Kim Shook
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Posts posted by Kim Shook
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I’ve posted most of these on the Christmas thread, but thought I’d put them here, too. They will be nothing new to anyone who has been here for more than a year. They are the things that I always make. These are the goodies that I made for the holidays this year – I cut back a little bit, but not much!
Peanut butter cookies:
Lemon Chess Tarts
A tray of cookies:
I did not make these, we bought them from a friend of Jessica’s who is going through some rough financial times. They were actually delicious! Especially the thumbprints, which I never make.
Sugar cookies:
Toffee:
Oatmeal cookies:
These were not for us but were made to put in the lunches that our church makes every month for 3 homeless shelters.
Peanut brittle:
Sponge Candy:
Pretzel Pecan Turtles:
What we call “Happy Accident Candy” – all of the crumbs and shards of the sponge candy go into melted (as tempered as I can get it):
Cinnamon pecans:
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13 hours ago, gfweb said:
@Kim Shook
Gorgeous food and decorations! We had Christmas crackers too, a bit disappointing though this year. No pop and no decent toy.We all got pops, but instead of toys we got little ornaments. Fine for us but not sure that a child would be happy with it! But better than what passes for a Cracker Jack prize these days! 😄
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3 minutes ago, MokaPot said:
Bread looks good to me, @Kim Shook. So do the Funyuns.
In this house, the only possible choice for turkey sandwiches, tomato sandwiches, and grilled cheese is white bread. For the first two, it must be fluffy white bread (milk bread is perfect), for the last is can be more of a rustic loaf. 😊
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1 hour ago, Alex said:
I'm with VH. I believe the pieces are of more uniform size that way.
I completely believe this is true. I always forget to do it.
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7 minutes ago, Duvel said:
@Kim Shook: One (German) word: Fantastisch !
Dankeschön!!!-
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@gfweb – the goose looks so good. I’ve only ever tried to make a goose once and was not terribly impressed, but I was a fairly new cook at the time. Your confit is making me think I need to try again.
@BonVivant– as always, your food and your photography is beautiful and so appetizing. What I’m noticing so much with these pictures is the little cork and string Christmas trees. They are adorable. I saved one of your pictures and am determined to try to make some.
@Shelby– I really want to try your method for fried chicken. My IP won’t SV, but I can use my Anova and get it to that point. I really want to do it soon, it looks SO good!
@mgaretz – Happy Birthday to Mrs. Mgaretz!
I missed getting a plate picture on Xmas Eve. We had SV pork roast, gravy, sweet potato latkes w/ brie and arugula, fruit salad, Marlene’s Broccoli Gratin, roasted mushrooms and terrible cornbread muffins (a failed recipe):
Christmas dinner:
Twice baked cheese potatoes, turkey, cranberry-orange sauce, Brussels sprouts, sweet potato souffle, and Jessica’s Challah and dried fruit dressing.
Also:
Pickly stuff and pimento cheese and celery.
And then on the 26th, the strange combination meals started due to bizarre assortments of leftovers in the house:
This was dinner – half an ET bagel with cream cheese and smoke salmon and a slice of fabulous pork (steamed in the CSO to reheat) and gravy.
On the 27th, dinner was an open-faced hot turkey sandwich with gravy, a twice baked cheese potato, and sweet potato:
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Turkey sandwich on completely the wrong bread 😁:
along with pimento cheese stuffed celery and Funyuns.
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@Porthos – so many people are “funny” about lamb. It is my favorite red meat, but I was raised by an Englishman.
I’ve bemoaned my failure at having cracklings elsewhere, so I won’t go into it here, but suffice to say that I was disappointed in that part of the Xmas Eve. Nothing else disappointed, though. It turned out to be a very good dinner. The table:
In spite of the crackling fail, I just love SV for cooking a pork roast. They were incredibly tender and positively glistened! Fresh Market pork:
Butcher shop w/ skin:
I wish that I had a better picture of the butcher shop meat – other than the cracklings fail (my fault), it was gorgeous. Mr. Kim and Jessica thought it was measurably better than the (very good) FM one. Even with my compromised taste buds, I could tell the difference.
