Ancient Korean secret for a delicious, wildly unhealthy dinner:

Get one of those Korean ramen bowls from the supermarket, Bowl Noodle brand. I like Hot & Spicy or Kimchi. Prepare as normal, but lay a slice of American cheese on top of the noodles before you pour the boiling water over them. Son, you don't even know. If you got the spicy ramen, the saltiness of the sweat and tears dripping from your face into your bowl will enhance the flavor.

I am going to exterminate the god damn stinkbugs.

Not just the ones in my house. I'm going to wipe the planet clean of them.

I admit, I hate the little bastards. But that's not why I'm going to wipe them out. I'm going to wipe them out because, very clearly, they want to die.

Like, just now. I'm minding my own business, trying to ignore the stinkbug that is continuously buzzing against the ceiling, apparently unable to tell the difference between flyable airspace and textured plaster. Hint, stinkbugs: one of them makes a godawful racket when you bump your face against it every two seconds, and the other is the sky.

Anyway, this fucker bounces off the ceiling directly above me, causing me to duck in blind panicreasonable concern. It then careens off the wall to my left, and I know what's coming next. Despite my best efforts to not be in any place in the remote vicinity of this stinkbug, he lands on my shoulder.

What the fuck, stinkbug? You are not a bluejay, and this is not a shockingly racist live/animated Disney film.

Moving with the speed and precision of a sleepy-drunk bear, I punched myself in the shoulder a few times and then finally flicked the damn thing off. Managed to knock him right in the trashcan, too, entirely on purpose. But of course, the bastard got the last laugh: my entire fucking torso smells like stinkbug now.

I'm going to take a shower in the fucking oven now.

I feel like an essential part of my childhood has died.

I love candy. Anything sweet, really. So, HalloweenFall candy day and EasterSpring candy day are obviously my two favorite holidays. Realizing that I haven't enjoyed a grab-bag of random candy in years, I hit up the random candy stall at the supermarket--the one with like thirty different kinds, where you just put handfuls into a produce bag. Mary Janes, Bit O' Honeys, Tootsie Flavor Rolls, apple caramels, etcetera. The old favorites, y'know?

Got home, opened up one of those taffies that come in an unmarked twist of wax paper. It was... stale and nasty. The outside was kind of crunchy, and there was this musty flavor. I spat it in the trash and grabbed a "Made in the USA" maple toffee. Stale and nasty. Mary Jane, stale and nasty. Some of the Tootsie rolls were okay.

What's really got me down isn't that they've obviously been sitting untouched in those bins for months and years. What's got me down is that I realize that they were always stale and nasty. They weren't ever as good as I remember them being.

Fuck you, passage of time.

I should probably write a few words about hummus. Hummus is one of my favorite foods. It hits the same parts of the palate as meat, cheese, and fried things, but it's a lot healthier. It's got a warm, comfort-food flavor, which can swerve in almost any direction you like--towards the traditional Greek/Middle East, or into Tex-Mex or Italian or even non-specific Asian depending on what kind of ingredients you add. I think the reason it's not more popular is that it sounds weird. The fuck is a hummus, anyway? So think of it as Greek bean dip. Bean dip is great, everyone loves bean dip, and Greece is a really cool country so probably food from Greece isn't going to be too crazy, right?

Anyway, hummus is simple. I use a food processor because I have one, but I've also made it with a big, heavy spoon or salad-serving fork. Primary ingredient is chickpeas/garbanzo beans (they're usually labeled as both). Chickpeas are where the warm, comfortable flavor comes from--you can add them to chili or beef stew and they'll fit right in. Drain them and rinse them if you're using canned. If you're using dry beans, well, you're on your own.

Next up is tahini. The fuck is a tahini!? Relax, tahini is just mashed sesame seeds. I about two tablespoons per can of beans. You can use more or less, or even none at all. Tahini is kinda bitter; it adds a sort of tartness to the hummus. It's usually in the international isle, in the Mediterranean section if they have one.

After that, lemon juice. You can use a lot or a little. Again, it adds some bitterness to the hummus; traditional hummus makes pretty heavy use of it, but I tend to use less.

Last, olive oil. If you're going Asian, you can actually substitute sesame oil for some or all of the olive oil. I have no idea if there are any actually-Asian dishes that use chickpeas, but I made sesame oil hummus as a spread for some dahk galbi (Korean barbecue chicken) wraps once, and it was fucking delicious. But generally, you use olive oil, around three or four tablespoons. A teaspoon or two of salt will help bring out the flavor. Put all the ingredients in the food processor and blend them until you end up with a smooth, homogenous mixture. If it's too thick, add more tahini, lemon juice, or oil as you prefer, or even just some water. If you're not using a food processor, mash 'em with the implement of your choice until your arms wear out.

