Kim Shook

We really are lucky! One of the places makes soups so good that I have gone by and picked up a large order to have with dinner. We had a post church brunch on Sunday at a local place – a VA restaurant with a few locations. We’d never been before. I’ve been craving fish and chips for weeks and had heard good things about theirs. The menu is really interesting with lots of things I was looking forward to trying in the future. We started out with their pretzel sticks with cheese dip and Guinness mustard: The cheese sauce was fine, but the mustard was delicious – though unfortunately too hot for anyone at the table but Mr. Kim. Sadly, this was the best part of the meal. Mr. Kim had the steakhouse salad: The salad itself was fine (though those pallid tomatoes are a crime in August in the Commonwealth of Virginia!!!), but the steak was awful. It had something running through the entire piece that make it impossible to cut through. The kitchen had given up and sent it out only partially sliced through. Mr. Kim’s effort trying to cut it up enough to eat sent part of the salad sailing to the floor. It was, however, cooked to medium-rare, as requested. Jessica and I both had the fish and chips. The fish was haddock – not my first choice, but fine – and looked gorgeous: The “chips” are not chips, but steak fries and frozen ones at that. They tasted good – I have no quibble with frozen fries. Had I been served those beside a burger, I would have been perfectly happy. But don’t call something “chips” and give me steak fries. The fish itself was very nice – tender and flakey and it tasted great. The breading was the problem. It was crispy on the edges and the very outer layer, but the inside was oddly spongy. I said that if you set a piece of this fish and a piece of Long John Silver’s fish in front of me, I’d be picking up the LJS’s every time. Both of my brunch partners agreed with me.

This morning: Because sometimes all you want is an egg with a runny yolk and heavily buttered toast to sop it up with.

Welcome! I'm in the US, but love seeing folks from other countries joining us. My husband and I dream of a post retirement trek through Canada! Looking forward to your contributions!

LOL - they are the only mushrooms I eat. They are always in Hot & Sour soup - crunchy and don't taste like mushrooms (🤢) - what's not to like? 😄

The one produce item I've had good luck with at Aldi is the boxed arugula - stays fresh a really long time. And the fake Triscuits are great. The fake Wheat Thins not so much.

