jilli42

Dinner last night was calzones (homemade of course) Pepperoni and cheese for the kids. Meatball, pepperoni and cheese for the man of the house. He wanted sausage too, but we didn't have any. And for myself, marinated artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, onions, meatballs and cheese. Served with romaine & frisee salad.

Arroz con Gandules. Very good, haven't made this in a while. Needed a quick, all in one pot meal and this fit the bill. No pictures though. I was too tired and ready to eat !

A cake of my own creation. I added all kinds of extras. I am sure it didn't taste very good, but my grandfather (god bless him) ate every bite of his piece and proclaimed it was the best cake ever. I think I was about 6 or 7 at the time. So I had help with the oven, but I did all the measuring and mixing myself. The first thing I remember making sucessfully was chili.

First waitressing job. Second week into it. My table ordered a round of drinks, 3 beers, a shot and a glass of red wine. Now being rather inexperienced I didn't balance the drinks on my tray quite right. And I certainly didn't take them off in the proper order because all of a sudden WHOOPS, red wine spilled all over a very well dressed young man at the table. I was mortified and wanted to cry. Red wine stains you know. He was so very sweet about the whole thing. Told me not to worry about it, he had an extra pair of pants in the car. One of the girls at the table (former waitress) even gave me some tray balancing tips while he ran out and changed his pants. I told him I would get the manager and I would pay for his dry cleaning. He would have none of it. I told the manager anyway and we comped his meal and the red wine. He personally left me a tip that equalled the cost of his meal & then some and a note that read "Don't sweat the small stuff". I am so grateful for his kindness that night. I know it could have been a very bad situation with someone else. I was still very embarrassed as the whole dining room saw what happened. I heard about that from the other servers for months.

Creamed chip beef on buttered toast. No one makes it like Mom. What makes me think of my second home (grandparents house) whenever I eat it are fresh from the garden vegetables, spicy dill pickles, from scratch cakes & pies. Rainbow trout, crawdads. I used to catch both of these in the river behind their house and my grandmother would boil up the crawdads while frying the trout in a cast iron skillet. And Doublemint gum. My grandfather chews this gum everyday. Every time I see a pack I think of him. I used to spend lots of time with my grandparents. My grandmother is a wonderful cook. I learned a lot watching her in the kitchen. She makes a different dessert every night. My grandfather has an incurable sweet tooth. I swear he only eats "real" food because otherwise my grandmother won't let him have his dessert !

This is what I had for dinner. Broiled pork chops with a soy, honey, siracha sauce. Mixed stir fry vegetables on jasmine rice. Quick, easy & very good. Everytime I look at this thread I get hungry.

I love peanut butter & bacon sandwiches. Sometimes I add a nice slice of sharp cheddar.

Okra. No way, no how.

I just did someting very similiar. I had a side salad to go with my lunch. Took the bottle of dressing out of the rerigerator and gave it a nice shake to mix the ingredients....and got a face full of dressing! It was everywhere ! That was no fun to clean up and to make it worse I was at work !! I had it all over my clothes and had to change in to the extra sweater I keep at work. And I still smelled like oil & vinegar all day.

I have tried the Chick-Fil-A minis and they are delicious ! I love Chick-Fil-A. I am glad that I have one close by. I once had a friend visiting from out of town (she used to live in the area) yell out "Is that Chick-Fil-A !!!????" as she was driving, and veer across 3 lanes of traffic to get to it ! She told me it was one of the things she missed after she moved.

Hellmans here. Nothing else is better. As for usage, I use it on a lot of stuff. One of my favorites would have to be mixed with ketchup and used as a dip for french fries. Love it on sandwiches & burgers. I also use it for my grilled cheese sandwiches. Haven't had it on a hot dog, but I will have to give that a try. I use it in potato salad, macaroni salad. Or any other kind of "salad". I also make baked chicken with it. Mix bread crumbs, seasoning, parm cheese. Coat chicken with mayo, roll in breadcrumbs. Bake in the oven until done. MMMM.

Favorite fried foods are chicken, fries, clams, calamari, fish n' chips & soft shell crabs. I eat some sort of fried food about 1-2 times a month. I don't do alot of deep frying at home, as most times it turns into a disaster. But I do pan fry chicken (in a cast iron skillet, of course) often.

