Kim Shook

kayb – I am loving the idea of confit with polenta – what a great combination! Since I was taken up with the end of the week chores and writing (I’ve made a start blogging our trip – you can click on the ‘What Fresh Hell is This’ link under my name at the bottom of the post to get to it, if you like), dinner last night was a very modest affair. We started with some pre-dinner nibbles: Everything flatbread and dirty martini dip. Yummy dip, but SPICY! Salad and corn: Kielbasa with apricot jam/Dijon dipping sauce, leftover quinoa salad and some decent tomatoes that Mr. Kim got at the farmstand:

dcarch – THUNK. That was me fainting dead away at the utter gorgeousness of that Jello! We haven’t seen gelatin art like that at eG since the days of Rachel Perlow’s rainbow Jello dish! I know how you made it, but where did you get the mold??? robirdstx – lovely gooey cheesy enchiladas!!!

Genkinaonna - thank you, ma'am! The biscuits were good - I just need to be more gentle with them! The noodles have sour cream, cottage cheese and Parmesan. Combined with the egg noodles they are a silky, cheesy, slippy good dish! The recipe is here. Your shrimp sounded fantastic. I am not a fan of tomato sauce on shrimp, but LOVE it with tomatoes (odd, I know). Soba - I LOVE Nathalie Dupree! I remember watching her on TV pre-Food Network. She's wonderful. And with the quality of fruits that you are able to get you really should make some biscuits. Seeing your beautiful gnocchi, it's obvious that you don't have my heavy hands - I'm sure you'd make beautiful biscuits. And, again, I have to comment on your gorgeous chicken - beautiful texture and perfect doneness! RRO - thank you! The crust on those quesadillas is just perfect - wish mine looked like that (and I make them fairly often - no excuses).

We had our niece and her husband over tonight for dinner. We had the perfect summer meal (well, except for tomatoes) – BBQ Shrimp: This recipe always comes through for me – easy, delicious, with lots of good sauce to sop up! Quinoa salad: This was the first time I’ve made this and it was wonderful. I love that you make it ahead of time (a really great side for a work night meal) and really liked the texture – I sometimes have a problem with couscous clumping, but the quinoa grains stayed separate and fluffy. Salad and corn: And strawberry shortcake: The biscuit recipe for the shortcake was a new one for me, too. The flavor was fantastic – sweet, with just a hint of lemon. But, as usual, they suffered from heavy biscuit syndrome. I just don’t have a light hand with biscuit dough. Probably because I don’t make them often enough. The recipe is a keeper, though.

Ben - I am so enjoying your blog! The Modernist stuff is so fun to see - I've been reading the thread and it's great to see it in action. I'm very intrigued by your low carb method - I think you are really on to something there (I mean, obviously, since it's working for you!) and I'm giving it some thought. And I'm sending a big hug for Miss Deliah! We are 'pug people' (our Otis passed away some time back, but we still compulsively pug spot!) - no sweeter breed anywhere and so helpful at clean up time !

Dinner tonight started with a spinach salad with my dad’s Paprika dressing: along with some fruit salad. I also tried a new recipe – Suzi’s salmon cakes. They were fantastic. I’d never made them from fresh salmon before – only canned. I’ll never go back – we both loved them. Thank you so much for sending me the recipe, Suzi!! We also finished up the weekend’s cheese noodles and had some marinated cucumbers:

I have been out of things for way too long! You folks are making some amazing breakfasts! I’m embarrassed to post my little meal. Father’s day breakfast (by request) – Festival of Sausages: Spicy patties and regular links. Fried eggs and hashbrowns: (got those eggs a little overdone, huh? )

I made cupcakes for a dinner party Friday: Just Devil’s food cake, but I was really happy with my icing. It was a white chocolate buttercream. I started with my recipe for Fudgy Chocolate Buttercream frosting. It is a combination of two recipes – one that is too goopy and wet (but tastes great) and one that is too dry. I used white chocolate instead of the dark and a can of vanilla frosting for the buttercream to make it easy . It was so light and fluffy and easy to pipe. It lasted a long time, too. We ate the last of them at a Father’s day party on Sunday.

