Kim Shook

Since cold weather and cold weather cooking are my favorites, I was enjoying the last couple of unseasonably cold days that we've had here. Dinner was pot roast, noodles, southern green beans and some sweet potato yeast rolls:

Lovely, my friend! I was just in the midst of an email to you and decided to check w/ eG and found this wonderful celebration. Thank you for inviting us, Rachel. You are a more hospitable virtual hostess than some actual hostesses manage! More anon!

OOOOh! Anne books! Thank you so much for posting about this - I wasn't aware of it and I have always loved Anne books! They are among the books that I cannot read without a snack nearby!

Ann - your biscuits and gravy looks perfect - I just finished breakfast and now I want that!! And the biscuits in the next post are just incredible - so high and light looking - I wish this Southern girl's biscuits looked that good! Percyn - that syrup sounds really intriguing! Can you describe the flavor? This morning we had crumpets and bacon w/ fried eggs. The crumpets were a Jamie Oliver recipe - you do them like French toast - really good:

Bruce - the stir fried shrimp sounds wonderful! Percyn - your wings and pork both look delicious! I will be trying the wings sometime - we love the sweet stickiness of hoisin Tracey - I am very impressed with your hubby's meal! I'd love that recipe, too! Dr J - crab, pear and ricotta?? That sounds inspired! Not only would it work on pasta, but, thickened up, would make a great spread on crackers or cocktail bread. This is what we've been eating for breakfast, lunch and snacks this week: So you can imaging our joy when our daughter served us this last night: salad, chicken enchiladas and refried beans - mmmmm!

I just got the mango splitter and that thing is amazing. I am not a huge gadget fan - I would usually rather use my knife, but mangos are a PITA. I needed to peel and split 2 mangos for a grilled fruit salsa. First, I peeled them with my ceramic Y peeler (another amazing product, but not Oxo) and then split them with splitter - one move and they were lying there, neatly split in half. I will be eating mangos much more often now.

Here you go!

The salsa was fantastic! It goes perfectly with the ham. The recipe calls for a jalapeno, which I blackened on the grill to make milder. Everyone loved it and we are looking for ways of using it up, since the recipe made so much! Here is the recipe.

Doddie - I got it at Target. And if I thought they had anymore, I'd run right up and get you one and put it in the mail! But I'm pretty sure that I got the last one ! I loved it, too. What you can't see until some of the eggs are eaten is that every depression has a different decorated egg design in it! So cute!

They are both in the appetizer section. The cheese dip is listed as "Marlene's Warm Cheese Dip" and the shrimp mold is "Momma's Shrimp Mold"!

I haven't posted much lately, but I've been reading and looking and enjoying lots of vicarious meals! Ann - I never think to grill Italian sausage, but I will now! Bruce - those chicken kebabs look so good. Mine always turn out dry, but yours look so moist! Prawncrackers - that cod looked amazing. What great flavor combinations! I love the idea of a Serrano crisp - how'd you do that?? Chris - that reuben is gorgeous. The grilled bread alone is a work of art!! I finally have the time to post my Easter meals - it has been a busy week. And if you know what we had for Easter, you know what we've been eating since ! Firstable is breakfast - pretty simple because I knew I was cooking all day - I had some sausage rolls in the freezer (actually Christmas leftovers), so I just baked them and served with scrambled eggs and store-bought croissants and cinnamon rolls: While I was finishing everything up we snacked on Marlene's warm cheese dip: It was wonderful. Everyone loved this! We also had my mom's fantastic shrimp mold: (I just noticed the open bathroom door and the toilet in the background - lovely - one of the many things I hate about my kitchen) Dinner started with apple-walnut tossed salad w/ a cranberry vinaigrette: Deviled eggs: Glazed ham w/ grilled fruit salsa: Macaroni & cheese bake: This was so good! It is a recipe that was recommended by kbjesq when I mentioned that I'd never found a recipe that I really liked. Even Mr. Kim liked this and he is not a big mac & cheese fan. Roasted Asparagus: I also made Southern green beans and sweet potato yeast rolls (no picture - I got flustered getting everything on the table). Dessert was my MIL's incomperable hot cross buns, malted mousse cake and something called 'No-fail Sugar Cookies" - they were guaranteed not to spread while baking; they didn't, but I found the flavor a little flat - more vanilla next time, I think (oh, and some toasted coconut marshmallows - not intended by the manufacturers for Easter, but they are a family tradition ):

Unfortunately, I seem not to have taken a picture, but I made some fantastic cookies that were recommended by Brigid Mary. They are called Best, Big, Fat, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies and they were wonderful. I have kind of lost interest in chocolate chip cookies in the past few years - they seemed dull compared to others that I was making, but these changed my mind! The recipe is here.

