Norm Matthews

We had been planning to have beef bulgogi today since Tuesday. Bulgogi tastes best when cooked over charcoal. In the past I would convert my smoker because it was the only place I can use charcoal. It takes time to set it up and change it back. Bulgogi is messy while cooking and clean-up isn't fun. A few months ago, I ordered a small 18-inch portable charcoal grill for doing bulgogi. Today is the first time I have used it. I put a grill mat over it to help make clean-up easier. We were waiting to get hungry before I started to grill . Instead it started to get dark and turn cold, so I grilled it then. I took this picture and in a few minutes I took another but by then it was too dark.

I tried to bend them but when I did, the spacing between them wasn't even on both sides so I bent them back. Since I don't really have anything to lose, I could try again. When I ordered them, I looked for ones like i remembered but didn't see any. PS wouldn't you know? When I looked again just now, I did see some but they didn't have handles so I'd need to use tongs to take them out. Considering how much oil it takes to submerge them, I will just stick to frying them flat.

I was thinking back to the first time I had a taco. I was a teenager in Kansas City and an elderly couple was selling them out of their apartment. You knocked on the door, came in and sat down while they made them for you. When mom learned how to make them at home, there was a wire form that held the corn tortillas in hot oil while they were cooking. I wondered if they still made those taco shell forms. They do but they aren't shaped like the old ones. They are more open than regular shells. I got one and today when I asked Charlie if he had any ideas for supper and he said "Tacos", I used it and their shape makes them harder to eat. I'm going to use up the rest the corn tortillas as flat tostada shells. And when I have fried up the last of the corn tortillas, I'll go back to getting the store bought taco shells. Anybody want a 'taco' shell holder?

Charlie asked for Martini Chicken and I tried a bread roll recipe. The Parker House rolls will go in my Thanksgiving folder for probable future use . The big roll was lleft-over dough after I had filled the tray. The pasta and sauce are not part of the original Martini recipe.

Charlie asked for Country Fried Steak today. He always wants it with mashed potatoes, peas, rolls and peppered white gravy. I forgot to get some rolls but had some I made a few days ago. I thought my sister wasn't going to do the Thanksgiving rolls this year and was trying some different recipes and had some of those in the freezer. They are made with mashed potatoes. She is making the rolls this year, I found out yesterday. The mashed potatoes and gravy came from envelops. Just add water. At first I felt guilty about taking shortcuts but they save so much time and taste good. Good enough for a quick Friday meal.

A couple of days ago we had grilled steak and today it was Korean Fried Chicken Wings.

Would you recommend one or the other, or are both?

I found a 2014 recipe on my computer from a really nice lady and very good cook from NOLA for New Orleans style shrimp. More than half way through the recipe, it wasn't working so I looked up the original from Chef Jared Besh and discovered a cup of oyster liquor missing so I had to make some changes in the recipe but it still turned out well. One thing that helped the taste was using wild caught Gulf shrimp. I had never noticed that kind before and it was much better tasting than what is usually available here in Kansas. It brought back memories of what shrimp used to taste like a long time ago. If they continue to carry them, I will have to get one of those shrimp tools for shelling and deveining. It was no small chore to do them all by hand.

We've been eating up leftovers lately, including a few Ruben sandwiches made from corned beef found in the freezer. No pictures though. I used up a lemon cake mix today using whole milk instead of water, melted butter in place of the oil and doubled the egg count. I topped it with cherry icing and called it a cherry lemonade cake.

Ever since Charlie graduated from high school, he has been looking for chicken fried steak like they had in the cafeteria. We heard the oldest restaurant in Kansas (Hays House) is famous for theirs and were planning to give it a try some day... it is a two hour trip from here. Every so often I come across a recipe that I hope will be the one but never found it. The other day I finally found the password to get into the iCloud and found some really ancient stuff. One was a complete cookbook of recipes from restaurants and two of them were for Country Fried Steak. I may never find that entry again to see what the date was but it was copied to my computer some 24 years ago. The ISBN number is tor Threadgills, not the cookbook I had with it in it. The one for the country steak is from Threadgills. I used Paula Deans recipe for the biscuits. I don't know anything about that restaurant. I used a mix for the mashed potatoes and one for the gravy. He really liked it. He said it was better than the cafeteria, like a gourmet version and that he was shocked that I finally came up with a winner. He liked the biscuits better too.

I just found this in a remote corner of my computer. I don't remember when or where I saw it but I thought I'd share it with you. What food do Americans eat that nobody else in the world eats? Grendel Khan I moved from England to the US. Some foods that were unique to me that come to mind are listed below. I've tried all of them. I would order some again (but not all of them) •Grilled Cheese Sandwiches •Smores • Gumbo •Jambalya • Muffuletta •Grilled Rattlesnake * Fried catfish • Chicken fried steak • Buffalo wing with a blue cheese dip * Chili dogs • Grits •Biscuits and gravy •Indian tacos ( made on Indian fry bread) • Green beans with grilled onions on top • Lobster roll • Lobster bake • Tuna melt • Po'boys • a ton of Tex-Mex dishes • Peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches • A bunch or "salads"( peas and peanuts, pistachio salad. Cobb. Ceasar, etc) • Twinkies ( the only "food" that has enough preservatives to survive a nuclear attack). • Meatloaf? So, what did I miss? Staff note: this post and response to it have been moved from Food Funnies, to maintain topic focus.

If I had seen this sooner, I would have saved you some but it is already gone now.

I was reading @pastameshugana chicken pie recipe and thinking how good it sounded. At the same time I was trying to think of a name for it. All I came up with was Chickherd pie or Flockherd pie while imagining an image of someone trying to herd a flock of chickens. Suddenly I remembered some left-over turkey that needed to be used soon and got inspired to try a turkey version- without mashed potatoes though. I made a roux with butter, flour, salt, pepper, nutmeg and oregano , added some evaporated milk and chicken stock. I melted in some guyer cheese. I cooked in melted butter and oil until soft, some onion, celery, carrot, peas & broccoli. I intended to add mushrooms but forgot to put them on my shopping list. The ingredients were added to a bread pan along with some turkey and topped with biscuit dough brushed with butter and baked until the biscuits were browned and the casserole was heated through. I was going to use James Beard's rich biscuit dough but chickened out (pun intended) and used refrigerator biscuits instead.

I have been wanting to make something with eggplant lately. I recall Charlie liked it--even though it was a vegetable. We used to have it somewhat regularly but not recently. This recipe appeared in the Kansas City Star newspaper yesterday and decided to make it today. It had directions to cook pasta and reserve some of the water, then later told when to add the reserved pasta water but never mentioned the pasta itself again. I added that to the recipe in my blog. Later after I took the picture, I added some jarred pasta sauce but now I don't think it really needed it.

Looks like shrimp is a recurring theme on this page. I made a Rick Bayless recipe called Mexico City Shrimp with Chipotle Mojo. We had it with a Mexican style rice, Street Corn Pudding, and store bought cold crab salad