Starting WAY back since I’ve been lazy lately! Genkinaonna – those cola and jam ribs look spectacular! I’ve copied your notes and will give them a try! Dakki – never, EVER apologize for such gorgeous fried chicken! Prawn – that was some lovely BBQing! Love the lacquered look of the ribs! Soba – your roasted poussin on the 12th is lovely. You can SEE how tender and juicy it was. dcarch – thank you – I ‘cook ahead’ a LOT! I like to entertain on weeknights, because I’m selfish – I want weekends all to myself! Your xiao look so wonderful. If I ever want to taste those, I’m going to have to make my own – we don’t have anyplace here to get them. Shelby – is there any sandwich NOT improved by an egg? And Newman is gorgeous ! The other night was night was the frugalist dinner EVER: Noodles cooked in chicken stock (from the cabinet), leftover baked beans, rolls from our dinner the other night at a Greek restaurant and the ultimate save – wings. I bought the wings to make a sauce. They were browned then simmered in homemade chicken stock, lime juice, orange juice, the zest from both, onions, garlic and thyme. When I pulled them out before reducing the sauce, I just couldn’t bear to throw them away. They weren’t falling apart, but the skin was flabby. So I brushed them with honey and incinerated them under the broiler. They were delicious – crisp and tender and deeply flavored with the sauce. We also had salad: But, with us, that’s a given . We had family in from Florida on Friday night – there were some food issues, so I made a turkey breast: That seemed a little bland, so I made a really good citrus sauce from Food & Wine: We also had salad: Baby greens, spinach, red grapes, strawberries, candied cashews and my dad’s Sweet & Sour Paprika dressing. It was fantastic! Broccoli salad: Cheese noodles: And cupcakes:

OMG, who has a pug??? No matter who it is, I know they are my peeps!

Shelby – your bread is gorgeous and those SANDWICHES!!! And your pictures are just getting better and better, girl! Robirdstx – great looking tacos. I need to get back to making interesting tacos – I’ve slid back into the easy way – just ground beef with a little taco seasoning and they are so dull. We had my in laws over for dinner a couple of nights ago to visit and see our pictures. Pre-dinner snacks: Guacamole, chips and sunflower seed nibbles. We found these at World Market – they are called ‘Somersaults’. Similar to benne wafers, but with sunflower seeds instead of sesame. Mr. Kim smoked a pork butt so we had BBQ and all the fixings. Pork: (a little steamy) He got a pretty good smoke ring and great burnt ends: Cheater baked beans: Just fixed up Bush’s (hey, it was a work night!). Macaroni salad: Slaw: Dessert was peaches, Greek yogurt, honey and amaretti cookies: We’ve been getting some gorgeous peaches from the supermarket (99 cents a pound!!):

Thanks so much for posting the soup proportions!! It looks and sounds delicious. I am not a big vegetable eater, either, but I usually like them when they are all mixed up like in the soup.

Thank you! These: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tater_Tots - (can't link for some reason) are 'tots' - short for 'tater tots'. For a bunch of so-called 'gourmets' , you'll find they are mysteriously popular here at eG!

Panaderia Canadiense - thank you, I'd LOVE to have the recipe! curl - thank you for the information! I'll be trying that soon!

dcarch – I just loved the tomatoes under the crab cakes – and what a perfect, classic summer combination – crab, corn and tomatoes! Tried my hand at Juicy Lucys for dinner tonight. Not a great success as a lot of my cheese leaked out the sides. I thought that I had a good seal, but apparently not. Burgers, tots and a 'sliced salad' : Cheese: Mr. Kim also had some yellow squash: So, obviously, we did have the effect of the Juicy Lucy – in the middle of the burger and it was good. But no better than a double cheeseburger made with skinny burgers cooked on a griddle – my favorite burger, anyway. So I don’t think that I’ll bother with trying to perfect my technique. I am glad that I bothered to get out the griddle, though. I’d forgotten how good it works for burgers.