Those are the necessary(ish) ingredients. Beyond that, you can pretty much spice it to fit. Garlic, paprika, and marjoram are good, especially if you roast the garlic. You can also roast pine nuts and add them, either as a topping or to be ground up with the rest of the hummus. Cumin is never out of place, especially if you're going more Tex-Mex. Hot pepper flakes for kick, or even a chipotle pepper or two for some real bite. For the Asian hummus, I added some soy sauce and MSG.

You can do whatever you want with it. Traditionally it's a dip, I guess? Scoop it up with pita or chips. Like I said, I also use it as a spread on wraps and sandwiches. I've even used it as a chicken soup base. Basically, find something that isn't dessert, and put hummus on it and it will probably turn out okay.

So, I make mac 'n cheese 'n broccoli on the regular because it be bangin'. Also it's pretty simple, though the mats are relatively pricier than some of my other staple dishes. (I use rotini instead of macaroni because those spirals soak up sauce like the main event at a bukakke party.)

I start by heating around two cups of milk with about the same amount of cheddar cheese, stirring almost constantly. You don't want to burn anything, so I keep it on medium. Add salt, pepper, and thyme to taste (thyme on cheddar is sex). Once the cheese melts, the sauce should be pretty thin, so I thicken it with a few spoonfuls of corn starch. Steam broccoli, cook pasta, mix, consume.

Tonight I was inspired by the remaining Thanksgiving ham and the vinaigrette broccoli. So I mixed in a large spoonful of dijon mustard and a few tablespoons of red wine vinegar into the cheese sauce while it was melting. The vinegar curdles the milk, but it doesn't matter--it stirs up smooth when the cheese melts. I added a buttload of diced ham, and when everything was ready to mix I threw in half a diced red onion. Mmm, artery-cloggin' good.

I've never done a Thanksgiving before, so I'm pretty pleased that this one turned out so well. We held it at my roommate's parents' house, where I cooked for a total of nine people. Way more food for way more people than I've ever cooked for.

The main course was ham, because I wouldn't know what to do with a turkey and also ham is fucking delicious. I basted it in a glaze of brown sugar, dijon mustard, and balsamic vinegar. I baked it for about an hour, then laid strips of bacon on top of the ham. It was ten pounds and spiral-cut, so the glaze and bacon fat dripped into the ham itself. My goal was to have the bacon crust actually be edible, Epic Mealtime-style, but it was way underdone so I ended up removing it and saving it for later.

Mashed taters mixed with gooed onions (sauteed with a pinch of baking soda until they basically melt), butter, and salt. I made them tasty enough to get away with not serving a gravy--I'd planned to make a quick brown gravy but ran out of time.

I was going to make these green beans my dad is famous for, and also steamed broccoli with cheddar sauce, but I ended up forgetting to bring the damn green beans. So I combined them--steamed broccoli with the bacon dijon vinaigrette that usually goes in the beans. The vinaigrette is pretty simple: bacon grease (bulk it up with olive oil if you don't haven enough grease), white whine vinegar (or red, it really doesn't matter), dijon mustard, crumbled bacon. Put the bacon in last so it's still a bit crunchy when served. I also made butter rolls and pretzel rolls; I just made two batches of butter roll dough, and boiled half of it in baking soda water before they went into the oven.

For dessert I made four pies: three applesauce pies and one cranberry sauce pie. One of the applesauce pies I topped with cheddar cheese and the leftover bacon from the ham (I fried it up crispy before putting it on the pie), then put it under the broiler for a minute or two to melt the cheese.

All in all, it was an overwhelming success. My main fear was that I wouldn't have enough food for everyone--originally, I was going to make sweet potato casserole, too; thankfully I didn't, because we're going to be eating leftovers for a week as it is.

Next year I'll get a little less traditional, I think.

This is what passes as exotic at casa mfb: onion gnocchi with carrot sauce. I didn't trust the carrot sauce. My only experience with anything like a carrot sauce was this ginger carrot soup someone made. It wasn't really my favorite--very sweet. This turned out to be really good, though.

So, gnocchi is pretty simple. Dice two potatoes, boil until soft. Dice half an onion and put it in a pan with some olive oil and maybe half a teaspon of baking soda; sautee until mushy and brown. The baking soda greatly speeds the browning process--same thing as the pretzel dough I mentioned earlier, essentially. You can sautee onions alone for forty five minutes or an hour, or you can sautee them for about ten minutes with a dash of baking soda and get better results. Anyway, throw these into the food processor along with the potatoes and let the food processor run until the whole thing is goop. Pour the goop into a mixing bowl and start adding flour until you have a dough you can work with. It should be dry enough not to stick to your hands, wet enough to hold its shape without crumbling. Oh, and salt it to taste--not too salty, but enough to give it some flavor.

