My insomnia kicked in again, and it required a Kosher hot dog with kraut and spicy mustard on a top-split roll. That, and some oj. Yum. Now if I could just sleep!

Dan Dan noodles do it for me, and also the spicy "firecracker" shrimp served at many restaurants, but I make mine at home. I've also made strong chicken stock in the crockpot and added lime pickle or other HOT spiced things, and then proceeded to make a soup: rice noodles, bean sprouts, chicken chunks, shrimp, chopped cubes of tofu, fresh spinach leaves, thinly sliced onion, celery, zucchini, bok choy or choisum. You really just need to throw everything in there, assuming the chicken is cooked, :) for about a half hour. You could do the prep for the soup on the weekends, and Ziploc it for the night you want it, or if your local market has a salad bar you can buy them pre-prepped, though that's not inexpensive. Yum. I like to do hot and spicy chicken thighs, shred the meat and serve it in buns w/ slaw, and corn on the cob w/ cilantro butter and cotija cheese. You can make a Southwestern chicken soup w/ chicken stock, pinto beans, squash cubes, onions and chiles. You can add as much heat as you like. Spicy tomato soup would be really easy as well. And if you make a spicy red sauce, the possibilities are endless: you can make pasta, obviously; but one thing I LOVE is to poach eggs in the sauce, and serve it all over really good lightly-toasted, buttered bread or English muffins. Shakshuka, I think it's called. Good luck!! You've gotten great ideas here! (Why I love Chowhound... :)

I love either white or red gazpacho, not chunky. I adore an icy chilled cantaloupe/mint soup, or English pea soup. Cucumber soup is marvelous w/ mint too. You can make an iced fresh tomato soup with any herb you wish and garnish with small croutons, and broccoli soup is delicious cold - I'm not talking about the thick chunk broccoli soup w/ cheese, but a soup made from mirepoix, stock, broccoli...and then pureed. Any fruit can be made into a beautiful soup, and when I've catered, I've made two fruit soups and served them in a divided bowl, which is a beautiful and unexpected presentation, and a melon soup and a strawberry soup would be lovely together. Zucchini soup is wonderful served cold, and so is a lightly creamed celery soup.
Have fun!!

Hi Katnip, Welcome to Chowhound. I sincerely hope you are able to find the help you want here. I suspect you will. Ok, there's a website called hillbilyhousewife.cm that has a basic menu to feed a family of four for 75$ per month. It's basically an emergency menu, and she uses powdered milk, a lotta beans, etc. but what I see is that you can make substitutions appropriate to your budget, e.g. use regular milk, more meat, and so on. It's a good base guide and it's meant for people who are REALLY struggling, but it's a nice template. At any rate, you've gotten great suggestions here, and I bet you'll get more.
Best,
mamachef

I like Plugra a lot. (Oh whoopsie; I'm not European... :)
To me Plugra and Kerrygold are interchangeable. And both very good.

I love Kerrygold. I buy other brands as well, but I bake with that frequently. Speaking only for myself, it's the butterfat content, and the taste that I really love. It's tangier than U.S. butters - tastes like old-fashioned cultured butter. Plugra has the same character to me.

All very excellent suggestions.. I didn't read the whole thread, so pardon me if I repeat someone else's suggestion. What I have seen is that the meat is already twice-ground. If you have a butcher, you can ask him to re-grind a package of ground meat, or do it yourself, but don't use a food processor for this; it must be a grinder. Okay, so the twice-ground meat should be browned slowly at low heat, breaking it up as you go. Don't smash it; break it up. A large fork is good for this. Okay, when all the meat is JUST browned and crumbled, add a cup of water and cook, continuing to crumble until water is evaporated. This will give it the soft texture you desire, and it doesn't affect the flavor, IMO. If this part concerns you, use beef broth instead, but when I've done that I found it too salty.
Best of Luck!

<currently snacking on mixed variety sliced tomatoes and cherry tomatoes dressed w/ lemon juice, Maldon salt and fresh cracked pepper, stuffed into a roll. I wish I had some cheese, any kind, but that I do not.
Waah.
:)

EM23 & ratgirl: how sweet you two are! Thank you for the good wishes; it's nice to be back.
Gah is just like so slimy and grassy-tasting. I know, I know: people are always telling me, if you just tried gah MY way, I know you'd love it, and I'm all like, no, and they're all like, yes, and I'm all like, please don't invite me if you're serving gah that night, and they're all like, how rude.
xoxox
Marci

Hey, if that's odd, I'm the weirdo. I adore kraut and ALWAYS have a jar in my fridge. Kimchi too; and marinated olives and pickles. I will drink the brine of any of them straight, and a shot of them in a bloody mary is crazy-good. I've also been known to brine chicken breast in the leftover brine for an hour or so, flour it lightly, and saute.
Anyhoo, you're no weirdo. Kraut and all vinegary, salty things are da bomb. Have you ever tried Wasabeans, or Smokra?

