Kim Shook

Kerry - oooooohhhh! That sounds incredible. If you would only give me directions for doing that ganache, I promise to do just that!

Thank you all so much for the good wishes! It seems to be more of a waiting game than anything. Hoping to be a bit more active in this particular thread since my breakfasts tend to be fairly quick!

When I look at this thread, I know that I can’t claim to be a candymaker. You all just slay me! I don’t even understand what you are talking about sometimes, but I read and look and drool all the same. Thank you all so much for taking the time to share your wonderful work! Some good friends who have multiple fig trees invited us down for a visit and to pick figs. I jumped at that and came home with TONS. Most of them ended up as candied figs. Dusted with sugar: These are perfectly luscious – soft and chewy and full of fig flavor. A serendipitous result of making the candied figs is the syrup that results from simmering them in a sugar/water mixture. The syrup is fantastic over pancakes and such.

gpark – I really like your spin on eggs Benedict! It got me thinking of a southern version – grits cake, country ham, egg and some kind of variation of béarnaise! Thanks for the inspiration! Anna – that Vietnamese pancake looks so incredible. My daughter and I have fallen in love with that very dish at our local Vietnamese restaurant. Thanks so much for telling us how to find the recipe. I’m going to give it a try and surprise her. Ann – all your breakfasts look divine, but those apple fritters are just amazing. I’ve been seriously MIA, I know! I have had health issues since the middle of August culminating in a bad fall a couple of weeks ago – right now I’m in a back brace with a fractured vertebra. This all means that my time cooking and sitting at a computer has been (and will continue to be) very abbreviated. But I have cooked some – Scrambled eggs and sausage biscuits with gravy. And some watermelon: Another: Thick and Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes, Benton’s bacon and some sausage that Mr. Kim smoked. Fabulous.

emmalish – those lemon-poppy seed cookies look and sound delicious. One of my favorite combinations, too. Thanks for giving the recipe link. I’ve printed it and will give it a try when I can! A couple of recent desserts – the first is a chocolate éclair cake from Cook’s Country: This dessert has been a guilty pleasure for years at potlucks and office lunches. This version is made with a from-scratch custard and chocolate glaze and it makes a world of difference in the flavor. I also did a Blueberry Breakfast Cake: The recipe is from a friend who got it from Pinterest, I think. We still have a couple of gallons of blueberries that we picked and I stuffed a good 2 cups into this cake! Delicious. Sunday I made Ruhlman’s angel food cake for a family birthday celebration. It was a special request (angel food cake is Mr. Kim’s traditional family favorite) and just evaporated! Served with a choice of blueberry sauce or caramel sauce.

Saturday’s breakfast: Swiss and Monterey Jack omelet and fried ham. And Sunday’s: Benton’s bacon and a fried egg, spinach and cheese ET bagel.

Thanks, everyone. I decided on the not fresh-deli mozz. I figured that that was what they used at Central Grocery and I'd do authentic for Mr. Kim's BD.

Mr. Kim has requested muffulettas for his birthday dinner. We have a jar of Central Grocery olive salad and I've narrowed down the meats to hard salami, mortadella and capicola. Every recipe I've found calls for Provolone and mozzarella. I believe that aged Provolone will be good, from what I remember of our sandwiches we had there years ago, but as far as the mozz goes - fresh or not?

