Kim Shook

Does Willie's avatar remind anyone else of Dave Hatfield's dog in a field avatar? Miss him and his kindness and contributions so much.

Shelby – back atcha, ma’am! And I adore the good Doctor! Your pork is perfectly lovely, the rolls so nice and crunchy looking…but, OH, that EGG! You’ve achieved perfection, my dear! I would retire on that. Never cook again because I couldn’t be bettered! Brava! gfweb – gorgeous turkey! Is it ‘fiddly’ or could a regular girl do it? Kate - !!! Nice to ‘see’ you! Lovely chicken and those potatoes are a work of art. New Year’s Day meal – pork chops with apples & onions, collards, black eyed peas, scalloped tomatoes and cornbread. The pork chops: From a recipe found online. They were a little meh, to be honest. Don’t know if it was the fault of the recipe or the thin grocery store chops. I brined them, so they were at least moist. The tomatoes: The only stewed tomato-ish thing we like. Plated: Luck all set for 2015! Happy New Year, everyone!

Here you go: http://www.recipecircus.com/recipes/Kimberlyn/CHEESE/Cheddar__Monterey_Jack_Cheese_Toast.html

gfweb – lovely looking turkey salad! We had some friends and my mother in for lunch after church this Sunday. I made my mother’s vegetable soup: And the most amazingly delicious cheese toast I’ve ever tasted: I was looking for a special cheese toast to serve with the fairly ordinary vegetable soup. I wanted something that would elevate the everyday soup and this recipe did it. The recipe itself is very good, but the Cheddar that I used was what really made the difference. I found Montgomery’s Cheddar from Manor Farm in Somerset, UK at Southern Season. This is one of the best cheeses I’ve ever had. Truly remarkable and set this cheese toast apart from any I’ve ever made. I made the cheese mixture the day ahead of time and just let it come to room temperature before spreading on the bread. We had a couple of pieces left over and I toasted one and made a sandwich with some good ham – incredible. I do not know why this always happens to me when I make vegetable soup: See the stock pot on the right? That’s what I started my soup in. Somehow in getting all the vegetables even and getting it liquid enough, that one medium stock pot ended up being one stock pot and two Dutch ovens FULL of soup. We have vegetable soup coming out of our ears. I’ve forced containers of it on everyone who has stopped by the house in the last 3 days! This happens EVERY TIME I make vegetable soup!

gfweb – that confit, risotto and sprouts meal is one of the most perfect meals that I can imagine! Nina – the sauce on your short ribs looks incredible. Thanks for the explanation! Norm – what an absolutely beautiful Christmas Eve dinner. I probably would have overserved myself on bread, shrimp and eggs and not had room for that gorgeous beef! Shelby – oh, my DEAR – that beef. I believe my chin just hit the keyboard. Mmmpomps – love the pink KA! I have a silver one and getting it professionally painted pink is on my wishlist! My first holiday cooking was our annual Christmas Eve celebration. I changed the menu again this year – same goodies and sweets, but the meal was different. I did the CI Modern Beef Burgundy with egg noodles, salad, cheeses, fruits, crackers and bread. Beef Burgundy: Through some experimentation I discovered that I could freeze the basic beef and sauce mixture and then do the mushroom and pearl onion mixture the day before serving. I heated it all up together early in the day and adjusted the seasoning and put it in slow cookers. The noodles were cooked the day before and plunged into boiling water and held in a slow cooker, too. This worked amazingly well – everything tasted lovely and the meat was so tender. Green salad with bleu cheese dressing, my Dad's paprika dressing and pumpernickel croutons: Cheeses: Just Costco Gouda, Brie and Cheddar. Grapes, clementines and Lady apples: Some nice, crusty bread from Whole Foods: I’ve put all the sweets in the Your Daily Sweets thread. For my MIL’s Christmas celebration on the 26th, she requested Texas Caviar: Served with pita chips. Very good. A couple of folks ate so much of this while the rest of the prep was going on that they hardly ate any dinner!

