Lilija

Oh YES!! I lived on Guam for two years, and I still crave those. You could get them at any bodega, pretty much, they were made with chicken and ground rice, cooked with achiote, onions, and bacon, I think. The shell was a thinly pressed masa dough. I've figured out how to recreate most of my Guam-favorites, like kelaguen and red rice, but I still can't get the hang of those things, my goodness they were so good. I would eat two for breakfast every morning with a can of iced coffee, while waiting for my school bus. Thanks for bringing this memory back, but now you got me craving them all over again!!!

I routinely do Thanksgiving for a crowd of 15, have been for about 7 years. I'll try to think of my game plan, and list some stuff that helps me. My tactic is prepare or fully make almost everything ahead of time, like Tuesday, even, and store it in the foil trays that you use in sterno pans. I make two half trays of everything, one for putting out, and one waiting in the wings for backup (and assured leftovers, which is the most important part of the meal, as far as I'm concerned.). Glazed roasted sweet potatoes, stuffing (made with broth from assorted unrelated turkey parts, so it's got a nice bird flavor*), the everpresent green bean casserole, stuffed mushrooms, anything sturdy that takes well to reheating, all cooked, or mostly cooked (as in the case of the sweet potatoes) and stored in pans. Cold things like salad and cranberry sauces are made ahead of time, too. Then, when the turkey is going, for the last hour or two, I slide the foil pans in across the bottom of the oven, for a slow reheat. The lids stat anchored down tight till the last 10 minutes or so in the oven, so stuff stays moist. It works, because the oven is at 325, so nothing dries out. That's the "big sides", and it's effortless. They come right out of the oven, and go over steam trays, till serving time. Biscuits get done when the turkey is resting, I have the dough all but made, like dry and wet ingredients seperate, to be combined at last minute, just to streamline what I'm doing at the end. I make assorted steamed veggies, too, prepped in the morning and have 'em cold and ready in the pan, till it's time to cook them right at zero hour. Gravy has to be last minute, and it's demanding, lots of babysitting and whisking. Mashed potatoes...I usually do them last minute too, and have a trusted helper mash them, while you're whisking the gravy. For me, they both have to be piping hot. In a pinch, mashed stuff keeps hot over a double boiler very well. Keep an eye on it, and give it a stir now and then. At the end, right before serving, it's a lot of multitasking, but none of it is difficult. With some coordination, a solid plan, a good helper or two, and a bit of organization, getting everything done at the same time so it's all hot isn't too hard. It's so much fun, though, it's one of my all time favorite days to cook. (*As a side note, that might be my secret to everything...the week before, I make a giant batch of stock from turkey legs, and use it for everything. Seriously, I have a pot of this stuff handy throughout all stages of Thanksgiving prep.)

I am totally out of the closet, about junk food. I am just about the opposite of what one would think of as a "gourmet foodie". I love to cook, I love to eat, I love exploring the science of food and learning about excellent food, from any and every cuisine and culture...but a good greasy McRib still makes my heart thump. Balance is the key here.

Yeah, I'm totally there. Yeah, I also know they're gross ground up pork badness. I know they're loaded with sugar, fat, crap, and reconstituted onions, and I'm still all over it. It's a friggin McRib. This is like a 10+ year craving, being satisfied. I gotta go find out if my local McD's is doing it. I might stop there on my way home from the gym tomorrow.

Ooohh...this thread... I got another one. I'm not going to get into particulars here, where, why, how, but I gotta say a peanut butter and Cheez Doodle sandwich is AMAZING. The textures! Like eating a cheeze flavored air and peanut butter sandwich, soft bread, creamy rich peanut butter, puffy cheez core.

Today, I made my basic fall cake, a pumpkin spice cake with diced apples, candied ginger, and bourbon soaked raisins...now, with bitters!!! Seriously, I might have to start buying this stuff in bigger bottles. I had a buncha spices out today, because I like to use a similar blend that's found in good Indian chai in my spice cake. I found that the bitters had a really strong allspice note that I never noticed till I compared the two side by side. I dashed some in with the bourbon that I soaked the raisins in, and yeah, definitely good. It enhanced the raisins, and the whole cake.

I almost always plan after and during shopping, for standard everyday meals. Some get planned ahead of time, the meals we crave, or requests. Entertaining meals are planned very stringently, but most of the time we meander around the stores, picking up this and that, basing our meals on what's on sale, what looks good, etc.

I really like those fruit and yogurt parfaits, I stop sometimes on my way to class and grab one. They make a perfect snack break, in school. My McD's always sells them with the berries frozen. A little difficult to eat immediately, but perfect after about 2 hours.

Ooo ooh I got another one.... I sometimes use minced garlic out of a jar. It's weird, but in some dishes, like fried rice and arroz con pollo, that's the only thing that works.

That's exactly what I was thinking, only I couldn't find the words for it.

Wow, now you have me thinking of apple sauce, and better still, apple butter...then the runaway thought train took me to the fig preserves that I made last month...

A few dashes of Angostura stirred in with the other seasonings and the apples of your favorite apple pie recipe adds a nice complexity, that no one can identify. I started using it a few years ago, and the bitters are here to stay.

