Kim Shook

@Ann_T – the bubbles in your pizza crusts always slay me!! And you know how I feel about the hot chicken sandwiches with gravy❤️. I honestly think it is one of the best meals in the world. @Duvel – as I said on the lunch thread, I’m envious of your Paris food. And the bread and terrine meal is just exactly perfect. I admit to being perplexed at the thought of having to convince people to venture out to eat in PARIS! @rotuts – your tortellini meal looks and sounds delicious. But that soup-plate! Gorgeous! It truly stole the show from the food! @gfweb – lovely Easter meal. What all was in the lingonberry sauce? It is much more attractive than my Cumberland sauce turned out and I think it would taste great with ham. @Shelby – your Easter dinner is gorgeous. Please explain crab puffs. I think I need them. I have a question for anyone. I’m seeing the white asparagus all over eG. I’ve never had an occasion to try it, and I’m wondering what it tastes like. I do not like green asparagus at ALL. I think I’m drawn to it because it looks like it would taste like hearts of palm, which I DO like. Which is not at all logical, I realize 😁. Our pre-dinner nibbles on Easter were cucumber slices and cherry tomatoes piped with some Boursin and our cocktail was some White Sangria: My MIL, our ONLY guest, decided without telling anyone that she would forgo appetizers (she doesn’t believe in them🙄) and arrived just before I had planned to serve dinner. So, I ended up serving dinner late. Sigh. Mr. Kim smoked one of the Costco Master Carve hams: It was incredibly moist and delicious. It’s rubbed with a mustard/brown sugar mixture and then spritzed with pineapple juice. I hope they never stop selling this ham. I made some Cumberland sauce to go with it: It was good, but weird looking. The currants plump up during the cooking and it ends up looking like lentils in brown Jello. Not terribly appetizing. The sides included Jessica’s sautéed mushrooms, her pineapple casserole and her deviled eggs: @Shelby’s cucumbers: Green beans: I did Bourdain’s Gratin Dauphinois from the Les Halles Cookbook. I’ve done these many times before and for the first time they gave me trouble. They tasted great and were beautifully tender, but at the bottom of the baking dish there was a lot of what looked like melted butter. Not sure if it was from the Gruyere or if the heavy cream broke? If anyone knows what it was likely to be, I’ve love to hear it. It was gorgeous, though: Mr. Kim put together lovely relish dishes. Pimento cheese and Boursin-stuffed celery: Olives, kosher dills, peppadews stuffed with cheese and prosciutto, and some pickled green tomatoes that Jessica made under my MIL’s supervision: Jessica recently went to Mr. Kim’s mom’s and got a lesson in making “The Rolls”. These are good yeast rolls that she had made forever and even won ribbons for at the Virginia State Fair. We got to sample them in person for Easter: Plates: My MIL brought a lemon meringue pie for dessert: Last night we celebrated the end of Lent and of having to forgo restaurants and ate at our favorite local Chinese restaurant. Hot and Sour soup and an egg roll: Mr. Kim had the Kung Pao beef: And I had the Moo Shu pork (sans mushrooms):

I love them so much. If they are on the menu, I'm having a Benedict. Had one in NOLA that had a soft shell crab in place of the pork. That was pretty spectacular.

@Duvel – deeply envious of your beautiful Parisian meals! Escargot is a favorite of mine (my mom used to tell about me ordering them at age 6) and having them in Paris was one of the pinnacles of my culinary life! And a Croque-monsieur is perhaps my favorite sandwich in the world. Saturday was our turn at making and delivering lunches for Shelters in the city. It has now grown to four shelters, so 130 lunches instead of 100. So glad we are able to have a group doing the prep again. After delivering, Mr. Kim and I had lunch at our favorite pharmacy lunch counter. I had eggs Benedict: I was suspicious of that really bright hollandaise, but my whole plate was just perfect. Especially these poached eggs: Mr. Kim had the chicken Caesar wrap: On Easter, Jessica made after church brunch. She did her Trashy Bennies with hash brown patties sandwiching a shmear of homemade sausage gravy, some Edwards country ham, an enviably perfect poached egg, and covered with beautiful, lemony hollandaise. With some irresistible creamy, retro Watergate salad on the side: My kid can poach an egg:

@Dave R – no worries! She always gives us 3 dozen – one dozen for each member of the family. We eat them through summer. So nice to have a fragrant, warm Hot Cross Bun in June! @blue_dolphin - your bagels look perfect. I vowed to make macarons, croissants, and bagels my retirement project. So far – nada. 🤷‍♀️ Yesterday was an Easter leftover breakfast: Today - more Easter leftovers: Not upset about leftovers yet.