It has been a VERY long time (since almost the beginning of July) since I’ve been able to spend any time perusing eG. We’ve been so busy lately – going out of town, house guests, entertaining and, oddly enough, trapping cats. Yep, cats. My mom and I have been trapping feral cats for local rescue groups that trap, spay/neuter and release. Anyway, I’ve been taking pictures, just not posting! I cannot possibly go back and comment on all the fantastic things that I’ve missed, so I’ll just comment on some recent posts – Bruce – you got me!! Crab cakes, corn and iceberg salad. Could anything be more Eastern shore? We snuck up to Pope’s Creek a couple of weekends ago to pick crabs, but I’m still yearning for a soft shell sandwich! Ann – your potato gratin looks perfect. Some recent meals: Cheeseburger w/ egg, marinated cukes, squash and a friend’s potato salad. Is that a lovely egg, or what ? Thanks to Ashen for that egg method. A post yoga dinner: On yoga nights I try to have something light and easy to eat when we get home. Otherwise we are tempted by appetizers and drinks at Friday’s and go to bed greased out, bloated and tipsy – NOT the way one should follow up yoga ! A lunch: Shrimp salad sandwich. My mother was over the other night and dinner started with Watermelon Daiquiris: Just a tossed together drink w/ watermelon juice (purchased – homemade will be wonderful), lime juice and rum. I did Korean Grilled Beef: I got this recipe ages ago from someone at chowhound.com and it turned out great. We all loved it. Really tender and flavorful. Served with green beans and jasmine rice (which turned out perfectly for me – it just about never does): And garlic naan: Another night Mr. Kim brought some BBQ (sliced beef and chopped/minced pork) from King’s BBQ – an old family place in Petersburg, a nearby town. Beef: Pork, served with fries and corn and my first ever use of my new Vitamix – slaw: I love this texture for BBQ slaw! And it took much less than a minute – including slicing the cabbage to place in the Vitamix container. I liked the BBQ very much – I would have liked a bit more smokiness and I used Short Sugar’s sauce (a BBQ joint in Reidsville, NC). The beef was great – almost like pit beef – though I do wish they’d sliced it thinner. Mr. Kim didn’t care much for the beef and just thought that the pork was ok (he’s become such a smoker snob ). Breakfast for dinner with my MIL’s wonderful yeast rolls: And including some gorgeous peaches that my in laws brought us: Twenty minute throw-together dinner: Kielbasa, yellow squash and onions, sweet potatoes and tomatoes. Served with corn and marinated cucumbers: The tomatoes were not very good. We got them at a farm stand out in the country, but they were no better than the ones we’ve been getting at another stand. We have not had one good tomato yet this year. The corn was great, though. My mom and I were up in northern VA for Friday and Saturday. Mr. Kim made dinner for us Saturday night: Shrimp chowder. Perfect! Mr. Kim’s brother is visiting from California. We had him and Jessica over for dinner last night. Fried chicken, Sour cream potatoes, gravy, slaw, butter beans, marinated cucumbers and Ruhlman’s yeast rolls: Dessert was lemon chess pie w/ CI’s vodka pie pastry:

Gorgeous breakfasts, everyone. And Ann, how I wish I could make biscuits that beautiful and fluffy! A breakfast: The hot cross buns are a freezer treat.

Ann – those Danish look delectable! Baselerd – I love the look of your strawberry/sorbet concoction and I adore the idea of freeze dried strawberry powder! Pquinene – your rocky road ice cream looks so scrumptious. Elise – lovely looking and sounding poundcake! Last night’s dessert was lemon chess pie w/ CI’s vodka pie pastry: What is not so evident in this picture is that while I cooked it in a deep dish pie pan, the pie filling makes a fairly shallow pie: It looked decidedly odd when sliced and I made a note to cook it in a regular pie pan from now on .

I am just in awe here. The quality of the cooking on this thread is just incredible. Elise – the texture of that chocolate pound cake looks perfect. Curls – I love your bundt pan, too! I made some Double Chocolate Cherry cookies this weekend to take to a dinner at our friends house: They were kind of unusual and very good. The ‘double’ part was cocoa and chocolate chips. Another ingredient was oatmeal, which I’ve never used in a chocolate cooky. Instead of chips, I chunked up some dark chocolate. They were pretty intensely chocolate flavored and nicely chewy. To me, they needed more dried cherries, though.

Ann – thanks – we eat corn probably 4 times a week when it is in season. I’d eat it every day if I went to the store that often! Oh, that garlic! My mom and I were talked just today about how fabulous really fresh garlic is. I had to Google ‘lahmacun’. Sounds fantastic. We had my mother over for dinner the other night: Hot roast beef sandwiches, roasted potatoes and salad. Dessert was all fruit – I provided peaches and nectarines that we’d gotten from an orchard near Charlottesville: And Momma brought strawberries, sour cream and brown sugar: The peaches were incredible – worth another drive over before the season is out. The strawberries were really large, but still very, very good.

