Kim Shook
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Posts posted by Kim Shook
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My stepdad is English and got us addicted to English candy early on. Our favorites have always been Crunchies, Flakes and Jelly Babies. I just made a candy that is amazingly close to a Crunchie.
Sponge Monkey Candy
Named in honor of those creepy little characters that Mr. Kim is unaccountably fascinated by. Foamy and crunchy, with tiny little bubbles, these candies are not overly sweet despite being made with sugar and sugar (corn syrup). These are very good, but if you melt Cadbury Dairy Milk (two 4.5 oz. bars) and dip each piece in the chocolate you have almost a perfect confection. They taste very similar to a Cadbury Crunchie bar. Amazingly good.
1 cup sugar
1 cup dark corn syrup
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 tablespoon baking soda
Heat sugar, corn syrup and vinegar to boiling in 2-quart saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly, until sugar is dissolved. Boil, without stirring, to 300 degrees on candy thermometer (or until small amount of mixture dropped into very cold water separates into threads that are hard and brittle): remove from heat. Quickly stir in baking soda thoroughly. Pour mixture into ungreased rectangular pan. 13x9x2 inches. Do not spread; cool. Break into pieces. Makes about 3 dozen candies; 50 calories per candy.
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Chef Salad - you've got three customers right here in Glen Allen! My husband, daughter (a VCU student funnily enough) and me. We don't even bother to try to get bbq here in Richmond, we just buy a ton of it when we go to NC to visit family and stock our freezer. Mr. Kim says that Bill's is a monument to the Richmond credo that just because something has always been here, it must be good! We sometimes go to the Boardwalk for dogs and like that place very much. But it would be so wonderful to have a place like you are talking about near us. We are near the intersection of West End Drive and Hungary Rd., so we end up in Short Pump a lot. Keep us posted!! We are very interested!
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I had the surgery in August of 2003 and my daughter had it in Spring of 2004. I have lost 100 lbs. and she has lost 150 lbs. I have been surprised at what I can and cannot eat. I was worried about cheese, one of my favorite foods and I can eat any kind of cheese that exists. I still have problems with steak - one bite is enough for me, more makes me sick. I cannot eat even one bite of rice. Go slowly on new foods. If you have a child, feed yourself the way you started your baby on solids - a bite of a 'new' item until you see how you react. If you have a spouse/partner watch out for getting them to finish up what you can't - my poor husband has gained a LOT of weight eating meals that we can't finish
! In restaurants, I generally order an appetizer - the higher end restaurants work better for this. I am aware of the problems that have occured with this surgery and know that it is a last resort, but it is the best thing I have ever done for myself. I was a diabetic, on blood sugar meds, blood pressure meds, colesterol meds, etc. - I am now off ALL my meds (except for Previcid, which I will be on for the forseeable future) and my last blood tests indicated everything in the normal range. My daughter and I were 370 lbs. and 277 lbs. respectively and were well on our way to killing ourselves with food and associated health factors.
Please email me if you have any other questions that you would like to ask.
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This is an adaptation from an Ina Garten recipe and calls for cashews, but I think it would be wonderful with pecans. We thought that the amounts of the red pepper and the brown sugar could have been increased (and I have a very tender mouth), but the amount of the rosemary was right. I added the salt to the butter before melting to dissolve it. Very easy recipe.
Spicy Rosemary Cashews
1 – 1 ½ lb. lightly salted cashews
2 T. chopped fresh rosemary
½ t. cayenne
2 t. dark brown sugar
2 t. kosher salt
1 T. melted butter
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Bake nuts on ungreased baking sheet for about 10 minutes, until warmed through. Meanwhile combine remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Add warm nuts and toss until the nuts are thoroughly coated. Serve warm or store in tightly covered container.
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All those Christmas commercials get me in the spirit, for some stupid reason. We always compete to see who sees the first commercial of the season. For years it was the Norelco (sp?) Santa! The Folger's one always chokes me up, too.
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pamjsa, what a wonderful story. I love that you honor your family that way! I think that food traditions mean a lot, even to people who are not food obsessed like us!