As I said in the breakfast and lunch threads, most of you all know that I was in the hospital for a week back in June and I’ve been recovering my strength and energy ever since. Very little cooking has been done, but I’ve been reading all of these posts and planning my meals for when my appetite recovered. It has now recovered and I’m STARVING 😁! I cannot go back and comment on all the wonderful food that y’all have been posting. But, as always, I’m impressed and inspired. I’m sorry that there are SO many meals in this post – feel free to skim – but it will catch me up and then I hope I’ll keep up! Many of the meals are either restaurant meals or short cuts, but that’s what needed to happen in July. This was prior to going into the hospital. The three of us were starting to feel blah – it turned out that we all had upper respiratory infections and were in bed for the following week. This was supposed to be the start of a fairly substantial dinner: Found this frozen ramen at our local Asian market. I was a bit disorganized, and we were out later in the day than I had planned so I didn’t have anything to top the soup with: It tasted pretty good but would have benefitted from some tender pork and a soft boiled egg, at least. Mr. Kim and Jessica put some hot sauce on it. I also served Trader Joe’s green onion pancakes and a dipping sauce of black vinegar and soy sauce: This all ended up being pretty much all the dinner we got. Mr. Kim had a couple of errands he needed to run and we didn’t get back to the house until 9:30pm. I threw together a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches and gave him some leftover salad. I had an apple. I had been out of the hospital just over a week when my birthday happened. We went to Waypoint Seafood in Williamsburg for dinner. My starter: Crab and shrimp fritters on a ginger-lobster cream sauce with grilled pineapple pico. This was fabulous. One of the best dishes I’ve ever had. I could have ordered a second one and been done for the night. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. My main course: A shrimp and lobster po’ boy. This was very good, but nowhere near my starter. It suffered from the wrong bread – too dense and crusty for the delicate seafood. I ended up eating the insides and leaving most of the (very good – just wrong) bread. Dessert – we shared this: Absolutely perfect and delicious chocolate mousse. Just dark enough without any bitterness. I somehow missed getting pictures of Mr. Kim and Jessica’s meals. July was my fuzzy headed month 🙄. Sloppy Joe, tomatoes, and corn: For months there was a taco food truck near us that we kept saying we needed to try. One day it was gone. Jessica managed to track it down and found that they had opened up a restaurant not far from us. It’s called Lalo’s Pinches Tacos. Mr. Kim and Jessica went one time for a daddy/daughter night. They brought me some leftovers – even lukewarm the food was amazing. So, one night in July the three of us finally went for dinner. Excellent guacamole: I had the 3 taco assortment (you got to choose which 3 you wanted): Pastor, Birria, and Carnitas. Easily the best tacos I’ve ever eaten. The onions on the side were amazing – I was eating them like they were a side dish. Jessica had the birria tacos that had some kind of cheese on them: The consommé was incredible. I could have eaten it as a soup course. Mr. Kim had an assortment of tacos: I’m a little fuzzy, but I think one was steak, one was chicken, and the last was maybe chorizo? We shared excellent churros for dessert: Dinner and dumpling fixings: This dinner was not a notable success. The orange chicken was from Lidl and was flabby and over breaded and the sauce was just sweet and sticky without any orange flavor. The rice was supposedly bulgogi rice from Trader Joe’s: There were maybe 5 pieces of beef in the entire bag and no discernable kimchi at all (which was fine with me as I don’t care for it). The dumplings were TJ’s soup dumplings. They had a good flavor and were nice and “brothy”, but the skins were tough and chewy. One night I fried a ham slice: Topped with some orange marmalade and served with Kraft mac and cheese, tomato slices, and some wonderful pickled cherries that Mr. Kim made. They went perfectly with the ham: Jessica requested roast Brussels sprouts one night: ❤️❤️❤️ Served with corn, rice, and some not good frozen Chicken Kiev (different brand than I normally get): Since the sprouts are on my “avoid” list, I just had a couple. I got a bit inspired by the produce stand. Fried green tomatoes: BLTs: Served with corn and mac and cheese (purchased). I even made some remoulade to go on the tomatoes! We found some bun-sized Polish sausages at Costco. They were very good with Gulden’s mustard and cheap, mouth puckering kraut (our favorite). Served with frozen pierogies and Poppaw’s green beans (just canned whole beans with Italian dressing): These are the green beans that I used to think were Italian because they were made by my Italian great-grandfather and he used ITALIAN dressing. Obviously. 😁 Jessica made some of those ham and Swiss on ET seasoned Hawaiian rolls and one night they were dinner with a salad: Mr. Kim’s brother was in town for a few days. And since my house was not fit for company, we suggested we meet him and their mother for dinner at one of our two very local pizza places. Bad call. We’ve had uneven experiences there recently and that was a really down night. It was actually embarrassing to have recommended the place. Fried mushrooms for the table: I think these were probably fine (I don’t eat mushrooms) – everybody gobbled them up and Jessica didn’t mention anything negative. MIL got her own small pizza and Jessica got a couple of slices. MIL’s pizza with mushrooms, green pepper, and onions: The rest of us shared a Margherita: I don’t know about MIL’s, but the other pizzas were not hot at all. The cheese on ours was weird and rubbery - not like fresh mozz at ALL. We really should have sent them back, but Mr. Kim’s whole family is weird about that, so we suffered in silence. The Caesar salad that Jessica and I shared was very good, though. Mr. Kim, Jessica and I stopped next door at Brecotea Baking Studio for dessert. I got the chocolate mousse cake: Jessica got the caramel cheesecake and a Mango Yogurt drink with mango boba: Everything was really good, though neither of us cared for the jelly layer that was on top of both of the desserts. Went to a new-to-us restaurant one night - Little Szechuan. Mr. Kim had the Hot & Sour soup: Very good, but very different to anything we’ve tried before – it had a sweetness that we’ve not tasted anywhere else. I got to cross off another egg roll recommendation from my list. Their chicken egg roll was good, but not the egg roll of my youth: I had the Mu Shu pork and it was one of the best I’ve ever had: My only quibble was that the pancakes were too thick – almost like flour tortillas rather than the usual Asian pancakes. Mr. Kim had the Hot & Spicy Szechuan Beef: And it was actually spicy. I couldn’t do more than a taste. He was happy. The following night dinner was basically a repurposing of our leftovers from Little Szechuan. I added some snow peas, green onions, and bean sprouts to the rice and made fried rice: Jessica stir fried some sugar snaps that she had: These were delicious. Sweet and savory all at once. Jessica and I shared the Mu Shu pork and Mr. Kim had the rest of his beef: There was STILL leftover pork after this meal! Costco had Rana brand beef and short rib lasagna for a really great price. I hadn’t ever tried it before and so we had it for dinner: We really liked it. We love lasagna, but I am a lazy cook and almost never make my own. We’ve been a Stouffer’s family up to now, but that will certainly change now. Really meaty and saucy, this made six meals for us. Served with frozen garlic bread and salad: This was a nostalgia bomb for me. Momma’s go-to for garlic bread was to buy an “Italian” loaf from the Safeway bakery – I remember it came in a red, white, and green wax paper bag. She would slice it not quite all the way through and slather the slices with butter and raw garlic, wrap in foil and bake. Crusty edges and gooey, dripping butter-soaked slices of bread. Heaven. This wasn’t quite that, but it was pretty loaded with something butter adjacent! Romaine, feta, green and kalamata olives, and a made in the salad vinaigrette. Next night’s dinner was lasagna leftovers and salads. Mr. Kim’s with all the nasty stuff 😄: Kale, beets, hot peppers, and celery (I actually like celery, just not on salads). Mine was a repeat of the night before with the addition of an egg leftover from breakfast (I inadvertently took the picture pre-feta): The 14th was Mr. Kim’s BD. His mom came over for dinner. The menu was all requests from Mr. Kim. Brined, SV’d and then fried chicken: Served with gravy, honey, and Hot Honey. This was excellent, if I do say so myself! This was NOT: The flavor was good – nothing but russets, butter, and half & half, so, of COURSE they tasted good. It was the texture that was wrong. For one thing, a couple of the potato chunks were undercooked and I didn’t realize until I’d mashed them with the rest of the potatoes – they felt fork-tender, but there were hard little bits in the finished potatoes. And they just weren’t soft and creamy – hard to describe, but they spooned up almost in chunks rather than soft, billowy mounds. I wish I knew what I’d done wrong. I don’t have a “pretty” picture of the gravy – it was served in a pottery pitcher. I made it a couple of days ahead of time and froze it. Finished gravy: It came together amazingly fast and tasted great. Corn and tomatoes from a farm stand: Cream Biscuits: These are those amazingly easy and good 2 ingredient biscuits – self rising flour and heavy cream. You just mix them up and scoop them with a disher onto a baking sheet and bake. I even did them an hour or so ahead of time and stashed them in the fridge until the last minute – so easy. They are not a biscuit you can make a sandwich with – they aren’t layered – but they are soft and fluffy and hold plenty of butter and honey. No picture of the relish tray, but there were Jessica’s quick refrigerator pickles, my marinated cucumbers, Jessica’s deviled eggs, Mr. Kim’s pickled cherries, and Mr. Kim’s step grandmother’s sweet tomato pickles that Jessica made with MIL. The salad was Lettuce in Cream: This is one of my favorite salads - and I've posted it before, I know. It's a funny combination - looks and sounds like nothing at all, but is deceptively delicious. It's composed of iceberg, light cream, white vinegar, and sugar. That's it. Plates: Dessert was raisin pie with vanilla bean ice cream: Dinner last night was mostly leftovers from Mr. Kim’s BD dinner. Fried chicken, corn, tomatoes and pickly stuff. I made another batch of the Lettuce in Cream salad and in the spirit of lemons into lemonade, I made potato pancakes out of the failed mashed potatoes – MUCH better! Mr.Kim’s plate with chicken legs: I decided on a hot chicken sandwich with gravy and some deviled eggs: Thank you to the folks who are still with me and 📣 WAKE UP to the others!