Oh where to begin..... McDonalds - fries Burger King - Angus Burger Arby's - Arby Q, they don't offer this on the menu anymore Taco Bell - Chicken quesadillas, chicken soft tacos Subway - BMT KFC- Popcorn chicken Popeyes- Chicken or red beans & rice Hardees - Thickburger Dennys- Moons Over My Hammy. Haven't had this in years. Anything from Chick Fil A. The spicy Jamaican beef patties or chili cheese hot dogs from 7-11. Especially good in the wee hours of the morning after leaving the clubs/bars. Ramen noodles, drained of all water, tossed with butter & seasoning packet. Coat with hot sauce. MMMMMM. I am a chip junkie. Love chips. Especially Zapps, Dirty Chips and Gibbles Red Hot Chips. I cannot stop eating Herrs Red Hot Cheese Curls or Hot Cheetos once the bag is open. I also have a compulsion to visit the totally inauthentic Chinese Buffet place at least once a month for fried wontons coated with Generals Tso sauce. Orange, sweet, gloppy & delicious ! I don't eat at these places that often but when a craving hits it must be answered ! And looking at this list I am thinking to myself omigod, I am suprised I don't weigh a ton !! But all things in moderation right ?

I never knew it had a name either, but this is how I eat it. 2 slices white bread, thinly coated with mayo. Sprinkle lots of pepper and some salt on both pieces. Put a layer of turkey on one piece. Spread on a thin layer of cranberry jezebel sauce. Add more turkey. Coat this with a thin layer of mashed potatoes. Cover the other piece of bread with stuffing & top with gravy (hot or not, depends on my mood at the time) Smoosh together & eat. DELICIOUS ! I love carbs- can you tell ?? My fiancee made one, minus the cranberry sauce & added a layer of egg salad. I thought it would be too much, but it was really quite good. And he would only let me have one bite..

We always watch the "a Christmas Story" 24 hour marathon. I love that movie.

My family was large and extended. At least two weeks before Christmas we would go and get the tree and we would trim it and put up decorations that night,while listening to classic Christmas songs. Think Nat King Cole, Judy Garland etc. The week before Christmas was filled with cookie making. My mother always made tins & tins full of cookies. Peanut butter, oatmeal, molasses, chocolate chip, sugar, wedding cookies and bourbon balls. These were all packaged and sent out to various family members. Of course we kept some for ourselves and holiday guests. Tradition was always that we had a big dinner on Christmas Eve with my stepfathers family. Oh I used to love that when I was young. His mother was a good cook. Very traditional Christmas foods; ham, turkey, sweet potatoes, mashed potaoes, gravy, green beans, homemade rolls and 1-2 pies or cakes. On Christmas morning, after a special breakfast, it was off to my fathers side of the family for a family reunion and more food. My grandmother was a very good cook and would always have a new dish or two. But we always had cheese pie, her homemade spicy garlic dill pickles, turkey, mashed potatoes and pecan pie. Everyone would catch up, eat good food and open their gifts. Later in the evening we would go to my stepmothers family gathering. More food, more presents and a chance to see everyone. They always had steamed shrimp, glazed ham, swedish meatballs, cheese platters and lunchmeat platters. By the time Christmas was over everyone was stuffed and we had plenty of leftovers. Ever since my stepfather passed and my mother remarried, we stopped having dinner with his family. I really do miss that. And him. Now we get our tree the week before Christmas and decorate it while listening to Christmas music. But I kept the Christmas Eve tradition going. Now I have my mother and her husband and my (almost) in-laws over for dinner. Not a formal sit down dinner though, it is more of a cocktail party. You never know what to expect on my table. Sometimes it is spring rolls, sometimes it is meatballs. I never have the same menu twice, unless a special request is made. Everyone eats, chats and opens their gifts. We all have a good time and I really look forward to it every year. I also kept the cookie making going. My kids help, but we don't make quite as many cookies as my mom used to. Then on Christmas day after we open our gifts and have our special breakfast, we get dressed and head to my dads house. The whole family doesn't gather anymore. Just my dad, brothers, stepmom, and a cousin or two maybe. Everyone has moved and we are all spread out now. We still have a little food. Mainly we just get together and talk. Then we open our gifts and watch the kids open their gifts. After that we head off to "Cookie Maw"s ( the kids name for my stepmothers mom; she is always baking cookies). They still have their traditional spread. Everyone talks and the kids open their gifts. Then we head to my fiance's great aunt's house where his whole family is gathered and we have a big southern dinner. Tons of food: ham, turkey, chicken wings, salmon, shrimp, greens, green beans, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cornbread, rolls, potato salad, grits, red beans/rice, sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, cakes and more. Everyone talks and catches up. The kids play outside and we normally until late. Then we go home, lugging gifts, tired but happy. I really miss my family not getting together like we used to. Even as a child, the food and family was the best part, not the presents. My fiancee's family dinner take the place of mine now. But oh how I used to love the magical Christmas feeling. Some of that magic is lost to me now, but Christmas is still my favorite holiday and I try to make it as special for my kids as it was for me.

