Whatever t'heck's in yer fridge.

We all have those days. You know the ones where we really want something good to eat but we don't have the right ingredients to make any of our favorites and most of what's in the fridge is strange leftovers. I had a day like such as that today. And from those strange, seemingly misfit leftovers I made a delicious lunch.

'Kay, so I have this thing about calling procedures "recipes". So let me be clear, this here is a procedure for making a meal, not a recipe, and you can follow it exactly or use whatever the heck you want/have.

You'll need:
1 Can of tuna
1 med onion, diced
a heck of a lot of bacon grease (if you substitute this please, please use butter and not vegetable oil, vegetable oil tastes like crap...or "carp" if you're talking to my three-year-old niece.)
2ish cups of old nasty rice
1T hoisin sauce, soy sauce or whatever kind of sauce
some egg yolks
soy sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Drain the tuna and set it aside. Take a huge skillet and saute the onions with the bacon grease over med-high heat. Mmm. Fat, I love fat. When the onions start getting golden-ish, add the tuna and smash it to bits, little, tiny, savory bits. I would like to point out that adding bacon grease to anything, even something boring like canned tuna makes it amazing. Ok, when that's all nice and steamy together dump in your rice, stir all together and then add the sauce. Cool, smells yummy, no? Ok, now make a little well in the middle of your rice/tuna/onion mess and add the egg yolks. Stirring quickly mix the egg yolks all through and when they're all cooked take it out. Right now I can tell what you're thinking; "Wow, this looks disgusting, what the heck was she thinking?" to which my answer is; "You're a doofus, you'll thank me when this goes in your mouth." Drizzle the whole bowl with soy sauce and add whatever salt and pepper you think is good. Now, I want you to enjoy the fact that you; a)got leftovers out of your fridge, b) were able to let go of your anal retentiveness and follow a procedure not a recipe and, c) are eating something totally delicious. Feeds 2-3.

Buona? SI! A dopo tutti.

Uhmm...what?

I love history. To me it is fascinating, riveting, amazing stories about how other older civilizations have lived. So, not surprisingly, I also love my history class. My professor is a pretty good lecturer and I don't need to read the book, to get an A. (Ok, this sounds like a good thing but it really just means I only like things if I can be a slacker about them...plus, I didn't buy the book, tee hee!) But, there is one thing I don't love about my history class, I call him "Back Row Boy" because I don't really know his name- maybe Justin or Josh or something like that. Anyway, this kid talks nearly more than the professor, and worst of all, God bless him, he either; a) says something the professor has JUST SAID b) says something that is on the massive projector screen that the professor is ABOUT TO SAY or c) says something TOTALLY IRRELEVANT AND/OR FALSE.

This drives me seriously bonkers. So the reason I told you all of this is to give you background for my "Story of Today".

*Ahem*

Prof: "...and one of the things we have to look at is the sale of indulgences. Indulgences are given by the Church to those faithful who perform good works to reduce their time in purgatory. Now, does anyone know what purgatory is? Tirienne?"

Me:"Purgatory is the place between Earth and Heaven where you go after you die in order to atone for your sins before entering heaven. It's basically like hell but with hope."

Prof:"Exactly and-"

Back Row Boy: (loudly) "Actually, the pope got rid of purgatory like three years ago."

At this point my professor gave me the most horrified look, his eyebrows practically in his hairline. It took severe self control to keep myself from falling off my chair and laughing until my time to go to purgatory. Instead I helped my poor professor out by saying something to the effect of "uhmm, no"

Ahh, Back Row Boy, he means well. And may he produce many gems of hilariousness for me to share with you all in the future.

Vanity gets the smackdown.

Baking class. You're on your feet for five hours at a time and I, tenderfoot (well, really tender-knee), can't handle it. So my sister Arwen finally convinced me to buy some Danskos.

Yes, those eminently wearable but seriously heinous shoes. They arrived today and are just... gosh, let's say as unattractive as I imagined them to be. But as I currently wear them I have decided they are the gosh darn most comfortable things ever. Thus, for once in my life I am choosing comfort over style. Yay me.

Scrumptions (Yes, that's different from "scrumptious")

So here's the thing. I'm in training to become a chef/baker/pastry chef. But here's also the thing, I don't want to write a food blog. I want to write a ME blog (dude, how vain does that sound?) and sometimes food happens to be part of that so, cool, whatever but don't think that this is going to be the only thing I write about, cause it's not. Ok, we've cleared that up. Now, ONWARD!!

I love Teriaki, I really do. So guess what I made for dinner? Yes, all you teriaki lovers* out there, I made teriaki chicken with rice. Which is how I came to call the one inch cubes of chicken "scrumptions" because they were crispy and chewy on the outside and tender perfect on the inside. Mmm.

For the sauce:

1C soy sauce
1C sugar
1/2C cider vinegar
2T corn starch
2T cold water
2 Cloves garlic
pepper to taste

For the rest:

3 chicken breasts well trimmed and cut into 1in cubes
4C cooked rice

Kay, so here's how it goes. Mix all the stuff for the sauce together in a medium sauce pan and whisk it together until the sugar is dissolved and the starch is well disbursed. Did I say turn on the stove? No, I didn't. Set the pan to the side and hold your freaking horses. Sweet, now turn the oven on to 400 degrees and line a baking sheet with foil. Place all the chicken cubes on top. Set it aside for a sec, good. (Yeah, uhmm so right about now you might want to think about cooking your rice, like boil four cups of water, add two cups uncooked rice turn it to low and cover for 20 minutes? Mhmm, good idea.) Now it's time to put that sauce on a medium/low heat and wait for it to start thickening and bubbling. Did it happen? Just the way you always imagined?? Your fairy-tale sauce?!? Wow, you're good...wait, just kidding it's called corn starch. Oo bubble burster, that's me. Anyway, put about half of the sauce into another bowl and with a pastry brush slather that sauce on to the chicken. Now you're going to want to bake these in the oven for about oh, I'd say 10-12 minutes. But about halfway through (5-6 minutes for those of you who have decided never to use simple math ever again) turn them over and brush some more of that yummah sauce on them. You'll pretty much see when they're done if you have any qualms just cut one in half and see if there's still some pink. Or, if you're like my grandma and enjoy eating things the texture of shoe leather, don't cut one in half, just let them dry out until they are sad charred bricks. Assemble it like this rice/chicken/more sauce. And seriously, you will cry at how good this is. Serves 8 children or 4 adults or 1 NFL player. Total time, like an hour or something.

Buon appetito.

*Notice that I said LOVERS, not AFICIONADOS so if you're like all fancy and into real Japanese cooking please don't hate on my Americanized version.