All of us PMSssy Maker's Mark types should get together and take over the world. I'll bring doughnuts.

Oh you should try sour candies with salted popcorn... ← I can tell you from a semi-recent PMS experience that sour cherry hard candies and cheese popcorn taste better together than they sound.

I don't even like eggs, and all the egg porn is putting me in the mood for one. How can something so yucky look soooooo inviting?

I'm a little bit nutty over kitchen control, so whenever there's kitchen-stuff happening in my house, I'm all up in it, till the victim turns the reins over to me. Not on purpose, I swear I'm not neurotic. It's just the way it is, around here. I can't tell you how many times Housemate, husband, or son went "I'll make you a sandwich, you relax" and would spend about a half hour puttering around, pulling out random stuff, making a mess, till I hopped up and took over, producing two sandwiches, a side, and a beverage. So, in short, no matter how much I try to relax, I inevitably wind up doing everything myself. Some things I wouldn't even LET someone do...hmmm. Buttering my toast. I'm real particular. Anything with a spread, I like just enough, and no more. Not too stingy, not too thick. Same with ice in a glass. I like a lot, like right up to the top, bar-style. No one ever gets it right.

I've had'em, when I was a kid. They taste like tin and salt water. The texture is something like a tender pebble. I never understood them either.

My name is Lisa, and I've quietly passed off refrigerator pie dough as my own. *hangs head*

From when I was 9ish I was doing a lot of TV dinner, which progressed to cans of soup and ramen, which evolved to boxes of mac and cheese and pasta with canned "sauce". My first huge cooking adventure was when I was around 12, and my mom invited her date to the house. I insisted on cooking, so they had time to socialize, and I made baked chicken breasts with raspberry glaze, a box of rice-a-roni, and frozen string beans that I tarted up with toasted breadcrumbs and slivered almonds. The raspberry glaze really sealed the deal, it was my grandmother's raspberry preserves, and red wine (because wine is fancy, and this was a fancy meal. That was my reasoning) It was pretty random, but it wound up being passably good. A few months later, my next "fancy" cooking event was a can of crushed tomatoes, a can of sardines, and some minced green salad olives, sauteed in a pan, with some random "Italian" seasoning, over fettucini. I'd been reading Frugal Gourmet, and he had a recipe with crushed tomatoes, capers, a bit of anchovy, and fancy olives, and it sounded downright amazing...I improvised!!! It was horrendous.

Maker's Mark. Nectar of life.

Ever get a craving you didn't know you had, till you ate the thing that you were craving? I sat at my kitchen table, last night, flicking apart Dunkin Donuts, with a very sharp knife, sampling a bite or two of every one of 2 dozen. I mean, normally I HATE D&D. Just the smell of the place gives me heartburn, the doughnuts are flavorless fat-balls that aren't worth the calories...till my good friend Angel brought some over, last night. I think it was the bourbon talking, but somewhere last night I lamented between mouthfuls of fat-balls, that Dunkin Donuts didn't deliver. (don't stare, bourbon cuts the richness of the doughnut, and makes for a nice balance. That's what I told myself.) Today in the sunlight a rational head prevails, and I do feel slightly ashamed. I had to come here and confess.

In cooking (not baking) I often sub in some white sugar + molasses for brown sugar.

Terrasanct, I'm also interested in your recipe. My husband used to eat low carb protein bars, every morning for breakfast, but I think they stopped making his favorites. Do you cook that mixture, or knead it together, then mold it? Have you tried it in bar form? I've got no silicone muffin pans, so I'm looking to spread it in a pan and cut it in bars. Your recipe looks exactly like what he seeks in his breakfasts. Now it's got my gears turning...

Oh yeah, that sounds perfect. I like a little bit more flavor and substance than potato and onion, so I would throw in some diced roasted beets, just a little 1/4-1/3 the ratio of potatoes. It balances out the salty beef, rounds the flavors out, without taking away from the simplicity. The shreddy-diced beef is exactly right, I think. It's not perfect little cubes, but also not long strands. You really sound like you've got the perfect hash, here. About the cream? Don't knock it, think of it as "low fat butter"

I make this just about every time I make a boiled dinner, and I use whatever was in the dinner pot, as well as onions, pepper, maybe some paprika, maybe some red bells, and thyme. I tried the cream not too long ago, and I gotta say, it made it moister, more flavorful, and it developed a deeper crust, like the cream married all the flavors, and made it a dish, instead of a buncha little particles. It's not actually creamy, or saucy, the cream all absorbs into the potato. I've also heard of adding a bit of gravy from last night's dinner, and that works too. You need something to tie it all together. I think the "hard and fast" rules of hash sorta go against the very nature of the dish. It's like fried rice, it's a great breakfast, of last night's leftovers. Not only will 25 people make it differently, I've made it at least 25 different ways, if not more. My best hashes have bits of turnip, whispers of sauteed shredded cabbage, too much meat, and loads of black pepper. There's red flannel hash, too, with beets...so, is that traditional or what?