Today's rice noodle spaghetti

1 package rice n00dz
1 can of the leftover crushed tomatoes from yesterday's curry
the rest of the chicken stock
a couple onions
a package of ground beef (about a pound)
one kielbasa
one pound mozarella cheese

it's not going to be anything fancy. i'm just hungry.

EDIT - it came out well. I added some fresh mozz thanks to my crazy housemate D and next time I'll cut back on the overall amount of cheese. Fresh legit mozzarella is much better than Kraft part-skim, that's for darn sure. This is not a red-stained noodles dish - the sauce is more background, and I like it that way.

An email to my mother turned into somewhat of a recipe

but I didn't take pix because it looks like meaty diarrhea. Tastes great, though.

"The natural chicken" is Perdue chicken in a similar package with green highlights. It's air-chilled, no antibiotics, and I really should get to the store to document it because I can't find it on Google.

Total thumbs-up on the natural chicken. It has texture and it takes flavor WAY better than any I've used since I started cooking. I did a quick marinade in Cholula chili garlic (knew i was gonna use that), seared them while I caramelized onions in butter on the other side of the pan, then added it to the gyro-sliced (flat, thin ribbons) kielbasa. Topped with a can of coconut milk and a knife-edge-ful of red curry paste (just eyeball it, seriously) and a dollop of crushed tomatoes, I schushed it around in the skillet until the sauce was a uniform color, let it cook, then repeated that two-step a few more times. As the sauce cooks, it'll separate a little - don't let it go too long or the kielbasa will leach all its flavor. five minutes tops on that step.

then i served it on rice that had been cooked in organic free-range chicken broth.

the rest of the broth is freezing now. after it's nice and solid, i'm going to cut the box off and serve slices of it on something hot.

yum.

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Lettuce Lunchmeat Maki

Lay down six top leafs of romaine lettuce, overlapping them mostly, to form a slighly larger rectangle of romaine. top with miracle whip and sharp/creamy mustard. add bread and butter pickle slices, as well as sliced ham torn into small pieces. roll. eat by hand for the maki version, or batter and fry for sheer insanity.

Sauce Number 36

brown a pound of ground turkey in the pot you're going to use for sauce. meanwhile, boil water for noodles.

drain and remove the turkey, then brown off a pound of lardon-style-cut kielbasa. After that, saute finely chopped onions until translucent. Deglaze with tomato sauce. Spike tomato sauce with red thai curry paste.

Add meat to sauce, melt a block of mozarella in there, and serve over noodles.

Damn. I'm so hungry I'm gonna go make it.

Chicken-Fried Take 2

When some people can't focus, they clean, masturbate or get high. I cook.

Pound out cubed steak to half its previous size. Drench in Cholula chili garlic sauce.

Prep your cast-iron skillet with enough oil to immerse the steaks. Turn on.

Set up the stations - apple-cinnamon pancake mix spiked with steak rub, eggwash, more spiked mix.

When the oil's hot, coat the steak with flour, shake off the excess, egg it, flour it again, then fry that sucker until golden brown and awesome.

Pictures posted as soon as...yikes, I left my camera in the kitchen.

The Ham and Cheese Omelette Experiment

I usually eat Dannon All Natural yogurt for breakfast with a piece of fruit. Lately I've been craving something more substantial.

Three eggs
frozen ham
cheese you've grated yourself (don't buy prebagged shredded cheese. it's a trick on people who don't own graters)

i like the ham cut into confetti, as small as possible. cook it in the pan until the pan dries up, then transfer it out. grate the cheese, and leave the cheese and ham in two piles on a cutting board near your pan.

Pull the eggs from the fridge at the last possible moment. Whisk briskly and add to a hot pan that you've greased with a little butter that's then been allowed to brown.

once the omelet starts to set up, poke it down to the center with a silicone spatula. this is pretty much an essential tool for cooking. buy one now.

once you can get under the egg with the spatula, see which side's setting up more. sprinkle the cheese and ham on that side, then flip the uncovered side over to form a half-moon.

I can usually do this with one spatula, but today I tried a second or two early and ripped my omelet. No fuss - I just flipped the other half over and served it on the other side. Two silicone spatulas would be as close to foolproof as possible for this one.

Serve with fresh salsa made by my awesome bud Brenda and a little Cholula chili garlic sauce. Yum-o in under 30.

I've been using colby jack cheese in this lately, and it's worked nicely, but I need to up the ante with some fun sausage and smoked cheddar. Too bad the eggs here suck. Maybe the organics will have more flavor.

EDIT 2: Organic eggs DO have more flavor. Aidells sausage, however, is ludicrously overpriced. I also did the dish with smoked cheddar and chopped honey ham and I'm not doing that again - way too much smoke for something with eggs. Smoked cheddar alone, with the outside shaved off, would probably be fine.

EDIT: Jessilee, who I fantasize about more than she knows, asked a good question in comments. Why the fuck DO I chill eggs before whisking them?

Because I tried letting them sit out for a little while to come to room temperature versus as cold as possible when I made breakfast for the fam on Sundays (my initial foray into cooking) and the cold eggs came out better on all fronts.

Since I forgot this too, I like to use a stick of butter directly on the pan to butter it, THEN whisk the eggs. It lets the butter brown. Brown butter is awesome.

Pita Pit secret menu exposed!

Now, Pita Pit doesn't have a secret menu per se. They're all about customization normally, so asking for grilled spinach, steak, and gyrom meat is no big deal. You can even customize orders placed via campusfood.com.

The one thing they have made, however, is called the Heart Attack - gyro meat, philly steak, extra cheese, and bacon. It was created to mock sorority girls who order double meat double cheese with a diet soda.

South Street Steaks secret menu exposed!

A late-night mid-study munchie run proved most fruitful.

South Street Steaks mixed my buffalo fries with equal parts ranch, blue cheese, and hot sauce, a mild variation of the menu option.

This got me thinking, and I chatted up the man working the grill.

Yeah, there are a few things you can order off-menu there. Like crazy fries, fries "with everything that can go on fries."

Then there's the Philly Steak Frite, fries topped with steak topped with Cheez Whiz. "It's great if you want something unhealthy but not a cheesesteak." Similar to the Pittsburgh Primanti Brothers' style, but minus the coleslaw, in case it sounded familiar to any Stiller fans. (Go Burgh!)

The cheesesteak hot dog is still in the works. "I tried it once, and it failed spectacularly."

An attempted chicken ceasar cheesesteak is impossible to try now, and you wouldn't want to anyway. "I think we sold, like, two." They don't have the dressing anymore either.

All quotes courtesy the grillman, who identified himself as the restaurant's owner. Last I checked, they have three, two of them male. I should've gotten a name. If it helps, he likes ketchup on his steaks like me.

This is a Burning Myself Frequently exclusive.

Ideas?

I'm thinking of taking on a cross between Chinese boneless ribs in a brown sugar chili sauce and a gyro. Any suggestions?