault was in the beans, not you! Lima beans are one of the few vegetables that I like. Shelby – I adore this baked spaghetti. This particular friend does NOT share recipes. She’s given me exactly ONE recipe in the 25 years we’ve known each other . rotuts – I loved your meatloaf that wouldn’t ‘loaf’ story! For years my ‘meatloaf’ inevitably became Bolognese because it crumbled and wouldn’t ‘loaf’! Benton’s – always! We had a potluck at our church today. I made Taffy Apple Salad: A recipe from my MIL. Sort of a trashy version of Waldorf with Cool Whip instead of mayo. You do make a nice custard with the canned pineapple juice, cornstarch, sugar, vinegar and eggs, though. ET Bacon Crescent Rolls: My version of something I found at another website. Crescent roll dough spread with a mixture of cream cheese, green onions and Worcestershire sauce and sprinkled with bacon. Rolled up, brushed with an egg wash and topped with dried onion bits, roasted garlic and poppy seeds. Both things were very popular – I took three 2-quart containers of the salad and 24 of the rolls to church. I came home with 1 quart of salad and 2 rolls. Leftovers for dinner tonight, so I’m posting this here!

Ann – churro waffles sound like heaven! Thanks for the link. dcarch – your pork and poultry SB feast looked splendid! huiray – Oh, how I miss Skyline! I do my own and it’s good, but I miss being able to sit down to a counter and order it whenever I like. The little Indiana town we lived in had its own branch and it was within walking distance of our house. Dinner on Wednesday started with a salad: Mr. Kim had some grilled chicken w/ hot sauce left over from SB Sunday with sautéed mushrooms: A friend brought us some baked spaghetti, which became my dinner: Mr. Kim was out last night playing poker, so I had an old favorite – a hybrid which will please no one but me and my mother: Beans on toast. American’s won’t like it because…well, it’s beans on toast, which they find an anathema. And Brits won’t like it because it’s made with pork & beans, not vegetarian. No matter – it was delicious! Mr. Kim is off gallivanting again tonight, so I just had eggs and sausage (no picture).

This morning’s breakfast from the freezer: I still have a few sausage rolls from Christmas. If only we hadn’t finished the little quiches, this would have been the perfect breakfast!

Thanks! Here's the recipe: http://www.recipecircus.com/recipes/Kimberlyn/DIPSSPREADS/Buffalo_Chicken_Dip.html One time, I mixed it all up and made it into wontons! That was possibly my most successful dish I've ever made.

Thanks to everyone for the Rice Krispie Treats compliments. For some family event awhile back, I made a few different cereal treats (Cocoa Krispies, Cap’n Krunch PB and Lucky Charms) for the kids and another, most ‘sophisticated’ dessert for the adults. The grownups swarmed the ‘Treats’ and ignored the other one! One of my favorite ‘Treats’ versions is the Momofuku Sesame-Ginger ones recommended to me by deensiebat. Very ‘grownup’ and still fun. Chocomom – I’m doing your version next time with the Cocoa Krispies and PB morsels. My belief is that if God made any better combination than chocolate and PB, He kept it to Himself! I made a lemon icebox pie for Super Bowl dessert: Pretty much ersatz – lemonade concentrate, cream cheese, Cool Whip and sweetened condensed milk in a ready-made Graham cracker crust – but awfully good! Slice:

Ann – hot chicken sandwiches with gravy are perhaps my favorite food in the world! Super Bowl noshes – Mr. Kim’s Chili: Buffalo Chicken Dip: Ooey, gooey insides: This stuff comes out of the oven nuclear hot and people were blistering their mouths to get to it. It is just the perfect football food – hot, rich, cheesy, spicy and you pile it on tortilla chips! I also made a lemon icebox pie for dessert:

BonVivant – gorgeous pork belly. I prefer them to be less fatty than I usually see and yours looks perfect! Steve – genius Potatoes Anna/Shepherd’s Pie combination. Dinner tonight started with salad: And finished with an unintentionally orange meal: Kielbasa & onions w/ sweet potato.

