Kim Shook

Two day old rice wine marinated radishes. Ick. I am very careful to only make enough for one meal now.

Soba – that tomato and cantaloupe salad is just stunning and sounds perfect for summer. dcarch – those tomatoes are killing me!!! Just gorgeous. Ruhlman’s Ratio Zucchini Fritters: With goat cheese. These were great – even I liked them (NOT a zucchini fan). Tomatoes and marinated cucumbers: We also had scrambled eggs for a little protein and croissants.

For breakfast this morning, Mr. Kim had a lamb hash redo and I had fried egg, bacon, hash browns w/ onion, tomato (CSA box heirloom) and toasted baguette: That was at 9:30 – I didn’t get hungry again until 3pm!

The lamb hash recipe is here.

Ahh, I see now. I wasn't paying close enough attention (a constant this season) and didn't realize that the cauliflower was so finely chopped. I still don't get why the judges would get their knickers in a twist about it, though. That's just how they are. I can just as easily imagine them getting huffy about NOT washing it and wasting food as I can them getting huffy about feeding them food that had been on the ground.

OK, I had another WTF? moment in the last episode. Maybe I am again confused and someone can help. When Kevin's cauliflower falls in the grass, he decides (against other's advice) to not use it and get something else. It grew in dirt. Covered with organic matter (fertilizer). Couldn't he have...oh, maybe WASHED it? They had raw meat, so obviously there was something set up to wash. A sink or something? It reminded me of my great aunt who refused to use fresh vegetables because they were 'dirty'. Canned and frozen were 'clean'. So - am I missing something here?

Breakfast this morning: Lamb hash (with Mr. Kim’s leftover smoked lamb), poached eggs, cherries, CSA cantaloupe, CSA Hanover tomatoes and some good seed bread from Whole Foods. The hash was wonderful. I riffed on a recipe for roast beef hash from Saveur.

pierogi – the figs sound fantastic. I found a wonderful sounding recipe for fig-lemon preserves a few weeks ago and have been wanting to try it. They had beautiful looking figs at Costco last weekend and I was desolate that I didn’t have time to make the preserves. David – that lamb is absolutely gorgeous and so is the romaine. I love grilled romaine, but haven’t made it myself yet. Shelby-girl!!! Hey! Haven’t ‘seen’ you lately. I must not be hanging out at the cool eG spots!

Not really with the beans - you still have to do a soak - even a quick soak and pressure cooking couldn't have been done in the 45 minutes. See, my thought on that was when they went to shop at whole foods and plan what they had to prep, they had in mind all *three* courses, and had to automatically assume they would be cooking all three. So those that planned on doing beans, would (or should) have started them right when they get back to the kitchen, since they were told to plan for all three meals. So with that in mind, I think Tom C was right. Ahh. My mistake then. I didn't remember that they got to do any actual food prep before the 45 minutes started. That would have left plenty of time to do the beans in a pressure cooker.

And why do so many restaurant websites forget to mention what city and state/country they are in? It's the INTERNET folks. I can stumble onto a website for a restaurant in Outer Mongolia from my little house in Virginia. I'd love to know if it's possible for me to actually GET THERE!

Kerry - I am in awe of your energy. And your cooking! Anna - everything looked delightful, but I'm thinking that a visit from Merry Maids would have made the perfect anniversary gift for you!

Not really with the beans - you still have to do a soak - even a quick soak and pressure cooking couldn't have been done in the 45 minutes.

Ooooh! Handwriting! I love seeing folks handwriting! That was a really cool gift, Chris.

Thanks, Rico! I'll pass the compliment on to Mr. Kim. Can't wait to see pics of your lamb. I think that pizza looks wonderful - gooey and crisp all at once - EXACTLY like pizza should be!

That's a really interesting article. I've been keeping track since 2000. I started actually writing in a blank book - pasting in pictures of my dishes or restaurants and now do it mostly on the computer. I prefer the books that I can hold in my hand and see the tucked in menus and invitations, etc., but the physical journals take up so much room:

