Kim Shook

I am really not sure if the bowl is aluminum or SS. I bought it over 20 years ago at a Dollar General and it is VERY light. Maybe just use glass next time?

Dave – gorgeous morning buns! Yours look a lot flakier than my experiment turned out! The last time I posted I forgot to say thanks to everyone for the kind words about my bake sale items! Dream cookies (a rich butter cooky) for a party at Mr. Kim’s office:

Anna – your potato roesti is gorgeous! What’s your method? Ann – thank you for the Greek shanks information. It sounds simple and delicious! I’ll give it a try the next time we have shanks! Your Yorkshire pudding raises another question: what do you bake it in to get that shape? I love the idea of a Yorkie bowl! CatPoet – I hope you are feeling better soon! c oliver – that is definitely the perfect crab cake recipe. Having grown up on the Eastern shore and spending summer weekends with a family who had once owned a big seafood restaurant in DC, I am VERY conservative when it comes to crab cakes. As soon as I see bell peppers in the recipe, it is automatically discarded. Dinner tonight: Chicken Pillows w/ hollandaise, green beans with vinaigrette and corn. Working down the freezer in preparation for Xmas. This is just one of the trashiest dinners imaginable. The chicken pillows are a Pinterest recipe calling for Pillsbury Crescent rolls and Cream of Chicken soup. The hollandaise is a mix. The beans are canned and the corn is frozen niblets in ‘butter’ sauce. I can’t believe that I dare even post this meal. And I’m not even sick anymore !

Some early Christmas cooking – SF Pecans w/ Quattre Epices for a gift for my FIL: Cinnamon Pecans:

I made lemon curd last night to use up the yolks that I had left after making multiple batches of nuts. I am detecting a very slight metallic taste (though Mike isn't). I made it in an improvised double boiler - an aluminum mixing bowl set over simmering water - and whisked with a metal whisk. I've never noticed this problem before. Has this happened to anyone else, or is my 'taster' messed up?

The quattre epices recipe I found included white pepper, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. I used that and Splenda on some pecans and it was perfect. Melissa - I was actually at Penzeys yesterday and they had 3 different types of cinnamon. They really are different, too. Since I was using just a tiny little amount in another candied nut that I was making for him, I didn't bother buying the less fragrant kind, but it was a good idea that I'll remember!

BonVivant - gorgeous sausage and pork dinner! David – I can vouch for that cannelloni! You very kindly typed out and sent me that recipe SEVEN years ago and I’ve made it repeatedly to rave reviews. I need to make sure that I make it this winter! I also use egg roll wrappers. One of the BEST kitchen hacks in the world. dcarch – love the line-up of vegetables and meat! Those charred parsnips look especially delicious! Patrick – good LORD those baked beans look amazing. That is a whole meal in one bowl. Ann – please tell what makes those gorgeous lamb shanks Greek! I love lamb and Greek seasonings and I’d like to try that. Dinner tonight was a freezer meal – some Cincinnati chili that I made a couple of months ago and some slaw I threw together:

I couldn't find a topic about using nuts to make snack mixes, so I'm starting one. An experiment for sugar free nuts for my FIL for Xmas: A friend on another site suggested that I make Dorie’s Sweet and Spicy Cocktail nuts. I did them with Splenda and they are delicious – sugar, chili powder, cinnamon and cayenne. They are going into the freezer for Christmas.

Jeremy, welcome and congratulations on the CIA! Can't wait to see your contributions and hope you have time to play with us here!

Welcome, Patrick! You'll find lots of interest and experience in sous vide cooking here (not me, though!). Looking forward to hearing more from you.

Thank you all! I think I'm going to take a bit from each of you and see what I come up with!

Do you object to an immersion blender? They don't take up any counter space (just a bit of drawer space) and they are so versatile.

