Kim Shook

jeez - I forgot! The ketchup comment reminded me - at a little cafe that was in the basement of a building that I used to work in, the vendor used to make these awesome egg sandwiches - scrambled eggs, bacon, cheese and HASHBROWNS on a soft roll - squirted with ketchup. Those were so good!

Lunch/dinner yesterday for Mr. Kim was leftover steak on toasted some slices of toasted WW baguette topped with Gorgonzola sauce, chips and jalapeno pickles: I had tuna salad on the baguette slices, chips and sweet dills: Dessert was these delicious banana chocolate chip muffins that meredith h. made:

percyn - that looks great and I love the knife - is that a Laguiole? I did basically the same breakfast this morning as yesterday with the addition of homefries w/ onions. I cooked the soft boiled eggs for 4 1/2 minutes this morning and that was NOT enough – egg snot, ICK !! Will try 4 3/4 minutes next time: I couldn’t find egg cups anywhere, so I ordered a set of cups and tiny little spoons last night. Maybe I’ll have them by next weekend so I can try again to get the timing right!

menuinprogress – gorgeous lamb !! Dinner tonight was a dry aged rib eye from Whole Foods w/ Gorgonzola sauce, Jacques Pepin’s Gnocchi Parisienne, salad and a whole wheat baguette that I made earlier today: The steak was the best steak I have ever made and one of the best we’ve ever tasted. I seared it in a pan and roasted it at 400 degrees in the oven to 125 degrees and after it sat, it was a perfect medium-rare! I was so happy with this dinner! The sauce is just a pan sauce with port and Gorgonzola. It was delectable! Also, the steak was much redder than it looks in the picture. It really was medium-rare, though it looks medium in that shot.

Today I tried out a recipe from the American Diabetes Association Family Cookbook Vol. II. It was a whole wheat baguette: It tastes fine and has slightly less calories, fat and carbs than regular WW bread, but I’ve never tasted a WW baguette before, so I don’t really know how it matches up. It has a tighter crumb than I really like and the crust isn’t very crisp (I forgot to brush it with ice water before turning on the oven – might that have been the problem?), but it rose beautifully and I don’t think that it’s a bad effort for the first time I’ve done the recipe.

Breakfast this morning was soft boiled eggs done by Maggie’s method in her wonderful essay in the Daily Gullet. She ended up cooking them for 5 minutes, but I think I’ll try 4 1/2 tomorrow. Getting them right depends on so many things individual to your house, climate, eggs, temperature, etc. Five minutes is close, though, and her method is easier than any other I’ve tried – cold, pierced eggs put into gently boiling water and left alone for 5 minutes. We also had Benton’s bacon and toast: Pardon the dark bacon – my kitchen is a dungeon this morning. We switched the light on last night to find it smoking !! Mr. Kim took the fan/light down last night and we went off to try to find a replacement light (a real aggravation and a topic for another thread !). I’m off to the store to buy some egg cups!

Rona - I make my Christmas turkey gravy ahead of time and freeze it every year. There is no way that I am making the amount of gravy we need at the last minute. I use turkey wings and sometimes make it as early as Thanksgiving. It needs a bit of thinning out when I thaw it, but I've never noticed any degrading of flavor or texture. Here are some notes about how I do it. I don't fool myself that I am a truly accomplished cook, but I am proud of my gravy - I have worked on the recipe for about 30 years and it's pretty durn good.

Oh, yeah! We make those a lot! Not usually on a roll, just because, like you, I don't usually have them. But they are great on a soft onion roll, when I have one. Egg, bread (untoasted normally) and, also like you, ham, cheese, bacon, etc., but no lettuce, tomato, etc. Spread with butter or mayo. I do sometimes make mini omelets and put those on bread, too. Not many places do egg sandwiches around here. But Waffle House does a great one on Texas Toast!

Underbowler here. I love the feeling of abundance you get from a brimming bowl. And I have the Southern hostesses' horror of portions seeming skimpy.

