Kim Shook

Picked up breakfast from Bojangle’s on my way home from physical therapy yesterday: Potato rounds and a sausage/egg biscuit. The Valentine biscuit was a nice surprise.

I haven't! I'll give it a try. Thanks!

They are messing with their menu, apparently. They've permanently removed Cajun rice from their menu. Luckily we have a nearby Bojangle's who have Dirty Rice, which is better than Popeye's rice. I'll got to Popeye's for their superior chicken and Bo's for rice.

Actually, everything you showed us in the last post looked good and ham and cheese made me want to haul out my sandwich maker. Not a clue where it is, though. Sigh.

They are charming. I'm getting ready to order a book illustrated by her (sadly, NOT one of the foods ones) at abebooks.com. I'm just waiting to hear how many illustrations are in the book before I pull the trigger.

These are one of the trashiest and most ridiculous of snacks, from the depths of the 1960s suburban USA. There are many variations around. My mom used to make a version with either apricot jam or orange marmalade and BBQ sauce and homemade meatballs. The very trashiest version is the one that Jessica made: a bag of frozen meatballs, a jar of grape jelly and the same amount of your favorite bottled BBQ sauce. You dump the bag of meatballs in a slow cooker, mix the jelly and BBQ sauce in a saucepan and pour it over the meatballs. Two to three hours on HIGH or about six on LOW and there you go. Everyone laughs like mad at them and then they evaporate in 15 minutes and you wish you'd made more! 😁

@Duvel – your “clean out the fridge mash” is something that would never occur to me and looks absolutely delicious! @blue_dolphin – lovely gnocchi. Is the color due to them being made from sweet potatoes or is it from being pan fried. Lunch yesterday was leftovers from Super Bowl goodies: Spinach and artichoke dip on toasts and Jessica’s grape jelly and BBQ sauce meatballs.

@robirdstx - I need to dig out some hash brown patties from the freezer and brush up my poaching skills! This morning: ET bagel with salmon cream cheese, Benton’s bacon, and a couple of slightly overcooked eggs.

Oh, my! Those illustrations! How I wish I could find that! I love vintage children's books with lovely illustrations. I don't think I'll be getting this one. It's on Amazon for $768.57!!! This one (another kitchen book for kids) is by the same author and I can't even find it for sale anywhere!

Honestly, I just buy the store brand plastic freezer zip bags and double them. If the bag is for something that I'll be adding to (chicken scraps, cheeses, or your bread idea), I use the giant - 2 1/2 gallon - ones. When I feel like taking the time, I wrap in foil first before putting in the bag. As far as organizing, this may not be the place and I may have posted these before but this is what we do: we have 3 freezers - one in the house in the refrigerator and 2 in the shed. I have a Word document that we print out and try to keep up to date - add to when we shop and scratch through when we take something out. This doesn't always work in practice, so we end up doing an inventory every few months. Here are the latest sheets:

Yesterday’s Super Bowl snacks/dinner – Spinach-Artichoke Dip: Those inexplicably popular snacks made of Club crackers sprinkled with brown sugar, wrapped with bacon and slow baked for 2 hours: At a normal party, these things evaporate. Crudité and 3 dips – Green Goddess, Russian, and bleu cheese: The most half-assed cheese board I’ve ever made/seen: I set out what looks like a Pinterest parody. How I dared? When I went to put out the bits and pieces of cheese from the cheese drawer the Cheddar was GREEN, the Gouda was like an actual brick, and biggest chunk of bleu was FURRY! Mr. Kim’s favorite beef stick: Buffalo Chicken Dip: Jessica’s deviled eggs: And her BBQ sauce/Grape jelly meatballs: We used her new airfryer to make shrimp: Served with gentle Bang-Bang sauce. This was our first try at air frying. The first batch was overcooked – we decided that 6-7 minutes was right. And I completely cut through the shrimp so that instead of the jumbos being as thick as my thumb, the two pieces were as thick as my pinky, so the shrimp to coating ratio was off. The flour/egg/panko coating was just too thick. It was a ridiculous amount of food for three people and I won’t have to cook for a month😄. The only thing that we didn’t get to was the Crab Meltaways, some of which we’ll have tonight.

