Kim Shook

MattyC – lovely brioche. I’m up late tonight and wish I had the energy to make those. How wonderful they would taste with some sweet butter or my Tiptree strawberry preserves! chocoera – just utterly gorgeous! Jeff – do you chill your crust after rolling and before filling? That’s supposed to help with shrinkage. Just some bragging from me – daughter Jessica made her wonderful apple pie: This one was maybe her best ever. Perfectly cooked apples, not too juicy, not too dry. She really is the pie baker in this family!

Blether – I checked and we do have a St. Andrew society here. I’m saving the site so that I can watch for the dinner! Thank you! Mark – that paella is beautiful. I wonder if I could do something similar with orzo (I can’t tolerate rice since having a gastric bypass ). We’re still sorta working down the freezer, but other stuff, too. Saturday was some rib eyes from the freezer, cheese potatoes, a Costco demi baguette (also from the freezer) and slaw: The steaks were fantastic. We’d put the Montreal steak seasoning/brown sugar rub we always use on them before freezing (I seem to remember that they were intended for a dinner with my in laws that got cancelled for some reason) and Mr. Kim grilled them perfectly: Last night I took some sliced eye of round roast that I had in the freezer and made some rich gravy with some beef stock that I had in there and just simmered the slices in the gravy for a couple of hours. Some elderly potatoes from the cabinet, applesauce from the apples we picked a few weeks ago and another of the frozen baguettes: I am one tired puppy. I am doing desserts/nibbles for a 100 person alumni ‘gala’ for my daughter’s college sorority next Saturday. I’m doing a chocolate cake with chocolate icing, coconut cake, pecan cheese straws, bleu cheese shortbread with apricot preserves, buttermints in the sorority colors and spicy glazed peanut clusters. I frosted the chocolate cake tonight and it’s in the freezer getting solid so that I can wrap it. The coconut cake is in the freezer sans frosting, since I am using 7 minute frosting and will do that last thing on Saturday. All 200 mints are spread out drying on my dining room table. I’ll flip them over tomorrow night and wrap them up Wednesday night. The cheese straws are in the freezer and I’m going to try to get at least some of the bleu cheese shortbreads baked tonight before I snatch a couple of hours of sleep. The peanut clusters will have to wait until Wednesday night because tomorrow we are going to Charlottesville to see Jimmy Buffett. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz I’ll take pictures on Saturday when everything is done and post them in the desserts thread.

Dan - it's never too early! I'm already planning Christmas! And I've got the cranberry sauce and gravy in the freezer, too! I don't usually host Thanksgiving - Christmas eve is our holiday to have everyone at our house, but I decided to do a small one this year - just the three of us, my FIL and his wife and my mother and dad (eG's Ted Fairhead). I'm planning on turkey, pecan cornbread stuffing, Marlene's cream roasted potatoes, sweet potatoes (with marshmallows, I'm not ashamed to say - what I say is sweet potatoes without marshmallows and brown sugar taste like...sweet potatoes - ick! ), orange cranberry sauce, slkinsey's brussels sprouts au gratin, some kind of breadstuff and pecan pie with bourbon whipped cream. Donna - that dessert sounds wonderful! And as far as a do-ahead potato dish, we love twice baked potatoes - with good cheese, chives, sour cream, butter and a little cream cheese. These are a little dowdy, but delicious and everyone always scarfs them down and they freeze really well. You just thaw and heat.

I am testing some cakes tonight and want to try freezing them decorated, as I've been advised that I can do. Now I need some specifics. I assume that I freeze them for some time uncovered and them cover them somehow. Do I wrap them in plastic, or will that mess up the frozen frosting? Do I just put them in a box covered with plastic over (but not touching) the frosting? FYI - I am using a cream cheese frosting and a chocolate frosting that is made with chocolate, butter, sweetened condensed milk and corn syrup. Thanks so much!

Not yard sale shopping, but I wasn’t sure where else this belonged. It’s all old stuff, so I guess its ok here! My grandmother is doing some clearing out at her house and, this weekend, during my visit loaded me up with a PILE of books: I think I have a community cookbook from every church in Reidsville NC ! But these were actually kind of cool, I think: Here are the title pages and front photographs: These books were all published in the early 40’s and I can’t wait to read them like novels! I was fascinated by these books as a child and can remember wanting so badly to go to a party that was serving that platter of petit fours!

