Copycats

This candy is, by general consensus, THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD. I'm not making this up. That's what people call it. We call it copycats because it's like a Snickers...but so much better, you'll never want a Snickers again. It takes a while to make, but it makes a metric ton (thereabouts), so unless you throw really big parties, you'll have some on hand for a while. AND without further ado, here is the recipe for Copycats.

Ingredients for layer one:

• 2 tsp butter
• 1 cup milk chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup butterscotch chips (the secret ingredient - you can't really tell they're in there, but you can definitely tell if they're not)
• 1/4 cups creamy peanut butter

Melt everything in a microwave-safe bowl, or on the stove over low heat if you want to be old school. Line a 13 X 9 pan with foil; spray with cooking spray. Pour in the chocolate mixture, spread evenly, and refrigerate until set (about 30 minutes).

Ingredients for nougat layer:

• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup evaporated milk (we used cream to no ill effects)
• 1 1/2 cups marshmallow creme (one regular sized jar)
• 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups salted peanuts, chopped or whole or whatever

This time you will need the stove. Melt the butter over medium heat. Add the milk and sugar and bring to a gentle boil. Reduce to medium-low and stir for five minutes, then take it off the heat. Stir in the jar of marshmallow creme, the peanut butter, and the vanilla. Add the peanuts. Spread over the chocolate layer in the pan. Admire how lovely and candylike it is. Refrigerate until set.

Ingredients for the caramel layer:

• 1 package of caramels. Yes, I know this sounds like cheating. It is. That's okay.
• 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

Important first step: unwrap the caramels. Have a spontaneous caramel-shelling party. It won't take long, I promise. Combine the caramels and cream in a saucepan and stir over low heat until smooth. Keep stirring for a few more minutes, but don't let it boil! If it boils, your caramel layer will become caramel brittle and will crack teeth. If this does happen though, all is not lost. You'll just have to always let the candy sit to room temperature before eating.

Spread in pan. Refrigerate until set. Cue broken record.

Ingredients for the Fourth and Final Layer:

• 1 cup milk chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup butterscotch chips
• 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

Home stretch now, folks. Melt these ingredients in any way you see fit (microwave? stove? interior of your car on a summer day?), spread over the caramel layer, and refrigerate for at least four hours.

And now your candy is ready.

You'll want to keep it refrigerated, but take it out at least thirty minutes before you intend to eat it because otherwise cutting it will be murder. For you and the candy. Cut into tiny tiny squares because it is SUPER RICH and besides, that way you can eat more pieces and count them like treasure.

Share with your friends. Share with your enemies, and they shall become your friends.

Devil's Food Chocolate Cake

I've been searching lately for the perfect chocolate cake, and I think this may be it. It's dark and moist and tender and just dense enough. It goes great with homemade cream cheese frosting.

Ingredients:

• 3 oz unsweetened chocolate
• 1 1/3 cup flour
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Six tbsp unsalted butter (unless you're like me and never have the stuff around the house. I used salted and cut back the 1/2 tsp of salt just slightly)
• 3/4 cup boiling water
• 1 1/2 c sugar
• 6 tbsp sour cream or buttermilk
• 2 large eggs

Combine flour and baking soda in a small mixing bowl. In a larger bowl, melt the chocolate. Add the butter, cut into six pieces, then the boiling water. Stir until the butter is all melted, then whisk in the sugar and the sour cream, then the flour mixture, then the eggs.

Pour into two 9" cake pans lined with greased parchment paper or, if your cake pans have suddenly and inexplicably disappeared off the the face of the earth, pour it all into a 13"x9" pan and make a sheet cake. Bake for about 30 minutes at 350, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes away clean.

Wilted Spinach Salad

This is my new favorite salad. It's a combination of something my mom made once, something I found on the internet, and something I largely improvised.

