Kim Shook

Thanks, Elizabeth. They are in there now and still seem pretty fat and moist - I'll check them regularly!

Duh. Nevermind, Elizabeth! I just realized that my large toaster oven has a dehydrator function. How long do you think it should take?

Any substitutes for a dehydrator, Elizabeth? I don't have one.

I’m wondering if anyone has any experience in making candied figs. A lovely friend gifted me with some fresh figs and some that she had candied herself. These are hers: They are VERY chewy and dry/sticky, if that makes sense. We loved them so much that I decided to do the same with the fresh ones. These are mine: I used this recipe. Mine are NOT chewy – they are pretty much as plump as when they started and very soft – good, but not what I wanted. My friend is traveling now, so I can’t ask her. What I’m wondering is if there is any way to fix them at this point? Or do I just have some really thick preserves? Thanks!

Shelby – I’m very impressed that you made your own naan! I actually LIKE naan (unfortunately it is the ONLY Indian food that I’ve ever tasted that I liked ). robirdstx – your salads always look so wonderful. dcarch – your short ribs look fantastic – I am so ready for fall food. But, those tomatoes make me wish for endless summer – just incredible. Dinner tonight: Chicken and waffles, mac and cheese and baked beans. Everything but the waffles were leftovers . The chicken is mine from the fantasy football draft party and the beans and mac and cheese are my mother’s and a friend’s from yesterday’s cook out. Great dinner!

Darienne - thank you! It was certainly enjoyed by everyone at the cookout! Some friends gave me some bounty from their garden including a LOT of raspberries. They were very ripe, so I needed to use them quickly, so I made these ‘hand pies’ from the Pepperidge Farm website: Such a ridiculous recipe. I am a fairly experienced home baker and in reading the recipe could see some problems with it. And even though I tried to make adjustments, mine all ‘blew out’. They taste good, but how could they not? Home grown berries, cream cheese, white chocolate and puff pastry. But their proportions were all off and resulted in overstuffed pies. They tell you to roll out to 12x12-inches and cut twelve 3-inch circles. That is TIGHT cutting – no room for a hair of error. Then they tell you to mix the cream cheese and sugar and white chocolate chips and ‘spread’ them on the rounds of pastry. Right. Chocolate chips spread SO well. I decided to pipe the cream cheese and sugar mixture and top with the chips, which worked ok. But, as you can see, they were still over-full and blew! I can imagine some poor completely inexperienced baker having a nervous breakdown over these things. I still had another 6 oz. of berries (my friend was VERY generous), so I decided to make things really easy on myself and make one big one with another package of puff pastry: Turned out MUCH better!

Darienne’s Margarita Pie that I made to take to a cook out yesterday: Creamy, tangy, refreshing goodness! Thanks, Darienne!

Bruce – great idea for an omelet! Mr. Kim would love that. I never think of omelets when I have leftover steak. Breakfast this morning: Swiss cheese omelet and an ET bagel w/ cream cheese and olives.

keychris – my recipe is from Dorie’s Baking: From My Home to Yours, but she attributes the recipe to Pierre Hermé. Your cake and little mushrooms are gorgeous! I think that the little ones are the best I’ve ever seen. Lovely work!

Ruth - those are just stunning! Gianduja is simply heaven on earth, but you have made it gorgeous, too! judiu - I know, I know! But the marshmallow creme was so gloppy that it softened the brownie and made it fall on the floor. Five second rule doesn't apply with sticky stuff, so I lost out on some brownie goodness! Darienne - thanks for the PM help! The pie is in the freezer and I can't wait to try it tomorrow! Meeting some friends tomorrow - they are driving through town on their way west (snowbirds on the way to Texas) who are bringing me some figgy goodness. I'm sending them on their way with some World Peace cookies: These are just astonishingly good cookies. How is God's name is anyone supposed to go back to a normal existence after eating these things?

