So I ate this food with my mouth the other day and hey listen to this:

[RoyBiggins]

This is turning into a full-on extravaganza. LPTJers should totally show up.

Saturday is Lucy's one day off this weekend. It'd be funny if I was like "LUCY! We're going to a cookout! Get in the car!" and 3 hours later she realized we weren't going to a REGULAR cookout.  We were going to an Aug cookout, and also the Fort Kearney Museum.

[Augo]

Fort Kearney is a little bit out of the way!  Worth going to, though.

[El_Josharino]

Aug you guys better come hungry. I've go so much beef. And so many hot dogs. You too Biggins and Lucy.

[El_Josharino]

Oh man burgers and dogs and burgers and dogs last night. Everyone seemed to agree that it was all quite tasty. I think about 25 people showed up and all left satisfied and there was not a morsel to spare. Grillouts = success.

[Johnny Miracle]

So, my room mates have been inexplicably out of the apartment all day.

So  I took the opportunity to cook the super-discounted pack of 18 chicken drumsticks we bought yesterday.

Yessir, I simply bathed it in chipotle BBQ sauce and baked it for an hour at 375.


I'm eating a few of them right now and they're giving me a major nostalgia trip, because my mother used to cook chicken in the same manner when I was a young lad- and I don't believe I've had chicken of this sort since a good few years before I reached the ago of majority.

[elpollodiablo]

Johnny do you happen to have a brother named Maynard

[Johnny Miracle]

Nope, I am, in fact, an only child.

[Greg Nog]

Welcome, Johnny!  I know of a fruit that you might enjoy!

[Johnny Miracle]

Welcome, Johnny!  I know of a fruit that you might enjoy!

Holy Caterpillar!

That fruit sounds absolutely crazy. Changing the way things taste without altering them in any way, shape, or form... I never even considered that to be possible.

[Greg Nog]

I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't tasted it myself! 

In other food news: I think I might make some borscht tonight.

[Antero]

Where the hell do you get those?

[crystalcakes]

people love to say that kind of thing, but it's bullshit. taco bell just uses really low grade meat, which is--guess what?--cheaper than meat substitutes.

taco bell uses grade A beef.  just like other fast food places.  i love these rumors though.  they haven't changed since i was a baby, even though there are laws against the practice.

i love the snopes pieces on what bullshit all of this is. 

i haven't felt much like cooking lately.  i need to bake a bunch of cupcakes soon.  tips on making them cute?

[Johnny Miracle]

i haven't felt much like cooking lately.  i need to bake a bunch of cupcakes soon.  tips on making them cute?

Pink frosting.

Pink frosting usually tends to make things pretty cute.


Also, put small plastic dinosaurs on them. We did that on my friend's birthday, and the cupcakes were a major hit.

[crystalcakes]

i haven't felt much like cooking lately.  i need to bake a bunch of cupcakes soon.  tips on making them cute?

Pink frosting.

Pink frosting usually tends to make things pretty cute.


Also, put small plastic dinosaurs on them. We did that on my friend's birthday, and the cupcakes were a major hit.

yeah, pink is happening.  and i did the dinosaur thing for my ex boyfriend so i guess that wouldn't be appropriate here. 

is there a special way of frosting them that would be prettier than the usual butter knife way (that i do actually really like)?  also, a girl at work made chocolate cupcakes with an oreo baked inside.  i'm considering doing those.  hmmm. 

oh!  and i grilled with friends last weekend and it was so tasty.  i wish that i had a grill. 

[Andrew_TSKS]

people love to say that kind of thing, but it's bullshit. taco bell just uses really low grade meat, which is--guess what?--cheaper than meat substitutes.

taco bell uses grade A beef.  just like other fast food places.  i love these rumors though.  they haven't changed since i was a baby, even though there are laws against the practice.

i love the snopes pieces on what bullshit all of this is.

you were misunderstanding what i was talking about, and i also probably used an incorrect term. this is what i was talking about:

If a meat producer wishes, he can have his products graded by a USDA grader, who will assign it to one of eight categories: Prime, Choice, Select, Standard, Commercial, Utility, Cutter, and Canner.  According to the USDA:

USDA Prime, Choice, Select, and Standard grades come from younger beef. The highest grade, USDA Prime, is used mostly by hotels and restaurants, but a small amount is sold at retail markets. The grade most widely sold is USDA Choice. 

Standard and Commercial grade beef frequently is sold as ungraded or as "brand name" meat.

The three lower grades--USDA Utility, Cutter, and Canner--are seldom, if ever, sold in stores but are used instead to make ground beef and other meat items such as frankfurters.

This grading process is optional, however, and even meat assigned to the lowest grades is perfectly edible.  Obviously some cuts and grades of meat are more flavorful or nutritious--and therefore more appealing (and more expensive) to consumers--but every meat product which passes USDA inspection has been certified as fit for human consumption.  Any meat that does not pass the basic USDA inspection process is rejected; it is not designated as a "low grade but edible" or "pet food only" product.

i don't know all the ins and outs of what taco bell is putting in their tacos, but it ain't usda prime. my guess is that they're using what the usda quote calls "brand name" meat for their steak, and the utility/cutter/canner stuff for their ground beef. which, as the above quote points out, is what it's typically used for. and as i said before, that stuff is cheaper than soy. so none of what i said is technically wrong. i'm well aware that the whole grade d thing is bullshit, but i wasn't saying that anyway.

[Greg Nog]

A stranger in the park offered me some free cheeseburgers, so I took them and ate them.  I was kinda worried that by now I might be dead, or suffering from diarrhea or hallucinations.  But nope, I'm doing great!  Nice!

[crystalcakes]

i am having people over on friday to watch bad movies.  i am making truffle brownies from trader joes.  what else should i make?  i usually have a bunch of ideas but right now i am totally blank.  taco bar? 

[Maaik]

this will make the bad movies better.

[alex]

I just went on an ice cream break with a bunch of my colleagues, which was in itself a fun thing to do, but the wonders of Australian Homemade hazelnut-almond ice cream made it that much more fantastic still. I will somehow have to convince my body to produce some more lactase so I can eat this stuff every day between now and late September. Or at least once or twice a week, please?

[alex]

I am eating a very liberally interpreted version of Wally's TVP-coconut milk curry at the moment. It turned out really well.

[citrus]

I just had a soy frozen yogurt with peanut butter and m&m's mixed in from 21 choices. So delicious.

[jess]

I just had a soy frozen yogurt with peanut butter and m&m's mixed in from 21 choices. So delicious.

We have a bunch of places like that around here, and yummm. I like banana pb and cinnamon. And chocolate ginger. And many more combos. It's sort of addictive, especially since they all deliver.

[El_Josharino]

My buddy had a grillout last night before we all went to a show. It was pretty grand. Burgers, brats, pork tenderloin, baked beans, sauteed red peppers and onions... hoo boy.

[diesel_powered]

So tonight I totally made kitchen love.

My parents were down last weekend and bought me a bunch of food, so I threw the slab of carne asada I had in the oven and made some bitchin' burritos. I'm not sure if I cooked it enough because I lack a meat thermometer, but if it kills me it'll be worth it.

Then, I made a breakthrough in my recent smoothie explorations after a trip to Trader Joe's. I threw a banana, some frozen mixed berries, a yogurt cup, and some soy milk into the mini chopper and went to town. Yes. Yes please. IMO, the mini chopper works better than a blender.

[C of heartbreak]

I was hoping that post was gonna be about sex on the kitchen counter.

Carne asada is almost as good, I guess.