Ingredients for four small or two large salads:

• 4 slices of bacon
• 2 tbsp bacon grease reserved from said bacon
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tbsp Balsamic vinegar
• salt and pepper
• spinach or spring mix
• Stuff for your salad (I used black olives and sliced red bell pepper)

Cook the bacon until good and crunchy and reserve the 2 tbsp of grease. Crumble the bacon to be used on the salad. Make the dressing by combining the bacon grease, the sugar, the salt and pepper, and the vinegar. Zap it in the microwave until it's boiling, then pour it over the salad and serve immediately.

Pineapple Stuff

How have we not posted this before? This is a family classic. It causes great excitement wherever it goes, and great disappointment if it gets dropped upside down on the carpet as soon as you walk in the door with it.

So don't drop it. You'll make people sad.

Pineapple stuff has four ingredients: 2 sticks of butter, one cup of sugar, four cups of white french bread all torn up, and a 20 oz can of crushed pineapple.

Melt the butter and pour over the torn-up bread in a large bowl. Then add the sugar and pineapple. Stir well. Dump into an ungreased 13 X 9 pan and bake at 350 for an hour, or until slightly golden on top.

Simple, right? And it keeps warm really well in a crock pot.

Oh and also, it's totally health food. Because it has fruit in it, people.

Slow Cooked, Seasoned Pulled Pork

This is the best way to prepare pork, ever. I dream about this dish. I have to make up special occasions to have an excuse to fix this for dinner. The original recipe is here, which includes instructions on cooking it in the oven. Since I'm a crock pot girl, I'm just going to do it my way.

You need to start this recipe the day before you want to serve it. You'll brine it one day, and cook it the next.

First of all, you'll need a big hunk of pork. If you can swing it, buy a large Boston butt. I usually buy a seven pound butt for 5-6 people, and that works out to just over $2.00 per person, which is really not bad. Make sure it has a nice layer of fat on one side and a bone running part of the way through. We need this for flavor.

Now, let's make the dry rub:

• 1/2 cup brown sugar (leave it out - you'll use it again later)
• 1 tbsp salt (ditto)
• 1 tbsp onion powder
• 1 tbsp garlic powder
• 1 tbsp chili powder (get creative here with your leftover spices from the Crash Hot Sweet Potatoes)
• 1 tbsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tbsp paprika (or half regular and half smoked sweet paprika)
• 1 tbsp ground black pepper

Yes, it's rather like the sweet potato spice we just did. In fact, if you're like me and you're now keeping a container of prepared sweet potato spice on hand at all times, you could probably go ahead and just use that.

Now set that aside and work on the brine:

• 2 quarts cold water
• 1/2 cup salt
• 3 tbsp dry rub mix
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 cup brown sugar (you can put it away now)

Stir the salt into the water until completely dissolved, then add the brown sugar and dry rub mix and keep stirring. Finally, add the bay leaf. Find something large enough to hold the pork but small enough to fit in your fridge. You can use a large pitcher, a bowl, or a giant Ziploc bag. Make sure the pork is completely covered in brine solution. Leave it in the fridge for at least eight hours. I usually do more like 20 hours. I put it in the solution in the morning, then turn it before I go to bed.

If you're serving this for dinner, then you want to start cooking it first thing that morning. Take it out of the brine solution, and pat it dry with paper towels (this will help the dry rub stick). Then roll up your sleeves and press that dry rub onto every inch of the roast. Get it in all the little crevices. Don't skimp. Odds are there will still be some left when you're done. Keep it. You can mix it in with the finished product for some extra kick when you're done.

Now that your butt is sufficiently rubbed and covered in spice (that's a sentence I don't write every day), go ahead and drop it in the crock pot. I like to add about 1/4 cup water, but I don't think it's necessary. Now turn it on low and let it cook for ten hours or so. If you don't have ten hours, start it on high and switch to low after a couple hours.

When this thing is done, you won't need to pull it apart. You just look at it, and it separates. Your only job is to try and remove all of the bone and most of the fat. And to taste lots of samples and lick grease off your fingers.

Serve this however you want. I'd eat it plain, but we usually do sandwiches. This is supposed to be enough for lots of leftovers, but don't count on it.

It serves exactly as many people as there are.