Gravy:
Fruit salad:
Jessica’s roasted mushrooms:
@Marlene’s Broccoli Gratin w/ Streusel:
Jessica’s sweet potato latkes:
These are so good – topped with Brie and dressed arugula.
Sweet cornbread muffins:
This was another of the evening’s failures. I am a fan of all kinds of cornbread, I am not someone who limits my tastes to just one sort. I loved my grandmother’s coarse, crumbly, all white cornmeal version. I like a more cakey, slightly sweet cornbread. Heck, I even like Jiffy. The whole spectrum. Or so I thought. Since I also like the cakey, sweet cornbread, I’ve been interested in various recipes I’ve seen over the years for a true cornbread CAKE version. The one I decided to try was quite popular. They were so weird that Jessica and I couldn’t eat them. They were basically Jiffy mix and a yellow cake mix with some eggs and milk added. I didn’t mind the texture (very cake-like, but gritty/crunchy from the Jiffy mix), but the overly sweet and vanilla-ed overtones from the cake mix just made it unpalatable to us. Blech! And the lady who posted the recipe said it made 12 muffins. Well, it made 12 muffins PLUS a 9x9-inch panful. Jessica suggested brulee-ing the “muffins” and trying to do a Southern version of a Tres Leches cake. We’ll see – they are both in the freezer awaiting my decision.
Herb butter:
Well, that was good anyway. 😉
This is what we drank with dinner:
Perfect and delicious.
Christmas morning:
Christmas dinner:
The turkey:
I applied a dry brine on the 23rd. It was a recipe from Geoffrey Zakarian that calls for salt, sumac (I used za’atar – it’s what I had), black pepper, and herbes de Provence. It was cooked in the Nesco roaster. I hadn’t used it in a really long time, and I’d forgotten how much more quickly it cooks than the directions say. So, it was OVERdone (190F breast temperature) an hour early. Consequently, it sat out for over two hours and was only hot because the gravy was. But it was delicious. Tender, juicy – not sure if it was the Nesco or the ‘brine’, but I’m guessing some of each. We really like turkey and I need to make it more often. It was a 12 lb. turkey, I think and we are almost done with it. All three of us love hot and cold sandwiches and detest deli turkey.
Relishes:
Pimento cheese and celery:
Pickly things:
Cranberry orange sauce:
Jessica’s challah and dried fruit dressing:
Fabulous, as always.
Brussels sprouts:
A little overdone, but tasted great.
Twice baked cheese potatoes:
Sweet potato souffle:
Sister Schubert rolls:
Much better than that icky “cornbread”. 🙄
Plates:
I somehow missed getting a picture of the gravy and of my plate after the application of gravy. Oh, well, here’s a picture from March – it looked exactly the same:
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43 minutes ago, kayb said:
I'm by no means a pro at making cracklings. But it would seem to me that a necessary step would be to render the fat while, or perhaps before, broiling the skin to get the lovely, bubbly texture. I know we got them as a byproduct of rendering lard....
Do you mean I should have cut the fat and skin layer off? If so, when - before cooking or after?
17 minutes ago, Duvel said:There would be three steps that could help you, if you do not want to spend an extra day drying the surface in the fridge:
1) scoring the skin after SV (smaller squares preferred) to help the rendered fat “escape” the skin.
2) Brush with saltwater to help drawing surface moisture out during the crisping up.3) Heat with a broiler at full whack, but plenty of space to your roast. The infrared will heat through the skin layer, render the fat and pop up the skin. It will take 10~15 min, so some distance is required. Heat carryover into the meat is minimal.
Hope this helps (next time) ...
The roast was scored when I got it. Should I have asked them to leave it alone?
And to anyone. I cut off the fat cap and skin off of each slice and kept it. Is there anything I can do to produce some cracklings with what I saved?
Thank you all so much for your advice and help!
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2 hours ago, Duvel said:
@Kim Shook Even without the crackling it looks very yummy - so juicy !
Did you insert any drying step (e.g. fridge rest, salt, ...) before roasting ? And how did you apply the heat ?
I didn't do much in the way of drying other than a direct application of towels. As far as applying heat, I tried broiling and torching.