I am trying to come up with a food gift for my FIL. He loves sweets, but is a diabetic and very, very careful about sugar (not so much about carbs). He likes honey roasted nuts. Every year for Christmas I make Cinnamon Pecans and I've had success in the past making them with Splenda instead of sugar. The issue is that he doesn't care for cinnamon. I was thinking that I could sub something in for the cinnamon. I was thinking a mixture of bacon salt and cayenne. I think that would play well with the sweet pecans. Any other ideas? He is NOT a very adventuresome eater, so I think that anything like curried nuts is probably out, but he does like a little heat. In case it helps, the method is whipping an egg white until frothy, tossing with the nuts, adding the sugar/cinnamon/salt mixture and tossing more. They they are spread on a baking sheet and roasted until crisp.

Welcome! Just jump in - can't wait to see your contributions!

Franci – thank you for the roast potato directions and the good wishes. I’m feeling much better this week. Heading out to do some Christmas shopping tomorrow, so we’ll see how I stand up to that ! Shelby – ever since I saw your Reuben, I’ve been looking forward to having one today. We usually go to lunch at a local deli after church, and they have fabulous Reubens. Well, we went to lunch with some friends and it was their turn to pick. We ended up at a Chinese restaurant. What in the world do you order at a Chinese restaurant when your mouth is set for a Reuben? I ended up with an egg roll. Mr. Kim’s dinner tonight started with a salad (of course): Then, it got much better: A little rib eye. It was so thin that it cooked in less than 5 minutes in a smoking hot skillet, but was still juicy and delicious.

I'd like to see something interesting and good quality that doesn't involve some kind of stunt eating. I'm tired of 'world's hottest' and 'world's biggest'. Could the food just taste good? Or maybe, could you offer something that was delicious and NOT spicy? I seem to remember that was possible years ago.

huiray – I agree about the Cipriani pasta. It is certainly the best I’ve had. My favorite is also the tagliarelle – which is also a treat for us! dcarch – as usual, your dishes amaze and delight! Prawn – gorgeous oysters! And that duck is so lovely. I admit that, being your average American, I find eel a tad scary, but I’ve tasted it at sushi bars and liked it better than anything else on offer. So I’d eat it, but would have a horror of seeing it pre-prep! And I think your steak killed me. Franci – your roasted potatoes look perfect. How do you do them? mm – your roasted chicken, salad and cheese meal is, to me, the perfect fall home meal. Lovely. Norm – congratulations and much happiness to the couple. All of those breakfasts sound fantastic. I’m still on antibiotics, so I have zero interest in eating, grocery shopping or cooking. But I did manage to throw together an awfully good dinner from an assortment of freezer gifts and the odd leftover. Started with a salad of some rejuvenated Romaine, cucumbers and frozen mango chunks – dressing with some lime-olive oil vinaigrette that was lurking in the back of the fridge: Chicken sautéed with pearl onions, cornbread dressing, green beans and smashed potatoes. Without gravy and with: The meal really was a lesson in frugality. The chicken was from a good sale I found a couple of months ago, the beans were some I bought from a restaurant in NC during last month’s visit. The dressing was made of leftover cornbread from the freezer along with a very tired onion and some limp celery. The potatoes were just a very few babies that were languishing in the cabinet – not the firmest, but sound. And I made stock from a rotisserie chicken carcass that we’d tossed in a bag in the freezer a week ago. That served the gravy and moistened the dressing. It really all sounds deadly dull and almost institutional. But it was not at all. It had no business being as good as it was!

CatPoet – yes, please! I’d love to have the recipe! Shelby – somewhere in the stacks of cookbooks and printed off recipes and magazines, I recently saw and bookmarked a banana bread that looked just like that – on purpose! It sounds great and I really love the look of it. Sounds like a happy accident to me.