Matthew K – lovely cake and it sounds delicious! Shelby – I’m sitting in a house overflowing with cookies and candies and all kinds of goodies and I’d give them all up for a slice of that peach pie! David – that almond butter crunch is gorgeous! Your friends are very lucky folks. FrogPrincesse - I am making that ginger pie for Mr. Kim as soon as all the sweets in our house are gone. He is crazy for ginger. Thanks for posting a link! This year’s Christmas sweets – not much new. Not sure if I even need to post all of this, since so much is exactly what I posted last year! Darienne’s incredible toffee: Toffee is one of my favorite candies. When I read that Darienne had an Engstrom’s copy-cat recipe that she was happy with, I requested the recipe. She was kind enough to give it to me and it is fantastic. The recipe is extremely easy to make and to manage. Cooky platter: Just my standards - sugar cookies, my peanut butter cookies and Dream cookies (a simple butter cooky). Gluten free sugar cookies for a niece: Sponge candy: Matthew gets a thank you for helping me to perfect my sponge. I have had some trouble in the past few years with burning half my batches and with the lack of consistency in the texture. He gave me a Greweling recipe that he has used and by using that method with my ingredients, I was able to make my sponge properly every time. Thank you, again, Matthew! Happy Accident candy: All the leftover crumbs from breaking up the sponge candy mixed with melted chocolate (hence: Happy Accident – it was one of those ‘aha’ moments years ago). I was VERY happy with my tempering this year. I found an article online called “The Elements of Chocolate” that was very informative. I don’t know that it would work for large chocolate making, but for the small amounts that I needed it was perfect. You melt the chocolate VERY slowly, trying not to get above 94 degrees F, seed it with a little chopped chocolate and use it. I melted in the microwave and set the bowl on a heating pad set at 100 degrees F while stirring. This candy was a week old before I took the picture and it still looks pretty good, I think. Iced almonds with sea salt and those Rolo/pretzel candies: Peanut brittle: Two different fudges: Reeses Cup fudge on the left and my Aunt San’s fudge on the right. Lemon chess tarts: The best I’ve ever made. A British friend said that they were every bit as good as English lemon curd tarts. There were supposed to be mincemeat tarts, too. Momma said she would bring those, but they never appeared!

David – I love the look of that hash brown casserole! Christmas morning breakfast! The menu never changes. My MIL’s candy cane: Pillsbury Orange Danish Tree: Silliest thing ever, but we HAVE to have them. Jessica made mimosas this year: Very popular. A new tradition, I think. Sausage rolls: Baby Quiche Lorraine: I missed getting a picture of the everything bagels !

Poor Mr. Kim – I have hardly cooked at all this past week. Mostly just our standbys – breakfast for dinner, grilled cheese and TAKE OUT! Some gougieres that I made for a Christmas party at church: Lunch/dinner today: A couple of cheeses from Southern Seasons and a friend’s cheese ball. The cheese on the left is Berkswell from Neals Yard Dairy UK and the one on the right is Montgomery’s Cheddar from Manor Farm in Somerset, UK. We loved the Cheddar, but found the Berkswell a bit too stinky for our tastes.

I am enjoying this so much, CatPoet! How wonderful of you to share this busy time with us. Thank you so much.

Dinner last night was just salad and spaghetti – the sauce was another freezer find:

Okanagancook – that crackling is incredibly gorgeous! I remember when grocery store pork roasts had nice fat caps and my dad and I would argue over the cracklings! Ann – your Kaiser rolls and fries look especially delicious. I’m fasting for bloodwork in the morning and those two things are what stopped me cold. I am a fool for carbs! David – the picture of the crab gratin just did me in. Can I please have the recipe? I’ll do whatever I have to do to find the crab! rotuts – I like your ravioli in broth. I do buy the prepared ones, but never thought to use them like that. I’ll be giving that a try. gfweb – I’d like to hear more about your chicken salad. I am crazy about most versions and that sounds and looks really good. We decorated our tree the other night and went with Mr. Kim’s family tradition – two fondues: Vat o’ Béarnaise, horseradish sauce, BBQ sauce and steak sauce. The only thing that I made from scratch is the horseradish sauce. I also did tiny little steamed potatoes, but no picture. Vegetables and dips. Pickly stuff. Good chewy sourdough. Dessert was, as customary, chocolate fondue. Didn’t take a picture of the actual fondue – it was melted chocolate – but the dippers were: Pound cake, marshmallows and coconut macaroons. Dried fruit. Bananas and maraschino cherries. Last night was breakfast for dinner – Benton’s bacon, egg and cheese biscuits and pan fried potatoes (left over from our fondue dinner): Pears, apples and tangerines: We ordered the fruit from Florida through our niece – school fundraiser. The apples were fine and the citrus good. But the pears were amazing. Tender and firm and fragrant and juicy. The perfect pear. I wish our stores got those.