Sazon is a seasoning blend and comes in several variations. My ex was Puerto Rican and his sister introduced me to it, as well as powdered Adobo and many excellent dishes. Hey, at least something good came of that realtionship. I add it to a lot of the dishes that I cook. I use it when I season meat and when I make tomato sauce. It is especially good in bean dishes. It is a Goya product & is usally sold near the canned beans. For about a dollar you get a package with 8 foil packets of it. Worth a try.

These little fruit snacks I bought for my kids (they begged me). Oranges & creme, I thought maybe they would taste like a creamsicle. I thought WRONG. I also have a habit of picking up snack foods at the various Asian markets I go to. I normally can't read the packages because hardly any of it is in English, I just pick what is interesting looking. Some of them lead to great discoveries and some of them lead me to wish I had no taste buds !

Garlic Sazon - makes everything better Cumin Pepper- tellicherry/red Salt

Me too ! And I hid it from my kids, they would have devoured it in one day.

We had been friends for years. Knew each other since high school, drifted in and out of each others lives. One night at a mutual friends house he showed up, fresh out of the Army, coming home from Bosnia. He had just gone through a divorce, as had I. We all went out and had a few drinks at the local bar. To catch up and let off some steam after a long week. Came back to the house famished, and to a nearly empty kitchen. Just so happened I had stopped at the grocery store for some non perishables before I got to my friends house. Checked the cabinets and freezer. I found ground beef, a package of spicy pork breakfast sausage, half an onion, green pepper, mozz and provolone cheese and tomato sauce. I had spices (including a package of Sazon, LOVE that stuff) and two loaves of good crusty bread. I made meatball, pepper and onion subs covered with cheese. He loved them and I have been cooking for him ever since. That was five years ago. Was it fate or the meatball subs ?????

I used to work at Ram's Head Tavern. They used to pool tips for all the servers. I would count my tips for the day before I turned them in & I would have $80-100 for a day shift, $100-$150 for a night shift in the Rathskellar. The next day (when they handed out tips from the night before) I would only receive $50-60. Management said they employed tip sharing to stop jealousy between the servers, because some would make more tips than others. (Regardless of whether we like it or not looks count in the serving industry. Looks and a good personality) But all it actually did was make the good servers bitter, because they had to share their hard earned tips with people who didn't do their share of the work The system doesn't work because some people realize they are going to get tips no matter what and slack off. So the people who actually earned good tips get shorted while the slackers get rewarded. Needless to say, I only worked there for about a month until I found a better job.

Jillian's in Arundel Mills. I know, horrible. But I used to work there and after finally finishing up at 3-4 am, their spinach artichoke dip or chicken quesadilla was pretty good. Last time I was there I realized, to my horror, that they changed the quesadilla and it now has a bland salsa mixed in with the chicken and cheese and it is no longer made with a tomato basil tortilla, it is just a soggy, flavorless white flour one.

I have a bottomless pit also. He is 11, went away for the summer with a normal sized appetite. When he returned he was a ravenous eating machine. I can't count the number of times I have said or thought to myself "How can you still be hungry !!?" after seeing him eat 2-3 helpings. He eats vegetables. So I try to have lots of carrots, radishes, cucumbers cut up. I also make sure to have dip. I make alot of meatloaf, pasta/meat dishes, bbq chicken seems to go over well, and if you catch it on sale you can get quite a bit at a decent price. Homemade chicken nuggets/patties which I bake in the oven. Spicy dishes seem to satiate him quicker than those that are bland. I find myself making alot of casserole type dishes. They seem to fill him up. I have even on one occasion resorted to .......Hamburger Helper. He ate almost the whole box himself. For cooking on his own: I have lots of eggs & cheese. Often he will add leftover meat to them while he is scrambling them. Peanut butter & jelly. Lunchmeat. Fruit. Cereal. Chef Boy R Dee "pasta" stuff in a can ( not the healthiest thing but cheap & easy for him to make) Mac n cheese. Different types of noodles soups; some from Thai Kitchen, Shin Cup noodles and of course Ramen....I should buy stock. And of course anytime he wants to go eat at a friends house I always answer YES !