Tracey - that Sauerbratten meal looks scrumptious! I never make it, but it is one of my favorite dishes! SanaaSol - those salmon cakes are so beautiful. I know that when I start especially noticing food in people's posts, that means I am craving it and need to make it soon. That is happening the last few weeks with salmon cakes! Chris - I would like a big bowl of those duck skin triangles to snack on with TV tonight. Wow! Dr J - how did you cook the smelt - I love them so much and it is so hard to find nice ones here! This weekend I was in NC visiting my grandmother. On Friday night she took me to Libby Hill Seafood for dinner. A good old greasy fried seafood platter hit the spot . Flounder, shrimp and oysters. On Saturday we went to Short Sugar's BBQ in Reidsville for chopped sandwiches and I bought 3 lbs. of BBQ and a gallon of sauce, all of which will figure in meals to come ! Saturday night when I am there, I try to cook dinner because she refuses to let me pay for anything - she even tucked a $20 dollar bill in my hand when I left on Sunday (I am almost 49 years old ). It is a very limited kitchen complicated by the fact that there are actually 2 kitchens and what you need is inevitably in the other kitchen! Most of her herbs and spices are years old and the spices are hard and crumbly. She is one of those old country cooks that uses almost no utensils other than a meat fork and a serving spoon to cook with. But she has a gorgeous set of 70+ years old cast iron and Club aluminum to cook in . She told me how much she likes the chicken cordon bleu rolls that they sell at The Fresh Market in Greensboro, but that she hasn't been able to get there lately, so I decided to do a version of that. I didn't bother with breading - I just rolled up the chicken with some Swiss cheese and Black Forest ham and browned them in one of those almost non stick cast iron skillets and made a quick gravy to go with it. I also served fresh brussels sprouts and orzo, neither of which she had ever had. She loved all of it and wanted me to tell her exactly what was in each thing and watched me make everything. She entertains pretty often, actually - ladies of the church, garden club, her business women's club. She serves luncheons and is always looking for new things to make. Everything tasted pretty darn good in spite of it all. Don't you just love that Desert Rose plate? That's been her everyday ware for my whole life! Dinner last night was a mixed success. I made roasted red pepper and pear soup and pineapple stuffed cornish hens. Mr. Kim and Jessica loved the soup (I don't like peppers - they tasted it and said that the pepper flavor was mild and well balanced with the pears, but all I tasted was pepper). The hens and the basting sauce that went with them were really good, but the stuffing was much too sweet. The ingredients were bread, celery, pineapple and shredded coconut. I don't know what you would need to add to balance the natural sweetness of the pineapple and coconut, but I think that onions would help.

Linda, I am very excited about this blog! I always enjoy your posts and living in NY is one my fantasies! This is one of those blogs that I will be checking in on every hour! Thanks so much for blogging and bless you for doing it on a holiday week! Are you entertaining on Sunday, or will it just be Lynn and you? I love your front kitchen. The color is just gorgeous. It looks edible! As always, I'd love some pictures of your neighborhood, please!

Ann - broccoli flan?? As someone who likes her broccoli a little mushy, I am very interested in that! Chris - beautiful risotto! Dinner last night was made by my daughter, Jessica. She made salmon and pasta w/ lemon, butter and basil: It was very good! Most impressive was how perfectly the salmon was cooked! Very proud momma here!

I am just so amazed and inspired by everyone's creations here! AmritaBala - those three cupcakes are just beautiful, but without any prissiness! I wish I had the knack and instincts that you do - you really have a gift! Also, what are 'feet' - I am a macaron ignoramous. Brigid Mary - I had a banana and a string cheese stick for breakfast and your tea ring is making me crazy. Do you think that it would be bad for me to have pastry instead of leftover chicken for lunch ? austramerica - I am torn between a pastry shop and a doughnut shop for lunch today (see my note to Brigid Mary above). I have a mad and irrational love of sprinkles and I love that you only sprinkled half the doughnut - very pretty! It reminds me of Ling frosting only the tops of layers of cake and not the sides. Sif - WOW! Those mocha pralines just blew me away. Truly awesome! Mr. Kim ordered cupcakes for a meeting at work. He wanted key lime cupcakes w/ coconut meringue and chocolate ganache cupcakes. Both turned out very well and he came home with an empty cupcake container!