Blether – I keep thinking that I would probably like haggis and everyone I know thinks I’m insane. Wonder where I could try it? MiFi – beautiful meals – every single one of them! Got home last night from a trip to NC to visit my grandmother who has just gotten home from being in a rehab center (I told her that makes her sound like a Hollywood druggie ) since her stroke in July. Mr. Kim and Jessica made a lovely dinner. Mr. Kim’s spaghetti w/ meat sauce: Jessica’s wonderful salad with her delicious balsamic vinaigrette: I got started on some things for Thanksgiving/Christmas. I roasted my turkey wing/veg mix and then simmered them to make stock. I’ll make the gravy tonight for the freezer. I also made the cranberry/orange sauce: The only thing that I cooked in NC was a dowdy little casserole that my grandmother has made all my life – you know, pre-Hamburger Helper beef/noodle casserole. It was most certainly NOT photo-worthy, but tasty and something that she could eat (she’s still having to eat fairly soft foods). Having eaten nothing but institutional food since July, she was in the mood to party – on Saturday, she had me go get BBQ for lunch and fried flounder and baked potatoes for dinner!

Jeanne - is it this place?

Still trying to work down the freezer food. Last night’s dinner was more HAM : Biscuits w/ ham and Swiss. <sigh> And some vegetable/alphabet soup: Why, no, I’m not embarrassed to be showcasing Campbell’s soup, why do you ask ? Actually, I am not a big fan of canned soup, but I don’t hate it and Mr. Kim and Jessica actually eat it a lot. And this variety is one that I actually do like. I am trying to get ready to go out of town Friday mid-day and need to bake a pie to use up the apples we picked 2 weekends ago and do some cooking to take to my grandmother, so cooking for us just wasn’t a priority. Tonight I met Mr. Kim at one of our favorite local places, Melito's. I had a lovely fresh salad and an egg salad sandwich. It was wonderful and not a speck of freezer burn on anything !

I don't think Bomo, my mother's mother ever drank from anything else! Bebo, my father's mother never drank from anything but a highball glass!

kay – I love the beans and corncakes. I’ll be making that meal soon! percyn – the buffalo is gorgeous – juicy looking and perfectly cooked! Sunday football snacks – ham, cheeses, crackers: Dinner – was supposed to be a wonderful change from HAM, but it turned out to be tasteless and boring: It was a slow cooker chicken dish; with chicken, black beans, corn, salsa and cream cheese. It is a family favorite from one of the ladies at another website that I participate in . I served it in taco shells with tortilla chips and local peach salsa. We ate a LOT of chips and salsa. It was watery and bland and utterly unfixable. We just tossed it out.

Darcie, that cake is absolutely adorable! You could serve it anytime during October and November!! I really love it.

CanadianBakin' - thank you! That will help Well, we spent last night doing the pricing. I'll call the organizer tonight and we'll see. I'd like to get this job - it would be a fun challenge and it would please my daughter - but if I don't, that's ok, too. Mr. Kim and I were talking last night and I was worried that it was beyond their budget, but my daughter says not and she used to coordinate stuff for them when she was an active member. If they want supermarket cakes, they can just get them from the supermarket - I don't feel like doing all that work on boxed cake mix cakes. Thank you all for your help and advice! I'll let you know what happens!

A couple of platters totalling 10 lbs would be more than enough. And the cheeses wouldn't need to be exotic; would even the pre-sliced cheddar, swiss & provalone from Costco work? What about 1) candied ginger and 2) chocolate curl in a contrasting color. Would it be tacky to tint white chocolate to one of the sorority colors? I am a simple person... Thank you, Karen. I'm going out on a pricing mission in a few minutes and I'll check the prices of cheese and dried fruit at Costco! And I like the idea of candied ginger - I'll stop by the Asian grocery, too. And I don't think that using the sorority colors is tacky at all - I thought of doing buttermints in the colors and letters (APO) !