Bruce – I sure wish I had someone like you to introduce me to Indian cooking. I am SO ignorant about it that it is embarrassing, but your food always looks so delicious! Soba – everything you make looks gorgeous and perfectly seasonal! Your gnocchi dish is exquisite! And the next meal is beautiful, too. I have never had roasted radishes! What are they like? Taste, texture??? nickrey – the crust on your chicken is perfect! I am so impressed (and envious)! Rhonda – Wow! I am amazed and impressed at your impromptu dinner party! I don’t know that I could manage grilled cheese and a salad in that amount of time on a work night! And, yes, now that you mention it, they do look like those legs ! Dealing with being out of town last weekend with my dad in the hospital and work and stuff, I've hardly cooked at all. I did cook at my mother's on Saturday - no pictures since I didn't take my camera, but it was wonderful - a shrimp and sugar snap stir fry with an sesame oil, oyster and soy sauce finishing sauce. It was from a beautiful book she has called The Essential Wok Cookbook. I'll definitely be making it again and I'll take a picture then! Dinner last night started out great – a Crudités plate with Fleur de Sel and black Mediterranean sea salt: Then it really went downhill. I just did my regular easy chicken enchiladas – shredded chicken mixed with canned enchilada sauce, wrapped in sauce-soaked corn tortillas, topped with shredded ‘Mexican’ cheese: It’s a little pedestrian, but always tastes just fine and it’s an easy, good weeknight meal. These were horrible. I’m guessing that the brand of sauce was at fault – it was some off brand that Mr. Kim picked up – not my usual. I served it with sautéed yellow squash and onions and field peas and snaps: The squash was fine, but the peas were terrible, too ! They were also canned – I buy Luck’s a lot and always have had good ones, but this was some new brand which were labeled ‘seasoned’ – something I didn’t notice until I started to use them. Awful – musty and off tasting. Blah! Can’t wait to do some real cooking this weekend!

That was wonderful, Maggie! The funny thing is that I never saw this until today and my daughter and I had a discussion about soft boiled eggs YESTERDAY! She wanted to know how to do them and I told her the same thing that said - basically: I can cook lots of difficult things, but soft boiled eggs are one of the most challenging things that I've ever tried. I think that I see soft boiled eggs and soldiers for breakfast this weekend!

Thanks so much for the advice. It didn't really feel humid that day, but it sure was the next and I'm thinking that that affected it.

Dinner tonight was Slow Cooker Chinese Orange Beef – this was actually pretty good. Because of being cooked in a slow cooker, it was more like Chinese pot roast, but that was ok with us and the flavor was great. I also served Ramen noodles:

I made a ‘Ho Ho Cake’ for a birthday at work tomorrow: Devil’s food cake w/ Italian meringue buttercream, decorated with Ho Ho’s. I was completely disappointed in my IMBC today: The taste was fine and it was fluffy, but it wasn’t smooth at all like when I’ve made it before. I have NO idea what I did wrong, but, to be honest, icings have never been my thing – for that matter, as much as I love it, baking is a huge challenge for me. Oh, well, better luck next time.

Breakfast this morning was cantaloupe, scrambled eggs w/ chives and Fontina, more of that Wellshire bacon from yesterday and leftover pancetta biscuits:

For dinner tonight I made Rachel Ray’s Blue-rugala burgers. Stupid name, great burgers! I used WF grass fed ground beef. You add garlic, parsley and Worcestershire sauce to the beef and then caramelize some onions adding brown sugar and brown mustard to them. When the burgers are done you top them with Cambazola cheese, the onions and arugula. I served them on brioche buns. Really terrific burgers. Alongside, I served corn and slaw”:

Steve - thank you for this - I'm going to print out your advice and put it with the butterscotch recipe, so that I can try what you suggest! I really appreciate the help! Tri2Cook - I think you are probably right! I'll be doing this again because Mr. Kim loves butterscotch pie, but I'll be making some adjustments!

