blue_dolphin

I did have 2 big mugs of black coffee!

Replying to myself to report that the Katz vinegars are available once again after a hiatus. Still too expensive for the OP of this thread but they're very tasty.

The recipe called for 1/8 tsp garlic powder per tablespoon syrup

Maple-candied spam from Korean American with egg nog French toast made with the milk bread with maple syrup from the same book. Probably the last persimmon of the season on the side. The spam was to be sliced @ 1/4", baked on a tray @400°F until lightly browned can crispy, then drizzled with a mix of maple syrup and garlic powder before going back into the oven for a while. I think my slices were on the thin side. They were shatteringly crisp!

Yep. I used this Trader Joe's teriyaki flavor baked tofu, cut the slabs in half so they would not be too think, blotted dry, then dipped in the Dijon/mayo mix, coated with the curry/garlic seasoned panko and pan fried in about 1T oil. Should work with pressed firm tofu, too.

The name of this recipe in Eric Kim's Korean American cookbook is A Lot of Cabbage with Curried Chicken Cutlets. I made it with tofu instead of chicken and used Massa Organics brown rice instead of white rice. The cabbage is a quick pickle/slaw with rice vinegar, sugar and salt. The Kkasseu sauce is Worcestershire sauce, ketchup and brown sugar. For the breading, which is what attracted me to the recipe, the cutlets are first dipped in a mix of mayo and Dijon mustard then into panko seasoned with curry powder, garlic powder, salt & pepper. It made for a flavorful, crispy coating and I very much enjoyed the contrasting flavors and textures here.

It was quite good. I sliced the Spam pretty thin so it crisped up nicely. This would work fine with bacon or ham as well. I also added a bit of water to the pan at the end to incorporate the browned bits and cook the cabbage down a little more.

Spam, Kimchi and Cabbage Stir-Fry from Korean American with a fried egg on top. I bought a can of Spam a while back with the intention of making musubi. Today was the day to open it! Over in the egg prices topic, @Anna N noted that we should all be getting fresh eggs these days and this is clearly the case here. Our local farmers market was cancelled last week due to the deluge so I picked up some eggs at Trader Joe's to get me through. I usually only see this sort of tight white with the farmers market eggs. There was only the tiniest fringe of loose white that curled under on the right side.

Caramelized-kimchi baked potatoes from Korean American with a soft boiled egg and grape tomatoes. The recipe calls for larger potatoes but the header notes say you can use smaller spuds for a party platter and what is Monday's breakfast without a party platter! These were really good. I subbed diced country ham for the bacon but fried it and the kimchi in bacon fat. Toppings are mozzarella, the caramelized kimchi, ham, sour cream and chives (I subbed scallions).

Same here. I buy eggs at the local farmers market. Their hens are pastured in an organic citrus orchard and have nice orange yolks. They have been $7/doz for years and years but just last month, they raised the price to $8/doz due to increases in feed prices. So they used to be more than double grocery eggs but are now pretty much on par. Another vendor at the same market, Apricot Lane Farms (of The Biggest Little Farm documentary) had been selling their eggs for $14/doz. Haven't checked lately to see if they've raised their prices.

Yep. Per this LATimes article: $7 a dozen? Why California eggs are so expensive — and increasingly hard to find And from a wholesaler:

Same here. Last year I bought bottles of 16 and 30 and also treated myself to a bottle of the gold label extra vecchio from Modena, which is truly an extravagance but still less than airfare to Italy, which is where I bought my last bottle of that stuff 🙃 That last one is pretty much reserved for strawberries and ice cream! The Trader Joe's Platinum Aged Balsamic of Modena is not bad for everyday use @ $8.99/8.5 oz. It's at least aged in wooden barrels for a few years rather than in a vat with wood chips for a few days like a lot of the supermarket stuff.