Stash – the minestra looks gorgeous – so bright and clear! Yesterday’s lunch was fried green tomatoes and corn chowder: That’s paprika oil on top of the chowder – a nice addition. Mr. Kim’s fantasy football draft party was last night. Mr. Kim smoked some pork butt for BBQ and I provided the rest. Snacky stuff included Quick Party Nuts, Combos and M&M’s: One of Mr. Kim’s favorites, these are just pecans and almonds with chili powder, lime zest, cumin and cayenne. We offered BBQ pork: Fabulous, as always. Heating it up in a slow cooker kind of obliterates the smoke ring, but it started out with a nice ring and was SO tender and porky and moist. With sauce (thick and thin), buns and slaw: For the folks that didn’t eat pork, I did Tex-Mex Chicken Crunchies (stupid name): They are just chicken tenders dipped in enchilada sauce and then crushed taco-flavored Doritos before frying. Served with flatbread, salsa and pickled red onions to make wraps. The pickled red onions MADE these wraps. They were such a great addition – both to texture and flavor. Smoky beans: Ruhlman’s Mac & cheese: The only mac & cheese that Mr. Kim actually requests. It turned out very well, I thought and I heard the ‘old’ guys telling the couple of new guys that they were really in for a treat. Nice.

Breakfast yesterday: ET bagel with bacon and cream cheese. All I made was the bacon .

deensiebat – great looking S’mores pie! I can almost taste that burnt marshmallow flavor (one of my favorite tastes – I even made toasted marshmallow ice cream one time). Last night was Mr. Kim’s fantasy football draft night. I’ve put the meal on the Today I Cooked thread. Dessert was Candy Apple Cupcakes: Applesauce-spice cupcakes with caramel topping. Tin Roof Sundae Bars: Brownies topped with marshmallow crème, peanuts and chocolate. I make these a lot, but they were WAY too goopy this time.

dcarch – ooooh, soft shells! I haven’t had nearly enough of them this summer! Gorgeous! chefmd – your duck looks absolutely perfectly cooked! Andrew – beautiful plate of food! Can I enquire about the caramelized tomato jam? I am intrigued. Shane – I am drooling over the piglet. I didn’t realize at first that it was boned and thought you’d cooked a pig-dachshund mix ! David – beautiful oysters! Great combining the hominy with the oysters. Dinner tonight: Fried shrimp, fries, baked spinach with feta and Hanover tomatoes. Mr. Kim also had some roasted asparagus: The spinach tasted good, but was awfully dry: Maybe next time I’ll cover while baking and add an extra egg.

Anna – great idea using the twice-cooked baked potato as a base for an egg. We always have leftovers when I do twice-cooked potatoes and I never thought to do that! Breakfast on Sunday: Only interesting because it was a new scrambled egg method. I noticed on the Yahoo story scroll something called “Perfect Scrambled Eggs” by America’s Test Kitchen’s Bridget Lancaster and decided to give them a try. Nothing radical, but she does start them at medium-high heat and then lowers the heat when the eggs have set. I’ve always gone low and really, really slow. My eggs are always good, but these were definitely better – moist and fluffy and a LOT faster. Served with a squirt of Kim-Kim sauce – a locally made Korean hot sauce.

PastaMeshugana – beautiful soup! I’m really craving corn soup lately and that looks so delicious! Soba – the olive and onion mixture looks so good! Is it served cold/room temp? I have such a hard time finding cippolinis – they are some of my favorite onions to cook with so when I see them I grab them. Bruce – please tell Mrs. C that her gazpacho is gorgeous!! Robirdstx – that salad looks great. Funny – a week or so ago I saw “shrimp and chicken salad” on a menu and was perplexed. Did they mean cooked shrimp and chicken chunks on a green salad (like yours, which I like the looks of) or mixed chicken and shrimp in a mayo-based salad (which sounds kind of gross to me). Never did find out because I ordered something different. I like yours, though! Dinner last night: Pork tenderloin with mustard-cream sauce, Marlene’s crispy smashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts and red cabbage. The pork was a recipe from epicurious.com. Very easy – just browned the pork and then roasted. The sauce is made very quickly while the pork is roasting with shallots, wine, chicken broth, Dijon and cream. It gave a lot of good flavor to sometimes bland pork tenderloin. The cabbage is an old favorite from “The New Basics Cookbook”.

I'm fainting here. Not only are your creations beautiful and inspiring, but those gorgeous tomatoes. We have had ONE great tomato this summer and THAT was from a friend's garden in Indiana. Pooh! No one here is giving any away and the farmer's markets don't have very good ones either. I guess it's the lack of rain in the Spring? Truly lovely, my friend!

