Kim Shook

I’ve been so busy that I haven’t even checked in here in more than 2 weeks and have spent the last hour perusing the site. Everything looks so wonderful that I had to get up midway and make myself a snack! Soba – your food is always beautiful, but that warm salad that you made on 5/11 may be the most spring-like, loveliest, most delicately beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Kate – thanks for the bun recommendation – that they are worth tracking down and I love the look of your ‘complicated salad’. dcarch – your salmon sandwiches are both adorable and delicious looking! Mike – oh, MY! BBQ and corn on the cob. To my mind, the ONLY reason to put up with hot weather is BBQ pork, corn and tomatoes. Gorgeous! Keith – I could dive right into your latest meal and clean the plate. Wonderful looking noodles! A very belated happy mother’s day to all the moms here. We hosted a brunch for Mother’s Day with another family. They brought quiches, green beans, fruit salad and pound cake. They ended up being 2 hours late, so I didn’t get pictures of their food. Luckily, Mr. Kim had suggested (based on their past behavior) that I go ahead and make the full meal that I’d been planning so the rest of us went ahead and ate. My food included a ham and cheese croissant strata that another girlfriend of mine makes. Before baking: Just little ham and Swiss croissant sandwiches. After pouring on the egg custard and topping with Gruyere and baking: Really good – and miles above most of the breakfast casseroles that I’ve made. And, of course, a salad with choice of bleu cheese or vinaigrette: Also tiny little biscuits and jam: The jams were blueberry, fig and peach that a friend made, apple butter from Yoder’s Amish restaurant and bakery in Sarasota and the last of my strawberry jam from last spring. In the front is bacon jam. Greeted with suspicion at first, but lapped up enthusiastically after the first taste by everyone! My dessert was Paula Deen’s Not Yo’ Momma’s Nana Pudding: It’s the only banana pudding that I care for. More like a mousse than a pudding and with yummy Chessmen cookies instead of icky vanilla wafers! One recent evening I did a slow cooker BBQ brisket: It was a combination of a Cooks Country recipe and one from allrecipes.com. It was good and moist and very, very flavorful, but to my taste needed more BBQ sauce. Plated with slaw, green beans and some baked beans leftover from Red, Hot and Blue: Yesterday a dear friend from HS came down for a short visit. For dinner I served Ann T.’s baked halibut: Really delicious and REALLY expensive – don’t think that I’ll be making halibut very often at $25/lb.!!! Along with the fish I served roasted asparagus, Ann’s corn custard, Lidia Bastianich’s Caesar salad and Billy bread (a super crusty dense wheat/rye/spelt loaf from a local bakery): I’ve made the corn custard before and it was as good as always – Our friend, very much a Southern boy, was surprised that the recipe came from a Canadian! The Caesar was good, but needed a stronger anchovy punch (my fault as I used anchovy paste instead of anchovies). A shot of the inside of the corn custard and the fish: Dessert was poundcake topped with strawberries and cream. The poundcake: A mix, as I cannot seem to make one from scratch any better than the mix.I swirled strawberry jam through the cake batter before baking:

Ann – thank you. I am like Moe and could eat eggs every day. When our daughter was little, Friday night was always ‘Breakfast for dinner night’. I thought it was this great treat – cozy, comforting – really creating those warm family traditions. Well, Jessica said to me one Friday morning, “Do we HAVE to have breakfast EVERY Friday?” She STILL doesn’t really care for eggs at night! Those breakfast tacos look wonderful. And it’s so funny that your last picture was of the yeasted waffles. When I read you saying that you had just gotten a waffle maker and were experimenting, I immediately thought of yeasted waffles and was going to recommend them! And potato waffles sound perfectly perfect. BTW – corn bread waffles (just cornbread batter cooked in the waffle maker) are fabulous, as are gingerbread waffles. liuzhou – what an absolutely gorgeous poached egg. A recent breakfast: Mr. Kim’s was scrambled eggs and sausage on an ET bagel. My variation:

emmalish – those bran muffins look perfect – such gorgeous little dome tops! Elizabeth – beautiful, beautiful cheesecake! Baselerd – your desserts are always among the most beautiful and delicious sounding ones on this thread! Ann – thank you! I’ll be posting something on the dinner thread in a bit that you might like to see! That is one of the loveliest pies I’ve ever seen! I made some strawberry muffins from a recipe that I got from someone on Marlene’s site, cookskorner.com: Simple and tender – not too cakelike or too bready. I did find that my American palate wanted them a little sweeter. I topped them with a confectioner’s sugar glaze. No picture of that because I used too much red food coloring and they ended up looking like they were covered with Pepto Bismol!