@Shelby – your stew looks delicious and I’m so glad you liked it! Like Ronnie, I am a big fan of lamb and I like it “gamey”. When lamb shanks used to be sold for about the same amount as bones, my mom would get them and roast them for my dad, @Ted Fairhead, and me. We felt like Henry VIII, grabbing the shanks and tearing off hunks of greasy, pungent meat. Those nights Momma just scrambled some eggs and ate in front of the television😄. Can you explain your bread? It looks like two loaves in one square pan??? @Ann_T – I love that wooden bowl. Is the notch on the rim and accident or does it serve a purpose? Regarding peeling shrimps/prawns (I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen anything labeled as “prawns” in either a grocery store or fish shop), I clean and deshell with sharp scissors. I hold the shrimp in my fist, back side out. A couple of snips up the back and a pinch of the legs on the other side and the shell is usually pulled off almost completely. I run my finger up the cut part where the scissors made a very slight divot and collect the “vein”. I wipe my finger on a paper towel and on to the next. It’s the fastest way I’ve found. Getting last night’s mournful feast (😄) pictures and narrative ready later, but I’ll post these meals now. Dinner on Thursday was corned beef and Swiss with slaw and Russian dressing: Served with Mrs. Fearnow’s (a locally made Brunswick stew): Dinner last night turned out to be a chicken pie with vegetables. It was a story, but pictures first. The filling: Before going in the oven: Out of the oven: Served with Ukrops’ (once a local grocery store – now a food emporium) spoonbread and corn pudding: The story starts, as so many of my food journeys do, with an eG post. @Captain posted a picture of his dinner with a piece of chicken pie. It inspired me. I figured that there was no way of getting the recipe from him in time to make it for dinner. So, I Googled “Australian chicken pie” and picked a likely looking one that matched what I had on hand. I had some moments during the prep where I wondered about the directions. I thought that it called for too much herbage. I thought that the roux/liquid ratio was off. And that the chicken pieces were too large. The timing was off, too. So, it turns out that I was right about everything. The finished dish was overly herby. The gravy was so thin that I had to add chicken Bisto to it. The chicken pieces were wrong for my tastes. The recipe called for 1-inch cubes. I should have realized that I wouldn’t care for that. I don’t like cubed chicken – I should have done large shreds. It tasted good and I will use that method (with some changes) again, but I did so many things differently that I don’t think it counted as an Australian pie anymore! So, @Captain, I would love to have your recipe, if you would share.

I somehow missed posting a couple of breakfasts from the past week: On Friday I went to pick up bagels for the freezer and treated myself to breakfast: BEC on an ET. Excellent. This morning – Mr. Kim’s: Benton’s bacon, IP egg, and rye toast. Thinking of Suzilightning, I made Johnnybird’s Toast Dope: And used it to make Dope Toast: Served with a damn green egg. My egg was from the same batch as Mr. Kim’s. His was hardly green at all and mine was almost half green!!!

Frozen biscuits with Edwards ham and seedless blackberry jam, a lovely red pear that I’ve been “holding” in the fridge for a month and set out a couple of days ago and an IP egg:

I love chimichurri so much! It is one of the few sauces that I've found in that is loaded with flavor and not spicy.

A childhood favorite – tomatoes on toast w/ Dukes – though the Dukes would have been Miracle Whip. And my green haloed eggs. Sigh.

@Ann_T – your blue plate special looks delightful! One of my all-time favorite meals. @Margaret Pilgrim– the red cooked pork looks delicious and sent me off looking for recipes. Did you use pork belly? Turned the leftover spaghetti and meatballs into baked spaghetti: I’ve learned that in Italy this is known as Pasta al Forno. I didn’t grow up calling it that. Except for my great grandfather (who mostly cursed😁), my Italian immigrant family didn’t speak any Italian.

The three of us are united in our dislike of Brady. We very much like Mahomes. We'll probably watch as long as the Chiefs are in the game, but if it looks like it's getting away from them, Jessica's got a movie on tap. Mr. Kim will be working all day (it is Crossover Sunday in the VA Legislature: House bills go to the Senate and vice versa - a governmental do-si-do, if you will😁), but should be free by game time. We've decided on: Crab meltaways Bang-Bang shrimp Buffalo chicken dip Crudites and dips Hot Artichoke and Spinach dip Cheeses & beef stick This will be an all day buffet. I'll make things in shifts. Since it's just the three of us, I'm going to try to do small batches. We'll be trying out Jessica's airfryer for the first time with the shrimp.

Mythical blobs. LOLOL I can kinda see the unicorn. But, as you said, blobs!

If they are robust enough, you can use the stems as fragrant and flavorful skewers for meats and vegetables.

And that I would notice that I was the only rube wearing shoes! LOL

We did an inventory of the house freezer yesterday and this reminds me that I need to make some banana bread. We have 20 overripe bananas and three bags of pecan halves/pieces.

Never in my life been asked to remove my shoes in someone's home. I'm kind of grossed out by the idea of people's bare feet and don't fancy the thought of wearing communal slippers. I would appreciate a head's up from a host so that I could bring my own slippers.

Well, toss in a sojourn in England and you've basically lived the life (geographically) that I'd love to have. Lots of wonderful food influences, for sure!

Don't be ashamed! That Time-Life series was fantastic. A lot of us own many of them and love them. @David Ross gave me a fabulous cannelloni recipe that I still use and it was from one of those books. How long did you live in NYC? I can imagine that that contributed to your food education!