Roll your dough into a tube about as thick as your thumb, then chop it into lengths about as long as your first thumb knuckle. Take a fork and dent one side of them. Once all of your dough-thumbknuckles are ready, boil some water. Only after you've got it at a nice boil, drop a handful of dough-thumbknuckles at a time into the water. Scoop them out with a slotted spoon as soon as they start to float; it should take less than thirty seconds or so, and you really don't want to overboil them or they get mushy. Once they're out, they're ready to eat.

Now, the carrot sauce. I used two or three regular carrots and three or four puny little carrots--maybe a quarter of a bag, total, but we ended up with maybe 30% more sauce than we actually needed. Dice them and sautee them in butter until they start to get soft. It took maybe twenty minutes to half an hour, for me. Keep them stirred so they don't stick and burn. Once they're soft, put them in the food processor with a large pinch of dill and a medium pinch of cumin. Start the food processor, and then start adding chicken stock until you reach the optimum point of a) volume of sauce desired and b) consistency of sauce desired.

Once it's done, you'll probably want to nuke it for thirty seconds to warm it up. Ideally, the last of the gnocchi should just be coming out of the water when the sauce is done.

The result is just... good. Like, really good, and filling. The onions give the gnocchi an almost pierogi flavor, and the carrot sauce is nice and savory while still retaining a little bit of sweetness--just enough to be part of the flavor, not overwhelming like I'd worried.

God damn. So, seriously: this is not a habit. My dinnering habits are usually pretty standard. But not today.

Today, my room mate did a favor for someone and in return received a box of fresh spaghetti noodles. Like, freshly-made, by the guy who provides all of Pittsburgh's high-class Italian joints with their pasta. This here is correct pasta.

To top it I made a higher-class version of my usual red sauce. If I'd known ahead of time, I'd have gone even higher-class, but you work with what you've got. To start with, I put a few tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan. I spread, oh, probably around a third of a cup of parmesean cheese, enough to soak up a lot of the oil. The cheese needs to be wet, don't leave any of it dry. If I'd had time to prepare, I'd have shredded some of the block of good reggiano I keep in the back of the cheese drawer for special occasions. Might do that later this week, haven't used up more than a third of the pasta. Anyway, I also crushed five garlic cloves into the pools in the cheese-oil mud pie. Hey, I like garlic.

I set the heat to just over medium. The goal, here is to thoroughly toast the cheese. You don't want to burn it (or maybe you do, but I never have), but you want to brown as much of it as possible. Thing is, you really can't stir it--it just clumps up and stick to the spoon once it start melting. So you want to spread it as evenly as possible in the first place. I usually let it go for three to five minutes depending on how ballsy I'm feeling (I'm terrified of actually burning it). You've got the garlic in there to think of as well, and you definitely don't want that to burn, so once the garlic starts getting dark you need to move on to the next step regardless of how the cheese is doing.

The next step is deglazing the cheese. I use cheapass red cooking wine; it boils real nice, which works the cheese away from the pan. Use a spoon to scrape the cheese as the wine boils it free. Before it all settles, you want to add the tomatoes.

Usually, I use Red Pack tomato puree, or crushed if I want some texture. Puree soaks up the oil and cheese better, though. As far as grocery store canned tomatoes go, Red Pack has the best flavor to me--more acidic than, y'know, Hunt's or whatever. Tonight, however, I used one of the cans of San Marzanos that I keep around. San Marzanos are the king of tomatoes. They grow best on fucking volcanoes because they're fucking EXTREME. They're very densely flavored for their size, and it's a good flavor. The canned San Marzanos I use are whole in a puree sauce, which makes the tomatoes themselves simultaneously firm and mushable. I pour the tomatoes in and let the puree keep things from sticking while I use a big salad serving fork to crush the whole tomatoes.

Sometimes I add the marjoram to the oil-cheese-garlic mixture, sometimes I add it after the tomatoes. It doesn't seem to matter a whole lot, but I add a lot of it. Marjoram is like oregano on crack. Same flavor but stronger. I don't screw around with oregano anymore, I've moved on to the good shit. I get my spices at Penzey's unless I'm in a rush. You should also get your spices at Penzey's. They don't fuck around with spices. Regardless, I use a lot of marjoram--about as much as I can grab, minus a shake or two, with my thumb and first two fingers. I also add a pinch of basil, but not a lot because it's largely wasted--basil loses flavor the longer you cook it. The best way to use basil, especially dried, is to put a pinch on top of an individual serving. But I have a lot of basil (PENZEEEEEEY'S) so I use a little in the sauce while it's cooking as well.