Halloween Cupcakes: These were supposed to look like mummies, but I’m not thrilled with my work:

Thank you! I’ll frost and freeze those two then. That will be nice to have that out of the way. No dipping things. People will have just come in from dinner and I think that they want to stay with after dinner stuff. I’d love to do a big cheese/dried fruit platter, but don’t think that their budget will allow for that. I will score those two (I don’t think scoring would work for the coconut cake) and put a little something in the middle of each square – I was thinking little gum paste leaves for the gingerbread cake (if I can find tiny little leaf cutters – I might even have some) but haven’t thought of what to put on the chocolate. I don’t have The Cake Bible yet, unfortunately – it’s on my abebooks.com wishlist. I’d really appreciate the list.

Those are just beautiful! Great piping skills. I need to start practicing!! Happy Halloween!

Thank for all the help and the good ideas. I want to make sure that we’re talking about the same thing. I have what I think are half sheet pans – 12x17 and a whisper under 1” deep? I will just use those, if that is what you all are talking about. That’s why you want me to use 2 layers per cake, right? The planner says that there will be between 100 and 150 people, so I thought 3 cakes would be plenty (they are doing chocolate fountains also). I was thinking of pitching a coconut cake w/ 7 minute frosting, a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and a gingerbread cake with pumpkin/cream cheese frosting. These are all T&T cakes for me. If a 2 layer recipe will fit in one sheet cake pan, then I’d need a double recipe of each cake. Now, considering that I’ll need to cover the cakes twice (filling and top), all around the sides and enough to do any embellishments, do you think that making twice the frosting will do? I know that I can’t freeze the 7 Minute or the cream cheese frostings, but do you think that this one will freeze ok? Also – with the cream cheese frosting – I know that it needs to be refrigerated. I’m planning on frosting the cakes in the morning and they won’t be eaten until that night – do I need to refrigerate the cake all day? I’ll put them together and frost them when frozen – thanks for that advice – I can just see myself trying to handle SIX giant floppy cake layers ! As far as the not-so-sweet things, all I’ve come up with so far is the cheese biscuits with pecans, that I mentioned, a bleu cheese biscuit with preserves (like a savory sandwich cooky) and spicy glazed nut clusters with sea salt. Does anyone have any additional ideas, keeping in mind that they have to be made ahead of time (preferably freezable) and no heating at the venue? And not too fussy, time-wise? Thank you again for all your help!

Mark – thanks! I thought this one looked kind of interesting – very no frills, you could just put it in any pan and with the bottom, it looks pretty sturdy. percyn – unfortunately, NOT a Benton’s. But we’re ordering one for Xmas eve and a couple of pounds of bacon for a discerning friend as his Xmas gift! BTW – perfectly cooked steak!!!

Mark – that chicken is gorgeous. Your roasting apparatus is different from mine. Is there room under there for a can of beer? We really loved the beer can chicken, but my vertical roasting rack wouldn’t accommodate a can and the can alone isn’t steady enough and it fell over during roasting. Kayb – thanks for the carbonara instructions – we’ll be trying that soon! Prawn – that pigeon meal is gorgeous. The sauce is just amazing looking! And your tart and macarons are perfectly perfect! Bruce – where are y’all getting fresh lima beans? I’ve looked all over and can’t find any. Blether – what a wonderful piece of photo journalism! I love liver, but haven’t ever tasted fish liver – how does it compare with quadruped liver? Rhonda – I love your cake! And how clever you are putting it up on a can to glaze it and to cover the edge with the cut Reeses cups! I am stealing both those ideas! We are still on a ‘cleaning out the freezers’ binge . On Sunday, I cooked a 15 pound ham that we had bought on sale a couple of months ago. I gave some to my in laws, but there is still a LOT of ham in my fridge: On Monday we had chopped salad: Ham, butterbeans and biscuits: Tuesday was ham, cheese grits, scrambled eggs, apples and toast: Last night was salad w/ Gorgonzola dressing (store bought, but very, very good): HAM and Gruyere quiche and hushpuppies (we have a whole bag of those in the freezer, too): Dessert was my daughter’s delectable apple pie with a scoop of Häagen-Dazs ginger ice cream: I cannot tell you how perfect that ice cream is with apple pie! And how welcome after so many days of that freakin’ HAM! Tonight is laundry/pumpkin carving/pumpkin-poundcake cupcake baking night, so instead of even trying to think up another use for HAM, I think I’ll just sling the bag o’ pork onto the island, add whatever cheeses are in the fridge, open the cracker jar and call it dinner. Plus, there’s some of that PIE left!