I said this in the breakfast thread, and I might as well just cut and paste it to here as well: “I guess most everyone knows that I was in the hospital for a week back at the end of June. I’ve spent most of the time since recovering and trying to regain my energy and strength. I’ve perused the posts here but haven’t really commented or done much more than offering “likes” and giving updates in the “How are you doing” thread. I apologize for the plethora of meals, but I’ll do a big drop off and then I’ll be all caught up (wait ‘til you see the dinner post!).” So many of these are restaurant meals, but that’s what’s been practical lately. This was actually a pre-hospital meal. I had some of Shelby’s seafood enchiladas leftover and they reheat beautifully. Seafood enchiladas, slaw, and rice: Pretty elegant lunch! Jessica found a fun new pharmacy/café to take me to – Colonial Pharmacy in Mechanicsville. This is one of my favorite styles of restaurants – lunch counter food. So few left anywhere and we are so lucky in this area to still have a few that are doing it RIGHT and making their own dishes instead of relying on Sysco. We both had burgers. I had what they said was their version of a Big Mac: It was delicious and HUGE and the onion rings were very good. Jessica had a regular burger, fries and deviled eggs (gotta love an old school place that has deviled eggs as a side): Everything was delicious and we’ll be back. They also have a few different kinds of house made cobbler, but we were too full. Mr. Kim and I had lunch at one of the two very nearby pizza places that we frequent. We shared a slice and an Italian sub: Both were very good, which was nice since the quality has been uneven lately. Unfortunately, our next trip wasn’t good at all and I think we’re done with them – for pizza, at least. Last month Mr. Kim and I went down to NC to take some silver to Replacements, LTD for repair. Stopped at Stamey’s BBQ for lunch. I’d grown up hearing really good things about their BBQ but had never been. I think things have gone downhill since I was young because everything was just ok. Hushpuppies and “Brunswick Stew”: The hushpuppies were obviously housemade and very good. I probably ate more of them than anything else. The stew was basically vegetable soup. It didn’t have a strong pork element and was not at all the texture it should have been. Lots of people actually grind up their stew. Others mash up half the stew (this is what I do). The pork sandwich was generous, and the slaw was the right kind (not super creamy), but it was SO dry and missing a good, smoky punch: Mr. Kim got the pork sandwich (same as above) and the chicken and some collards: The chicken was also a bit dry and not very smoky. And the collards were very bland. Jessica and I had to run an errand across the river and stopped at Pepe’s Mexican Café. My first time. Jessica got the mushroom quesadillas with corn salad and salsa: I got a combo with an enchilada, a taco, and rice: A pretty run of the mill order, but I was surprised at how good it was – especially the enchilada sauce. A post church brunch at our favorite deli, Boychiks. Mr. Kim had the salad plate: Potato, slaw, and chicken. I had a tossed salad and their wonderful shrimp salad sandwich: Another day lunch was my potassium for the day and an old favorite: v A tomato, cheese, and mayo sandwich on white bread. Unless my granddaddy took me out to eat, this was my go-to lunch when I spent summers on the farm in NC. Another post church brunch at Eggs Up Grill. I had the Eggs Benedict: I have a hard time resisting this if it is on the menu. The potatoes would have been perfect with some onions, but I forgot to ask. Mr. Kim had the breakfast burger: This was good enough that we agreed this place should be included in our preferred burger joints when we are looking for that. We had some hummus from Publix and Jessica had made tzatziki, so I scrounged a half a sesame bagel from the freezer improvised a very good lunch: I found a Lidl gingerbread pancake/waffle mix in the pantry that expires next month, so I made waffles for the freezer: I also cooked some sausage to have for the week, so Mr. Kim and I shared a waffle and some sage sausage for lunch: Mr. Kim did a BBQ judging last weekend and was able to bring home some goodies. Yesterday was some brisket with Montgomery Inn BBQ sauce and applesauce: Today was more of the judging leftovers: Brisket, a couple of bones, Montgomery Inn sauce, and Ritz crackers.