Nickrey – love the meat pie – one of my very favorite foods! mm – beautiful lobster dish! Jmahl – what gorgeous corn soup! We had some in Florida recently and I’m dying to try it myself. A couple of recent dinners - breakfast for dinner: Deep fried bacon and the last of the ham from our Pittsburgh trip: Some cathead biscuits: These were good, though not terribly ‘biscuity’. They were from a CI recipe and were amazingly easy and fast. I liked them a lot and will make them again, but they were really TOO tender – they wouldn’t have held up to a sausage patty or ham. Plated with eggs and potatoes: Another meal was Dianne’s garlic shrimp: With tomatoes, corn and green beans: We had friends and family over for dessert Saturday night to celebrate Mr. Kim’s birthday, so our quick-before-they-get-here meal was chili-cheese dogs, baked beans and grilled corn: No one needs to know what kind of ‘cheese’ that is on the dog . Last night - Grilled ham slice, tomatoes, butter beans and biscuits (leftover from breakfast out):

Darienne - I'll go ahead and third the request for the pie recipe - it sounds fabulous and perfect for a last blast of summer dessert. Hope dog weekend went well! Tikidoc - thank you! I'll go get some boxes soon - I'l usually in Short Pump 2 or 3 times a week. I will also respond to your email soon - need to look at our calendars! Saturday night we had friends and family over to celebrate Mr. Kim’s birthday. He chose La Bete Noire (The Black Beast) – an astoundingly rich flourless chocolate cake: Served with vanilla bean ice cream. I also had the Smoked Almond and Tahini cookies that I made a few days ago: And Chai Crunch: A chai spiced version of Chex Mix. Addicting stuff.

Your Yankee grandma knew what she was doing. Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without pimento cheese-stuffed celery (and I LOVE the idea of pecans with it).

Here you go, my dear: http://www.recipecir...er_Chewies.html - I think you'll like them! It's getting harder and harder to find Sugar Babies. I'm thinking of ordering a few cases and putting them in the freezer just in case!

Long time since I’ve posted here, but y’all’s breakfasts are just astounding! I want some popovers, sausages, perfectly fried eggs…. During our recent Florida trip we stayed with friends who share our love of all things food, so we went out to eat at fantastic places that they have found (in Jacksonville, which isn’t easy) and also stayed in to eat her wonderful food. For breakfast one morning she did this really good casserole: Croissant sandwiches made with ham and cheese and topped with more cheese and an egg custard and baked. Another breakfast: Blueberry breakfast cake, eggs baked in potato nests and sausage links.