Hilarious food related tweets regarding the blizzard: http://twitchy.com/2015/01/26/free-range-cannibalism-hearty-mockery-as-blizzard-fearing-nyc-hipsters-storm-whole-foods-photos/

Shelby – hope whatever is causing the stress eases up on you, sweetie! And breakfast for dinner is a sure cure for stress! Thanks for the Crepes – I love pictures and hope you can post some soon, BUT I am very much enjoying your picture-less posts, too! That pizza crust sounds fantastic. It is my favorite part of the pizza. I have a sorry history with pizza crust. It always fights me, no matter how long I let it rest. I will have to give that recipe a try. Thanks for the link. BKEats – your magic food theory describes the phenomenon very, very well. I am stunned by people’s disregard of the effort and expense that it takes to put a company meal on the table and your story stuns me all over again. The idea of dropping by with almost no notice at dinner time is enough, but to do that in a household with a new baby? Jeez. They should have arrived with a basketful of the best take out NYC has to offer ! Ann – everything looks delicious (that porterhouse ), but I keep coming back to look at your pizza crust – amazing. Y’all are making me hungry. Our house is a storm of boxes, packing paper and stacks of ornaments/decorations needing to be put away. I haven’t cooked a real meal in forever. Our still-packing-up-Christmas dinner: Chili-cheese dogs (canned chili), baked beans (canned) and fries (frozen). On the right is my new fry dip of choice – half and half ketchup and vinegar. Tonight is Jessica’s 31st birthday, so (once again) no cooking as we are trying one of her favorite restaurants. I swear if I don’t get all this stuff packed up soon, I’m going to forget HOW to cook!

Ann – I have to confess – the sausage was only home-spiced! Regular breakfast sausage with sage worked in. That baguette is beautiful. I really need to do some baking! Kay – that latke, pastrami, egg dish is gorgeous! What a perfect brunch.

I had no idea that my part of VA was home to so much high end Charcuterie. I gotta get around the neighborhood more!

Deryn - thanks for posting that link to Nadolski's. I had never heard of it and it is literally 25 minutes away from my house!

Franci - could it be this: https://olli.com/product/guanciale/? This company is not far from us and I'm starting to find their products in regular grocery stores not just specialty stores. There products are very, very good.

Breakfast this morning: Sage sausage, fried eggs and whomp biscuits. I usually do NOT use refrigerated biscuits, but wasn’t sure that I had dumplings in the freezer the other day when I made chicken and dumplings and bought these to substitute. About what you’d expect.

CP – beautiful chocolate yogurt cake. I make a ‘cheater’ (starting with a mix) strawberry yogurt cake and I really like what the addition of yogurt does to the texture. Anna – I love the look of that double ginger cake. Great texture. Mr. Kim is a ginger lover and I’m sure he’d like that. You seem to be gravitating to ginger lately. You might like these cookies: http://www.recipecircus.com/recipes/Kimberlyn/COOKIES/Three-Ginger_Cookies.html Kerry – those cakes were amazing. I’d love to sit and watch someone create one of those! We ended up with a huge box of Rice Krispies. I’m tired of them and can’t buy a different cereal until I make room for it. So I made a batch of Peanut Butter Rice Krispy treats to use them up: Took a few next door, will keep a couple and the rest will go to work with Mr. Kim tomorrow.

Anna – your KA Harvest bread looks much better than theirs – you should send them that picture! I plan to make this soon. Any hints or things that you did differently? Not cooking a lot of breakfasts these days (except for dinner). Weekdays are just me, and I am not much of an early breakfast person. Saturdays we are usually up and out early running errands and Sundays we usually go out somewhere after church. But I’m reading a book in which the main character has boiled eggs for breakfast almost every morning, so I got an urge for eggs. Not hard boiled – I wanted soft boiled (my nemesis) and decided to tackle them again. Breakfast this morning: Nearly perfect soft boiled eggs. The top left one was still slightly snotty around the yolk, but a couple of seconds in the microwave fixed that. This was the America’s Test Kitchen steam method. You place the eggs in 1/2-inch of boiling water, cover and let boil for 6 1/2 minutes, then rinse with cold water for 30 seconds. I’ll try this again tomorrow for 7 minutes. Easiest and most straightforward method I’ve ever tried. According to ATK, you can use this method for 1-6 large, extra large or jumbo eggs with no change of timing.

Thank you! How did I not find that in my Googling adventure? So now I have to call my husband. Math is not my strong point. I've been known to call him from the grocery store and ask math questions so I'd know how much to buy of something.