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Just scanned my email after 5 hours heavy work on book since 5 AM, hungry, etc., not even dressed! I'm going to quit right now and make that egg on English muffin sandwich!! Have some blueberries with it, and a cup of homemade cappucino (skim milk and instant espresso)

I like hamburgers on toasted English muffins. Also make cheese and tomato and basil melts with bacon on the muffins. Have to be well-toasted, or they're awful.

I too used to love, in NYS, fried egg sandwich on a crisp roll with seeds--can't find that here in Florida for whatever reason. French hamburger rolls from Publix are quite good, especially if you crisp them just 30 seconds (and I pull out the doughy interior besides before using for a sandwich).

maggy@bridgetable.net

I'm not a true chocaholic because I don't care for dark -- only milk chocolate. I was introduced to Hershey's chunks (forget name, small rectangles, individually wrapped chunks) at of all places, as a giveaway at best Thai restaurant around here. The word may be nuggets, but that doesn't seem right eit her.Delicious. Especially those with almonds.

I too have noted difference in Cadbury's in England and here -- when we lived there for a bit years ago, found out they didn't even sell them in summer because not "preserved" to withstand heat. Probably why they're so good.

aurora89

I too adore COUNTRY Fried Steak. My mother (right out of Sweden) adopted it early and made it for us with bacon as the sauteed starter for the cream sauce. Minute steaks are too thin -- has to be round steaks pounded (my mom pounded with the side of a saucer). One responder above has the best idea--starting it with crumbled sausage. Only a month or so ago, I discovered a breakfast restaurant on Merritt Island (Florida) where I do not have to choose between Country Fried Chicken and (another Southern Food Addiction) Sausage Gravy over Biscuits, for they put sausage cream gravy OVER their wonderful country fried chicken! And you get a big oversize biscuit on the side. My gosh, I think I'll go right over and get it today. Maggy

Canning would give me an anxiety attack--my mother canned everything when I was growing up, from jams and jellies to NY clam chowder and half chickens with okra in quart-sized jars to home-made spaghetti sauce.. Even she made me nervous with that boiling water and stuff. Ditto pressure cookers. THAT'S NOT COOKING THAT'S A CHEMISTRY EXPERIMENT. Cooking should be relaxing.

If you want a challenge try making your own strudel dough and stretch it out on a clean tablecloth without any holes in the dough--I wanted to out-do my Hungarian mother-in-law way back (now I AM a mother-in-law) and it was disastrous. That is a culinary feat.

However, I did end up making Chicken Paprikas and Hungarian Stuffed Cabbage that my husband said was better than his mother's.

I agree with your reaction against volunteering--women are always being given that kind of advice. I like the idea of making a bunch of home-made "TV Dinners"--buy the sectional metal foil pans, and see what you come up with. Will give you a lift everytime y ou come home tired and realize you have a GOOD ready-made dinner.

Or you can do the project I want to spend a day on sometime--creating a little "go with coffee" treat comparable to, say, Dunkn Donuts Sticks--was the only good thing they had and now they don't make them anymore. Used to buy one about 5 inches long and divide into five and freeze. It tasted like the nutmeg flavored crullers my mother used to make. Is there anyway one could achieve that taste and crunch but eliminate the French frying? I'm thinking to do the dough, and t hen spray pan and individual little clumps of it with butter, and bake instead of fry. Would that work? I want something like a churro(sp?) they have in Spain to go with hot chocolate.
aurora89