Next I add balsamic vinegar. I have some really, really nice Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon balsamic, which has a very deep, rich flavor and pours like fucking molasses, but it doesn't actually have the whole flavor I'm looking for. Really good balsamic doesn't have a strong vinegar flavor, so I only add one or two teaspoons of the good stuff. Then I add about two tablespoons of my grocery store balsamic de modena.

Speaking of molasses, I also add molasses. A spoonful or so. I also chop up two pepperoncinis and add them into the mix. I cook the sauce at mediumish heat for a while, then reduce it to low and let it simmer for as long as I can stand to wait.

The result is a fairly tart sauce that has an almost peppery flavor from the marjoram. Sometimes I'll add even more marjoram and molasses and drop the balsamic, for a much sweeter sauce. Sometimes I'll add some red pepper flakes to the oil-cheese-garlic mix to give it some kick. The main thing is browning the cheese. You use enough cheese that you don't need to add any salt--the cheese is all the salt you need.

I've never actually used fresh pasta before, so I was a little nervous about dealing with it. Like, it's not dried, so I wasn't sure how long it would need to boil to be "right". I ended up boiling it for about five minutes, though I probably could have stopped at around three--just enough to get it hot and wet (hubba hubba).

And like I said, once I portioned out the pasta and topped it with sauce, I added a pinch of dried basil to each serving and topped it with more parmesean because CHEESE FUCK YEAH. Fresh basil is even better; it's hard to overstate that. And basil grows like fucking weeds, so you just need to slap a small pot down by a windowsill and keep the soil moistish to end up with more basil than you can possibly use. But all my fresh basil is gone, so I used dried and it was damn tasty anyway.

So, I swear I don't usually try new, delicious things this often. Usually I'm all like

but tonight I decided to try bierock, or bierocks? Or runzas, I guess. Lot of different names for it, and I kinda made it up as I went along anyway.

So: I sauteed some beef. Once I had a nice amount of beef fat coating the bottom of the pan, I threw in half a diced red onion (I don't buy anything but red onions, now. I mean, what's the fucking point? You can have bullshit white or yellow onions, or you can have motherfucking red onions.), and one (1) buttload of black pepper. I doused it pretty thoroughly with Worchestershire sauce, and once the beef was brown I threw in the rest of the can of saurkraut from the potatoes last week. I spiced it with some thyme and rosemary, and a dash of cooking sherry because using alcohol in my food makes me feel like a grown-up. Then I salted the hell out of it. Then I put in some more Worchestershire.

I let it simmer for a while, which cooked some of the saur out of the kraut, which is fine because I'm not a fan of really saur saurkraut. Rolled out some hand-sized rectangles of dough really thin, plopped a scoop of meatonionkraut on each, and folded them over. Bake at 450 for around ten minutes.

Final result is pretty fucking fantastic. Peppery-sweet-sour, the Worchestershire and the kraut make an interesting combination. I use pretty cheap ground beef, so there was a lot of beef fat to seep out and kinda fry the dough, mostly on the inside of the pocket. Next time I think I'm actually going to drain some of the fat off, and brush it on the outside of the pockets. The difference between bread that has had a extra bit of oil brushed onto the outer surface, versus bread that hasn't, is like night and day, if night and day were words that described how deliciously brown and flaky bread can be.

Probably going back to red sauce on pasta, and similar staples, though. I might put up my marinara sauce recipe. I know every bachelor on the planet has their own recipe that tops everybody else's... but mine tops everybody else's.

Another night spent putting far too much work into what is essentially junk food.

You know those little mini-hotdog rolls? I'm not a fan of hot dogs, but those things are fucking delicious. For my version I used kielbasa, cut an inch long or so, and wrapped them, along with a small strip of bacon each, in dough that had been boiled in baking soda water. Cooking science fact: boiling dough in baking soda water is how you make pretzel dough. So, browned kielbasa chunks wrapped in bacon wrapped in soft pretzel, with some spicy brown mustard to dip them in.

For a side, I made mashed potatoes. Didn't have any milk, so I added an extra chunk of butter, a little water, and some chicken stock, then dumped it all into the food processor. I've never used the food processor to make mashed potatoes before. Turns out, it mashes 'em real good. They came out looking like KFC mashed potatoes, and if you don't like KFC mashed potatoes you need to turn in your white trash card, elitist.

Mixed in a spoonful or two of saurkraut once the potatoes were ready, along with some bacon crumbles. Final result: pretty damn good chow. Piggin' out like a BAWS.