This morning: Hummus, pita, and a mandarin orange.

I like all kinds of cornbread - from lightly sweet to not sweet at all. Sweet makes a nice accompaniment to ham and pork meals and the not-sweet is perfect for dipping into pot likker and crumbling onto smoky, porky, long cooked greens. I wish I could make the not-sweet kind that my Tennessee farm-raised grandmother did. Hers was made with coarse ground, white cornmeal - tender, but firm, with a definite crunch. But she was the proverbial "no recipe" cook. Both her biscuits and her cornbread were constructed in a giant stainless steel bowl -the dry ingredients first, then the wet and mixed until "right". Cornbread was poured into a preheated and greased iron skillet (so hot that the batter bubbled up and sizzled) and slammed into a hot oven. It was heaven and I've never, ever been able to accomplish it. As far as Jiffy goes, I just like the flavor of their particular mix of ingredients. I usually add an extra egg and a couple teaspoons of sugar. My from-scratch doesn't taste as good. I'm fine with that. I wouldn't mind mixing up my own if it was better. But, to my taste, it isn't.

@rotuts I agree 100% about the weak produce at Aldi. We have a Lidl down the street (for now - fingers crossed - they are closing all over the place) and their produce is so much better that I hardly go into Aldi anymore, since Lidl carries most of the things Aldi does. But I think that the Aldi wine selection is better. They have a nice Gluhwein that we get at Christmas and a Champagne that is great for mimosas and Champagne cocktails, believe it or not!