What a great start! That pork looks fabulous. And I am also of the opinion that no one has ever made a better combination than chocolate and peanut butter.

And why do restaurants seemingly have such a difficult time getting toast done enough? Most of the time when I order toast I get a piece of bread that resembles stale bread - it's dry and barely colored! And the bread has to be sliced fairly thick - otherwise you end up with Melba toast, which is good, but not what I want with my eggs!

Don't know what happened - I thought that I posted a comment last night! Anyway, what I said was that I didn't have anything to contribute, but that I was COMPELLED to make a few comments: Mette - your cake is beautiful and what an original design. And I love the concentration of the young artist - especially the urgent curve of that left hand ! Panaderia Canadiense - I literally gasped out loud when I scrolled down to that luscious looking apple-ginger cake. Wow! dhardy - those gooey beauties could cause impure thoughts! curls - OK, I have to know which Sherry Yard book that cake and frosting are from, because I am ordering it immediately. The texture of the cake looks utterly perfect and that soft, glossy frosting is what I'm always looking for! Please let us know! Genkinaonna - what a delicious looking brownie and what a LOVELY presentation. Don't know when I'll find the time to do any baking anytime soon - life has gotten a little complicated! But I'm enjoying it vicariously here!

djyee – good idea! Thanks. I actually cooked a lot today. I made yellow squash and onions, roasted some beets and prepped the greens to saute. But we dropped by to give some friends a little something we got for them in England and show them some pictures and didn’t get home until after 9pm. So this was dinner: Grilled cheese with bacon, tots and grape tomatoes. Guess we’ll eat all that other stuff tomorrow !

Holy hen's teeth Batman, that grilled fried egg samich looks great. Thanks, catdaddy! That sandwich represents a huge 'aha moment' for me. I've always made fried egg sandwiches on toast or bread. One day I was grilling a cheese sandwich and realized that what I love about grilled cheese is the contrast of the crisp outside and the tender side next to the cheese. I thought it would be perfect for a fried egg sandwich and it was! I haven't made it any other way since. Why it took me 50 years to realize this, I have no idea!

Ahhhh - so they were homemade? That, as they say, is a horse of a different color! It looked really good!

Thanks for the ‘welcome backs’! djyee – I really love the look and the idea of asparagus bread pudding, but I don’t like asparagus at all – do you think that broccoli would work? I saved the recipe anyway – even if I couldn’t make it with broccoli, it’s something that Mr. Kim and Jessica would LOVE! dcarch – gorgeous, gorgeous meal! I love the way the squash mimics the serving bowl. And the ‘grill marks’ had me swooning! Bruce – the steak salad sounded wonderful and I, too, missed your gorgeous pictures! nickrey – I literally began salivating when I spotted the picture of your pork! Wow. kayb – that’s what I want for dinner tonight – a whole plate of tomatoes and mac and cheese! Unfortunately no good tomatoes here yet and I don’t have a minute to make good mac and cheese. Sigh. Deus Mortus – lovely meal – especially dessert! And I don’t like asparagus, either. Even roasted, I can only eat it to be polite. I haven’t really gotten back into the swing of things with cooking yet. We came home to Jessica going on vacation for a week and we had to go downtown (40 minute round trip at least) 3 times a day to feed the grandkitty. The poor baby has chronic kidney disease and potty issues, so unfortunately we couldn’t just bring him here like we wanted to. I felt so sorry for him being alone that we even had a slumber party one night! More issues with my stepdad’s health and them possibly moving up here and in with us – which will require some addition to our house. We are heading down there next weekend to have some discussions and see what we can do for them in the meantime. PLUS, of course, back to work for me (Mr. Kim took this week off, too, the RAT). Consequently, I’m not doing much cooking. We did have one meal that I remembered to take a picture of (not a very exciting one, I’m afraid!). Started with (duh) salad: Some good hot dogs that came in a Christmas gift from Omaha Steaks (I didn’t care for the beef or the chicken at all, but the dogs were good), baked beans (canned fix ups) and leftover sweet potatoes.

