Kim Shook

Steve - Yes, it's in two pieces. The part with the tube in it just drops into the part with the sides - there's no clamp like on a springform. I guess it must be warped. Time to get a new one!

deensiebat - I love the look of those chocolate PB cookies! I’ll be trying that recipe! DeliciouslyLekker – that scone is seriously gorgeous! Dessert tonight was supposed to be Cook’s Country Cold Oven Pound Cake, but this is what happened to my cake: I’ve used this pan many times and never had this happen before. The cake ended up being awful and sodden (not surprising since most of it leaked out the bottom of the pan) and it was 10pm and I didn’t have any more soft butter. So I had a pound cake mix (I never have one on hand, but I make these really popular pumpkin pound cake muffins for Halloween that use the mix) and just made that quickly. I made some maple-caramel sauce with sautéed apples and served it over the cake slices: The cake was blah, but the sauce was awesome!

I second the cheesecake suggestion and I have a great one - perfect for Thanksgiving. It's Pumpkin Cheesecake. Even folks who don't love pumpkin pie (like me) seem to love this cheesecake and it travels great (Indiana to Virginia one year).

I'm an admitted glutton. I want both. Give me an order of eggs and bacon and grits and biscuits...and throw in a short stack...or a big gloppy cinnamon roll. I just like the contrast of going back and forth between the salty bacon and sweet pancakes. But don't put them on the same plate !! Eggs mixed with pancake syrup grosses me out. I do, however, put syrup on my sausages and I love brown sugar bacon.

If I order grits, I always expect to have to add salt and pepper to my own taste. But GOOD grits (not quick or - horrors - instant), should come with some seasoning already added. Grits need LOTS of salt and pepper and I personally think that a few dashes of hot sauce is necessary. Cheese grits may not need as much salt, but still need a good dose of pepper and hot sauce. I'm making a cheese grits souffle tomorrow morning (ye gods, actually THIS morning) for my parents and the recipe calls for 3/4 t. salt to 1/2 c. uncooked grits, but I'm sure it will need more. If the grits you order taste like "spackling" instead of corn, then I suspect you are getting instant or quick grits. Try making them at home and see what you think.

Yep - and it makes my face flush, too (I have rosecea!)

Soba – going back to your roasted tomato meal – that just looks incredible – I’d love the entire thing! Bruce – how I envy those tomatoes. We are too shady to grow any and I never got any really good ones this year – even the garden fresh ones from the farmers market and my in laws’ garden were pallid. percyn – the hoagie is a thing of beauty and that bread!!!! I have a couple of recent meals – a little dull compared to what y’all are cooking lately! A few days ago I made really quick steak tacos with soft corn tortillas and salad: Last night was fresh kielbasa from John McGinnis in Pittsburgh with caramelized onions, baked potatoes and salad. Wonderful kielbasa:

Jaymes, I think that you are talking about my picks. I intended them as appetizer picks rather than martini picks. But...if you used little mini beads that weren't very heavy, that might be a great idea. I want to find someone who teaches that wire art thing - where the thick wire (that looks like soldering wire) and beads are wrapped around serving items. A couple of martini glasses and a silver cocktail shaker decorated with those and a couple of picks would make a wonderful gift! Hmmmmm.... You should be able to find a Gem & Mineral show in your area - There is one in Harrisonburg Oct 23-25 - or check in the listings of Lapidary Journal http://www.jewelryshowguide.com/event/results.php?letter=&category_id=34&screen=1 Most shows have at least one wire-wrap demo artist and you can get just about any supplies your need. Thank you, so much! This is a craft I really want to learn - I am good at color choice and arranging things, but not terribly artistic, so I think this is the thing for me!

Jaymes, I think that you are talking about my picks. I intended them as appetizer picks rather than martini picks. But...if you used little mini beads that weren't very heavy, that might be a great idea. I want to find someone who teaches that wire art thing - where the thick wire (that looks like soldering wire) and beads are wrapped around serving items. A couple of martini glasses and a silver cocktail shaker decorated with those and a couple of picks would make a wonderful gift! Hmmmmm....

The bacon that I used was pretty lean, so I didn't have a pan-ful of fat when I finished. I didn't want to clean a rack, but I'm sure that would help. I think that you could cook the bacon until it was almost done and then drain the fat and apply the brown sugar - it caramelizes pretty quick. Glad you liked it!