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7 hours ago, robirdstx said:
Yes, it is one of several stoneware pieces I purchased at a Pampered Chef party hosted by a friend way back in the last century.I should have recognized it. My SIL used to sell PC and I really was impressed with their baking dishes. I have a couple of really small ones - perfect for 2. You've inspired me to dig them out!
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Of course, we're loaded with leftovers, as is everyone, I'm sure! Even Mr. Kim is loving using the various settings on the CSO to reheat things. It's so funny - he'll come to me asking how he should reheat one thing or another in the CSO. I'm steaming the sliced turkey and pork loin at 300F for 3-4 minutes. I'm using 300F Steam/bake for sweet bread that his mom made for us. Convection for the mini quiche. So glad I drank the Kool-aid!
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@&roid - your crackling skin is gorgeous and one day, when I'm over the major fail I had trying to achieve that my way, I'll ask your advice!
I might have failed in getting some good crackling by SV'ing my skin-on pork roast, but I certainly achieved incredibly delicious pork. I thought that the skin-on roast that I picked up from my butcher was going to be too small (I wasn't), so I got another little roast from the Fresh Market. I bagged them separately and SV'd them together. They were both incredibly moist and tender and SO porky!
Unfortunately, I was so bummed about my lack of cracklings that I didn't get very good pictures of the meat. The FM one:
The one from the butcher shop:
(...and my sad, sad "cracklings".)
You can see how moist it is.
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Well, in spite of my determination to do it MY WAY, I failed at achieving crackling. I'm pretty sure that trying to go from SV'ing to oven/torching was the culprit. I was trying for the easy way out and this was all I managed:
Not at ALL what I wanted. Ah, well, live and learn. And listen to what more experienced folks are trying to tell you. Thank you all for trying to steer me right in spite of my stubborn ignorance! 🙄
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Lunch today:
Turkey, Dukes, and arugula on Sister Schubert rolls. And dessert:
My MIL’s sweet roll that she makes every year. It was the best one she’s ever made.
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@robirdstx – I really love that casserole that you’ve done your egg dish in. It looks really thick – the perfect vessel for an egg casserole. Do you happen to remember where it came from?
Christmas breakfast was all traditional – my MIL’s “Candy Cane”:
Best one ever.
Sausage rolls and mini quiche:
Jessica confessed that she didn’t actually like my sausage rolls until I started making them this way. I changed in 2017 when I got the recipe from JohnT. She loves them now.
Bagels, cream cheese, and smoked Scottish salmon:
Jessica provided mimosas made with tangerine juice:
…which has it all OVER orange juice! My plate was refreshed a few times:
Yesterday’s breakfast was all leftovers:
Fruit salad, quiche, and tangerine juice. And dessert:
😁
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Welcome, @Lieuwe! You'll find everything you need here, I'm sure! Looking forward to your contributions.
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Way back meal since I've been MIA:
From the 21st. Old Bay dusted roast shrimp and the itty-bittiest potatoes I've ever seen. With good bread and some herby dipping oil:
Slowly getting all my pictures in order on my computer and I'll be back at some point to post more stuff! Hope everyone who celebrates had a lovely Christmas!
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On 12/25/2020 at 3:58 PM, scubadoo97 said:
Had my son, his Gf and my BIL over for a Hanukkah dinner
Latkes were on the menu
These look somehow thicker than the shredded potatoes only ones I've seen and made. Was there some other form of potatoes used? And do you share the recipe?
Jessica made some really delicious, but non-traditional latkes for Xmas Eve. It is hard to see in the picture, but they are made from sweet potatoes. After frying, they are topped with wedges of Brie and broiled to melt it. They are then topped with dressed arugula:
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I was too rushed on Christmas Eve and day to log on, but I hope everyone had lovely, if different, holidays!
@gfweb – I always love seeing that beautiful home of yours. And your tea looked so good.