What a great story. It really had all the elements for a sitcom episode - a nosy neighbor calling the police, a silent alarm, wrong house, etc.

Thanks so much for the advice. I did prep the night before and it was fine as far as doneness was concerned and also tasted really good. But, as I mentioned elsewhere the dish ended up with a lot of what looked like melted butter (yellow and oily) in the bottom. I don't know if it was the Gruyere or if the heavy cream broke. Any ideas?

I don't know about cookbooks, but one of the best ones I've ever eaten or made is the recipe for @Norm Matthews Pineapple Upside Down Bundt Cake:

I really like Trader Joe's, but it can be such a weird place. A year or so ago, I was looking for their all-butter frozen puff pastry. I'd used it the Christmas before and preferred it to Pepperidge Farm. I was told that puff pastry was considered "seasonal" and wasn't currently being shipped. I was in there on Friday and was looking for some marshmallows to dip in chocolate for a thing at church. The nice girl rolled her eyes and informed me that corporate considers marshmallows "seasonal" and they they wouldn't have them for some time. Sigh.

I love seeing that dish! I had the exact same problem with that recipe! I've never had it do that before. I used NO butter at all (I sprayed the dish with Pam), but something caused what looked like melted butter in the bottom of the baking dish. Would it have been the Gruyere (same brand I always use) or did my heavy cream break? It tasted great, but wasn't terribly appetizing looking. I have to say that I adore gravies and sauces. As a matter of fact, I truly don't see the point of some foods without a good gravy. Roasted chicken, turkey, or beef all need gravy. Most potato dishes are improved with gravy. I like some kind of gravy or sauce with pork roast or chops. Rice and gravy! Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and biscuits NEED white gravy. If I have really good bread, I can even bypass the meat altogether and just have bread and gravy. I think growing up part of my life in the country in the south has influenced my tastes - there wasn't ever a dinner (lunch) or supper I can remember in NC without a bowl of gravy. The tenants on my granddaddy's farm didn't have a lot of money (they worked for my grandparents part time instead of paying rent so they could save enough to build their own home), but they had plenteous meals with chicken legs or 1/4-inch pork chops, a pile of white bread, free-from-the-garden tomatoes and beans, and lashings of gravy. I still judge meals by their standards. Hope everyone had a happy beginning to the Easter Season!

Was in Trader Joe's on Friday and this was the state of the frozen food section: Now I know it was the Friday before Easter, but things weren't this bad before Christmas!

Oh, I love them. I just love them a LOT when the strawberries are perfectly ripe.

I will be venturing out tomorrow in search of 75 attractive and tasty-as-possible strawberries that Jessica and I will dip and chocolate to serve at our church along with a champagne toast after Saturday's Easter vigil. It has become a tradition over the last few years and everyone seems to enjoy them. I realize the strawberries are subpar, but who am I to argue. If it were me? I'd buy a ton of candied and dried fruits to dip.

@blue_dolphin - wow! I never thought about doing that, even though I cook my eggs in rings all the time. I'll try that next time. You've also reminded me to look for those green onion pancakes. I forget every time I'm at TJ's. But I'm going tomorrow for other stuff and I will put them on my list. @Dave R - those waffles sound great. Were they done with a regular waffle iron or the Belgian-style kind? Breakfast this morning were a couple of my MIL's wonderful Hot Cross Buns. She brought time over a couple of weeks ago and they've been in the freezer. Four minutes in the CSO at 325F on Bake/Steam and they were perfect:

I think @kayb ended up finding it. Thank you, though.

I've said many times that if all the CSO did was reheat perfectly (and it DOES), I would still want it. Of course, it does so much more, but reheating leftovers is definitely one of its superpowers! This morning I had a Hot Cross Bun out of the freezer that my MIL brought over a couple of weeks ago. Four minutes at 325F on Bake/Steam and it was perfection.

How do you get your eggs to do that?

@Shelby – try sautéing the mushrooms in butter and a little bit of A1. I’m pretty sure that this was why Mr. Kim proposed to me. Though, I’m also pretty sure that he’d leave me for your French fries!😁 @Smithy – thank you for your help! I definitely think that lemon was missing from the “Greekness” of the chicken rub! And I’m glad to have you confirm my suspicion that the mujadara should have been fluffier. I wonder if cooking the rice completely separately and adding it in at serving would be a good idea? Hmmmm. Anyone familiar with Arabic cooking care to weigh in? Last night was breakfast-for-dinner: Biscuits and gravy, applesauce, and one damn hard (but tasty) pear.