Being the smarty I am, I went straight to your website to look for the brown sugar bacon recipe, and it's not there!! I googled, and found a bunch, but I'd love to know which one you used! Or did you do-it-yourself? (just sprinkle brown sugar and broil?) I just made bacon yesterday, so I'm itching to try it. Definitely NOT a recipe. Like you, I googled, and ended up just sprinkling a good amount of brown sugar on the bacon, pressing it down lightly and baking at 375 degrees for about 25 minutes. A couple of caveats: I used really good thick bacon (since you made bacon, you don't need this advice, but others might) and I put it on Reynolds Non-stick foil. It looks like it's not going to work, because when you first take it off the pan, it's really gooey and a little limp, but when it cools a little it gets perfectly crispy. Mine were done about 20 minutes before we ended up eating, so I just put them back on the pan under the eggs when I cooked the eggs for about 7 minutes and they were perfect. Let me know how you liked it. I can't wait to have it for dinner tonight!

Lovely, lovely desserts everyone! dystopiandreamgirl – your leaf cake is, live EVERYTHING you make, absolutely gorgeous and amazing! And the mini pizzelles with the berries are adorable. The picture is great – I can imagine the taste and POP of those berries! Thank you for sharing your lovely creations with us. Well, I have one pretty ordinary, but delicious offering: These are Elinor Klivan’s Super-Sized Ginger Chewies with Sugar Babies. One of our favorite cookies. The little drippy looking bits on the right are melted out Sugar Babies – these bits get very brittle when they cool. I just break them off and they become a cook’s treat! These are going in the freezer as a gift for a friend we are seeing in PA next weekend. For dinner last night, I did a Ginger Mascarpone Icebox Cake w/ Caramel Apple Sauce: I’ve made this before (and Marlene has, too, I think). It’s from "The 150 Best American Recipes" by Fran McCullough & Molly Stevens. Someone at eG recommended the recipe. It’s just so good and easy – no cooking and you make it the day before you serve it. I had some maple caramel sauce in the fridge and sautéed some apples to make a sauce to serve with the cake.

Lovely meals, all! Soba – everything you cook is so beautiful and fresh looking! Johnny – mmmm, braised lamb! C’mon Fall food!!!! We had a high school friend of mine from DC down for the weekend. Dinner last night was romaine, hearts of palm and radish salad w/ ginger dressing (like Japanese steak house dressing): Scallops With Miso-Mustard Cream Sauce: Pan Roasted Glazed Salmon: Orzo w/ herbs and vegetable broth: Stir Fried Sugar Snaps: Grilled ciabatta slices: Ginger Mascarpone Icebox Cake w/ Caramel Apple Sauce: We had a bottle of Sancerre with dinner – it’s become my new favorite wine.

Ann – I always love your pictures so much! The eggs on a cloud are just gorgeous! As are the sandwiches – what recipe are you using for those rolls? I need to order some back bacon – we a pork freaks and I’m sure we’d be immediately addicted! percyn – I never, ever thought to use pate as a breakfast meat, but it is a wonderful idea, especially a nice, rustic chunky one like you used! Thanks for the inspiration. We had a guest this weekend – a high school friend (32 years ago! ) down from DC. Breakfast this morning was baked eggs w/ goat cheese and herbs, brown sugar bacon, cheese grits soufflé and bread machine brioche w/ assorted preserves: The bacon was amazing! Like bacon brittle. Wow. I wouldn't make it all the time, but I kept thinking about it all day and had to stay very busy to not go in the fridge for a nibble every so often!

RunBe4UFly – gorgeous pictures and wonderful looking food! Bruce – I love the look of that pork/bean sprout dish! Our favorite Chinese restaurant here makes a similar dish that is incredible. Soba – I wish I had a bowl of that oyster stew right now. What makes it ‘New Orleans style’? percyn – and after a bowl of Soba’s stew, I’ll finish with one of the 1st version of the lobster salad! Wow! Quick after work dinner tonight: Pork tenderloin w/ Montgomery Inn bbq sauce, green beans w/ vinaigrette, corn cakes and salad. That pork was just as juicy as it looks. I seared it in a pan on top of the stove and roasted it at 350 degrees to 160 and it was just perfect.

We were thrilled with this cake! It was a Martha Stewart recipe that I tried out on Mother's Day this year for a niece who is newly gluten intolerant. She was so thrilled and said that it was the best gluten free cake that she'd had - including one from a very expensive bakery and begged to take the leftovers home. Here's a picture: (I used one of those giant cupcake pans)

Had some steamed shrimp that needed to be eaten tonight (leftover from our UVA tailgate on Saturday and then MORE from a party we went to last night), so I made Ina Garten’s shrimp salad and served it on split top rolls, also some tomato and red onion salad with cornbread croutons and some Star’s Brunswick stew (out of Burlington) from a recent trip to NC:

So many lovely desserts! deensiebat – your chocolate cookies are just speaking to me right now! Here is a CI German chocolate cake that I made last week: My MIL ordered it for a friend’s birthday. I’ve made the cake, but not the frosting, before and it was delicious. I tasted the scraps and they were good, but it’s odd to send a cake out and not know what it really tasted like – what professionals go through all the time, I know. The cake is supposed to have bare sides with just the frosting showing between the layers. Two layers are split into 4 and then you frost. Once I trimmed them up, it just didn’t look nice, so I ran to the store for some canned frosting (sorry, but it was LATE and I’d just done the fantasy football draft party and was getting ready to go to NC for the weekend) and dolled it up. My MIL said that everyone loved the cake and that the birthday lady wanted it again next year.