Oh, my! What a lovely surprise to come back to eG after being too busy to visit for a couple of weeks and find you blogging, Soba! Everything looks stunning – fresh, beautiful, delicious and gorgeously photographed! Those baked eggs and the bacon and onion dish were standouts for me!

percyn – your gorgeous stuffed steak stirred a memory of something that I haven’t made in years. I dug out my recipe for a stuffed flank steak with Swiss cheese and Italian sausage (very international dish, huh? ) and am going to make it soon! dcarch – wonderful looking meals and your little jewel-like aspic discs are lovely! Soba – love the mussels and ramps. I haven’t had time to visit a farmer’s market yet this season and hope to find ramps when I get the chance. I’d love to duplicate your dish. Franci – oh, that charcuterie! My favorite summer meal is platters of really good cured meats, some tomatoes and all the sweet corn we can eat! Ashen – thanks for the wing steak information. The naming of cuts of meat is very confusing! RRO – lovely belly buns! And you gave me an idea. I’m going to check our fairly large Asian market to see if they have the buns. I can just barely imagine myself finally managing to prepare good Char siu (Bruce sent me a recipe), but don’t think that I will manage that AND the buns! Dinner last night was salad and Breakfast Crostatas: The crostatas were good, but need some work. You start with a crust of refrigerated bread dough and top with herbs, Gruyere and ham and then the egg. There wasn’t enough dough to make four crostatas, the recipe called for WAY too much cheese and you were supposed to cook them for 25 minutes with the egg on top! In that amount of time, I knew that the egg would end up like a hockey puck, so I made some adjustments. They ended up being very tasty, but a bit fiddly. I’d make these for dinner again, but probably not for company (as I had intended).

Patrick – mimolette is wonderful cheese, though I always think that it looks like Cheddar that’s been allowed to sit out too long. I love the vibrant green of your Tart Garlic Chicken! And that lamb kabob and lavash dish looks amazing. I’m still full from lunch and shouldn’t be succeptable, but I am. Judiu – so sorry! Sometimes I am less than precise. The shrimp and grits recipe is here: http://www.recipecircus.com/recipes/Kimberlyn/FISHandSEAFOOD/Sherry_Shrimp__Grits.html Tina – I know that you had problems with your rosti, but I am SO impressed with those potato strands that you cut. Amazing. And you are NOT the only person who has trouble with sticking pans. I know all the “tricks” for getting food to not stick and I still have the disasters you describe. I almost never use anything but non-stick pans (and still have issues – see my post re: polenta cakes!). Bruce – gorgeous color on that grilled endive. And the mahi-mahi in the later post looks so good. mm – the suckling pig – simply astonishing! Ashen – never heard of ‘wing steak’ – Googling gave me porterhouse, Delmonico, NY - but it looks fantastic! Mark – gorgeous pastrami! I’m still waiting for Mr. Kim to make that. basquecook – fried oyster sandwich! One of my favorite things in the entire world! And if that’s how you feed drop-ins, you must be inundated with them. Dejah – trip sounds incredible! Be safe and have a wonderful time. A recent breakfast-for-dinner: Spinach salad and baked eggs with ham and cheese. Night before last: Chili-cheese dogs, beans, kraut and corn. The corn was very early, but surprisingly good. Yesterday was my mother’s 75th birthday. As requested, I did the hoisin braised short ribs (my mom’s and daughter’s favorite thing I make), polenta cakes and a salad. Salad: Just my basic – romaine, cukes, carrots and radishes – dolled up with pear, dried cranberries and sunflower seeds. Polenta cake: I had an incredible amount of trouble with the polenta cakes. They spattered horribly – it was like cooking popcorn in a pan without a lid. And the crust wouldn’t stick to the cakes – it just kept getting stuck to the skillet. I finally got 4 fairly decent looking ones to serve. I’ve never had that happen before. I did these with the slow cooker polenta that I’ve started to use and they were extraordinarily creamy. Maybe that had something to do with it. But the polenta had been chilled for 24 hours and was completely firm. Finished dish: When Marlene did this recipe she subbed a bit of honey for some of the hoisin. I tried that this time and liked it a lot. Crusty bread to sop up all that incredible sauce: Bite: Momma wanted strawberry shortcake for dessert. I adapted a Food Network shortcake recipe to make brown sugar biscuits: The taste and texture was perfect, but I wish they had risen a little more. I found some very early local strawberries at WF: They were good, but not great yet. Can’t wait to see what they are like in a couple of weeks.

huiray – by Kon Lo Mein I meant the second picture in your post of April 7th. I thought that was what you called it.

basquecook - I somehow missed commenting on that pork. That looks so amazing! My mom was looking over my shoulder and caught sight of it and said, “WHAT is that? It’s gorgeous!”. Soba – I think you are probably right! I want to try Chinese sausage – it is on my shopping list for the next time we go by the Asian market. Prawn – Lobster noodles. Just the name sounds fantastic. Bruce – back atcha! Thanks! Monday night Mr. Kim finally redeemed his Father’s day coupon from last June – a dry aged steak dinner with all the trimmings. Pre-dinner munchies included a cheese selection along with white fig preserves (homemade – a gift from a friend), sour cherry preserves and Daelia’s hazelnut w/ fig biscuits for cheese: The cheeses were (from 12 o’clock) Roquefort Société Bee, Mitica Capricho de Cabra w. fine herbs, les 3 comtois aged mimolette, Mitica fresco asiago: Salad: The steak covered one entire plate: The sauce was a dried morel and wine sauce that I came up with. I had some of James Peterson’s meat glaze in the freezer and added that and a little salt and pepper. Mr. Kim said it was one of the best things he’s ever eaten. The baked potato and asparagus had to go on another dinner plate: Swaddled bread: Dessert was just some minis that we got at WF: Éclair, turtle cheesecake, fruit tart and cannoli. The fruit tart and the cannoli were really good. The others were very ordinary. Why does it seem so hard for bakeries and restaurants to get eclairs right? Crème pâtissière is NOT that hard to make and choux pastry is dead easy. And so many places put a thick layer of buttercream icing on top instead of a glaze. I just don’t get it. Last night my mother was over for dinner. Salad and James Briscione’s sherry shrimp and grits: We love these shrimp. I did the grits in the slow cooker – I love this method and don’t think I’ll ever do them stove top again.

huiray – your lunches are astonishing! I especially liked the Kon Lo Mein. Lunch today was grilled cheese, tomato soup, chips and pickly things:

Mr. Kim’s breakfast yesterday: ET bagel with cream cheese and Benton’s bacon. Mine: Asiago bagel w/ a perfect fried egg – done with Ashen’s method. Mr. Kim’s breakfast this morning: Fried bread and egg topped with the leftover morels and wine sauce from our recent steak dinner.

Emmalish - gorgeous cookies! I adore cookies and find making them so rewarding. Can't wait to see more and thanks for the link. I was curious about the pattern on the PB cookies, too. Smart idea!

huiray – Bean sprouts are among my favorite vegetables to add to a stir fry (of course I don’t like many vegetables). I add them at the very end and they are just barely hot, so they don’t add much liquid to the dish and stay good and crunchy. Like Bruce, one of my favorites is roast pork with bean sprouts – a perhaps ersatz Asian dish, but something I love anyway . Prawn – Mr. Kim is really intrigued with the idea of a kimchi Reuben and I LOVE the look of that pastrami! Jason – everything looks amazing. Especially those over the top (in a VERY good way) meatballs. Wapi – I know that chicken would be way too hot for me, but BOY does it look good. Ranz – I agree with Tina – that is probably the loveliest pie I’ve ever seen. Soba – what is the result of cooking the radishes? Ashen – gorgeous pizza! Dinner last night – salad and char siu and basmati rice: The char siu was NOT from scratch. I picked up an envelope of something called “Hawaiian Pride Char Siu Sauce” from World Market. It was a combination marinade and sauce. Not much sauce was left after roasting and the flavor was odd – there was a bitter note that I found unpleasant. Mr. Kim liked it, though. I guess if I want good char siu, I’m just going to have to get someone to give me a good recipe and make it from scratch (hint-hint ).

