In case you were wondering what to have for dinner..

While I'm busy daydreaming about what to include in my ultimate picnic lunch, you can all read this wonderful recipe for boiled water.

Best boiled water EVER.
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Things to do with any spare chickens you might have around the house

1. Train them to clean the bathroom after houseguests had a particularly bad reaction to your new recipe for shrimp Milanese.

2. Express remorse about the fact that Teddy Bears are common in our culture while Teddy Chickens are conspicuously absent

3. Gossip about how all those spotted owls think they're SO smart and SO much better than the rest of poultrykind.

4. Dress them up in little Star Trek uniforms and reenact your favorite episodes.

5. Or you could always try this. It might be great.
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That sound you hear is Ronald McDonald whimpering and sobbing in the corner like a pansy

Remember a couple Fridays ago, when I spoke of my desire to create the perfect hot & spicy burger?
I think I've succeeded.
Everyone (especially Whall), you simply MUST try this.

For the burger:
Take half a pound of hamburger and mix in 1 tablespoon hot cajun seasoning along with 1 teaspoon cayenne powder. (I used the medicinal strength stuff, but you can use the kind that's in the spice aisle). Mitmita would also work, if you can get a good hot batch. So would Blair's Death Rain. You can either make one half-pound patty or two quarter-pound patties. They'll shrink when you cook them, so it's not as huge as it sounds. Cook them however you want; I like mine well-done.

For the bun:
Any kind will work as long as you toast it beforehand. Toasting adds a special something-- in flavor, appearance, and texture. Highly recommended. Just place both sides face down on a cookie sheet and toast it in the oven til it's golden brown.

Toppings:
-Tomato,
-Bacon,
-Pepper jack cheese (use habanero jack if you can find it instead of that wussy jalapeno stuff),
-A few of those canned crunchy french fried onions* which have been tossed with some hot cajun seasoning and maybe a few drops of hot sauce (bonus points if you toast them in the oven beforehand)
-And at least 2 tablespoons of barbecue sauce mixed with at least half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper.

It's yummy.
Try it.
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*P.S. I know! I know, I hate onions, yet I like the crispy canned kind. Maybe it's because they've been processed into oblivion and have hardly any of their original onion molecules left.
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Potpourri of various food-related things

1. I found a neat recipe for BBQ ribs... and instead of sugar or honey, they sweeten it with Coca-Cola!! At first I thought "Ew", but then I decided it might actually be kind of good.
HERE's the recipe.

2. Lately I have had a thing for Faygo Redpop. I love Faygo Redpop. Someone help me, I can't put it down! I've got a bottle right here next to me! It turns my tongue red every time, but I love it soooo much! It's all sweet and strawberry-like, with that bright toxic neon radioactive red color... Mmmmm.
(Although I guess radioactive things are blue or green, aren't they? On The Simpsons the nuclear stuff is bright glowing green... Ok, I'll go with that... after all, how could The Simpsons possibly be wrong about anything?)

3. On a recent post over at Pointless Drivel, Mr. Fab says that asparagus makes his pee smell weird. (Yes, he really said that.) Apparently this is a chemical reaction that happens to SOME people, but not ALL people. I have become insanely curious now, wondering if I'm one of those people. I don't mind asparagus; I just don't eat it very often. (And I never paid attention to any resulting odors before). Yet now I find myself wanting to go out and buy some asparagus, just so I can know for sure if I'm one of the people whose pee smells weird afterward. I realize this makes me a sick disgusting person. And yet....

4. I have found a delicious Oriental hot sauce which I highly recommend. It's "Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce," by Huy Fong. I found it at Meijer, in the Ethnic foods section. It's got a bunch of Chinese words on the front, and a rooster. They have a website: www.huyfong.com. HERE'S the page that talks about the Sriracha sauce. The sauce is bright red, (all natural color!) and deliciously hot. I love it. Love it!! I put just a tiny drop on my tongue, to taste it, and my tongue came alive. Whoo, boy. And it's not JUST heat, it has a great flavor, too. Right now I have a pan of mini egg-rolls in the oven, and I'm going to eat them with the hot sauce as my evening snack.

UPDATE: I'm done with my plate of mini egg rolls. They were amazing. My tongue is burning, my nose is running, and my eyes are full of tears.
I LOVE THIS STUFF!!!

UPDATE #2: I found a Lean Cuisine in the freezer that had asparagus, so I ate that. You will all surely be delighted to hear that my pee doesn't smell any different from usual (not that I go around sniffing it on a regular basis).

Four Groups Of Four

I forgot to do a Thursday Thirteen yesterday, so please accept this belated version I made up. I call it "Four Groups of Four on Friday, For No Reason Except That I Was An Idiot And Forgot To Do Thursday Thirteen."
I know, it's a long title. Work with me here.
(Yes, I know four times four does not equal thirteen, it's sixteen... I know. Think of it as getting three extra, because I was a day late. Like some screwed-up bloggy version of an exorbitant interest rate. )
So, here we go:

Category I
Four Recipes That Sound Good To Me Right Now
A. Crab Cakes
B. Szechuan orange chicken with red chile peppers
C. BBQ Ribs
D. Chicken Enchiladas

Category II
Four Things One Should NOT Do With A Bottle Of Mountain Dew:
A. Shake it really hard and point the cap at your eardrum.
B. Pee in it, just to see if it changes the color any.
C. Bludgeon people who mispronounce the word "Nuclear."
D. Pour it on cornflakes.

Category III
Four Random Items For No Reason:
A. Traffic ticket for driving the wrong way on the Interstate, naked, with a rabid elk in the back seat.
B. Post-it note with a grape jelly stain, stuck to middle of driveway
C Postcard from Mount Rushmore, saying "Actually, I'm kind of GLAD you're not here..."
D. Blueberry scented candle in a corner of the Emergency Room, recently removed from an unmentionable orifice on some unfortunate person named Phil. (Hint: The candle is no longer quite as blueberry-scented as it used to be.)
(....Could have been worse; he could have used a Mountain Dew bottle. Those 2-liters are really... oops, I've said too much. Moving right along....)

Category IV
Four Blogs I Visited Today: (among many others)
A. Bagwine Ruminations
B. It's A Blog Eat Blog World
C. Pointless Drivel
D. Rock, Paper, Scissors, Gun

Lavender Ice Cream

I've never spent the night at a Bed and Breakfast, but I did attend a nice afternoon luncheon at one once, maybe five years ago.
The thing I remember best about it was a very unique dessert: Homemade lavender-flavored ice cream.
I know, it sounds peculiar, doesn't it?
But it was actually really good. It tasted the same way lavender smells-- and believe it or not, that ended up being a good taste.
Awhile later I asked the lady if she'd share the recipe, and she wouldn't/couldn't... she said something about having "lost" the recipe. (???)
Whatever.
Anyway, it inspired me to look for such recipes on the Internet.
I found quite a few, including this one for Blueberry-Lavender Ice Cream.
And I also found this page, where you can buy lavender for use in recipes.
Cool!