I just use the canned ones, but if someone wanted to go to the trouble of converting the recipe to dry beans, I'd be ordering some Rancho Gordos tomorrow !

Blether - sorry, I somehow missed the request for the smoky bean recipe until just now. Here's the recipe. I don't know what makes them 'smoky' other than the BBQ flavor beans. If I can't find them, I just use canned baked beans with some good BBQ sauce added. I've also added leftover BBQ'd pork when I have some in the freezer.

Oops! We also had Smoky Beans: (I thought that I could edit my post, but couldn't find the edit button)

RunBe4UFly – gorgeous pictures! And that dessert…wow! Have you found the “Your Daily Sweets” thread on the baking board? I can tell that you would be very, very welcome there! On Monday night we had brined pork chops, cous cous, creamed corn and tomatoes: I loved the tenderness and juiciness of the pork chop, but really disliked the flavor – the brining liquid called for pickling spice. I really found it inedible. Mr. Kim seemed to like it, though. I think that next time, I’ll try more of an apple cider, mustard brine. Last night was Mr. Kim’s annual Fantasy Football Draft party, which I’ve catered for the last 4-5 years. They used to get a private room at a local restaurant, but one year couldn’t get it on the night that they needed it and so Mike asked me to cater it. They’ve voted for me every year since. It’s 12 guys and I always take the day off and cook up a storm. They love everything and take food home to their families and PAY ME (a big deal to an ordinary home cook – the concept, not the money ), so I have a blast. Last night we had: quick party nuts: just easy, glazed almonds and pecans Jaymes' incomparable caramel corn: I decided to make this without nuts so the poor guy who is allergic could have some. Still the best caramel corn ever. Buffalo Wing Wontons: Some of them overcooked a bit, as you can see, but I watched more carefully with later batches. The filling for these is just my version of that Buffalo wing dip that was going around the food boards a couple of years ago. They are trashy and fried and totally delicious – perfect guy food :lol: ! I did sandwiches with the CI eye of round roast: We love this recipe and I make it a lot, but we discovered that it just isn’t tender enough for cold sandwiches – the fellows kept pulling the whole slices out with each bite. I sliced them EXTREMELY thin, too. I did horseradish sauce, BBQ sauce and roasted red peppers to serve with the sandwiches. Chile-cornbread salad: weird and wonderful – a layered salad (remember those?) with crumbled cornbread, bacon, pintos, green pepper, cheese, tomatoes, spring onions and a mayo/sour cream/ranch dressing mix dressing. Another trashy and delicious concoction. Pickles, pretzel chips and Alexia Crunchy Onion Strips (these were incredible – like Durkees kicked up a million notches!) – no pictures. Gratin Dauphinois: fruit salsa and cinnamon flour tortilla chips: Perhaps the most popular dish of the night. I made probably 2 quarts of this salsa and had about 1 cup leftover! Just strawberries, kiwi, raspberries, blackberries, apples and a tiny bit of white and brown sugar. Chocolate Toffee Bars: Dream Cookies: These are our family’s favorite cookies. Very simple – almost a shortbread and so incredibly tender and buttery and crisp. I sometimes dress them up with cinnamon sugar, nuts, chocolate dip, etc. But even plain, they are my best-remembered cookies. I've been making them since I was 9 or 10 years old - about 40 years! Well, tonight I’m ‘wore out’ and I’m very glad that we have some leftovers!

Nicholas – what delicious looking salsa and what a GORGEOUS photo. I love that you can see the stripes on the little bits of tomato! djyee – those fig/prosciutto/pasta plates make the perfect summer meal. Saturday night I had to bake some chicken breasts for a dish I’m making Tuesday for Mr. Kim’s fantasy football draft party, so I decided to piggyback dinner onto that. I also did a fridge/freezer/pantry inventory yesterday, so most everything was either leftovers or stuff that needed using! I did baked chicken with herbed Monterey Jack and prosciutto. Mr. Kim had yellow squash and kale and Jessica and I had creamed corn and cous cous. Mr. Kim’s plate: My plate:

(((Randi))) - I work for a urologist so I have seen lots of folks going through what you are! Take your drugs and I hope you feel better soon - I'll be thinking about you!

As soon as she can eat something besides mush, she will be getting that biscuit and the preserves!