Mr. Kim is off this week. His breakfast this morning was inspired by Bruce: Scrambled eggs with onion, spinach, jalapenos and cilantro. With Benton’s bacon and Campari tomatoes. I told Mr. Kim that he would enjoy living with you, Bruce – every single thing I’ve ever seen you make is something that he would love. Living with sissy-tongued me drives him batty, I’m sure! He loves spicy food, Asian food and Mexican food. None of which I’m very good at!

Bruce – the scrambled eggs with all the ‘stuff’ looks like something that Mr. Kim would love. We usually have spinach and peppers. He’s off work this week – I’ll make them for him one morning! Tina – I am finding the idea of a black sesame soufflé really intriguing! It is one of my favorite flavors. Soba – that poached egg and salad is simply gorgeous. Breakfast today: Mini quiche Lorraine and sausage rolls. Freezer gift !

Bruce – the chicken thighs sound wonderful and the Napa cabbage stir fry looks really good. dcarch – Ha! That is something I’d love to see – ME giving mm cooking lessons! That dish looked so good that I had to Google it. Do you know that when one Googles “Daab Chingri Macher Malaikari”, your gardenweb post and pictures are the first ones that come up? Probably too spicy for sissy me, but it sounds so good! Steve – I promise that, if I ever make it to Australia, I will gladly make you a coconut cake. Better yet, come to the US and I’ll make you anything you want. (One of those gorgeous glass pieces would make an excellent hostess gift! ) mm – what beautiful sole and what a delicious and lovely treatment! basquecook – I cannot wait!!! From a few days ago - beef stir fry and plain old ramen soup: The stir fry looked good, but was a bit dull. I used some spice mix envelope that I found at our favorite Asian grocery, but it needed some punching up.

Ben – all that looks gorgeous and delicious! What are the little log-looking things? rajoress – I agree with Darienne – those macaroons are lovely! An item from the cake mix fix up book that I recently bought – Neapolitan cake bars: These are actually really good. I added some coconut extract to the white cake layer and that emphasized the similarity between these and those Neapolitan candy bars. This book is one of those check-out ‘impulse buy’ items that I somehow can’t seem to resist. The food is not the kind that I usually cook, but something about those little booklets with the easy recipes and bright pictures of each dish just draws me in. I probably have a hundred of them and have probably made 1% of the recipes!

Neither is the 'lemon'! I admit to using the reconstituted juice on occasion, but this stuff is NOTHING like the real thing.

Tina – welcome to the US and to eGullet! The dumplings look wonderful and I can’t wait to see what you have to show us in the future. Steve – gorgeous tomato tarts! On Sunday Mr. Kim requested a version of Chicken Pho from an issue of Eating Well magazine. We started with crab rangoon and egg rolls from our favorite Chinese restaurant (so much for eating well ): The soup without all the garnishes: With the garnishes – bean sprouts, cilantro, basil, mint, serrano peppers and lime: It was delicious, except for the noodles. The recipe called for wide rice noodles instead of the thin ones that we usually see in restaurants. We found them really gelatinous and distinctly unpleasant. I just let them sink and ate the soup and garnishes. I did a cake for a birthday in Mr. Kim’s office – lemon and coconut by request: Slice: It was another cake mix fix-up and it tasted very good, though the crumb wasn’t as tight as I’d like.