CatPoet – I think that your neighbor’s birthday cake looks and sounds delicious and good for you for making her day special! I had to ‘Google’ radio cake – sounds good! Nickolai – your cream filled pancakes look so good. That is just my idea of a perfect cake/cream/fruit combination. Elise – gorgeous plum tart! I wish I’d made one while we still had good plums! All I did was eat mine! Anna – what were those brownies like. I am a fan of chewy brownies – neither cakey nor gooey/moist. But brownies are my very favorite dessert, so I’m always looking for a good recipe. RWood – I am also a fan of pink and I think that if someone made that cake for me, I’d faint dead away! Lovely. I was in charge of our church bake sale for our Holiday Market yesterday. Other people cooked, but I wasn’t sure how many would, so I cooked a LOT! One of those cake mix fix-ups from The Cake Doctor. The recipe is called “Darn Good Chocolate Cake” and is intended to be baked in a Bundt pan. I decided to do cupcakes with mini chips on top instead of frosting. Very good and tender. These are Peanut Butter Krispy Bars from “Baked”. Simply incredible. Like a sophisticated, grown up Rice Krispy Treat. No marshmallow and dark chocolate. Heaven. Pink Meringue “Cupcakes” – a good gluten-free option. You can’t see it in the picture, but they were brushed with pink luster dust and were very popular with the little girls. Gingerbread Cake w/ Cranberry Filling and Orange Cream Cheese Icing. This was sold as a whole cake and went much more quickly than I thought it would. My oatmeal cookies with Raisinets. Double chocolate cherry cookies. Bleu cheese shortbread w/ fig preserves. No one touched these until my mother had the great idea to put out a plate of samples and then they disappeared! They are perfect with wine or cocktails and since this is an Episcopal church, they were perfect! Mr. Kim made his wonderful Apple cake. I sliced and wrapped it and you could still smell the incredible aroma. These went fast.

We get the bacon. In fact, my husband usually orders a couple of dozen pounds because he's converted lots of folks in his office. Once every couple of months we get this huge box of smelly, smokey goodness on our porch. I'm always surprised that the critters haven't dragged it away!

Basquecook – thanks! I wish I had one of those. I do have a deep fryer, but it involves digging through the attic and finding a place in my tiny kitchen to safely put it….etc. I probably get it out twice a year ! Franci and menuinprogress – I’m loving the looks of those noodley bowls! Shelby – are those fettuccini noodles under your sauce or egg noodles? I am a philistine because I actually prefer soft, slippy egg noodles to pasta, but never thought to put spaghetti sauce on them. I might try that, even if it’s not what you did. Mr. Kim loves spaghetti and I don’t make it very often. I might if I used egg noodles! Last night was breakfast for dinner while carving the pumpkins: Local sausage, local free-range eggs, frozen biscuits and salad bar fruit salad – mixed bag, huh?

Welcome, Eliot! Looking forward to more of your contributions.

OK - now I know. He had to take them out this morning in case he was too late getting home tonight. We have Almond Joy, Mounds, Reeses Cups, Dum Dums, Skittles and York Peppermint Patties. It is 11am and I've already had a York and an Almond Joy. Sigh.

Benton's is in TN, but some of the best pork we've ever eaten. (We live in VA and love Edward's but they are incredibly expensive.) Never gotten a whole Benton's ham, but the slices are outstanding. 14-17 lb. hams are $65.

Thanks for the Crepes – thank you! I got the haricot vert at Whole Foods, which you have in Cary. Fresh Market usually has them, too. Thanks to Toliver, you got the link for the recipe! Basquecook – your fried chicken method is very similar to mine, but I cook at a higher temperature. I will try your lower temp method next time. Do you deep fry or pan fry? I always pan fry (except for the one time I did enough for 20+ in a turkey fryer) and end up with almost burnt places where it touches the pan. I’m thinking that your lower temp might help that! Paul – thank you for the scallop information. It looked wonderful and I’ll use that method next time I make scallops! Chris – now I wish I could find some pork cheeks. Ann – every single one of your meals look delicious, but your roasted chicken dinner has me dreaming of Thanksgiving!!! I can’t wait. Shelby – Gorgeous sear on your scallops! Also, your breaded tomatoes sound a LOT like my Scalloped Tomatoes: http://www.recipecircus.com/recipes/Kimberlyn/VEGETABLES/Scalloped_Tomatoes.html Steve – good to see you back! Hope things go well for you and it’s great that you are cooking such lovely looking food! Tonight was panko coated pork chops with fig/mustard sauce, creamy noodles (don’t ask – guilty pleasure of Mr. Kim’s) and Brussels sprouts: