Norm Matthews

Or when the recipe title starts out with "The best".Also when someone presents a "Korean" recipe and their name is Pam Rogers and it had pineapple as an ingredient.

I did that once. I had a big party and invited members of the city arts council for a raku party. I had a lot of different foods so one thing over cooked was not a big deal but I thought keeping the shrimp hot in liquid was a good idea. Afterwards I found the shimp entirely unaten. The raku party was for the people to decorate bisque pottery then I'd fire it quickly and it would be ready to take home right then but it rained all day... ALL day and the kiln was outside. I had to fire them another time.

Staff note: This post and responses to it were split from the Dinner 2025 conversation, to maintain topic focus. My son has a friend that I have never met. They talk on the phone mostly. Charlie told me he brags about how good his BBQ cooking is. Charlie tells him that I do BBQ a lot and he thinks it is good. The other guy blows it off, like he doesn't think it is possible for an old white guy in Kansas to be able to match what he can do. Charlie said he's Puerto Rican. He asked him if I cooked anything else. Son said yes and that we had a crab boil recently. I don't know any of the details but apparently he is coming over for a crab boil with his girlfriend and they set up the date as Feb 28. He sent $30.00 to help cover the costs. When I do a crab boil for the two of us, I keep it pretty basic. I hate contests. I'd never enter a cooking competition, specially not a BBQ.one. I guess now I'll have to do a complete crab boil and if the weather is mild enough, I'll probably do a slab of ribs too. I hope he accepts that there are other people who can cook but if he says he doesn't like it, I won't care..much.

I bought everything for the recipe all at once so I could see how much it costs and my recipe ingredients cost almost $100. too. I forgot to get heavy cream and sent son to get it, so it may have been a little more. Of course I had some left over ingredients and didn't try to figure the cost minus the extra cheese, etc, that didn't go into it. I like your idea about making smaller servings. I have cut mine into individual servings and wrapped them for the freezer.

Charlie asked if I would make lasagna a few days ago. I said I'd do it the next day but forgot. Said I'd do it tomorrow and today is the day and I forgot again until he reminded me. Something else I forgot is how much active time it takes to make it. I'm getting too old to spend 3 or 4 hours at something like that without taking a break. I am about to rewrite the recipe and cut down on the amount of stuff and combine some steps in assembly and plan a way to do some of it the day before.

Charlie had some friends over tonight so I made some Korean fried chicken wings for them.

Local store has pretty good prices on crab leg clusters with their rewards card. Charlie asked if we could have it tonight.

Tonight we had shrimp, onions & garlic, and spinach with linguiine in a parmesan and cream sauce.

I saw two recipes in the newspaper today that I wanted to try. I decided to do both at the same time. I doubt most people would consider them as going together. One is a New England Clam Chowder, and the other one is a steak and salsa salad. It has some ingredients you might expect to see in a Texas taco. Either one of them alone would be a lunch and I'm going to have left over chowder tomorrow.

I had not made meatloaf in a few years and thought the weather and snow was inviting me to make one tonight.

The pocket on the side hold the scoop for taking out the rice. This is the second rice cooker for us and there are two scoops there becausse I kept the old one. The liner of the rice cooker is old style soft teflon and the scoops are nylon to protect it from scratching.

This stir-fry recipe was in the Kansas City Star today and it said the way it was made is the method Chinese restaurants use to make chicken breast tender and juicy. It involves some marinating time and a par boil before cooking the chicken. It worked and it was a good recipe. Charlie said he'd like to make a keeper. He also suggested I learn how to make Chinese style fried rice to go with it.

Before pork bulgogi entered our lives, I used to make a simple pork shoulder roast and it always was good. I don't think Charlie has ever had it that way and when I get a pork roast he always expects it to become something Korean. Yesterday I got a small roast and cooked it the way I used to without telling what dinner was until the roast was done. He really liked it. Today I made Báhn Mì sandwiches with the left overs.

Charlie asked for Korean fried chicken. We had it with rice, kimchi and pork bulgogi that was left over from a couple days ago

It has been a while since we had a fairly complete Southern New Years Day dinner because ham hocks have been really poor to non existent for a quite a while, but at a farmers market last summer I got one that was very good and it has been in the freezer until it was time to thaw it for yesterday. Black eyed peas are in the small bowl. They are in a chip dip. Collard greens and corn bread complete the meal.

We had Vichyssois last night but I didn't take pictures. This one was taken just before I had it for lunch today. We had it hot, not cold, with an egg and ham salad sandwich.

Charlie asked me to make some Puerto Rican chicken and rice. He gave me the recipes and I spent 3 or 4 days looking for all the ingredients and made it all today. He occasionally asks for something Puerto Rican. I suppose he got exposed to the food while he was in Seattle. If not there, I don't know where. I don't think there are very many places here in Kansas City but I could be wrong. I cooked the rice in a cast iron Dutch Oven and it got a little too browned on the bottom but I think it will all fit in our rice cooker so it should be easier next time .

I thought I'd make Steak au Poivre for dinner. So in keeping with the French name, I made French bread, used French brandy, opened a can of French cut green beans and finally brought home some French fries from McDonalds.😅

Charlie showed me a recipe for Parm. baked lobster tails and asked if I could make it some time. I made it today. I don't know much about seafood. About the only time I eat it is when I am in Seattle or California and it is never as good here in Kansas as it is with a view of the ocean in the background.

Our back door neighbors left a box on our porch with a Christmas card. The box contained three pasta packages with snowflake, snow men and sleds shapes and directions of what to do with them. I was a little hesitant about doing pasta kits but I have tried two now and they were pretty good. One was chili. I hoped it wasn't going to be a version of Cincinnati chili. It wasn't. That was a couple days ago. Today I got some frozen tamales and steamed them then topped them with some of the left over chili. The other one I tried was a chicken noodle soup. I used up most or the left over turkey with it. While I was eating some, I was thinking about the time when I was growing up on Strawberry Hill. It was a working class neighborhood. Most people worked in the nearby stock yards or in railroad maintenance yards. We lived in a second story apartment and my bedroom window over looked a tavern across the street. Every night a guy with a tamale push cart would go around the neighborhood and stop at the taverns in the neighborhood. (there were three in a block and a half on our street) Dad would get some for us from time to time. I can still hear him calling loudly HOT..MALES HOT ..MALES .

Thanks for the suggetion. I will look into it. I had a full sized one a while back. I used it until it fell apart.

Leftovers from yesterdays kabobs got turned into provolone and steak sandwiches.

Charlie is suggesting we get a big one. So far, as far ass I am concerned this one is workihg out just fine. It's a Quisinart.

I used the new mimi grill again. This time with kabobs. I seasoned them with Cajun seasoning and we had them with rice, Kimchi and Yumyum sauce.

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.