Kim Shook

@Dante – my mother used to make a similar chicken dish, but I never heard it called Chicken Jerusalem. Thank you! @Annie_H – would you share your cod cake recipe, please? I think I need these in my repertoire. And the gold medal for the blandest dish of the thread goes to...ME! What can I say? It's exactly what I needed last night.😊

Thanks, @shain! I'll add that note to my recipe!

Thanks for your advice, @shain! One more question, please: Here's the recipe. What kind of starch and how would you incorporate it?

"Myth: You can cook with cheap cheese" American here. I appreciate good cheese and go out of my way to get the good stuff. But I use cheap cheese (deli American and even the dreaded Velveeta) in small amounts to stabilize a cheese sauce for things like mac and cheese and broccoli cheese soup. The flavor of a good Cheddar is wonderful in these kinds of things, but when I try to use my 3 years Cheddar in them, the sauce breaks.

I have been known to cut a fried fish sandwich in half and put tartar sauce on one half and cocktail sauce (or just catsup if not available) on the other. 😁 We ended up at our favorite Chinese-American restaurant last night. I’ve talked about this place before. If there is somewhere we consider “our place”, this is it. We’ve been going since Jessica (now 37) was a toddler. They remember us and treat us like friends. It is in our larger neighborhood (only about 2 miles away – we’ve walked it) and we’ve spent the past almost 2 years ordering take out from them. It was the first place that we dined in person once we felt comfortable doing that. Jessica and I shared the Pu-Pu platter and shrimp fried rice: Mr. Kim got Five Flavor Chicken:

I so agree, ladies. I think about David so much when I look at my old cookbooks and magazines and know how much he'd love to see them and talk about them. I loved how he saw food both from an almost scholarly point of view, but also from the view of someone who appreciated good food - fancy or plain. He and I shared an appreciation of Taste of Home magazine and those check out booklets you were talking about, @Tropicalsenior! When I look at those booklets and magazines from the 1960s and 70s (when I was growing up), I honestly don't remember people cooking lots of the odder dishes. I have a collection of Betty Crocker Recipe Cards from the 1970s (?). I actually collected a set when they were offered back then - my first stirring of interest in cooking - and stupidly got rid of them in college. I found an almost complete set recently and got them. I did make some of the dishes, but most were just not things we were interest in. Neither my mom, nor any of my friends moms cooked the weird and over complicated stuff I see from them.

I have this Trudeau cut resistant glove. I like it a lot. It says one size, but it's actually snug and I really feel safe because of that. I know that I would use it less if it was huge and flopped around on my hand.

One of the truly good ones has always been the Junior League of Charleston (SC) "Charleston Recipes". Really good seafood and game recipes.

I love the community fundraising and family published cookbooks. My grandmother was an easy mark and had one from every church and organization in her town - many of which included her contributions. What I've discovered in looking over them is how many duplications there are. The same recipes, tricks, menus over and over again - some even in the same book (I assume this happens because they don't want to offend anyone by leaving them out). Most of the ones that I have seen are from the Southern US. I would like to see ones from other regions and I wonder if other countries have the same publications?