Andie – I’d really love to have that bratwurst recipe! My panini maker is wonderful and I love using it. I adore my Vitamix. I have a pressure cooker that I’ve used a few times. An electric deep fryer – I’ve been dying for fish and chips for the past month, but can’t face digging it out. They are all in the attic and I don’t use them as often as I’d like because getting them out is such a PITA. I have a very small kitchen, very little storage and almost no counter space. I have to use the attic as an extremely inconvenient butler’s pantry. I’d love to use these more often and my New Year’s resolution is to organize the attic so that they are more accessible. I have a wonderful apple peeler that would be wonderful to use since I have arthritis in both hands, but it latches to a table top and I don’t have a proper place to latch it to, so it lives in the attic, too. Mr. Kim won a fantastic juicer in a radio contest and I use it maybe once a year to make Granny Smith ice. The electric knife that I have is useless. The base is designed in such a way that the hand holding it slides forward while slicing. But it is in the living room closet! I bought a pasta machine for myself a couple of years ago. Never got it out of the box. I have NO idea why – I love fresh pasta, it is easy to make, etc.

Hungry Caterpillar cake that I made for my nieces’ baby shower:

Hi, Julie! Welcome. What brought you to eG?

Welcome! I love seeing international member and I'm looking forward to your posts!

Welcome! Looking forward to seeing your posts!

Chiming in late, but I love the homemade bread and think Suzi's idea of including toast dope with instructions is wonderful. Personally my favorite basket is the one that includes the cat.

Norm – I haven’t ever browned the slow cooker turkey. But then I always make it the day before. I slice it, put it in a zip bag with a little stock and refrigerate. The next day, I put it all in a slow cooker and reheat on low for a couple of hours. Shelby – gorgeous dinner! I could make a meal of any one of those dishes! Oyster dressing!!! And I love carbs with carbs. Our Thanksgiving meal consisted of mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, dressing, corn pudding and rolls. I just wish someone had brought mac and cheese ! Anna – I JUST saw that marmalade and bacon sandwich on “The Best Thing I Ever Ate” on the Food Network and thought it looked so good. And I have no doubt whatsoever that it beats kale all to hell. Smells better too, I’d reckon . Dinner tonight started with salad: Then, a nice freezer gift – cheese soufflés: These are such great things to have in the freezer! Just 35-40 minutes in the oven straight from the freezer and you have a wonderful meal. With crackers, ham and Swiss and Cheddar:

Ann & Norm – I enjoy the ease of my slow cooker turkey breast and it certainly tastes great, but I do love the look of a whole roasted turkey (and I miss that fabulous skin!!!). Just lovely! Mr. Kim opted for a chef salad tonight: The eggs were from a co-worker who has chickens and were so enormous that they still weren’t completely hard boiled 18 minutes after covering and taking off the heat! I had the meal that makes all the work for Thanksgiving worthwhile: Hot turkey sandwich !

Thanks for the gravy love. To me it is the most important part of a turkey dinner. Yep - that's neck meat. I always search out turkey necks to make my stock with. My turkey gravy is a two-day process - I make it ahead of time and freeze it so that I don't have to mess with it on the day of.

dcarch – now, that is my kinda nigiri! Smoked salmon. What a genius idea. I am not at all a raw fish eater, but smoked is fantastic! Tonight we started with salads: And celery and pimento cheese: Noodles and beef: Just leftover pot roast and gravy. But very good!

We did Thanksgiving this year at Jessica’s again - a bit of a potluck affair. Starters – Liptauer cheese and pumpernickel loaf: Relish tray and pimento cheese: Turkey breast: You know, it’s funny – when I used to roast a whole turkey, it was good and folks seemed to enjoy it. But for the last few years, to save having to do it the day of, I’ve been cooking a breast in the slow cooker the day before, slicing it, refrigerating it and heating it up on the day with some stock. And they rave! “How moist, how tasty!” Seems like I’ve lazied myself into the perfect turkey! Baked Sour Cream Potatoes: Jessica’s Corn Pudding: Jessica’s wonderful Challah and dried fruit dressing: Jessica’s fantastic sweet potato latkes with Brie and arugula (dressed with a lemon/olive oil vinaigrette: THE gravy: Plated: Mr. Kim’s apple cake: One of nieces, who couldn’t join us this year sent this beautiful and delicious pecan pie:

Thanks, Anna. The magnet did stick to the bowl that I used. So it isn't aluminum. So I still don't know why my curd tasted metallic.

Anna – thanks for the potato information. I’m looking forward to trying them. Last night was pot roast sandwich, sweet potato and slaw: The sandwiches ended up being so sloppy that we ate them with a knife and fork!

The lemons were brand new and very fresh, so I don't think that would be the case. Is there some way of telling if a bowl is aluminum or SS? The color of the curd was perfect.