Everyone has something that must be on the holiday table, even if no one eats it anymore or just takes a token spoonful - it has always been there, so it must always still be there. My Christmas Eve menu: turkey, gravy, oyster stuffing, bourbon sweet potatoes, stuffed cheese potatoes, fruit salad with Miracle Whip is the same one that my grandmother served starting in the 1930's. I add a few things every year, but those items always appear. I love the history in that meal and I love knowing that my daughter is sharing the same meal that I remember as a child. If I could find those tasteless little butter cookies with the jujubee cherry in the middle of them, I'd serve them, too! Thanks for the post! -
I have been searching for years for the perfect Chocolate Chip Cooky. Big, fat cookies with a chewy (not cakey) interior and a sugary crunch on the outside. These are great! I requested help from the folks at here egullet.org and at cyber-kitchen.com and got lots of suggestions. I tried 3 different recipes. After an exhausting and thorough baking marathon and taste test
, making a couple of adjustments to the recipes, this recipe was the winner. We tasted all the cookies cooled down and then again the next morning. (By the way, Mr. Kim thinks I am insane). The only things that I did differently were to use bread flour (Alton Brown suggests that for chewy cookies) and to omit the nuts (not a big fan of nuts in cookies or fudge). I used a 3 T. cooky scoop and so my cookies took almost 20 minutes to bake. These are beautiful cookies – high and crackly, they look like bakery cookies, but taste SO much better. The chips are key. I used Ghirardelli, but am going to try chunking up some better chocolate some other time. I am a big milk chocolate fan, but have realized that with such a sweet cooky, semisweet is better. Thank you so much, Abra 
- and you don't even LIKE them!!!Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 c. softened butter
½ c. granulated sugar
1 ½ c. packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 ½ t. vanilla extract
3 c. AP flour
½ t. salt
1 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
9 oz. semisweet chocolate chips
9 oz. chopped pecans
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix as usual and bake for about 11 minutes.
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Actually, I was just thinking that I really wanted to make cookies this year, but don't want to go too crazy (nor do I have the time to) by making several batches right before Christmas. What EXACTLY do I have to do to get them to freeze well? Any type that does/doesn't freeze well? Thanks!
I make peanut butter, chocolate chip, & decorated sugar cookies every year plus a few wild cards and I always freeze them. I put them in large disposable loaf pans (so they don't get smooshed), double wrap in heavy duty foil and then put that in freezer bags. As long as I make them in Nov or Dec., they don't seem to suffer. I also freeze my fudge and candied pecans.
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I am going to start my chewy chocolate chip cooky experiment today. Can't wait for the smell - I can depend on an amazing chocolate aroma even if the cookies flop!
Is anyone else cooking ahead for the holidays yet?
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andiesenji, my dad made the same suggestion about the metal shop and I think that I will try that. Thanks! Kim
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Thank you, everyone! I cooked a ton of bacon in the pot yesterday and reseasoned on top of the stove and it is beautiful now. I am going to tackle the lid again today. I also saved the de-rusting info because I have a rescued saucepan and lid that I found in my grandparents' barn a couple of years ago that is my next project. I can't wait to give the soup pot back to my mother-in-law and show her how to PROPERLY keep cast iron
!Kim
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I have read everything I could find here and elsewhere, but my particular question was not answered. Ok, here's the deal. My mother-in-law owns a wonderful and huge old cast iron soup pot with a dimpled lid. I borrowed it to make my gravy (I was making a lot of gravy). When Mr. Kim got it home, it was obvious that it hadn't been seasoned in ages
. Well, it was tough, but I managed on the pot itself by just scrubbing with salt, drying on the stove and rubbing with oil a couple of times, but the lid was more of a challenge. It was a little orange (traces of rust), so I scrubbed with steel wool and following directions, I rubbed with Crisco and put it in a 350 degree oven for one hour. I don't think that is going to do it completely. It's not totally cooled off yet, but it seems a little sticky still. So, do I start from scratch? Scrub again and then put in the oven with shortening on it? Or do I skip the scrubbing step and just go straight to the oven?? I am going to inherit this some day (I am the only one in the family who would use it) so I want to treat it well while I have temporary custody ! Thank you all in advance!!Kim
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During my college day, I lived in a housing coop in Madison Wisconsin. While not strictly a potluck, one of the house jobs was to cook the main meal for the household. One of the cooks developed an unhealthy obsession with all things garbanzo. Needless to say, after garbanzo bean loaf, salad, soup, pate, stir fry and all other aberrations thereof, I have avoided them to this day.
On another note, Thanksgiving at my house is potluck. I invite all my guest with the caveat that no greenbean casseroles with crispy onions or sweet potatoes with congealing marshmallows will be allowed entrance!
"an unhealthy obsession with all things garbanzo"
If egullet had tag lines, this would be mine. It's 6:50 am on a Sunday morning and I just blew my caffine all over my keyboard!!
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M. Lucia - I will try the second egg. The reason I am using bread flour is that that is what Alton Brown uses as opposed to AP in his chewy chocolate chip cookies. I think that I did cook some of them too long. I tasted them again last night and some of them were less brown and more chewy! So I will try these again after Thanksgiving.
Shaloop - I have printed out your chewier ingredients and will try when I test the chocolate chips.
Thanks to all! Kim
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I used Jif peanut butter. Every recipe I have seen cautions against using 'natural' peanut butter - so I went with that. Besides, to be honest, my peanut butter taste buds stopped developing at age 6 - I actually prefer the Jifs, Peter Pans and Skippys!
I think that the peanut butter chips do add a nice little burst of flavor.