Ilana - I'm not sure that I'm the one to answer, but I can tell you what I understand. In the US, as far as candy goes - caramel is chewy and smooth, toffee is crunchy and butterscotch is a hard candy that is very buttery. Here are some pictures: Caramel, Toffee, Butterscotch. I hope this makes sense! Butterscotch pie, on the other hand, seems to be a custardy type pie made with eggs and brown sugar. Actually I need some help here - could someone describe a perfect butterscotch pie to me? As I said, I'm not familiar with it and was expecting something firmer, but most of the recipes that I am finding seem similar to the one I used. Thanks!

Ann – I just put peameal bacon on my wish list (I have a birthday coming up), but have a question. The Real Canadian Bacon Co. offers whole peameal roasts or slices. I am leaning towards a whole roast, but which would you suggest? Breakfast this morning was a drippingly, sweet, floral cantaloupe: At least that’s what Mr. Kim said. I’m not a fan of cantaloupe. I can manage bland, not-so-good melon, but a good one is somehow too fragrant to me – they always taste almost rotten to me. We also had banana pancakes and new (to us) bacon that I found at Whole Foods - Wellshire dry rubbed Black Forest bacon. The bacon was very good, much better than anything usually found in a regular store, but we still prefer the flavor of Benton’s. The pancakes were fantastic – we can’t wait for blueberry season to try them in the pancakes!

I made Paula Deen’s butterscotch pie today: I’m not a big fan of butterscotch, but Mr. Kim loves it. He liked the pie, but thought that the flavor could have been stronger and that it was a little ‘loose’ and puddingy. I don’t know if I’ve ever had butterscotch pie, but I did expect something firmer. It was more firm than pudding, but not a lot. So – a mixed success, I guess.

Menuinprogress – your Char Siu Bao looks wonderful. I’d love to try making them sometime. Shelby – lovely shrimp alfredo and a beautiful picture!!! Tonight’s dinner was a salad, a baked pasta w/ Italian sausage, spinach, tomatoes, pesto, ricotta, mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses and pancetta-Fontina biscuits: The pasta was a recipe that I got off the food network. It was very good. I adapted it a bit – used shells instead of ziti, shredded the spinach instead of leaving whole, used fresh mozz instead of…whatever the processed stuff is called – aged? But it was really good and we’ll be eating a lot of it in the next few days – the recipe said it would serve 6-8, so I halved it and ended up with enough for 8 – 10 people !! The biscuits are another food network recipe. They were wonderful. The recipe called for serving them with a vanilla/cinnamon/sugar butter, but I thought that sounded weird, so I left it off. Dessert was a disappointment: We stopped at a new cupcake place near us. The chocolate frosted one is called ‘Chocolate Covered Strawberry’ – strawberry cake filled with strawberry puree frosted with chocolate Buttercream, the other is key lime – graham cake filled and frosted with key lime Buttercream. Both were bad – sour, off tasting fillings, tough cake and the chocolate frosting was crusted and overly sweet. Cupcakes finally get to Richmond and they are no better than supermarket ones – just ‘fancier’ and $2.75 a piece!

I am ashamed to admit (HERE of all places) that it was canned fluffy white frosting! I was asked to make it the night before and worked all day that day and just didn't have time for anything else.

I was so busy last night (out of town guest coming by to visit our daughter, end of the week chores, etc.) that I had no business EATING much less cooking , but I NEEDED to cook (y’all know what I mean) so I made some fries: with some cool black Mediterranean sea salt that I found. And tried out a new recipe for hush puppies that a friend sent me: Much, much better than last time! These were lighter, much more flavorful and just better all around!

schneich - those petits fours are gorgeous! The blueberry one just speaks to me. I adore the tiny little sugar sprinkle across the top! Rob - your mousse is just incredibly lovely. I love the little yolkish dollop of puree on top and the sprayed on white chocolate effect. How I wish that we had something even approaching the quality of what you do! Um...er...ah...down here at a WHOLE 'nother level , I made this coconut cake last night for a party that my MIL is giving:

All I know is, about half the time that I try to make this damn fudge, I end up with Tootsie Rolls. I actually like Tootsie Rolls a lot better than the fudge !