MMMmmmm, Caprese. Love it, and I also give it a sprinkle of good vinegar because I just love to sour things up. :) I've been chowing a LOT on Greek salad lately: Chunked tomatoes and cukes, thinly-sliced red onion (small quantity), great black olives, and feta. I dress that one with lemon and a bit of oil and let it sit. If I'm really puttin' on the dog, I'll toast some pita chips and throw them in, or little shards of staled-up, toasted crusty bread. I could eat that every day, all Summer long, and you know what? Maybe I just will. :)

There aren't many vegetables that I don't like, and so many more that I absolutely adore (onions, garlic, tomatoes) and couldn't live without, but there are a few that I could gladly sacrifice:
1. Yams
2. Sweet potatoes. Will eat; will prepare; do not love.
3. Rutabaga
4. Turnips
5. Parsnips
6. Gah.

Woke too early and too hungry to roll over and crash again, so I am currently snacking on a crispy, crunchy-edged English muffin, topped w/ mashed avocado and bacon bits. Orange juice. Coffee. Some people would consider this breakfast. I, however, do not.

It really, really depends. If you had asked me this as a kid, I'd have told you that the sandwiches HAD to be crustless, since the ones served to me at friends' houses were on the soft, Wonder-type bread. It never failed to amaze me and gross me out how the crust would like, detach in one looooong disgusting strip. I would gag every last time. OTOH, if was good bread? I was in heaven, and so it remains to this day.
Oh, unless I'm going all infantile and eating pb&j on Wonder-type bread, which I now can do with impunity and it happens about once a year. I like it when the jelly sort of seeps through, and the crust is totally necessary for texture and as a retaining wall. :)

SHUT UP!!!!!! Do you know the Buttercup is still there? I go there for hash and eggs sometimes!! AWESOME story!! Thank you!!

westsidegal, and your sweet note made mine. Thank you so much.

LOL. Right, Jay? It ain't about the food at all. Like I said, it's the whole gestalt. Next time I write, I'm addressing it to Nadia's Baby. :)
That's some trippy-sounding Fettucine, dude. I'd order it just for interest value.
And it really is all about the memories. :)

Oh, G_d....that's wonderful. Only a waitress could get away with a snerk comment (no ill-will intended ever), and make a memory for you. And it sounds like you're still very happily stuck.

Oh, Kim. See what I mean about "of a breed?" These wonderful people have the best commonalities..huge hearts, souls, and the ability to be that bridge between sometimes disparate people. I just loved this. Thank you.

"...that someone you wouldn't expect had a memory of Paba." I love that phrase....and the thought. It lets you know that someone else thought it was important, and remembers you to this day. That's one of those indefinable, incredibly important memories.

What a sweet, loving tribute. I can totally tell how much you loved your Grandfather, and I for one am so grateful that that waitress was such an empathetic, patient human being. everyone deserves that, oui?

But now you have to share, PK!! C'mon, man: I know you had some haunts where they knew you by name....for whatever reason. :)

Pinehurst, thank you for sharing such a sweet story; such a lovely memory. Of such things are good lives made, eh?
And - I'm working on a book, but then I have been for a loooooong time, and who knows if it'll see daylight. :) but I thank you for a sweet compliment.

Of course it can be a waiter! I shouldn't have been so specific, because actually I do have a fave as well, Tony Bently at Galatoire's. But now, tell me why you love Gary at Katz's, please?

Tell why? What was special about Sheri?