As far as the canned cherry tomatoes go, I’m really wondering what would be the point for us specifically. Since we don’t like hot tomatoes, I’d mush them up and they would lose the “look” of them. I was really wondering if there was some inherent cherry tomato flavor I didn’t know about. @Dejah – I’m impressed with that “fried” chicken – especially since it was cooked in the oven. It looks very much like oil fried chicken! @gfweb – what beautiful schnitzel! Tree trimming dinner on Saturday was way after normal dinner time (even for us). We got hungry, but not for a real meal, so I set out an assortment of cheeses and things to go with them: From 11 o’clock: Alouette ET, crackers, bread, Cabot 3-year Cheddar, and incredibly delectable and perfect yellow skinned pear, Trader Joe’s Fromage Pavé (thanks again, rotuts), Pina Colada flavored Wensleydale, and an aged Gouda in the middle. The Wensleydale was ok – a little too sweet. As much as I love coconut, I think that might have been the main culprit. I’m actually a fan of all the different fruited Wensleydales, but this one was over the top. I have some peppered Carr’s water biscuits and will give it a try on those. Also, some salami and a few slices of Havarti: Jessica had this which we got caught up on: The first two bits were very good Gouda and Edam, which I can’t remember EVER buying as an adult. I was transported back to childhood to one of my mother’s cocktail parties in the 1960s. I remember she would place a round of each (Gouda and Edam) – still covered in the wax - on either end of the platter and cut the cheeses into wedges down to, but not through, the bottom of the wax. She would then carefully fold back the wax wedges to form “petals” around the now cut into wedges cheese rounds. She would decorate the platter with grapes and apple slices and put baskets of crackers and sliced bread on the side. I love it when food brings back memories like that. Sunday dinner was Old Bay roasted Gulf shrimp: Caesar salad: Crispy Smashed Potatoes: which got a little extra crispy, but were good dipped in bearnaise, anyway. Crusty bread: Dessert was a LillyPuds Xmas pudding. I grew up with Xmas pudding – my English grandmother would make it when she visited in summer and we’d have it at Christmas – so I knew I would like, but not love it. I was pretty sure that Jessica wouldn’t be crazy about it and thought Mr. Kim would like it at least as much as me. After steaming: Turned out: Serving with custard: Here, I made a mistake. My mother always served this with hard sauce (brandy butter) which I don’t care for. I asked my FB British ex-pat group if I could use custard instead. I got lots of positive responses. Perhaps if I’d made my own custard or even used Bird’s powder (which is exactly what Momma did when she needed custard for trifle or canned fruit), it would have been ok. But someone in the group mentioned canned Devon custard, which I’d seen at Publix. It was awful. Luckily, I just used a dab. All three of us agreed it was NOT good. And my predictions about who would like it were true – Jessica not at all and Mr. Kim and I liked it a lot. Since I wasn’t sure about this pud, I made something I knew we’d all like – a chocolate cream pie: Complete with a Cool Whip topping 😂: Jessica was much happier with this and Mr. Kim and I, even though we liked the pud, agreed that we’d never crave Xmas pudding. We both admitted that we actually preferred the instant pudding/Cool Whip concoction to the beautifully made pud 😊. There is apparently a gremlin in my computer today. On this thread and also the lunch thread I seem to have no control over bold and spacing of my letters.

There was an odd order to our meals on Saturday. Not sure if we had two late breakfasts or two lunches! Our neighborhood Mosque was having an open house from 11-1:30 and we went. They offered a lovely lunch with Mujadara (lentils, rice, and caramelized onions), falafel, flat bread (no pocket), hummus, and baklava) which we completely enjoyed. We came home to trim the Christmas tree and a couple of hours later we had our planned brunch – Blueberry Croissant (basically a bread pudding): With Benton’s bacon: We were still trimming the tree on Sunday and had a little snack to sustain us until dinner: Crackers, Cheddar cheese, cocktail sauce, and (store bought) crab dip and some homemade limoncello: I haven't the slightest idea what is going on with the font/bold letters in the post. I can't seem to correct them and they all were copied/pasted from the same document.

We used to have one that would jump up into a recently vacated chair at the table (usually mine, since I was the cook and up and down a lot) and reach just his arm up to try to snag something off the plate. It was such a parlour trick that he'd sometimes succeed while we were busy laughing at it.

I was at Trader Joe's a couple of days ago to pick up our wreathes and found that they had the Fromage Pavé. We've accumulated a lot of cheeses in the past couple of weeks and were planning on trimming the tree this weekend and I thought a cheese and bread meal would be perfect, so I picked up a package. We were delighted with it and send a thank you to @rotuts for the introduction and recommendation. I wish I had a better picture than this (we didn't finish it, so I'll try to remember to get an inside picture when we get into it again): It was creamy and rich and flavorful and fantastic on bread. Jessica found it a little TOO funky, but Mr. Kim and I loved it.

Thank you so much for linking to the bread recipe – looks like something I would like to try. One question – you bake it in the CSO, but do you also rise it there? I’m so sorry, but I admit that I laughed in a very unladylike manner when I saw Miss Scout’s nefarious deed. I even called Mr. Kim and Jessica over to see it. All three of us have experience with animals doing those things. Mr. Kim grew up with a Collie/Norwegian Elkhound blend who once ate FIVE filet mignons that his mom had set out for Mr. Kim’s 16th birthday dinner and who also ate Mr. Kim’s and his siblings' Whitman’s samplers from under the Xmas tree early one Xmas morning (with NO negative results).

Dogs are goobers. They get excited over a green bean. Now, cats, on the other hand...😄

Big hugs to sweet Chum. ❤️ If only you could explain that staying home with Momma means more yummy snacks!

Hers always are beautiful. Such a great food stylist, without a dot of the oddness that stylists sometimes go to. Gotta love an eat over the sink breakfast:

Last night I made Pork Tenderloin w/ Pepper Jelly Glaze from @JAZ's new 5-Ingredient Instant Pot Cookbook: It was excellent and ready in about 15 minutes - with only 5 minutes actual cooking time! I loved the pepper jelly with the pork.