Bruce – thanks for posting the link for the garlic fish. That is something that I’m going to make soon! I really love the sound of your beef salad – sans lettuce. I’ve never cared much for beef salads, but I’ve always had them with lettuce – I think I’d like your ‘manlier’ version ! Bruce, my BD is tomorrow – will you meet me halfway and bring me a char siu banh mi, please? PastaMeshugana – that is some beautiful smoking! Thanks to PastaMeshugana, Rico and rotuts for telling me not to be ashamed of my tamale pie! rotuts – the chili and the tamales were both Hormel. mm – that John Dory has to be one of the loveliest things I’ve ever seen. Syzygies – your 4th of July ribs look exactly how I like mine to look. We are going out to dinner tomorrow for ribs and I hope they are like yours! dcarch – oh, oh, OH!!! Soft shells . My favorite food in the whole wide world. Must get some soon!!! Steve – love the Scotch eggs – I need to make some soon. Wapi – beautiful mussels! The day before the 4th we had pork chops and potatoes: With salad and Michael Ruhlman’s yeast rolls: Independence Day was a quiet, at home day with just us and Momma and Jessica. “Hogdogs” and go-withs, then a drive up to King’s Dominion – we parked on a service road and saw excellent fireworks for free. Hogdogs start with split and fried dogs: Wrapped in bacon: Topped with BBQ: Plated with BBQ sauce, slaw and beans and slaw on the side: Served with corn, pickly things and an odd looking, but really good layered congealed strawberry and sour cream salad that comes from a local grocery store: The green tomato is my MIL’s sweet tomato pickle – truly incredible. Mr. Kim’s hogdog with the addition of kraut: I don’t know how he got it in his mouth! Dessert was watermelon and cupcakes:

Rico – no good tomatoes here in central VA yet, but the first thing I want is a BLT just like yours! Ann – the lamb looks perfectly cooked and potato gratin is my favorite side dish with lamb. liuzhou – gorgeous fried rice and clams. How I’d love to dig into that for dinner tonight. Dinner last night started with, what else, a salad: I also made Tamale Pie. Possibly the trashiest thing in my repertoire: Canned beef tamales, cheese and canned chili. I used to make this a lot when we were first married and broke and haven’t made it in forever. I just got a taste for it the other day. I’m ashamed to say that I still love this stuff.

Ann - I haven't eaten yet today and I can't tell you how ravenous your last two posts are making me!!!

rotuts – a friend recently gave me a 1956 Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook which I just love. And my stepmom sent me a bunch of really old cookbook pamphlets from different appliance companies and The Dairy Board – really wonderful. robirdstx – love ALL of your meals, but for some reason that hamburger is drawing me in! Bruce – you really should try the fried pickles the next time that you do BBQ – they are amazingly easy to do and go incredibly well with the pork. That Pescado al mojo de ajo is just delicious looking. Ann - that Greek dinner is one of our favorite meals in the world! A recent dinner - pot roast: Called “Wonderful Pot Roast” at the Campbell’s site, I’ve heard people rave about this recipe for years. People who I trust as cooks. When I recently found a good deal on a small chuck roast, and wanted to do it in a slow cooker for a busy day, I decided to give it a try. The recipe calls for placing the vegetables in the bottom of a slow cooker, topping with the browned roast, mixing the soups and water and pouring that over everything and cooking on low for 10 hours. Easy, no real prep. I decided to caramelize my onions. Then went ahead and caramelized the celery and carrots. And added some minced garlic. I omitted one can of water, thinking it would make it way too watery. And a little red wine couldn’t hurt, right? I switched out the tarragon (NOT with beef, thanks) for Penzey’s salt-free Mural of Flavor. When it was finished cooking I decided to thicken the gravy with a roux. Halfway through all of this I realized that I STILL hadn’t really tried the recipe. I had only used it as a base for the resulting combination of ideas. Sigh. But my version was pretty good . Served with Michael Ruhlman’s yeast rolls: Plated with gravy and green beans:

I really like the idea of making smallish spring rolls with shrimp and vegetables. And it takes the place of the fish AND the Asian salad. I did an open house – almost finger food thing this past Christmas for the first time and found that gougeres went FAST. They freeze beautifully, too.