Ultimate Chili

It has chocolate and four kinds of beans. That makes it ultimate, right? This is, so far, the only chili that I really care for. It's so rich that you could probably omit the meat entirely without any ill effects, which is why I'm tagging it vegetarian.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground meat
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 1-2 jalapenos, or a can of green chilies
  
• 4-5 cloves of garlic, minced
• 4 15-oz cans of beans, rinsed. Pick out whatever combination you have on hand, or whatever sounds good at the time. I used pinto, kidney, Great Northern, and red beans.
• 1 28-oz can crushed or diced tomatoes
• 1 15-oz can corn
• 1 15-oz can chicken (or vegetable) broth
• 2 tbsp oil
• 5 tbsp chili powder (yes, that's tablespoons. I used about three, plus another tbsp combined ancho chili powder, chipotle chili powder, and New Mexico chili powder, left over from my sweet potatoes)
• 1 tbsp cumin
• 1 tbsp oregano
• 1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Sauté the onions, garlic, bell pepper, and jalapenos in oil until translucent, then add the meat, cook through, and drain. If you want to cook this in a pot, go ahead and do this in the pot you want to cook with. If not, dump everything into the crock pot now.

Stir in the spices. Stir in the tomatoes, beans, corn, and broth.

As soon as it gets hot enough, be very brave and stir in the chocolate chips. Or, if you're me, resist the urge to dump in the entire bag.

Simmer gently for as long as possible. The longer it cooks, the better it tastes.

If using a crock pot, start it on high for an hour then switch it to low.

This is even better the next day. And it's super good for Frito chili pies.

French-style Green Beans

We're going to call this French-style because I found the recipe on a French website. And translated it for your dining pleasure. Really, though. It's now my favorite way to cook green beans. Actually, I wasn't a big fan of green beans before, but I could eat these every day.

It's the onion. I'll eat anything that has caramelized onion in it. I'd eat caramelized onions on ice cream.

The cream doesn't hurt, either.

Oh, and the almonds are great.

So yes, it's just generally a good recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 can of your favorite green beans - whole, French cut, regular cut, whatever. Use fresh if you want to. It's all good. Use two cans if you're really hungry. Use three if you have company.
  
• 1 onion, caramelized. The original recipe called for, like, 1/4 of an onion. As if.
• Slivered or sliced almonds. I use half of one small packet. Use as many as you like.
• 1-3 tbsp cream or coconut milk, depending on how decadent you feel.
  

Make sure you start caramelizing the onion early enough. Then start the green beans cooking and the almonds browning in some butter. Watch them closely. Do not burn them.

When everything is done, just drain the green beans (if all the liquid hasn't cooked away), mix everything in, and serve! It's a very pretty dish, as well as being super good and feeling way more indulgent than it really is.

Sweet & Savory Squash Casserole

This is adapted from a recipe in the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. It's ostensibly a side dish, but it could be my whole dinner. And lunch. And breakfast. Seriously.

Ingredients:

• 1 large or 2 small butternut squashes (I'm sure sweet potatoes would work, too)
• 1 large, ripe pear
• 1 large yellow onion
• 3 tbsp bread crumbs
• 4 slices bacon, crumbled
  
• 1/4 c chopped walnuts
• 2 tbsp Parmesan cheese
• 1 tbsp butter, melted
  

As soon as you think of it, start caramelizing the onion. I like to cook mine for about two hours over low heat, but do what you have to do.

Peel the squash (not as daunting as it sounds - just a regular potato/carrot peeler will do) and slice into 1/2" - 1" slices. Peel the pear, and use your best knife to slice it as thin as you can. Place one layer of squash into a baking dish, then one layer of pear. Repeat.

If you thought ahead and already have some beautifully caramelized onion, scoop that over the top now. If not, keep cooking and you can add it at the last fifteen minutes like I always do.

Bake - covered - at 350 for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until the squash is nice and tender. Meanwhile, combine the rest of the ingredients in a small bowl. When the squash is tender, take it out of the oven and spread your onions evenly on top, then sprinkle on the topping. Bake another 10-15 minutes uncovered.

Serves one. Unless you're not greedy like me. In which case it serves 4-6 as a side dish.

Crash Hot Sweet Potatoes

I love the name. I love the potatoes even more. I think the recipe originated here, but it's been making the rounds on lots of different websites. With good reason. They are sweet and spicy and creamy and completely addicting. Try them. Try them right now.

Ingredients:

• As many sweet potatoes as you think you can eat (and you'll be stuffing yourselves with them). My amounts will be for about 4 medium-sized sweet potatoes. Adjust as needed.
• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tsp kosher salt (I used no salt and substituted onion salt for onion powder)
• 1 tsp ground cumin (don't be scared, it tastes great in the end)
• 1 tsp New Mexico chili powder
• 1 tsp smoked sweet paprika (regular paprika, if regular and hot are the only two choices)
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp chipotle chili powder
• 1/2 tsp ancho chili powder
  
• 1/4 tsp granulated garlic (I'm sure garlic powder would work, too)
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp olive oil
  

I found the chili powders and the paprika (and the granulated garlic) at The Spice Merchant in Wichita. I'm sure they're not too difficult to find. And they're worth it. Actually, the original recipe didn't call for ancho chili powder, but ancho chili powder is a bad idea never, amiright?

Peel your sweet potatoes and then slice them about an inch and a half thick. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Drop in your sweet potatoes, be suspicious of any that sink, and boil them for 10-20 minutes, until they're smashable but not cooked completely through.

Take them out and let them cool.

Now, if you're adventurous, you smash them. You can do it right on the parchment paper (yes, you need parchment paper. They'll stick otherwise.) with a clear bowl so that you can see what you're doing. Use a spatula to slide the smashed potatoes off the bottom of the bowl. What we're doing here is making pretty edges, and giving them an opportunity to get sort of crispy and brown in the oven. Mine didn't, so I might not be smashing them next time. You could even do this to an entire sweet potato, but for that I would recommend smashing it, just to get more surface area for the spices.

Mix the spices in a bowl and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 375.

Melt the butter in small bowl, mix with olive oil, and then brush onto each potato. Sprinkle some of the spice mixture onto each one. Don't be stingy. Try gently patting the spices on to make sure they stick to the butter and oil. Flip each one over. They flip surprisingly well. Brush on the butter and oil, sprinkle with the remaining spices, and pop them in the oven for about 15 minutes. Take them out, flip them over (this does not work surprisingly well - it's kind of messy), eat all the crusty black caramelized sugar-spice from the spatula, and put them back in the oven for another ten minutes or so.

ETA: If you want a quicker and/or potluck appropriate dish, try it this way: Peel and slice your sweet potatoes like you're making scalloped potatoes (if you have a food processor with a slicing blade, it works just fine) and spread about half of them in a greased baking dish. Brush over some butter/olive oil mixture, then sprinkle a goodly amount of spice over them. Add another layer of potatoes and brush with butter/olive oil again. Sprinkle on some more spice. Bake, covered, until potatoes are tender - about 45 minutes to an hour. In the meantime, prepare some more spice mixture by combining it with equal part of brown sugar - we have a lot of surface area and we don't want it to be too spicy. Spread this over the top, put it back in the oven uncovered for another fifteen to twenty minutes to get the top all caramelized, and you're good to go. I think I may actually prefer them this way.

Fudge Frosting

This is my favorite chocolate frosting. It's very easy to make and has such wonderful homemade flavor. If you want it to be even more fudgy, add another square of chocolate.

2 (1oz) squares unsweetened chocolate, melted
1/4 cup butter (not margarine)
3 1/2 cups sifted powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk, cream, or half-and-half
1 tsp. vanilla

In a medium mixing bowl, combine melted chocolate and butter, stir to blend. Slowly add powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla. Beat well.

Mom's Scalloped Chicken

This has always been a holiday dish because it makes a large amount. It's so good! One serving won't be enough... you'll be back.