I just had another cooky. Taste is still really, really good, but they are awfully crunchy today. Crap. So what do I do? Add another egg? Why is this particular cooky so much trouble??? I make incredible ginger cookies with Sugar Babies that are perfectly chewy. They have molassas in them. Should I add molassas or some corn syrup? Help! Kim
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So - here's the update. I spent the weekend on Peanut Butter cookies. I tried about three different recipes and finally came up with my own version that is the best I can do for now. I did try the flourless ones and the flavor was incredible, but I didn't care for the texture - they turned out fudgy and very, very flat. I wanted big, fat cookies. After I get Thanksgiving out of the way, I will be starting to experiment with chocolate chip cookies. I will check back in then! Thanks for all the information, everyone!
Here is my recipe:
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Katie, I don't know if you could freeze just the roux or not - I'll have to let someone else answer that one. But I ALWAYS make my cranberry sauce ahead of time (I made enough today for Thanksgiving and Christmas). My recipe is just a bag of cranberries, 1 c. sugar, 1 c. orange juice and the zest from one orange. It turns out perfectly when thawed. If I were using your recipe, I would add the walnuts before serving. That sounds like a wonderful recipe!
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ludja, that's one of the reasons that I do it in advance - there was NEVER enough gravy for me. I adore good gravy and have been known to pour it over leftover rolls for lunch! I do use the gravy drippings on the day of the meal. I just use a fat separator and add it to the hot gravy. Since I serve the meal buffet style, the gravy goes in a slow cooker early in the day and I serve it right from there. I love the look of a beautiful gravy boat, but don't like having to refill it constantly.
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Kris, how does that freezing the cheesecakes work? Do you have to make any adjustments to the recipe? I'd love to hear about it. I love cheesecake and freezing them for special occasions would be wonderful!
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Since I have Veteran's Day off and gravy prep takes three days around here, I am in the midst of getting Thanksgiving gravy ready for freezing. I always freeze it so that I won't have so many last minute things to do on 'The Day' and it tastes better anyway. Last night I roasted a gazillion turkey wings with onions, celery, carrots, salt, pepper, a sprinkling of Bell's poultry seasoning and slurry of tomato paste and olive oil. They got all tanned and sexy and the vegetables caramelized beautifully. This morning I am simmering them in water and the turkey version of ‘Better than Bouillon’ (I LOVE this stuff) in my 16 qt. le creuset and another big ass no-name stock pot. The aroma is luscious!! Later, I will strain and shred the meat and refrigerate the stock. Tomorrow morning I’ll have gallons of lovely turkey Jell-O! Then I’ll make a good dark brown roux and spend most of the day making the gravy in my mother-in-law’s huge cast iron soup pan, tasting and adjusting seasonings as I go along. I’ll add my shredded turkey bits and freeze it all. I love this process! The smells and tastes. It makes me feel like a real cook!
So what preparations has everyone else started?? What do you do ahead? My mom is making the cheese potatoes for Thanksgiving and I got a warm, cozy feeling knowing that, even though we are a couple hundred miles apart, we are doing the same thing and will be together to share the results of our labors in a couple of weeks. Sentimental, of course, but that’s what holidays are about, no?
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This is our favorite - fairly simple, but very good and rich. I put this recipe on the site a few years ago - if I were to update it, I would suggest using a Bain-marie to cook it in:
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We are celebrating Thanksgiving at our daughter's dorm apartment this year. She is a Residential Assistant, so she can't leave (she volunteered to avoid Xmas duty) and we are joining her along with 2 sets of grandparents and a couple of other RA's. The menu is what she wanted - myself and grandmothers doing most of the cooking - but it's mostly our traditional stuff for all that. We love experimentation with new and unusual things, but NOT on Xmas and Thanksgiving - there are 363 other days in the year for that!
Liptauer w/ Crackers
Turkey
Oyster Stuffing
Gravy
Sweet Potato Soufflé w/ Marshmallows and Bourbon Syrup
Cheese Potatoes
Broccoli Casserole
Butter Beans
Corn Casserole
Cranberry Sauce
Fruit Salad
Bread
Apple Pie
Pecan Pie
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Thanks for the ideas - I will try them and let everyone know the results. I have made the Toll House recipe and it just doesn't do it for me.
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Every year I try a new recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies and Peanut Butter Cookies at Christmas. Help me, please!!! Here's what I am looking for:
Chocolate Chips: chewy, buttery, strong chocolate flavor, NOT cakey, with a bit of a snap to the crust
Peanut Butter: VERY chewy - almost, but not quite, dry; EXTREMELY strong peanut butter flavor; I want a big, thick cookie without any cakeyness
Thanks so much! Kim
I made 'Crunchies'!
in Pastry & Baking
Posted
Maybe a little bit more baking soda. You have to mix it up thoroughly.