Diners and coffeeshops are always fun topics here, so I'd like to start a discussion about the people who work those trenches. I adore waitresses; they seem of a breed: women with hearts who work hard for their money and start that day off right.
My two alltime favorites were Glenda and then Pat. It was the ladies themselves, it was what I observed when I watched them work: how they interacted with their whole clientele, circumstance and whatever day it was.
Glenda, well I've written a little about her. She worked at Norm's, my diner du choice in Sonoma County. She and Norm were married for years, building their several diners and raising a family that they brought into the business in one capacity or another. Glenda was a snappy lady: funny, sometimes brittle or distracted....but DAMN that woman could FLY. I've never seen anybody slang the hash like she did, and she always knew her customers and how they wanted their coffee before they sat down. When Glenda divorced Norm, she continued to work for him, weekends only, as she always had. The difference was that she insisted on taking the shifts alone (I think there was a money factor she hadn't experienced before) and you know what? It only made her work harder, and she still cleared a room like nothing I'd ever seen. Unfortunately, because of the divorce stress, her breaks were punctuated by the hassles she and Norm would have, out loud, in public, right there in front of G-d and everybody, but people just kinda carried on while they did their thing (most were regulars who knew both personalities and had been coming for years), and eventually she'd come around with the coffeepot again. This went on for years, 'til Glenda retired and Norm closed. They had a funny synergy: they couldn't live together, but it was pretty clear they couldn't be apart for long, and the fighting seemed to be the energy they fed from.
Ahh, Pat. Now she was something. At least 6' tall, broad in the bust and beam. She rode a hot red and silver Harley Fatboy, and when she took off her matching helmet when she came into work, you'd see her pink and purple hair, shaved on the sides and in pincurls at the top. Her makeup was a vivid rainbow: sparkly, colorful and perfectly her. She'd rock the rhinestone false eyelashes and spangly nails no waitress should have, but Pat wouldn't have been Pat without one of those things.
The first time I met Pat, I wasn't even really awake. Me and my boyfriend had woken with a bone-chilling, soul-destroying hangover and decided that what we needed was FOOD. NOW. So we went to the Carousel, and sat there sucking Pepsi and coffee, listing into each other since we sat on the same side.
Well.
All of a sudden, the WORST cacophony broke out from the back of the dining room. It sounded like the hounds of hell had been unleashed. It sounded like a battlefield. It sounded like Roseanne Barr singing the national anthem. It was that bad. And it was Pat, because Pat's shtick, only it wasn't shtick, was to sing "Happy Birthday" in her own inimitable way, to anyone who could prove that it was their day. And that is exactly what she was doing, with her entire huge voice, heart and soul. "HHHHHHHHHhhhhhhAAAAAAAAAAaaaPPPPPPPPy BBBBBBBBBIIIIIIIIIIRTTTTTTHDAAAAAAAAAAYYYY..." etc. etc. Her singing was more like braying, and it was totally cool and sure as hell woke us up. But the best was just watching this big, spangly broad do her thing with every ounce of her being.
I went there for many years on my b-day, just to get a b-day hug and song from Awesome Patricia Randle, who sadly passed in 2001, and is missed by an entire community to this day.
Got any?

Historical anecdote: Before he was Malcolm X, he was busted for selling matchboxes of nutmeg in Harlem. True story.

Pretty much my thought too. :)

They were in my breast pocket on my whites. Must have fallen in one fell swoop when I packaged it so nicely and put it away.

Ooooh, just the title of this topic made me shudder. I don't know why, but was just thinking of this lovely anecdote the other day: fresh into the second day of my first job on the line in a very high-end restaurant, I thought I was being the ultra-est of efficient cooks, and this is what happened:
We were allowed to smoke on our brief breaks, and the staffroom was two flights up and over, which really cut into that second ciggie. There was also an alley right off the kitchen door that we could employ. I cleverly thought that I'd set myself up in advance, so into my whites went two smokes, a small bic, a roll of Certs (fruit-flavored, whoot!) and the ever-present Sharpee. I had the cold station that night and prepped my mise, then went out to smoke in the alley. When I got there - nothing, NOTHING, in my pockets. Okay, so my first thought was that I'd just thought about doing that and not actually done it, but I knew that was wishful-thinking bullshit. I went back in with my heart pounding and weak knees and proceeded to just tear up my station. I went through EVERYTHING - or so I thought, and then figured I was just in a waking nightmare and proceeded with service, which went well. End of the night, I broke it down, and didn't find a thing. Not a thing. And nothing had been sent back, so...I figured it was a lucky break and I'd lost them when I was somewhere it "didn't matter."
Ahahahaha. Not
Came into work the next day and there was Chef Julia with one grim look on her face. She was holding a pan of pre-prepped, wrapped, labeled romaine that I had done, which contained: 2 very very small shreddy Marlboro butts, extensive bits of shreddy tobacco, 1 pink Bic lighter, and a half-melted roll of, of course, fruit-flavored Certs.
And of course, I wanted.to.die. I knew at the time it happened that I should have said something, but I was so green and so scared and and and there was absolutely no excuse and I was an idiot and that's what I stammered out to her. We had a little talk about "next times," and how there wouldn't be any (!), but the ABSOLUTE worst thing was that halfway through our talk, I spun out in a combo. of relief, panic, terror and self-loathing and started laughing hysterically, like you do at a funeral or something else horrible like that. :)
Nope, she didn't fire me. Gave me another chance, bless her heart, and I didn't disappoint, but to this day that one is my own personal best.