Well, I certainly appreciated the food, but I'd trade universal healthcare for a menu any day. I know your system isn't perfect, but ours is shameful.

I guess most everyone knows that I was in the hospital for a week back at the end of June. I’ve spent most of the time since recovering and trying to regain my energy and strength. I’ve perused the posts here, but haven’t really commented or done much more than offering “likes” and giving updates in the “How are you doing” thread. I apologize for the plethora of meals, but I’ll do a big drop off and then I’ll be all caught up (wait ‘til you see the dinner post! 😁). Country ham and cheddar omelet: With and English muffin and a pear: A neighbor had a huge load of plums on her tree was sharing: We had plums with almost every breakfast and snack for a couple of weeks! Biscuits (frozen), one with tomato and the other with sage sausage: One morning I microwaved some frozen chicken dumplings we got from Costco: They were great – really flavorful and lovely, tender dough. Toast – one piece with my beloved Little Scarlet strawberry preserves, the other with a fried egg, and strawberries: Different morning, different dumplings. These were soup dumplings we got at Trader Joes: They tasted good and had a decent amount of broth, but the wrappers were unpleasantly tough. Must have been channeling my mother this morning. Scrambled eggs and raisin toast was her regular Waffle House order: Tomatoes on toast was a childhood favorite: A Lidl pain au chocolat and hard cooked eggs: My favorite method of cooking a breakfast sandwich is grilling rather than using toasted bread. I love the crisp, buttery outside and the tender, soft inside. Ham and egg: Just behind is lurking some mandarin orange segments. Food Lion is stocking some of the best of these I’ve had in years. I’m eating at least one a day. Weird timing, but they’re good now. A Lidl croissant and strawberries: The 14th was Mr. Kim’s birthday. Last week, @Smithy mentioned trying some Rhodes frozen cinnamon rolls and said they were surprisingly good. The ones that she got were the quick kind that only needed a 40 minute baking time from frozen. I thought that since it was a work day, these with some good bacon would make the perfect birthday breakfast. Well, all I could find was the regular kind – that needed a few hours of thawing/rising. BUT – the directions indicated that you could do it overnight in the refrigerator. Yay. So, I put them in the pan in the fridge after dinner and let them do their thing. Which they didn’t 😡. When I checked them at 8am, they not only hadn’t risen, but they were also still frozen. Sigh. So, this was breakfast instead: Eggs, produce stand tomatoes, Benton’s bacon, and toast. A few hours later, I finally pulled these out of the oven: I mean, they were wonderful. And I thoroughly enjoyed my alone time with them 😁. But it would have been nice to offer the birthday boy a sweet indulgence. Anyway – we’ve been eating them for breakfast and snacks and he took them to share with a friend today and there are still 4 left (I should have cooked only half a bag – did I mention I’ve been fuzzy headed since I got out of the hospital?). Yesterday: A perfect little apple (I've been finding bags of these tiny, crisp apples at Publix recently), a cream biscuit leftover from Mr. Kim's BD dinner, OM egg, and sage sausage.

UPDATE: ebay has what looks like THE PLATE!!! Not terribly expensive, either. I took a chance after comparing the two pictures and ordered it. Fingers CROSSED!!!

@Smithy - I did do the sweet rolls, though there was a bit of a SNAFU - I'll post about it on the Breakfast thread since that what I used them for (or at least I meant to). The 14th was Mr. Kim’s birthday. His requested dessert was Raisin Pie. ????? Huh? I was perplexed. As far as I knew, he’d never had a raisin pie. I’m not the most gifted pie person, and where in the world did he get the recipe. Turned out that he does an email subscription with a few food sites and this one arrived in his inbox and intrigued him. I was nervous about it because pastry is NOT my forte and I haven’t cooked much at all in the past couple of months. AND on top of it all – I’d be serving this to his mother – the Pastry Queen. This woman literally has blue ribbons from baked goods she’s entered into the VA State Fair over the years. I knew that making my own pie crust was NOT ON, so I got the Pillsbury refrigerated ones. And the recipe was actually very easy. I served the pie with some Tillamook vanilla bean ice cream and everyone liked it (except for Jessica, which I predicted):

Love Replacements. They've ID'd old silver pieces for me and found missing pieces of china and silver. Mr. Kim and I went down there in July to take some silver pieces to be repaired. It was my first in-person visit. It's an incredible place with a HUGE showroom, museum of the history of china/silver/crystal, a Christmas shop, and a clearance section. We could have spent hours wandering around. I took a precious family piece down for them to try to find a replacement for - it's my MIL's childhood plate that she gave me and which I managed to knock off a wall and smash into about 10 pieces. I can't find anyone to fix it, so Replacements has registered it and will let me know if they find it. I just pray that happens before she asks me where I've got it displayed. My shameful deed:

That's what visitors are for.