abooja – I am in the process of cleaning out my freezers to prep for holiday baking and I don’t have any caramel – but now I wish I did! I made a Red Velvet cake from Cooks’ Country Magazine for a work birthday today. Her birthday is actually Halloween, so I tarted it up with ‘blood’ and gummy eyeballs: It was a LOT redder than it looks in the picture. I’m not a big fan of Red Velvet. To me, it has an off-putting aftertaste. Possibly the dye since I’ve heard that some people are sensitive to the flavor. But it was a request and everyone loved it.

I don't think that you can go wrong following Lan4Dawg's suggestions - he's mentioned some of my favorites. I have to single out The Heritage of Southern Cooking. I've cooked from this for years and love it. The prose is charming and the recipes are delicious.

A few questions for the more experienced folks here. My daughter's sorority is having a big alumni dessert gala for 100 to 150 people. They are doing chocolate fountains with fruit, etc. and want me to do something less sweet and sheet cakes. For the less sweet, I thought I might do cheese straws with pecans. If anyone has another idea for this I'd love to hear it. All of this will be prepared ahead at my house and taken over there the day of the party - no cooking/reheating facilities on-site. I can do the cheese straws ahead of time and freeze them. My other concern are the sheet cakes. I have a million questions! I'm planning on buying disposable 12x18 sheet pans and cake boards just a little larger. I want to do an assortment of cakes and I want to use my own recipes (NOT the time to experiment, I think). If I have a recipe for a 2 layer cake, will that fit in the sheet cake pan? I know that I'll have to adjust the timing, but do I have to back off the temp a little? And will the recipe itself need any adjusting? I keep seeing that a 12x18 cake will serve 32-48. Does that sound right? For one layer? It sounds a little skimpy - should I make them 2 layers? I'm sure I'll think of other questions, but that should do it for now. I'm getting back with the organizer Tuesday and I'm spending this weekend trying to come up with prices. I love all of this except pricing - it's boring. The only way that I know of doing it is going around to the stores that I'll be using, pricing things, adding everything up and then checking store prices for the same items and trying to see if I can make a profit and not get too high above them. Not terribly professional, I know, but then I am a 'hobby cook' (I love that phrase).

I forgot to mention that I'm in the process of trying to work down the food in our 3 freezers (one in the refrigerator and 2 smaller ones outside) to get ready to start stocking them with Christmas food in November. Consequently, my meals will start getting a little odd at some point when I am left with really disparate items to use up! Tonight's dinner was Romaine and Arugula salad with olive oil/orange Muscat champagne vinegar dressing: Rib eyes, filet mignon, tiny roasted potatoes, butter beans: The salad was fresh, of course, and the potatoes were some tiny little babies that I couldn’t resist the other day at Trader Joe’s. They were so good – creamy and crisp!

I have to disagree about the TJ puff pastry. I have totally switched to that - it's all butter and I find it very tender and flaky and never have had any trouble with it not rising. I haven't bought it yet, but they were sampling a frozen bay scallop, mushroom dish with a creamy sauce. I was almost afraid to try it ! But I girded my loins and tried a bite and was amazed. The sauce wasn't overly salty, the scallops were firm and sweet and not 'fishy' at all. Can't comment on the mushrooms since I am a fungophobe, but I was impressed. We'll be buying this.

Shal – what a great idea! That pasta is luscious looking! percyn – gorgeous short ribs – I need to make some soon! I heart Fall! kayb – I’d love to have the recipe for the udon carbonara! It looks so creamy and slippy and delicious! Toliver – I use that ‘rub’ a lot, actually! I mix it with sugar and rub on steaks, too! Blether – lovely oysters! Last night was Italian sausage sandwiches, fried corn, green beans and salad: Tonight we had my MIL over for dinner. I did romaine and arugula salad with olive oil/orange Muscat champagne vinegar dressing: onion garlic soup w/ gruyere croutons: Two kinds of panini: Close up of raisin bread, ham, turkey and Swiss cheese panini with fig preserves: Close up of pear, pecorino & prosciutto panini: pound cake w/ maple-caramel sauce w/ sautéed apples: