The eggs this morning were fried in a mixture of butter and the grease the sausages left behind. It's been a while since I've fried them in butter and as the butter bubbled on my pan and filled my kitchen with its scent, I couldn't figure out why I stopped. Butter seems to fry things in a more gentle way while infusing its sweet flavor into whatever.

The eggs were seasoned with sea salt and ground black pepper and smoked paprika. I know, I used to use paprika and chives, but paprika's flavor is way too mild and chives really seem out of place here. Smoked paprika, however, is not at all mild and it adds this smokey flavor that's reminiscent of bacon. This makes the egg feel so much more full.

My biggest concern with smoked paprika is its effect on presentation. I've come to believe the "cleaner" fried eggs look the better. But the difference in taste and texture is incredible. I might have to change my mind.

Oh yeah, there were sausages, too.

The soundtrack to this meal is The Mountain Goat's sixth LP All Hail West Texas, simple yet delicious lo-fi indie folk rock to complement a simple yet delicious meal.

____________________
About the author: A prolific contributor to Jul with some 2048 posts published, Sofi better fancies herself as a cinema geek, a composer, an occasional gamer, a budding fashionita, an absolute cooking newbie and a general life enthusiast-satirist. She is responsible for a number of notable discussions about meteorology and current events and may be contacted at any time through private messaging.

Originally posted by Mike

---

Originally posted by Sofi

---

The eggs this morning were fried in a mixture of butter and the grease the sausages left behind. It's been a while since I've fried them in butter and as the butter bubbled on my pan and filled my kitchen with its scent, I couldn't figure out why I stopped. Butter seems to fry things in a more gentle way while infusing its sweet flavor into whatever.

The eggs were seasoned with sea salt and ground black pepper and smoked paprika. I know, I used to use paprika and chives, but paprika's flavor is way too mild and chives really seem out of place here. Smoked paprika, however, is not at all mild and it adds this smokey flavor that's reminiscent of bacon. This makes the egg feel so much more full.

---

Uh-huh, it's official I now, hate you..
All I had for breakfest was one yogurt and drinking a can of sparkling water I wish I had some eggs to cook real quickly while doing some paper work.

---

Oh, that's too bad. Why don't you try cooking your own? Making breakfast is probably one of my favorite things in life.

____________________
About the author: A prolific contributor to Jul with some 2049 posts published, Sofi better fancies herself as a cinema geek, a composer, an occasional gamer, a budding fashionita, an absolute cooking newbie and a general life enthusiast-satirist. She is responsible for a number of notable discussions about meteorology and current events and may be contacted at any time through private messaging.

The best part of staying over at my place is probably the part where I cook breakfast for you. If you guys ever decide to stay over, like after a Jul Party or something, you're in for a treat. :J

Anyway, normally I just take my sausages right out of the freezer but today I was thinking, well, why don't I defrost them? This was more of a spur of the moment thing, so I only had a short time but thankfully we're talking small breakfast sausages. The fastest way to defrost frozen meat safely without using the microwave is by putting the meat, sealed shut in some sort of plastic like a Ziploc© bag with as little air in it as possible, into a bowl of cold water with cold tap water running over it. This did its magic pretty goshdarn quick.

Let's talk eggs. I'm pretty sure by now that the for sure best way to fry eggs is in butter with some sea salt, ground black pepper and smoked paprika on top. This is the second time I've had it and I think the eggs do need the butter for flavor. Probably the best part, though, is with butter you get to baste it over the eggs in the end. I don't know why, but it feels weird doing it with oil. Anyway, this adds more flavor to the eggs while also cooking the top of the eggs a bit. Oh, I might want to add that I'm using medium heat when working with butter because butter burns at a much lower temperature.

I know, I'm essentially cooking the same meal every day but I'm also adding little changes to it each time in hopes of eventually reaching gustatory perfection. Perhaps the next big step is to roll my own sausages. It looks like a pretty trivial and fun task.

Oh, and there was brown rice in this breakfast, too.

For some reason, I kept thinking of "God Only Knows" by The Beach Boys from their highly influential 1966 album Pet Sounds, so I guess that's today's soundtrack. God only knows why, I guess.

Overall rating:


____________________
About the author: A prolific contributor to Jul with some 2051 posts published, Sofi better fancies herself as a cinema geek, a composer, an occasional gamer, a budding fashionita, an absolute cooking newbie and a general life enthusiast-satirist. She is responsible for a number of notable discussions about meteorology and current events and may be contacted at any time through private messaging.

These days, I really only order pizza from local businesses for that more authentic straight-from-someone-you-know feel, but when a corporation like Papa Gino's (yes, Papa Gino's is corporate in my eyes) offers 50% off, meaning you can get a three-topping small pizza for $5.83, you might just have to make an exception.

That's what I was thinking yesterday when I ordered the pineapple, sausage and mushroom small pizza yesterday. A small pizza from Papa Gino's (of which I unfortunately totally forgot to get measurements) is good enough for about three meals for one person. It totally doesn't seem that way because when you think pizza you think party feast, but economically and nutritionally speaking, you totally maximize the worth this way.

Still, I had three slices anyway and split the pizza between two meals which brings me to lunch: I had reheated pizza.

Now a lot of people like to put pizza in the microwave and this is cool if you do it for like ten seconds but nuking food for too long can get rid of taste and texture. The oven's pretty "cool" for reheating but I used a pan instead, which, with a lid is basically like a little stone oven. This is great if you have a few slices you want to heat up. The pizza heats up pretty fast this way and it's crunchy too, which is, like, the big appeal of reheated pizza or something.

You could also eat it cold, but that's not so fun.

____________________
About the author: A prolific contributor to Jul with some 2052 posts published, Sofi better fancies herself as a cinema geek, a composer, an occasional gamer, a budding fashionita, an absolute cooking newbie and a general life enthusiast-satirist. She is responsible for a number of notable discussions about meteorology and current events and may be contacted at any time through private messaging.

Breakfast this morning was one of the usuals (scrambled eggs, sausage, brown rice) except I rolled my own sausage from scratch. To do this, you mix dried marjoram, ground sage, ground black pepper, sea salt, brown sugar, crushed red pepper and ground cloves together and then pour this mixture over a large bowl of ground pork and then with your hands you work all the spices into the ground pork. After that you sauté the pork on a skillet for ten minutes making sure to roll it around a bunch so all sides get cooked.

The sausages that I made weren't perfect—in fact they hardly rivaled the Jones Dairy Farm sausages you get from the grocery store but I'm pretty sure it's because I didn't put in enough spices. The sausages came out somewhat sweet, too, probably from way too much brown sugar.

Either way the possibilities of this homemade sausage stuff are promising. You can mold the ground pork into basically anything so you could be having a nice English muffin breakfast sandwich with a pork sausage patty one morning and some sausage links with your fried eggs the next. Plus, a pound of ground pork makes like 16 sausages and when we're talking prepackaged sausages that cost $5 a dozen, making your own sausage is like nothing. You can make totally Good Eats in your kitchen with some basic raw ingredients and the right combination of spices.

Overall rating:


____________________
About the author: A prolific contributor to Jul with some 2058 posts published, Sofi better fancies herself as a cinema geek, a composer, an occasional gamer, a budding fashionita, an absolute cooking newbie and a general life enthusiast-satirist. She is responsible for a number of notable discussions about meteorology and current events and may be contacted at any time through private messaging.