Steve – gorgeous falafel – I love the color! Bruce – thanks for the help – I’ll try that recipe! That steak looks fantastic, BTW. Shane – beautiful crust on that pork loin. Keith – those ribs are amazing. Mr. Kim has FINALLY bought some ribs to smoke and seeing yours, I really can’t wait. Simon – glad you got the chance to try the short ribs. They are a favorite here. Yours sound like they turned out great – especially the fact that the diners descended before you could grab a photo! Pastameshugana – gorgeous color on those oranges!!! We had Mr. Kim’s mom and Jessica over for dinner Wednesday night. I tried a new way of making meatball sandwiches – making patties instead of balls. I saw it on a Food Network show and thought it made a lot of sense. I used my regular meatball recipe – Italian American Meatballs, scali rolls, provolone cheese and Giada’s Basic Marinara. They turned out really good, but really HUGE. I will need to make them smaller next time! Mr. Kim was the only one that finished his and that was only because he threw away half the bread! I served it with cheese fries (per Jessica’s request) and my dad’s Chopped Salad w/ his Creamy Parmesan Dressing. He had told me about the salad and dressing and sent me the recipe. It was absolutely delicious – lettuce, Swiss, olives, tomatoes, chick peas (I left those out – not a favorite), salami and cucumber. Dessert was just a cake mix fix up – Strawberry Yogurt Cake: But it was very good. Mostly because of the delicious strawberries that I found at WF – incredibly good, especially considering that it is April. Slice:

Bruce & percyn: all those eggs look gorgeous! Mr. Kim’s breakfast Thursday morning: A sorta frittata – eggs, cheese, asparagus with ham.

Keith – thank you! I have the plain white plates, too, but the great thing about having them is that you can put anything with them and they look good. Doesn’t stop me from coveting your glass, though! BTW, your lamb and veg look great! Patrick – gorgeous fried rice! Is that ham and shrimp? I love that combination of flavors. Years ago, I got a great recipe from a much missed former eG’r named Doddie for a ham and crab salad. I’ve done it with ham and shrimp and just loved the results. Jvalentino – lovely pizza crust – the bubbles are perfect. Last night I did a Vietnamese roasted chicken dish that Bruce made awhile back. It looked and sounded so good that I Googled the recipe and made it. It is called ‘Ga Ro Ti’. It called for chicken thighs to be marinated in sugar, pepper, soy sauce, fish sauce, oil and garlic then pan fried until crisp and finished in the oven. You then set aside the chicken and used the pan to make ‘dirty rice’. The rice was actually very good, but we all found the chicken underwhelming. One thing was my fault – I am completely inept at using a skillet that isn’t nonstick . All my skin stuck to the pan – AND I crowded the pan a bit – so we missed out on the crispy skin. But the flavor of the marinade was pretty weak. The texture of the chicken was good – tender and moist. Bruce – do you have any pointers for me? Here’s where I got the recipe: http://sundaynitedinner.com/vietnamese-roasted-chicken-ga-ro-ti/ I’m sure that yours was much more flavorful. Is this recipe missing something? Started with salad: Chicken, rice and asparagus:

Dinner last night: Braised lamb shanks w/ caramelized onions and orzo w/ Parmesan & asparagus.

Thanks to everyone for the compliments and responses! Soba – lovely salad! And I agree completely. I love all sorts of wild and complicated salads, but the sine qua non of salads is just what yours is – simple and lightly dressed (I would add not icy cold, but that might just be me). basquecook – I love your fried chicken leg and wish I had a couple in front of me right now! They look perfect. Keith – what an utterly beautiful dish (I mean the food, though you know how I feel about those glass pieces !). Elise – your halibut looks so lovely. I am determined to finally make some this season and that preparation sounds heavenly. I have some lamb shanks braising on my stove right now and I’m really in the mood for them after seeing yours! Patrick – yes, lots and LOTS of leftovers. We sent tons home with our guests, but I still am going to have to stock the freezer with some sliced ham (smoked ham freezes REALLY well). mm – oh, my. That chocolate and hazelnut sweetie sounds and looks so amazing. Dinner last night: My mother brought us some beef stew. Served with Michael’s rolls.

Here’s a picture of egg salad – my way:

I have LOTS of hardboiled eggs to use up . A recent lunch: Easter ham and sliced hardboiled egg sandwich. Another: Egg salad.