Working my way through a giant loaf of maple syrup milk bread from Eric Kim's Korean American. He says one of the best uses is a grilled cheese sandwich. He makes it with mozzarella and suggests spreading the inside of the bread slices with mayo and says it "melds with the cheese so you have a comfortingly bland, gooey, stretchy toasted sandwich." I wasn't wild about the bland part so I went with gochujang mayo for yesterday's breakfast. There are more interesting cheeses than mozzarella for a grilled cheese but the gochujang livened it up and went well with the sweet-ish bread. Today, I made egg nog French toast with some of the Manhattan egg nog I have kicking around in the fridge. With sausage and blackberries With all the maple syrup in that bread, it didn't need any more on top!

I used Rancho Gordo Cassoulet beans.

Thanks for the reminder! I have that book because....well, of course I do! When I bought it, I had good intentions to figure out a scaled-down recipe but apparently lost momentum. I think the closest I got were some cassoulet toasts. This is the perfect time of year to revisit that project. Or maybe just make those toasts again 🙃

You have not gone wrong. I've had that one since it came out. Some recipes are surely dated now but still lots of old LAT food section favorites.

On special this week at a local supermarket

Since I made the milk bread with maple syrup from Eric Kim's Korean American, I used it as he suggests to make kimchi sandwiches. Just bread, crusts trimmed, spread with mayo and a filling of diced kimchi mixed with a pinch of sugar and spoon of sesame oil. I consider kimchi-mayo to be a fabulous sandwich condiment so this kinda seems like a nicely dressed sandwich awaiting its main ingredients. As a follower of Max Halley's secret to delicious sandwiches: hot, cold, sweet, sour, crunchy, soft, this one is missing a few. I think I'd add an egg, bacon and a pile of potato sticks but I'm sure if you grew up on it, this is pure comfort food just as is.

Eric Kim's Milk Bread with Maple Syrup from his book, Korean American, and also here in the NYT. When comes to bread, I go for rustic, crusty loaves with an open, chewy crumb, not soft, sweet breads with a fine crumb so this is not my jam but after reading Eric's NYT article about it, watching his video and reading a recipe review on the kitchn, I decided to give it a try. I may have overproofed it a bit and should have shielded the top since my oven uses both the upper and lower heating elements on the bake setting and this loaf really rose up. The bread is sweet, but not as bad as I was expecting, given it contains a year's worth of maple syrup - there's a full cup in that one loaf!

Ooops, I did it again! Eric Kim's Creamy Bucatini with Roasted Seaweed. <- even found a link for you this time! Had to try the green bean version. Still works. Threw the beans in with the pasta for the last few min so they finished cooking along with it as the garlic, cream and pasta water made a sauce. They were very good. A couple of years ago, Eric wrote a similar recipe in the NYT for Creamy Asparagus Pasta. In that one, he adds a piece of kombu to both the pasta water and to the sauce as it cooks down around the pasta. I think that's a good idea. He adds onion and rice vinegar, both of which added more sweetness in comparison to his book's simpler recipe and in the NYT he included black pepper but omitted the gochugaru that I think is the perfect finishing touch. Also, this is what the bowl looked like before I mixed the seaweed in. Looks like too much seaweed but it is not.

I just added some of those to my list as daepa 대파 to use in Korean recipes.

Do report back if you make it. Sounds interesting but very different from this one which Eric describes in the header notes as having the briny seaside flavors of a classic shrimp Alfredo. Instead of shrimp and cheese, the seaweed provides the umami hit but it’s very much in that creamy garlicky pasta family. There’s a nice amount of garlic and a bit of warmth from a dusting of gochugaru, which he says is optional but is actually quite important. I had green beans at the ready and might add them next time but I’m glad I tried it as is.

Creamy bucatini with roasted seaweed from Eric Kim's Korean American I resisted the urge to add a bunch of vegetables and just enjoyed the easy, comfort food aspect of this simple pasta dish. Not bad at all, nor should it be bad, given the amount of heavy cream involved!

Interesting. The name cracks me up! I’d try it. Can’t buy the real stuff here in California anyway.

Can we see a cross-sectional view? They do look rather like shallots. I didn't realize there were so many types - see photos of 13 varieties here.