@Shelby – your Christmas eve meal looked SO good. I would love to have had that. I think that the whole Italian seafood/fish meal makes so much sense. It is such a different meal than the ones folks tend to have on Christmas day. And I confess to loving that Snickers salad, too! And, OMG, that beef and the sides to it! That meal was the perfect contrast to the night before. I had to giggle at your statement that some people consider mac and cheese a vegetable. When Mr. Kim was in grad school, I worked for a private social service agency as a USDA daycare meal reimbursement coordinator. Just like public schools, state licensed day care centers and private providers can be reimbursed set amounts for the meals that they serve children in their care. My job was to train the private providers and do inspections and to go over their records of each meal served to make sure it met the requirements. If it didn’t, they didn’t get paid for that meal. So, they had a stake in things being done right. No matter how many times I explained that macaroni and cheese was a starch and a protein, I would still get menus every month that included mac and cheese as vegetable. Some people just refused to believe that a sidedish wasn’t the same thing as a vegetable.
@robirdstx – I love that snacky set up. We would devour that. Was that a boneless turkey thigh? If not, it was really well carved! Everything looks delicious.
@kayb – I would like to sit down to your dinner tonight. Your ham is so moist looking. I did those same sweet potatoes and your mac and cheese is exactly how I like it.
My report will be kind of piecemeal. We had a lovely couple of days, but it really wiped me out. I did almost nothing today and my knees are rewarding me for the rest!
On Monday, the 21st, I picked up the pork roast for Xmas Eve from our butcher shop. Kind of a snafu. I had asked for advice from them when I ordered about how much I should get and told them it would be three people plus some leftovers. He said 3 lbs. should be enough. I had requested skin on so that I could try to get some cracklings and didn’t think about how much of the roast would be a fat cap. When I picked it up, it turned out to be 2.4 lbs., not 3.
I freaked out a bit and we stopped at Fresh Market and picked up a tiny little roast (1.7 lb.) to SV alongside the other one. I freaked out a bit more when I opened the package and saw the skin:
After a public eG freak out, I called butcher shop, as advised by rotuts, and was told that this particular local breed has very dark hair and there is no way to get all of the roots out. She said if they had missed getting any to just burn them off very quickly. Hours of plucking recalcitrant hair narrowly averted. Rubbed both roasts with Penzeys’ Ozark seasoning and vacuum sealed them, ready for their bath. More later! I haven’t even finished uploading all of the photos from my phone.
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20 hours ago, heidih said:
Well my neighbor was messing with my head and showed up just now with the wonderful peanuts
Those peanuts are the best! And, yes, I'm a Virginian, but they really are fantastic!
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45 minutes ago, Shelby said:
Yeah, they are considered a big pain in the butt around here too. They congregate in huge amounts and pick the seeds out of the fields...farmers hate them. And in the city they poo allllll over the sidewalks. Ick.
We were at the internment for my cousin a few years ago and the entire cemetery was covered with CG poop. My cousin had a strong sense of the ridiculous and we all knew he would have been laughing hysterically at a bunch of somberly dressed people doing a fair imitation of a Monty Python silly walk at a funeral. He was young, newly married and about to become a dad and his accidental death devastated us all. That laughter saved us. But we still would have gladly shot those geese and eaten them with gusto. 🙂
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The turkey for Xmas night is now resting in the fridge with a dry brine of salt, pepper, herbes de Provence, and za'atar:
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Revving up to high speed now. I just said in the Christmas cooky thread that I have never in my adult life cut things as close as I am this year. Today is delivering the last of the presents that will be delivered before Xmas, fresh food shopping, decorating sugar cookies, and fitting in wrapping every single gift for Mr. Kim and Jessica (I am NOT normally a gift bag person, but I will be this year). Here's my timeline for Christmas Eve, Christmas morning, and Christmas night meals:
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Dinner 2020
in Cooking
Posted
@heidih and @shain – both beautiful examples of black sesame art. We would love either one. The three of us in my little family share a culinary peculiarity – while we love all kinds of sesame creations, we ALL detest sesame oil.
@Dejah – with the pickerel picture, I had a hard time telling which was flora and which was fauna! 😁
Dinner – Mr. Kim’s plate:
Fruit salad, pork w/ gravy, kale from Jessica’s “Misfit” vegetable delivery (which she doesn’t seem to be able to stop – it’s like when I belonged to the Columbia Music Club in the 70s) and broccoli casserole. My plate:
I decided to do something a little different. I cooked some medium egg noodles and heated up some pork. Instead of just gravy, I added some whipping cream and Dijon to it and used that. Also, the last of the Sister Schubert rolls and some leftover celery and pimento cheese.