Lilija

I love it. The epitome of my love came when touring the Appleton Rum distillery, in Jamaica. The tour guide gave us a spoonful of this by-product of the rum making process, which was huge sugar crystals suspended in deep brown molasses roughly the same texture as a very sticky peanut butter. I had died and gone to crunchy, awesome molasses heaven. Outside of that experience, my favorite use for it is in these triple ginger molasses cookies, that are unbelievably deep, dark and spicy. They're almost hot tasting, with a hint of bitterness.

I know of a source to get bulk clay powders, food grade, all naturaly processed, sun dried, etc. I can PM you a link, if you're interested. Edit: Funny, there's no kaoilin clay available there, right now. I've gotten some through them, for cosmetic purposes. Either way, currently it looks like they don't have what you'd want. There's other kinds like betonite...betonite is edible, too.

I just used it this morning on a dish that combines a bunch of our suggestions, on hash made from leftover Father's Day prime rib. Fried potatoes, beef, and eggs, all worked well.

Okay and so for the next batch try this: cook the noodles in half as much water, so that when they are finished cooking there is no broth. Then stir fry them in a tablespoon or so of oil until they just begin to get a little crispy. And see how your pms likes that. ← That's BRILLIANT!!! Crispy! That sounds better than eating them raw, even.

Also, now I want a hot dog. With squirty can cheese, and all the rest of the glop. I haven't had sqirty can cheese since I was 12, and I like all those condiments, just not at once, on a hot dog. Somehow, the way you talk it up, it sounds fantastic all together. You're a poet.

Ramen noodles...and ramen noodles, and some ramen noodles. I have been restraining myself, though. Only 3 times in the past two days! I just finished a bowl of beef flavor, with sesame seeds, lime juice, and a bit of sriracha. Last night, it was Oriental flavor, broth drained, with curry powder, butter, frozen peas, and leftover fried onions (which was so damn good, I'd serve it to company). Yesterday for breakfast was a LOT of sriracha, fish sauce, and sesame oil in chicken flavored broth, with extra water. Also, husband brought me home a bottle of Jack Daniel's green label. My weekend starts today, so it's not long for this world, I started on it last night. At least it's cheap this month.

I use the white part in salads, or if it's gonna be exposed to a little heat. I dislike biting into raw onion, in my food (outside of a bit in salad) so I treat the white part the same way. I save the light and dark green for garnish, and stirring in towards the end. The only part I don't use is the fuzzy root part, and the draggled dried out tips.

Flip them the bird? Sorry, I'm channeling the devil on your shoulder. I'll stop.. That said, I think I'm gonna make that salad tonight, it looks really good, maybe with feta in place of the cream cheese, since I mostly hate cream cheese.

If sweet appeals to you, I had a fruit salsa yesterday that knocked my socks off. She served it with cinnamon pita chips. It had strawberries, raspberries, diced apples, and a bunch of other fruits, flavored with lime juice and blackberry jam. I didn't ask for the recipe, but I'm sure there's a thousand out there.

Oh, this is a good one. Today was a busy day, weekends are usually rather chaotic, so good timing. We have a butcher block/pub table in our kitchen, with a stainles steel top. It's awesomely multifunctional. Like you, I currently have wildlife on my table. We just adopted a baby girl rat, so she's in her solo cage on the table right now. Along with a vase of flowers, a napkin holder holding unopened bills but no napkins, a softside cooler, a buncha sales circulars, a few cookbooks, and half a pan of mocha brownies. We eat there every night, though. We have an extra chair in the kitchen, so all the random odds and ends (besides the rat, and the brownies, probably) get swept onto the chair real fast.

I love it. It's very good in tuna salad, on roasted chicken, as a seasoning in the breading of fried stuff, and I put it on just about any fried potato product that crosses my path. Sometimes, when I'm eating the storebought rotisserie chickens, I'll dump some Old Bay in a tiny dish, and dip my chicken pieces in the seasoning (much like a szechuan salt & pepper dip). I have an unnatural obsession with the Old Bay flavored Utz chips, too, though they're tough to find these days.