1 hen or 2 fryers, stewed, deboned, and cut into bite-sized pieces (save the broth)
1 1/2 cups chopped celery
1/2 onion, chopped
1 can condensed mushroom soup
1 cup processed American cheese, shredded
2 beaten eggs
round, buttery crackers, crushed to make 4 cups
4 cups chicken broth

Combine celery and onion with broth and simmer until tender. Mix all ingredients except crackers thoroughly. Add 3 cups of the crackers, mix gently. Pour mixture into a 13 x 9 inch pan; sprinkle remaining cracker crumbs on top. Bake at 325 degrees for 50 to 60 minutes or until golden brown.

For a quicker version, simply use a deli-roasted chicken and canned chicken broth. The taste is still fantastic!

Blackberry Wine Cake

Everyone comes back for more of this moist, delicious cake.

1 (18.25 oz.) white cake mix
1 (3 oz.) package blackberry gelatin mix
4 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup blackberry wine

Glaze:
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup blackberry wine


Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a 10-inch Bundt cake pan. In a large mixing bowl, stir together cake ingredients, then mix at medium speed for 4 minutes. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake in 325 degree oven for 40 to 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Spoon half of the glaze over the warm cake. After 10 minutes, remove from pan. Cool cake and spoon remaining glaze over the top. To make the glaze, simply whisk together the wine and the powdered sugar.

Roasted Broccoli

I wasn't really sure what to title this recipe. When I found it, it was called The Best Broccoli of Your Life, which was appropriate. I considered Broccoli to Make People Beg, or Everybody's New Favorite Lunch, Dinner, Side Dish, or Snack. But those are rather long and complicated. So I'm going with the subtle, understated, boringly descriptive Roasted Broccoli. This broccoli is amazing. It could be a meal all by itself. It should be. It's that good. Oh and also it's super easy.

Ingredients:

• Two large heads of broccoli
• 1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
  
• 1 lemon
• Parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Cut the broccoli into bite-sized florets. Either don't wash them at all (on the theory that half an hour in a hot oven will kill all the germs) or dry them obsessively after you do wash them. They need to be dry.

Line a cookie sheet with tin foil and throw down the broccoli. Toss it with 1/4 cup olive oil, salt, pepper, and the garlic. Bake for 20-25 minutes. The tips of some of the broccoli should just be starting to brown.

You're not done yet. Here comes the fun part. Dump the broccoli into a pretty serving bowl and zest the lemon into it. Then squeeze out the lemon juice. Then add another tablespoon olive oil. Then add the parmesan cheese, freshly grated or from a can.

Stir well. Be prepared to hand over the recipe.

Perfect Tortillas

I never considered making tortillas until the day when I wanted to make fajitas for dinner and found that tortillas are somewhat scarce and expensive in France. But as it turns out, tortillas are super easy to make and ten times more delicious than store-bought. And fun! If, you know, you happen to find bread baking types of activities fun. Recipe via The Fresh Loaf. Go there for pretty pictures and an enlightening discussion about various fats.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup lard (this is the Secret Ingredient)
  
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 cup warm milk (or water, for somewhat less tender results)

Throw the dry ingredients in a bowl and combine. Add the lard, and mix by hand or with a mixer until the mixture is grainy. By hand isn't as difficult as you might think. I use a fork and a spoon and it works just fine.

Add the warm milk and mix until it becomes dough that you can pick up with your hands. If you use some fancy cooking equipment, like a wooden spoon, this will work better. It's not that tablespoons don't work, it's just that they become a bit...bendy. Such are the perils of cooking abroad with an understocked kitchen.

When the dough comes together, lightly flour your hands and scoop it up. Or just turn on the stand mixer for five minutes. If you're doing it by hand, knead it and squeeze it and squish it and dance with it for a few minutes.

Divide into twelve equalish balls. Put them in time-out for thirty minutes.

After the thirty minutes is up, flatten them with your hand and use a rolling pin (i.e. an old wine bottle) to roll them into 6 or 7 inch tortillas. The idea is to make them round, but splatter-shaped tastes just fine.

Lightly grease a griddle or a skillet or a crêpe pan (I am in France) and throw on the tortillas. As many as will fit at a time. They cook very quickly. Regrease, repeat, and try to avoid eating them all before dinner.