My BIL sent me this dish towel: He knows me so well. 😁

Yesterday was leftovers from Saturday’s dinner. Mujadara and roasted chicken legs. The mujadara reheats beautifully. As always, reheated chicken is a problem for me. I find it just gets a funky flavor when reheated. I usually don’t bother reheating when I have breast meat, but I don’t care at all for cold dark meat. Plus, I wanted to get the flabby skin off.

@Ann_T- gorgeous beans. They look so perfect - fully formed and tender at the same time. Today: English muffin, fried egg, and Jimmy Dean sausage. When I took my first bite, my plate was immediately covered with warm, liquid, soppable yolk! Heaven. I saw a taste test on America’s Test Kitchen recently where they were comparing supermarket breakfast sausage and the Jimmy Dean fully cooked won. Jimmy Dean uncooked sage sausage is my favorite, so I gave the fully cooked ones a try and liked them quite a lot. They aren’t quite as good as the sage, I think, but I like being able to cook just one or two patties quickly without a lot of mess. And as a bonus, they taste really good.

I made a couple of goodies for the grand nieces and nephews. Cookies and Rainbow Crispy Treats: These are tooth-achingly sweet, and I didn’t even drizzle with white chocolate like the recipe called for! I’m betting the kids will love them, though.

Duvel – I’m with your young man – the best part of soup is the edible bowl!! Also, the whole schnitzel meal was gorgeous, but that Scotch egg is calling my name! That yolk is amazing. On Saturday I tried out a recipe for mujadara from Aarti Sequeira on Food Network. Lentils, caramelized red onion, rice, cinnamon, cumin, and hot sauce (a little): Served with some rosemary-beer bread (from a mix we got for Christmas) that looks a bit pallid, but was actually good: And salad (of course😉😞 Mujadara is supposed to be a meatless main course, but I didn’t think Mr. Kim would appreciate that, so I roasted some chicken legs that I’d rubbed with Greek seasoning. The mujadara is topped with lemon juice, some of the caramelized red onion, French fried onions (for crunch), toasted pine nuts, and plain yogurt: Not an attractive meal, but a good one. I haven’t had mujadara in many years, so I’m not sure that I really know what it should be like, but I think that mine may have been a little too cohesive. The flavors were excellent, but I am wondering if it should have been fluffier and the 3 ingredients – rice, lentils, and onion – more separate? If anyone would like to chime in, I’d love that! Thanks. One more thing – for the chicken legs I used a recipe for Greek seasoning that I found online. It contained oregano, basil, dill, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. It was fine, but didn’t knock my socks off. Does anyone have a recipe, or a brand, that they like a lot to recommend to me? Sunday, being “Little Easter”, we got to eat at a restaurant. The three of us had dinner at Bonefish Grill (we had a giftcard). Apps – Jessica got the Corn/crab chowder: Mr. Kim got beef and ginger dumplings: And I got this giant hot creamy seafood dip: Which would have been enough for all three of us. It would have been better with some crusty bread rather than tortilla chips, but that’s quibbling – it was very good. Jessica got the Bang-Bang Shrimp tacos: Mr. Kim got the blackened fish tacos: Which didn’t look terribly blackened to me, but he said that they were good. I got the fried shrimp: The shrimp themselves were excellent – fat and juicy and perfectly cooked. The coating wasn’t great – too thick and you could actually pull it off of the shrimp in one piece. Big pet peeve with me. All in all, a perfectly ok meal. Not a restaurant we’d ever choose to go to, but if someone else wanted to go, or we get a gift card, we can get a decent meal.

@blue_dolphin - I’m so impressed with the eggs on your green bean salad! They are absolutely perfect. With Sunday being “Little Easter”, we get to eat at a restaurant. Mr. Kim and I went to a favorite deli after church. He got the Rueben: I got the bacon and cheese omelet:

Thanks so much! That's exactly what I'll do.

I'm making Tony Bourdain's Gratin Dauphinois for Easter dinner and have an insane week. I'm looking for ways to get things done ahead of time. Nigella says you can prep (up to the point of baking) au gratin the night before and refrigerate. Does anyone have any experience with this? I'd love to do it on Saturday night! Thanks!