I worked in a NJ deli, and made about 50 fried egg sandwiches a day. I broke the yolks, but did not "pan-scramble" the eggs. I would fry them, over easy, then just after I flipped I would bust a hole in the yolk with the corner of the spatula. They would still be over easy, and only a bit of the yolk leaked out and became hard. There would be a little runniness, and then I would put the egg yolk-hole down on the roll, and all the lovely runniness would be absorbed by the bread. It was moist and kind of runny, but controlled. Considering that most of my customers ate this sandwich behind the driver's seat, or sitting on a tailgate, or on a curb, you don't want goo squirting out all over your pants and steering wheel. It is the best of both worlds. The most popular way was on a seeded hard roll, with pork roll (taylor ham, for you weirdos!) and American cheese, salt/pepper/ketchup. One of my regular customers always had a fried egg, fried bologna, mayo, loads of pepper, and raw onions. I like a guy that thinks outside the box.

When I'm cooking for myself, my lunch, or solo dinners I totally overbowl. I eat most of my solo meals at my desk or on the computer, and there's something very comforting about cradling a huge hemisphere of a bowl in my lap, even if it's only got about a cup of food in it. It's probably because I love my huge rounded stoneware bowls, and jump at the chance to use them. When I cook for the family and company, I "just right" bowl, because the bulk of our bowls are medium sized. I do hate underbowling, for the same reasons mentioned above, I dislike losing stuff over the edge, or slopping things over the sides.

I would be hard pressed not to trip the server, as he/she walked away.

She sounds like a self-hater, a woman-hater, and a human hater, as well. I cannot believe that anyone would invoke sexual assault as some form of comparison to ANYTHING. Sick.

Japanese food. Once or twice a month, I suggest that we go out for sushi, and it's usually agreed that "meh, we get that all the time". Not in two years....

Thanks for reminding me! I forgot to mention something I did with half a bag of aging hot dog rolls, last month. Bootleg garlic bread. I made up some garlic butter, seperated the halves of the hot dog rolls, slathered both sides with garlic butter, and grilled them, to serve with dinner. They were so good, I'm tempted to buy a bag of rolls to use for that purpose, specifically.

Squishy rolls taste good toasted, under a tuna melt, to me. Also, French toast, bread pudding, or breadcrumbs.

They totally have the right idea. This month it is (unfortunately) chicken McNuggets, and that sugar syrup they pass off as sweet and sour sauce. The sauce is the key, I think. Lots of nuggets. Lots of sauce. Iced tea with lots of sugar (well, ok, Sweet n Low, because I'm not completely self destructive). I wonder if they could deep fry the sauce...that would certainly make things more efficient.

It's way too early to be reading this. *shudder*

Oh, man. Coronas, out on the patio, with hot pork rinds. That would be good enough, right? I also had a bowl of my refrigerator pickles out there, and I was dunking hot pork rinds entirely, from stem to stern, in the garlicky, spicy pickle juice, and eating them. I think I saw God.

Along the lobster lines, I always wondered how many mushrooms early man had to get through to find the edible ones. Also, what would inspire them? "Look at this weird looking thing I found under this rock...wonder how THAT tastes?"

Last night, I used up cooked broccoli, from two nights ago, about a serving of pasta, some sauce, and some cooked sausage from three nights ago, in a stew sort of thing. I made a bean stew, with the broccoli, the sausage, the sauce, and chicken broth, with two cans of white beans, cooked pasta mixed in at the end. It was kind of a patchy pasta e fagioli. Lots of parmesan, and hot peppers, garlic bread on the side, and it was amazingly good.

This sounds delicious, I'm intrigued by the idea of chopped preserved lemons in primavera.

I don't know how weird it is in the grand scheme of things, but it certainly gave us pause. Our already strange waiter asked us "Does that taste good?" My kneejerk reaction (which, thankfully, I didn't actually vocalize) was, "Yeah, wanna bite?".