Oh, I bought Kellogg's Mini-Wheats, which is one of the healthier brands out there, so it's cool. They're pretty awesome—100% whole wheat and stuff—and this morning I ate them with 2% milk, blueberries, raspberries and one really really huge strawberry I cut up into raspberry-sized pieces. I feel like I'm eating cereal "the right way" now with all these fruits added. It's more like a milky parfait at this point than just a bowl of cereal.

Coming up tonight, I'm ordering a pizza and I'm trying to make it maybe the most umami pizza possible with mainstream pizza toppings, only one of which can be meat. Savoriness is good and pizza tends to be pretty savory. But how savory can it get?

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About the author: A prolific contributor to Jul with some 2163 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.

I fried an egg this morning which is considerably rarer nowadays than it used to be ever since I started eating cereal and fruit for breakfast instead. The egg was served with a side of home fries which were made from French fries leftover from eating out at dinner. The fries were cut into home fries-sized pieces and seasoned with sea salt, black pepper and ground red pepper and then fried on a buttered nonstick pan. I used to hate leftover French fries a lot but I think everything can be repurposed somehow and made into something awesome.

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About the author: A prolific contributor to Jul with some 2184 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 box the sausages in the freezer come in say to pan-fry them over medium-high heat until light golden brown but ever since I discovered sous-vide cooking (thanks, molecular gastronomy), I've come to ask myself whether pan-frying is really the way to go. Ideally, with protein foods like sausages where moisture and tenderness is key, you'd use sous-vide for this because the vacuum seal traps the moisture in the sausage but unfortunately we're not in that place in mainstream cooking where technology like that is available.

So instead, I put the sausages in the oven at 375°F for 18 minutes making sure to turn the sausages halfway through and then taking them out and searing them on a hot pan. As a control, I also made some sausages the "normal" way by pan-frying them and set them all side by side on my plate with a side of Trader Joe's basamati and wild rice pilaf. That would be lunch.

The sausages that went through the oven ended up with a casing that was a lot more crispy, each bite giving you that supremely satisfying sausage crunch. The inside was super-juicy and flavorful. Time stuff aside, there's probably no real reason not to heat your sausages up in the oven.

The pilaf was amazing, by the way.

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About the author: A prolific contributor to Jul with some 2185 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.

I still have pilaf leftover so today I put some of it in like a circle and then poached an egg on the wok for three minutes and then took it out and seasoned it with salt and pepper and garnished with chives and then put it on top of the bed of rice pilaf for breakfast. Rice and poached egg dishes are woefully underrated even though they are absolutely satisfying. Can you say "yum"?


Click to enlarge.

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About the author: A prolific contributor to Jul with some 2186 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.

I got white mushrooms yesterday so for lunch I sliced them and sautéed them on a nonstick skillet with garlic, olive oil and butter until they were tender and then served them with spaghetti and tomato sauce and some basil. It was sooo delicious.

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About the author: A prolific contributor to Jul with some 2190 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.

I made Chinese steamed eggs today for a friend, which means I beat three eggs and then mix it with some ground pork and green onions and season it with sea salt, ground black pepper, ground red pepper, soy sauce with some cooking wine and serve it with a side of brown rice only I forgot to cook rice before he came today so I reached into the refrigerator and diced some leftover French fries and seasoned them with sage, sea salt, ground black pepper, ground red pepper and smoked paprika and fried them in butter making this home fries sort of thing and served them with the Chinese steamed eggs. In the context of Chinese cuisine, this combination is weird because potatoes are just another vegetable over there but it actually kinda worked, the potatoes acting as a starch instead of rice making this dinner a makeshift Asian fusion meal.

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About the author: A prolific contributor to Jul with some 2191 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.