A burger on a donut sounds awful to me, but I have to admit that I am intrigued by the idea of a donut sandwich made with a boneless piece of fried chicken.

rotuts – well, I’ve thanked you in the breakfast thread and now here! No offense taken WHATSOEVER, I promise! In fact, I’m flattered. I love all things vintage and my family knows that I’m the one to dump all their old stuff on. I’m the only one who is willing to hand wash depression glass, to polish silver and to find a home for worn china! But the funny thing is – the bowls that you mentioned were purchased at Crate and Barrel this January! Also that deconstructed turkey dish – looks delicious and cool and refreshing. Elise – those yummy little lamb-sicles look fantastic! Ann – thank you for the complement. I am overwhelmingly honored that you think we cook alike. And I’m going to add some nicely fried onions to Mr. Kim’s peas next time that I make them for him – he would LOVE that. I also really like the look of your Italian sausage sauce. It seems like the sausage really takes the stage in that dish. I think that I tend to make my sauce too thick and, well, SAUCY and I lose the sausage a bit. Just chopped tomatoes in your sauce? No pureed? Prawn – nice to ‘see’ you!!! That is one gorgeous fish – what a crust. And I’ve been craving summer rolls since our favorite Vietnamese restaurant closed. Well, I’ve been helping my mom to recover from carpal tunnel surgery and recovering myself from a weeklong bout of bronchitis, so not much cooking from me. I did make this the other night: Chicken enchilada bake, fried green tomatoes and Southern green beans. Dessert was another silly, but good cake mix/canned frosting thing – white cake, lime curd filling and pink lemonade frosting: The frosting was surprisingly delicately flavored. We liked this a lot, it turned out.

rotuts – thanks for the kind words. I think that brunch is probably my favorite meal to prepare, so I’ve got LOTS of different things that I do. Here is the recipe for the Benedict baskets: http://www.recipecircus.com/recipes/Kimberlyn/EGGS/Benedict_Baskets.html and here is the one for the French toast: http://www.recipecircus.com/recipes/Kimberlyn/BREAKFAST/Cinnamon_French_Toast_Bake.html . Ann – thanks to you, also! That tomato/bacon baguette is fantastic looking. I love tomatoes on toast for breakfast and would love to know how to make baguettes at home. Is the recipe on your site?

Excellent article from African-American culinary historian, Michael W. Twitty: http://afroculinaria.com/2013/06/25/an-open-letter-to-paula-deen/