Japanese Sesame Chicken

I found this recipe through a complex and untraceable channel of internet links, copied it to Wordpad, didn't save, and lost it when my computer crashed. And couldn't find it again. This is the recreated recipe, and honestly I can't imagine the original recipe being any better.

This is good chicken. Especially if you have a passionate love for sesame seed oil, like I do.

Ingredients:

• Boneless, skinless chicken or turkey breasts (enough for two to four people)
• Vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup cornstarch
• 1 or two eggs (depending on how much chicken you want to make)
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1/2 tbsp sesame seed oil
• 2 tbsp sushi rice seasoning (2 tbsp rice or balsamic vinegar plus a couple tsp sugar)

Preheat a skillet with enough oil to fry your chicken. Combine the cornstarch and the egg in a bowl. When the oil is hot enough, dip the chicken breasts in the mixture (you can cut them into nuggets or strips first, if you like) and drop in the oil, preferably without burning yourself. Cook for a minute or two, turn, and cook until done.

This goes very well with red bell pepper. Add bell pepper slices to the oil right from the start. If you're feeling adventurous, give them a swirl in the cornstarch mixture first.

When the chicken is cooked, drain the oil and return the skillet to the heat. Add the soy sauce, the sesame seed oil, and the vinegar mixture. Heat. This won't take long. Toss your chicken onto a plate of that wonderful sticky rice you've already prepared, pour the sauce over everything, and enjoy.

Sticky rice

I feel like a genius today. I just cooked up a giant pot of the most beautiful sticky rice you'll ever see. And not only did I do it without a rice cooker, I did it without instructions! Because the instructions that I found online insisted that they were "100 percent sure that [I'd] burn the rice." Way to be fatalistic, huh? Well, if their recipe leads inevitably to burned rice, then I'd say it's time that they get a new recipe. Mine, for example! Follow these instructions and you can have perfect rice for sushi, for sticky fried rice like you get at Kobe's, or for just about anything else.

1. Buy short grain rice. Not medium, short. It has to be short. Don't buy special sushi rice. Special sushi rice is short grain rice repacked with a higher price tag.
2. Measure your rice. Dump into a large bowl.
3. Add water to large bowl. You don't have to measure yet. Just add lots of water.
4. Let stand for thirty minutes. This will make the rice more supple and help in several small ways. Notice that after thirty minutes your rice has turned a beautiful pearly white, rather than the whitish grayish transparentish that it was before.
5. Wash the rice. If you use a colander, you'll probably end up with little grains of rice plugging up every hole. Use a bowl. Fill it up with water. Pour the water out. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat until the water stays mostly clear. All of this is to remove starch that will keep your rice from being sticky. This is a very important step. Don't skip it.
6. Drain the rice in a colander for thirty minutes to an hour. This is not a very important step. I included it here for thoroughness. You can skip it. I always do.
   
7. Add a small amount of water to a large pot. Dump in the rice. Then add one cup water for every cup of rice. Don't stir the rice! Remember all that effort to get the starch out? Stirring will bring it all out again. So don't do it.
8. Bring to a boil on high or medium high heat uncovered.
   
9. As soon as it boils, turn the heat down to low and put on a tight fitting lid. If you don't have a tight fitting lid, feel free to get creative. I have lots of success with stacking a skillet and a heavy Pyrex bowl on top. Seriously. Looks dumb, works well.
10. Go away for ten to fifteen minutes. If you think your heating element is pretty hot, make it ten. If you think it leans on the cool side, make it fifteen.
11. Remove the pan from the heat source but don't remove the lid! Let sit another twenty to twenty-five minutes. You're steaming the rice now, so don't even peek. You'll let the steam out and ruin everything.
12. Take off the lid and celebrate your beautiful rice! If you're making sushi out of it, then this is part where you add the vinegar mixture and then let the rice cool (by spreading it on cookie sheets or plates, if you want to speed up the process). Then you cover the rice with a damp cloth until you're ready to make sushi.