Doddie - tell Billy that his Empanadas are perfect and he's a cutie pie (don't tell him that part if it will embarass him ) David - that pork is gorgeous and sounds delicious. The cabbage intrigues me, too. What does that involve? Percyn - that burrata and steak and bread and tomatoes all look so good! That sounds like the perfect meal and that steak is just exactly how I like them!! Prawncrackers - I'd love to have that fish tonight and what lovely little potatoes snuggling up next to it ! Ann - that beautiful pot roast has me thinking - it's still cold enough here for pot roast if I hurry! Gotta put it on the list for next week! Haven't been cooking much lately (we've been eating out) and what I have has been quick stuff. Monday night I was busy making cupcakes for a meeting that Mr. Kim was having, so I did frozen potstickers and some cheddar shrimp nachos. I'd been meaning to try the recipe for awhile and it was really easy, so it fit Mondays schedule. They were pretty good and I think with some tinkering, I can up that to very good:

AmritaBala - those muffins are gorgeous! We love rocky road anything and I make brownies like that, but I never thought of muffins! I'll have to try that! Sunday breakfast was those wonderful baked eggs (with chives this time), campari tomatoes, Neuske's bacon and the last of the cheddar biscuits. I don't know why the biscuits and the bacon look burned - they did in my last picture of them, too. I used some of bacon salt that percyn recommended on the eggs - that stuff is so good, percyn!! Thank you for the recommendation!

Brigid Mary - I made those chocolate chip cookies! You are right, they are the best I've ever made! Thank you for posting the link!

Where you talking to me, Shelby? Because, if so, I'd be glad to link to either one of the recipes - they are both on my webpage.

Shelby - your bagels are beautiful! I really ned to try those bagel. Ann is my bread idol! Brioche57 - those breads are just gorgeous. I would love to wake up to that assortment! My most recent baking adventures were much more pedestrian than everyone else's . Last night I made cornmeal pan rolls - really just a yeast roll with a little cornmeal added. They were very easy and good - a little sweet and will a bit of crunch from the cornmeal: The other day I made these cornmeal biscuits with cheddar: So good! The original recipe called for adding chipotles, but I can't take the heat and Mr. Kim doesn't like the smokiness, so I just added a little cayenne.

Last night I tried out my Christmas gift pressure cooker for the first time. I did BBQ chicken. I also served Molly Steven's "World's Best Braised Green Cabbage" and cornmeal pan rolls: Bruce - thank you so much for directing me to the cabbage recipe. As you know, I am not a cooked cabbage fan - I usually find it stinky, strong tasting and, worst of all squeeky ! This is not like that at all! It was mellow and tender and I really liked it. Mr. Kim, who likes cooked cabbage anyway absolutely loved it! My inaugural pressure cooker meal was a mixed success. It tasted very good, but this is what the pan looked like after the chicken and sauce was removed: I don't know what I did wrong. The chicken was a little scorched in some places, but didn't taste burned and neither did the sauce. I have been doing some reading about pressure cookers and I know enough liquid is important and the recipe only called for 2 cups of bbq sauce, but no extra liquid. Anyone have any ideas? I followed the recipe to the letter.

The shabushabu is just beautiful! Thank you so much for posting that! Everything looks gorgeous and delicious! The udo is so pretty. I'd love to try that! I wanted to say how much I am enjoying my trip to Japan! The blogs are my favorite part of eGullet, I think!

Well, before this thread started I hadn't had a FOF in years. I had one last week. It was pretty good, too. And yesterday, just for comparison purposes, I had a Burger King fish sandwich. McD's is better - the fish in the BK one was 'fishy' tasting and they put way too much lettuce on it. But McD's doesn't have cheesy tots !

Dr J - thanks for posting the picture of the ring - I will look for one of those! I would love to try your vienna sausage dish - that sounds wild. Also, I love the dragonfly plate - that is just gorgeous! Judiu - I agree with Pierogi - we never cook asparagus any other way than roasting or grilling anymore. The nice thing about roasting is that you can serve it room temperature - a great way to serve it to a crowd (like for Easter). Last night we had 'Deconstructed Chicken Kiev' - just a pan fried, pounded and panko crusted chicken breast with a sauce of butter, Dijon, chive and capers poured over. I also served Marlene's Broccoli Gratin and Cornmeal Biscuits w/ Cheddar and Chipotle. I actually made the biscuit without the chipotles - we don't care for them. I can't handle the heat and Mr. Kim and Jessica don't like the smokiness. I just added some cayenne to the flour mix. They are the kind you make in the food processor - I love avoiding the whole cutting in process!