Mark – I’ve been gone so long that I neglected to say thank you for posting the meat loaf glaze info. I really appreciate it and actually printed it out to try soon. Well, it’s been more than a month since I’ve posted and I can’t possibly mention every single thing that has made me hungry here on this thread as I caught up today. Such gorgeous, delectable-looking food. I can’t come here and not marvel at the talent and creativity that my fellow eG’ers show. I’ve managed to make very few meals since I last posted. What with travelling (Florida, Northern VA and Pittsburgh), house ‘stuff’ and family visits, I’ve hardly had time to come and read, much less participate. I have missed it, though and am hoping that by sitting down today and getting some things posted, I’ll get back in the groove! Some of the cooking below wasn’t strictly mine (though I did assist), but it was home cooking. Our stay in Florida began in Jacksonville and our friends there are as food-obsessed as we are! So we ate out a lot (they managed to find some really good restaurants in Jax – not easy – including a taquería that I’d give a LOT to have here at home), but she’s a great cook, so we ate in for a couple of meals. For dinner we had requested her meat loaf - one of our favorites: Served with mashed potato casserole: Plated with peas and brioche that we brought all the way from Can Can (a local French restaurant/bakery) in Richmond: Perfect, moist slice of meatloaf: After visiting with our friends on the weekend, we drove down to Sarasota to visit my dad and stepmom. They (oddly) have a (golf course) house and a (beach) condo within 5 miles of one another. They use the condo as a ‘guest room’ (and I have NO problem with that), which is where we stayed. We lunched alone one day on leftover’s from Stephanie’s meatloaf: Cold meatloaf sandwiches w/ BBQ chips. And a fabulous view I did do a couple of meals in between Florida and Pittsburgh - Spaghetti Bolognese w/ Italian sausage and salad: Totally out of season, but I was in the MOOD! And Chicken Parm, sautéed spinach and sweet peppers and pasta: Our Pittsburgh trip was a quick long weekend to meet friends. Oldtimers here will remember Racheld, the gifted southern cook and writer that used to post here. I was lucky enough to get to know her through private emails back and forth and a couple of Christmases ago, Mr. Kim gave me the gift of a visit to meet her in person. We had a fabulous time and got to know her and her family very well. So, for our second get-together, we decided to meet in Pittsburg. Another fabulous time – (we LOVED the city and are planning on going back sometime to explore). We ate out most meals, but the best meal of the trip was the feast that we shared in Rachel and her husband’s hotel room. The centerpiece of the meal was his incomparable ham: I know that he cooks it on the grill and not a smoker, but it has an intensity that screams smoker. The best ham that either of us has ever tasted. It continued with Rachel’s fabulous ‘things in dishes’: A braunschweiger- based pâté, the best ‘pammina cheese’ ever and sliced tomatoes from their garden (properly peeled, of course, Rachel being a properly raised Southern girl). We ended up spending the entire afternoon and evening talking and eating and coming back for more and more and more. Delectable. Sunday night we had a lovely snack when we got home, compliments of Rachel’s s daughter. She’d sent an assortment of cheeses, Irish breakfast bread, fig spread and sour cherry spread for us. Everything was delicious: The cheese selection included Saint Andre Triple Crème Brie, Stilton, 20 month aged English Cheddar, Campo D’Montalban, Gorgonzola and Limburger. We nibbled all of the cheeses with some “caraway salt sticks” that we’d gotten at an Italian market in Pittsburgh’s Strip district: They are like a thick, chewy breadstick with a tongue-shocking blast of salt. Perfect coming-home-exhausted-and-slightly-sorry-to-be-back food! More of MY meals : Spicy chicken and peppers, tomatoes, marinated cucumbers and corn. Ham, cucumbers, corn and a white bread and tomato sandwich! A much-anticipated and extraordinarily disappointing meal! We got a little pork loin roast at the farmer’s market (VERY expensive) and I did it on my Cusinart rotisserie. It looked perfect: And was utterly tasteless and tough. No better than grocery store pork. That’ll learn us to shop for pork anywhere but our favorite butcher shop! I also made Tony Bourdain’s Gratin Dauphinois, which ALWAYS works for me. It was gorgeous: But the potatoes were a bit crunchy, which has never happened to me with this recipe. Sigh. Plated with broccoli, corn and cheese rolls: The only thing that was successful was the swoony, rich, dark pork gravy: I found some cheepo pork neck bones at the store and made pork stock to do my gravy with. Fantastic. As a matter of fact, I made enough to freeze to use the next time we have some good, Belmont Butchery pork to go with it. Just last night, we started with salad (not much has changed for me, huh?): My plate w/ ham, tomatoes on bread, green beans: And Mr. Kim’s with the addition of yellow squash:

Kerry – that Lemony Cream Butter Cake looks and sounds fantastic – I just printed out the recipe! Actually everything you are doing looks amazing. I KNOW how busy your life must be and still you are putting out these incredible things. You are my idol, ma’am! Mette – your cordials and jellies look like jewels in the sun! jmacnaughtan – welcome and I am STUNNED by that cake! Inside and out. Darienne – love the cake balls. I’ve not tried them from scratch yet and want to. I loved the looks of the ones that I made last year, but NOT the taste. Some cookies that I made to take to our Pittsburgh meet-up with friends: From the top: Ginger Chewie w/ Sugar Babies, my oatmeal Raisinette cookies, PB cookies – one dipped in Demerara sugar, one sprinkled with sea salt and Dream cookies (a very rich butter cooky) in the middle. Yesterday I tried out a new cooky recipe from David Lebovitz – Tahini and Almond Cookies: They were recommended by Darienne and they were remarkable. I made one slight change – I used smoked almonds instead of regular and added some roughly chopped along with the ground . Fantastic! I’m freezing them to serve at Mr. Kim’s birthday celebration on the 18th. Thanks so much, Darienne!!

We are meeting friends in Pittsburgh this coming weekend and need some ideas for restaurants. We are staying in Coraopolis. All four of us like all kinds of food, so quality rather than a specific genre is important. We'll be there Friday evening through Sunday lunch probably. Thanks in advance for any help you can give me!