That's it! Okay, so it's rather a long process, but it's worth it. Now go make some sushi! Or go make my Vietnamese fried rice. You won't be disappointed.

Vodka Sauce

Vodka sauce vodka sauce vodka sauce vodka sauce. This is the best pasta sauce EVER! Sort of. I mean, the carbanara sauce is really good too, but this one is HEALTHIER because it uses real (canned) tomatoes and (slightly) less cream. And it's good. Really, really good. I promise.

Ingredients:

• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 large shallot (really, it makes a difference. Shallots are good.)
• 1 small yellow onion
• Olive oil
• Butter
  
• 1 can of tomatoes
• 1 can tomato puree
  
• 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
• Cayenne pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/4 cup vodka
• Flour for thickening

Chop the garlic et. al. and sauté for a few minutes in the olive oil and butter (yes, both. Because this recipe just deserves it). Sometimes I add a dash of white wine to make it an extra-drunk recipe. Add the canned tomatoes, the tomato puree, and the pepper and cook for a few minutes until some of the liquid has evaporated. Add the cream and vodka, and thicken with flour if necessary (it's always necessary).

Serve over pasta (yeah, don't forget to cook the pasta) with vegetables, if you like. It goes very well with sautéed mushrooms.

Oatmeal Pancakes

These pancakes are amazing. Seriously. They only have one drawback and that's remembering to prepare the batter the night before. But they're so good that you'll probably be thinking about them all the time anyway, so it shouldn't be a problem.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups quick oats
• 2 cups buttermilk (fake it by using a tbsp of lemon juice for each cup of normal milk)
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp honey
• 2 tbsp oil
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon (or more)
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt

Combine the oats and buttermilk in a large mixing bowl and let them soak all night (or at least two hours, but preparing breakfast two hours in advance? Doesn't usually work out). This is where the incredible texture comes from. It also creates a mixture that resembles dough far more closely than it resembles batter, but no worries, the other ingredients will loosen it up.

When you're ready for your pancakes, preheat the skillet and add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl. Add some chocolate chips if you're gourmand like me. They cook up like normal pancakes, except for the incredible scent of oatmeal and honey and cinnamon that permeates the room.

Goes great with raspberry syrup. Or a spoonful of maple syrup and a couple tablespoons of raspberry jam, if you're cheap and don't have the real thing.

Pasta Bolognaise

Another French recipe, but this time it doesn't call for a cup of heavy cream as a primary ingredient. Go figure. It's actually quite healthy.

Ingredients:

• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 or two cloves of garlic, chopped
• Olive oil, sunflower oil, butter, or whatever
  
• 1 small can of mushrooms, or some sliced fresh mushrooms
• 1 small can of tomato paste. Paste, not sauce.
• Sugar
• Cayenne pepper
• Oregano
• Basil
• Salt and pepper
• Some kind of meat, like chopped ham
• Pasta

Sauté the onion and garlic for a little while, add the mushrooms, and sauté for a little while more. Add the tomato paste and some water until you get a good consistency. Then add the herbs and spices. Cook for a while. Keep tasting to make sure you've got it right. Add the meat (it's precooked, right?) and heat through. Serve over pasta.

Pineapple Curry

This is another excellent "student food" recipe from Mathieu. It's quick, easy, and excellent.

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 can pineapple, cubed or tidbits
  
• 1 onion, chopped
• some bell pepper, if you have some handy
• 3/4 cup cream
• a tiny bit of ketchup or tomato paste
• soy sauce
• curry powder
  
• garlic powder
• ginger
• salt and pepper
• Some kind of meat, if you want it. Chicken is good, but even hot dogs will work.

Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the chopped onion and bell pepper. After cooking for about five minutes, add the pineapple (save the juice) and cook for another ten minutes or until the onion is tender. Add the cream and the pineapple juice. Stir some flour into a cup with some heated juice and add that to thicken the sauce. Add the herbs and spices. Lots of curry powder, not lots of garlic powder. Add some cayenne pepper for an extra kick. Then add the meat and heat thoroughly. Serve over rice.

This makes probably three servings for normal people, two for hungry people with no other side dishes.