Ann – that halibut fish and chips looks fantastic. Time to get my fryer out! I also loved the corn custard ‘shape’. Did you just bake it in a mold? And I’m with you – Bruce’s rice ALWAYS inspires me! I’m really loving the hot chicken sandwich, too! We lived in Indiana for a few years and hot chicken/beef sandwiches are called ‘Manhattans’, for some unfathomable reason. I adore them. Love that you served with fries rather than mashed. Fries and gravy has been one of my favorite foods since after school drug store counter feasts 40+ years ago! David – your lamb burger sounds amazing. I love lamb, but haven’t made a burger from it yet. Something to try this summer. I really wish I could find those brioche buns in my area. Ranz – that pork belly is seriously gorgeous! dcarch – thank you! You pictures are not showing for me – just a photobucket notice in place of each one. Soba – I’m not usually a fan of potato salad, but the combination of ‘warm’ and ‘lobster’ has me very, very interested! Scubadoo – corn and scallops are, to me, one of THE classic summer combinations. Great sear on those scallops. mm – I’m embarrassed to say that I STILL haven’t tried monkfish. I need to remedy that. It looks lovely. Bruce – oh, wow! Those gorgeous ribs, that caramel pork with my favorite bean sprouts. Just incredible. My dinner tonight is looking less and less interesting. menuinprogress – oh, my dear! That lamb burger with the caramelized onions. Might be the tastiest looking thing I’ve seen in a month. Franci – Your charcuterie is reminding me that I need to peruse this thread BEFORE I prep dinner. I now want exactly THAT. Last week was filled with houseguests, so I’ve had no time to post, but I have been cooking! We had a niece visiting who will start college here in the fall. She was here on Monday and Tuesday getting paperwork done for the start of school and looking for apartments. She left Wednesday morning and our other guests, longtime friends who now live in Florida, arrived at lunchtime! Our dinner Monday night with our niece, Jessica and my mom started with, what else - : Bucatini w/ Italian sausage Bolognese: And garlic bread: Tuesday, Mr. Kim was smoking some pork butts for lunch on Friday, so he smoked a chicken for dinner: Gorgeous! Moist and delicious and tender: I served it with Sabra roasted garlic hummus: Tabbouleh from our local Mediterranean deli: And my tzatziki: Also leftover Rice-a-roni and some garlic naan: It was a great combination of Mr. Kim, me and good shopping. Really excellent dinner! For lunch on Wednesday, when our Florida friends arrived, I did ‘things in dishes’ for lunch – sandwich salads and chips: Egg salad: Tuna salad: Olive and cream cheese spread: Veg and dip: Dinner Thursday night really should have been good. I did a slow cooker orange beef thing that I’ve done before: Served on stir fried ramen w/ snow peas and red peppers. As I said, I’ve made this before and we liked it a lot. One problem was the dryness. I think that what happened was that there was not enough liquid to cover the meat and the pieces that were above the ‘water line’ got dry. I doubled the recipe and that may have messed things up. Also, we had a terrible storm and when we got home our power was out. I took the slow cooker over to Momma’s and plugged it in and went back to get it later when power was restored and we were ready to eat. That may have further screwed my dish. I liked the flavor still, but Mr. Kim REALLY didn’t. So I won’t be making this again for him! I also made some candied orange peel for a garnish: It’s Michael Ruhlman’s recipe and was the best thing on the table. Friday lunch was Mr. Kim’s time to shine. He’d done a couple of pork butts on the grill on Tuesday. Our friends were still here and we invited Momma and Mr. Kim’s parents over to lunch and to have a visit. Butts on the smoker: Pulled pork: He got a gorgeous bark and a nice smoke ring this time. Served with slaw, tomatoes, baked beans, corn… and some truly awesome fried pickle slices: Mr. Kim saw someone making them on TV and it occurred to him that they would be a good pair with the BBQ. Good instincts. We put them on top of the pork in the sandwiches and it was a pairing made in heaven. The sharp, briny taste of the pickles worked perfectly with the smoky, sweet pork. Really fantastic and the pickles were really easy to do. Dessert was a silly little box mix and canned frosting combination that actually tasted great: Strawberry cake and Key lime frosting.

Ann – I’ve been wanting to try potato waffles – they look lovely! Ashen – gorgeous eggs, as usual! I use your trick fairly often – to rave reviews – and no one can figure out how I get them to look so nice! Soba – lovely mushroom omelet and that salad is beautiful. percyn – funny that you should make the kolaches because they have been in my thoughts a lot lately. I really want to try making them – nice browning on that. And your lobster breakfasts are killing me. We had house guests all last week, so I managed to do breakfast a few days. Breakfast on Thursday was supposed to be a new recipe I found for a Gouda, grits and egg casserole, but when we were out at dinner on Wednesday night the wife mentioned how much she hated grits, so we just had scrambled eggs, sausage and fruit salad: Friday morning breakfast was Eggs Benedict Baskets w/ hollandaise and B’fast Kebabs (bacon, sausage & ham): Plated w/ hollandaise: Father’s Day b’fast was Cinnamon French toast bake: Plated w/ Benton’s bacon: The French toast bake was made with whomp biscuit cinnamon rolls, but was very, very good. It didn’t have that damp, custardy texture that I find so unpleasant in most baked French toast recipes.

I tested this recipe before the book was published and my notes indicate how surprised I was at how good the soup turned out without stock. Truly delicious.