Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Lately I've been enjoying a burger that's made of lean, but not too lean, ground beef seasoned with A1 and Stubb's Spicy BBQ sauce, S&P, grilled over charcoal w. Provolone, dill pickles, mustard, onion, lettuce and tomato. I recently had provolone on a burger in desperation and realized that I think I prefer it to cheddar! So smooth and melty and delish!

lately I've been making foccacia w. sea salt and rosemary

my mouth is watering over the idea of earl grey macarons. yum!! I'm imagining a milky cream that sets off the bergamot- tea flavor.

I think a pineapple-lime-jalepeno macaron would be great - pineapple being the main flavor with accents of lime and spice.

there are the cakes that failed to rise, cookies that melted together to fill the entire baking sheet, and most memorably the lemon curd that wouldn't. All a result of not being patient enough to have the kind of accuracy baking usually requires and a healthy dose of wrong-headed experimentation, not to mention a lack of specialized equipment

The most recent baking disaster was the no-knead bread that just would get to the right consistency - it was too wet, and seemingly no amount of additional flour would dry it up properly. Then, it failed to rise properly. Amazingly, it worked out ok-ish in the end (weird texture for no-knead bread, but it tasted ok), but only after what seemed like an entire weekend of fussing with it.

bagel and lox with cream cheese (obv), capers and thin slices of red onion. to drink? coffee and celery soda.

mousse or its cousin, pudding.

I live in Florida, so can easily throw something -- fish, marinated chicken pieces, burgers-- on the grill most of the time.

Lately, it's been grilled tuna steaks with lemon-dijon sauce and capers, usually with couscous or something else suitably quick. Add some steamed vegetables, and the whole meal can be put together in about 10 minutes.

bagels with lox and cream cheese, obviously. with capers and thin slices of red onion (tomato and cucumber slices optional).

this is probably one of my meals of all time. period.

I live in St Pete - in 2004, our hurricane prep involved trying to get mostly proteins - beef jerky, nuts, string cheese (since those are so processed and packaged, that they won't go bad easily), canned tuna, canned veggie soups, and also some high-calorie stuff - chips, candy, cookies. I think we still have a container of instant coffee that we haven't had occasion to open.

I used to live in Eastern Ontario - and in 98, we had an ice storm that knocked our power out for 9 days. What saved my roommates and I in that storm was the fact that one of my roommates had just received a fondue pot from a relative, for christmas. We were able to get ahold of a case of fondue fuel, and were able to heat up water for tea and coffee, and to heat up canned foods. I'm not a big fan of fondue, generally speaking, but I will not be without a fondue pot, now.

if I'm going all out, I use a marinade similar to intheyearofthepig's recipe.

Sometimes, for a super quick meal, however, I saute green peppers and onions, remove them from the pan, then pan-sear some cubed boneless, skinless chicken breast - return the veggies to the pan, and pour in a mixture of salsa and lime juice (1 good juicy lime's worth, or 2 if they're not so juicy and about 1/4-1/3 cup of salsa. Let them all cook down together, until the chicken is cooked through, then serve w. the usual fixin's

This recipe is about as good as your salsa, however- if you can get decent salsa, it can be pretty great - nice and simple. I've made it with supermarket brand salsa, however, and it's still filling, and quick, but it's not quite as delish.

ugh - I absolutely know the feeling.

Rice cooked with chicken broth, steamed veggies, and mildly-flavoured boneless skinless chicken breasts were my staples. Also applesauce - I made applesauce all the time when I was in exam time - it's nice to do something mindless to give yourself a break from all-out-study mode, peeling and chopping apples, boiling them, and (in my college days I didn't have a food mill), forcing the cooked chunks through a mesh sieve gave me a break from studying that wasn't too finicky (if I forgot about the apples for a few minutes, it didn't much matter).

Come to think of it, I still make applesauce whenever I'm super stressed. Something about apples and cinnamon (and add a little pinch of powdered ginger both for the flavour and to calm your belly!) is just so homey and comforting.

Good luck with your exams!!!

My name is Kate, (provey is an abbreviation of an old blog name taken from some Bikini Kill lyrics). I'm a 30-year-old scientist living in St Petersburg, FL. I love to cook, and garden. I covet people who have really excellent knife skills (and the money to buy really excellent knives).