Andie – thank you for posting the griddle cakes recipe – I printed it out and look forward to making them soon! Blether – so what goes into Scottish sausage? In spite of being a total Anglophile, I do NOT care for English sausage. My English stepdad used to sometimes get some here in the states and I didn’t like it as a child. When we went to Bermuda 20-some years ago, I tasted it and again, didn’t like the mealy texture. I requested ‘all bacon’ on my full-English and every morning the waiters would tease me by bringing my breakfast with a flourish on a silver platter and assure me that there was NO SAUSAGE on my plate! During our trip to England last month, I sampled two sausages – a low end deli breakfast and a very high end Manor house hotel breakfast (guess which one included the beans). The high end one tasted better, but the texture was still too mealy for me. Nikki – I agree with Deus Mortus – that airline breakfast sure looks a lot better than what US Air served us! Kayb – your French toast is lovely. Funny, I think that I’ve typed that exact sentence before . I very much enjoyed the haggis/ Balkenbrij discussion – I even googled everything and learned a lot – so thank you! Not cooking a lot yet, since coming back from our trip, but I did make brunch today: Peaches and some strawberries from the farmer’s market. The peaches were just supermarket peaches, but smelled so good that I couldn’t resist. They were sweet and juicy and actually almost past ripe! I was planning to grill them for dessert on Tuesday night when my in laws are coming for dinner, but they won’t last that long! Cheese omelets, bacon and some of Jo’s hot cross buns from the freezer. The bacon was interesting – it was VA bacon that we bought at the farmer’s market. The guy bet us $5 that it would be the best bacon we’d ever eaten. How could we pass that up? Well, being that our usual bacon is Benton’s, it was NOT the best that we’d ever had. It was good – as good as Neuske’s and well priced - $5.99/lb. But we both thought that it was slightly undersmoked (that might be us just being used to Benton’s). The odd part was that it wasn’t particularly ‘porky’ tasting. I think that we’ll stick with Kunzler’s (which we can get at the supermarket) or Benton’s – both of which cost about the same.

Well, we are back. The fellow that was we were supposed to meet in a pub in England and offer Mr. Kim a fabulous job never showed up . And we went to a LOT of pubs trying to find him ! So here we are in VA again. We had a fantastic time – I’ll let you all know when we’ve started posting on my blog about the trip. It may be awhile – we have hundreds of pictures to go through and tons of notes to organize. I could not possibly go back to before I left and comment on all of the fabulous food that you folks have been cooking, but I’m finding it all inspiring! First meal back from Europe! Mr. Kim was in the mood for steak so we picked up some aged rib eyes from Whole Foods. Salad (of course): Steak and sweet potatoes: On the steak is a compound butter that Mr. Kim made from roasted jalapenos, capers, shallots and sherry vinegar. We also had corn on the cob and I had a baked potato:

Lots of good looking breakfasts, folks! Everything looks good, but Andie, your griddle cakes are speaking to me! We got back from our vacation on Saturday night and this was the first breakfast I made: Eggs, grilled baguette and some English bacon we found at WF. Neither the bread nor the bacon was as fantastic as we had on our trip, but it was still good! Breakfast in England was superb! Most mornings we had the ‘buffet’ at our hotels – good breads, cheeses, fruit, etc. What I LOVED was a concoction of fruit, yoghurt and muesli that I had every single morning and will be eating at home, too! A couple of mornings we had the ‘full English’ – one was low brow complete with beans, the other was quite high brow with blood sausage – my first! I liked it quite well, actually! We ate LOTS of bacon and even teacakes.