Last night was the seemingly eternal Thanksgiving sides and a recipe from @JAZ's new IP cookbook - Pork Tenderloin with Pepper Jelly Glaze (at 6 o'clock): We are actually still enjoying the leftovers and the pork was excellent. I have a question. I saw this yesterday at Lidl: Is there any advantage to using canned cherry tomatoes rather than regular canned tomatoes? Any particular recipes that they would be especially good for. We love tomato based sauces, but NOT hot tomatoes (such as broiled or stewed tomatoes).

Welcome to eG, @Wisp! Love your kitty avatar! I think you'll find lots of help with fairly arcane cooking stuff here. We have a bevy of extremely knowledgeable and generous members.

I told her and she was thrilled to hear that she had inspired an eGulleteer! Breakfast this morning was from the Lidl bakery case:

I grew up loving Nabisco's Social Tea cookies (weird kid) and I think they are very similar to the Kedem ones. They are still a favorite.

What a deal you got on the oysters! What size are those containers? They look small – just the size I need for our Christmas dressing. And oyster stew…❤️❤️❤️. Sorry the brittle candies aren’t great – peanut brittle is a favorite of mine.

@MaryIsobel – I agree about the ravioli – I’m sure that the commercial ones would hold up much better than home made ones, but the ones in the grocery stores are so small. Do you, by any chance, have a fresh pasta shop near you? Because I’m betting that their raviolis would be larger. @Shelby – thank you for thinking of me. It actually turned out to be a good and not terribly crazy day. I got to stay in my pajamas until after the dog show, Jessica made a great breakfast with very little assistance, and, as you’ll see below, dinner turned out very well. And we only ate an hour later than I originally planned😄. Everything you posted on the 24th looks great, but I really, really, really want that broccoli beef! @Duvel– I love the koala bear bologna. @Margaret Pilgrim – fig and prosciutto pizza sounds perfect. Everyone’s Thanksgiving meals look fantastic and make me wish I’d made gravy instead of “sauce”. Last Monday I did steaks in an iron skillet instead of SV for the first time in forever: Mr. Kim and Jessica prefer them this way, so I guess this is how they’ll be cooked now. It was a quick dinner, so the sides were minimal – apple slices, winter creamed corn (frozen tube of creamed corn and frozen corn – slowly heated with no water), marinated cucumbers, and crusty rolls: The next night – from the sublime to the ridiculous😄: Wensleydale cheese with strawberries and Prosecco, crackers, and cheese-laden Kirkland hot dogs. A little Thanksgiving prep the day before - I boned and rolled a turkey breast. I was really happy with the results: This was my first-ever time doing it and I thought I did a good job. I also made one batch of my Cinnamon Pecans to top sweet potatoes for dinner the next day: Thanksgiving dinner – I did the turkey breast (with a lemon/thyme rub) in the IP and browned under the broiler: I was very happy with the results but noted that next time I should be careful to not tuck the skin into the roll – I ended up with some unpleasant flabby skin inside. I served it with a citrus sauce rather than a gravy. I thought with the lemon/thyme seasoning on the turkey and the fruit in Jessica’s dressing, it would be more suitable: I’ve made it before and liked it, but this time it was very bland – and not just to me. Don’t know if it was the quality of the limes and oranges or what, but I tossed it after dinner. The sides were shared between all of us, with Jessica doing a lot and quite well. Mr. Kim did (well, set out 😄) the relishes: My cranberry orange sauce and @Shelby’s cucumbers. Pickle/olive dish and pimento cheese stuffed celery: I confess that I didn’t make the pimento cheese, but I did buy a brand that is made in NC near where I grew up every summer of my childhood. It is not as good as Miz @racheld’s homemade, but it was a good memory. Jessica’s Challah dressing with dried apricots, golden raisins, and cherries; corn casserole; deviled eggs; mac and cheese: The mac and cheese was some of the best stuff we’ve ever had. It needs a few tweaks – mostly volume as the ingredients make at least twice as much sauce as is needed. But this was seriously the best mac and cheese I’ve ever had. Jessica found the recipe on Youtube and had to transcribe it from the video – something that I just will not do. If I see a recipe and the only description is verbal, I just pass it by. Life is too short. But she proved me wrong. I still won’t transcribe from a video, but I’m glad she did😁. One of the most awesome things about this recipe is how good the leftovers are. No curdling or toughness. I provided the rest of the side dishes and the dessert. Green beans (southern style) and sweet potatoes with Cinnamon pecans to top them with: The sweet potatoes are candied and done in the slow cooker. It had never occurred to me to do them that way until I saw Ree Drummond do it on TV. It was nice to free up oven space, and they were delicious. Plates: Dinner last night was a plate of most of the side dishes from Thanksgiving (my favorite part of the meal):

Jelly doughnut and oatmeal raisin cooky - both from Lidl: The doughnut is good, but that cooky is fantastic. I make good oatmeal raisin cookies, but theirs is just better.