@liuzhou - I'm sorry I missed that you were back in the hospital! I had a back fracture a few years ago and besides wearing an enormous brace and resting, there was really nothing that could be done ACTIVELY. Once I had healed enough, I had PT to strengthen the muscles supporting my back, but nothing really until healing had happened. It's a slow and aggravating process and I'm not a patient person. I hope your healing goes well! I'm glad you are out of the hospital and getting some good food! I was in the hospital from 6/24-6/30 with high BP and kidney issues. I took pictures of the menu to show. The choices were, I thought, really varied. The offerings do fall into the category of middle American, but there are lots of options for all kinds of diets and preferences. I was on a slightly restricted diet – low sodium and low sugar. But I still had a lot of choices. What impressed me was the quality of the food. I was WAY too out of it to take pictures, but over the course of the week I had hard boiled eggs, pancakes, sausage, chicken noodle soup, tossed salad, egg salad, tuna salad, pot roast, lemon herb chicken, and fresh fruit. Every single thing was very, very good and it seemed to me that they were made in house – not sourced from some frozen food conglomerate. And I had very little appetite so Mr. Kim finished most of my meals and he was as impressed as I was. A menu:

Georgia's peach crop was almost completely lost this year due to weather. If we continue to ignore climate change, we are going to starve ourselves to death.

Jessica brought these home to me from an estate sale she attended: The Cherrios one is pretty predictable, but the molasses one has a surprising number of recipes that I marked "to try". And I adore the cover art.

Thanks for posting these, @Smithy! I just put them on my shopping list to try. I'm thinking these and some bacon might be a good birthday breakfast for Mr. Kim. His birthday is Monday and he has to work, so it can't be too elaborate. Also, I'd totally forgotten about that whomp roll hack! I need to put that in rotation!

What a wonderful family/city story! And the Sandwich sounds fantastic. Thanks for sharing this, @Kerry Beal!

The last time that I did it, I followed the Anova site directions and did it for 2 hours at 155F. I did all legs that time and this time I'm planning on legs, thighs, and breasts (cut in half). I was thinking the same temp, but a bit longer for the legs and thighs. Do you think that the breasts should go in later?

Thanks, @rotuts! That's what I'll do! Another couple of questions. Normally, when I make "my" fried chicken I brine it for 12 hours before seasoning and coating the chicken. Would you all recommend that I still do the brining? Or is it not needed with SV? I'm planning on doing my seasoning (Sazon coriander & annatto blend, MSG, lemonade Kool-aid, and pepper - I know it sounds weird, but it's fantastic) before I put the chicken in to SV. Sound good?

Question for folks who have done the SV then fried chicken (I know that @Shelby has, but probably others, too). I am FINALLY going to be cooking a real meal for Mr. Kim's birthday and we are even going to have a guest (his mom). I'm not sure that I have any cooking mojo still, so I'm looking for do-aheads and shortcuts that will still honor his requests. For example he wants biscuits and mashed potatoes - so, I'm going to do those two ingredient cream biscuits that you scoop up with an ice cream scoop and some slow cooker mashed potatoes. He's also asked for raisin pie for dessert. This is a whole other issue as I am NOT a pie lady (and his mother IS) and I've never made raisin pie, but I digress. My question is about how much ahead I can SV the chicken and then fry it. I have a real aversion to chicken that is cooked, refrigerated and then reheated - I think it gets a distinct and unpleasant flavor. I don't know if this would happen to SV chicken, but don't want to take that chance. Can I do this so that it comes out of the bath a couple of hours before I fry it and NOT refrigerate it? Just let it sit at room temp for an hour or so before I start coating it? Thanks so much. I am SO out of practice and really need the advice!

My MIL does something really sweet - when she makes spaghetti sauce she makes to the point of putting in the bell peppers and puts some aside for me before proceeding with the rest of the cooking. I love her version of sauce and can't seem to replicate it, so it's really a nice thing for her to do. She also does it with her gazpacho (also leaving out the hot peppers in mine). ❤️