Soba – crispy toast, indeed! That looks like English fried bread. Yum. Blether – meatloaf for breakfast is awesome. Period. percyn – from what restaurant did you get the duck pastrami and duck fat potatoes? Cuz we are planning to come to Pennsylvania sometime in the next year and that looks amazing! kayb – the only possible indecency re: fig jam is when there is only a little scritch left in the bottom of the jar. And no new jar in the pantry. Sunday we hosted a brunch at our house. I ended up being really inspired by a bunch of recipes from Cuisine at Home magazine’s April issue. A lot of what I served was from that issue. We started with a really good Lemonade Sangria: Really refreshing. Mr. Kim accused me of pulling a Sandra Lee with ‘choking hazards’ in my drinks! We had doughnuts from a new doughnut shop near us: They were pretty good, but nowhere near as good as the doughnuts at our favorite shop across town. Benedict Baskets w/ Julia Child’s blender hollandaise: These were great. English muffin baskets with eggs, Swiss cheese, spinach and tomato. Everyone loved them. Breakfast kebabs: Bacon, sausage and ham kebabs glazed with pecan-maple syrup, apple jelly and cinnamon. Genius! Pork sticks!!! Why hasn’t anyone ever thought of THIS before? Steamed shrimp with cocktail sauce: Mike’s smoked leg of lamb and Yogurt-garlic-mint sauce: Hanover tomatoes: Marinated cucumbers: Fruit salsa and pie crust chips: Hot potato salad: Another popular dish – everyone wanted the recipe for this one. Purchased mini croissants: Dessert was Pots du Crème and Limeade Tarts w/ Tart Cherry Sauce: Plated: The sangria, egg baskets, kebabs, fruit salsa, potatoes and limeade tarts were all from Cuisine at Home. I really like this magazine. I like the fact that there are no ads and everything that I’ve ever made has been very successful.

kayb – I’m glad that you liked the shrimp and corn. When Maggie talked about it on her blog, she talked about how simple, but how amazingly good it was. She was RIGHT! Loving the corn and black bean dishes, too! Time to make a bowlful of that. It goes with just about any summer meal that I can think of. dcarch – your pork tenderloin is just awesome looking. So thin and crackly looking! Mr. Kim smoked a leg of lamb Saturday: It was just as delicious and juicy and perfect as the last time: We also had roasted asparagus and potatoes: And possibly the LEAST appetizing looking dish I’ve ever served: These are wax beans from our CSA box. They tasted fine (stringy – my usual complaint about fresh beans), but, boy, they were ugly. I’ve never eaten wax beans before and the flavor isn’t different enough to put up with that horrible color. Regular green beans for me from now on. Some lovely Russian black bread that we got at Whole Foods: Plated: Dinner tonight: Another breakfast for dinner from me. Salad, ham and Cheddar omelets and more of those lovely beans .

I made two desserts for our Sunday brunch. Pots du Crème: I’ve done this recipe a couple of times before. It’s a Pioneer Woman recipe and amazingly good and easy. It’s all done in a blender with super hot milk or coffee. Incredibly smooth and rich. Limeade Tarts w/ Cherry Sauce: Really rich and creamy and refreshing. The cherry sauce was too thick – I misread the amount of cornstarch!

I love the look of that halvah! The halvah thread keeps calling to me!

Reading this is really setting me free! I am going to be much less regimented from now on seeing how all these good cooks disregard the 'rules'! I customarily double the salt in a recipe (especially a sweet recipe), quadruple the pepper and add hot sauce to anything cheesy or creamy whether the recipe calls for it or not. I do use extra vanilla, too. RE: the salted/unsalted butter issue. I can get sweet butter at Costco and prefer the flavor of it on bread, so that's what I keep on hand. I honestly don't think that my palate is sensitive enough to disern the difference in baked goods, but a thick smear of sweet butter with a scattering of coarse sea salt on a slice of crusty bread is heaven to me. I find the texture of 'sweated' onions unpleasant, so I always cook them to at least lightly browned, if not caramelized. I always sift 10X, if I'm using it for an icing, but only whisk flour.

I was confused about something: when Tom got all pissy about using canned beans he says something to the effect of "they couldn't cook a bag of beans". They had 45 minutes, right? So, NO Tom, they couldn't cook a bag of beans. Even in a pressure cooker the beans have to be presoaked. He didn't seem to be suggesting that the beans were a bad choice, just that they should have cooked from dried rather than canned. But they couldn't have been with the time constraints. I'd expect a chef of his caliber to know that. So - what am I missing? IS there a way to cook a bag of dried beans in 45 minutes?

Rico – that is some smoke ring on your brisket! Gorgeous. Soba – everything is beautiful, but the shrimp dish is really spectacular! Prawn – I really, really like the idea of fennel slaw, too! It was breakfast for dinner tonight: fried eggs and potatoes, Benton bacon (our favorite) and Hanover tomatoes. We got our shipment of Benton’s today, so breakfast for dinner was a given.

We actually just finished eggs, bacon, fried potatoes and sliced tomatoes. We have breakfast for dinner a lot. It’s quick and easy and besides, one of our favorite meals. I don’t have time to make breakfast for breakfast more than once or twice a week, so we like to squeeze in an extra one when we can. When our daughter (26 years old now) was a little girl, Friday night was pancake night. Pancakes (or waffles), eggs, bacon or sausage and fruit. After about 2 years, she asked plaintively one week, “Do we have to have breakfast for dinner every Friday?” I guess I overdid a good thing. She’s still not crazy about it.

Oh, yes...this, too!

Kent, you are in the wrong thread. This is for folks who LIKE canned foods ! Besides - I am a Southern cook. And I don't know if haricots verts would put up with ham hocks and long cooking.