What's the last thing you ate or are currently eating?

[Big Frank]

I had some cold brew coffee spiked with ice cold Licor 43, then ate some cinnamon swirl raisin toast with real butter, accompanied by plain cold brew that I just finished. I got hungry again so I'm nibbling on some Sartori Heritage Cheddar. It's my first Sartori cheese but not my last. I have a different cheddar of theirs in the fridge. This one is good and I'm sure the other one will be too.

The cold brew coffee with Licor 43 tasted really good. It kind of sucked when I ran out and had to drink plain cold brew. I only had a tiny bottle of liqueur but will buy a fifth of it at Rite Aid to try with hot coffee and cocktails too. It's made in Cartagena, Spain from 43 different ingredients including citrus and fruit juices, vanilla, and other aromatic herbs and spices. Lots of ingredients like bitters typically have, but it's very sweet. I saw a recipe today for a Screwdriver using a shot of Licor 43 and a shot of vodka mixed with orange juice. That sounds good to me since I like a Comfortable Screw - a Screwdriver made with Southern Comfort instead of vodka. Sweet S.C. liqueur goes really well with cheap, sour OJ, and not much else that I know of. It's the only time I even consider buying OJ that isn't a fresh premium product. By the way, a screwdriver with sloe gin and Southern Comfort is a Slow Comfortable Screw but I don't have time for that. Mixing in a third ingredient that is. I'm a busy man.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licor_43

https://www.licor43.com/

[Big Frank]

Shrimp scampi. Two servings of it because I'm never skimpy with the scampi.

My dessert was a shot of 99 Bananas liqueur mixed with a shot of Skrewball peanut butter whiskey. My banana was skrewed. One of my favorite ways to eat bananas is with peanut butter on them. This didn't taste like that but it was okay. If I didn't have the 70 proof whiskey to water down the 99 proof liqueur it would have tasted strong. As I was drinking it I was looking at recipes online and realized I had the majority of a drink called The "King" in my glass.

https://99brandparty.com/

https://www.skrewballwhiskey.com/

Sometime I'd like to try another shot of 99 Bananas, mixed with 99 Chocolate or Creme de Cacao to see if it comes anywhere near he taste of a chocolate covered banana. I'd be very happy if it did. And I'll have to try a shot of Skrewball peanut butter whiskey with 99 Chocolate or Creme de Cacao to see if it tastes anything like a chocolate peanut butter cup. I'm not satisfied just trying the same old peanut butter and jelly shots that everyone follows recipes for. I may even try to recreate the flavor a Boyer Smoothie peanut butter cup. They take everything you know and love about peanut butter cups but trade the chocolate for butterscotch. Peanut butter whiskey and 99 Butterscotch may be on my grocery list sometime.

[Big Frank]

The last thing I ate was chocolate chocolate chip rum cake, then I went back to sleep.

https://www.honeybaked.com/products/chocolate-rum-cake

I just finished a glass of Sailor Jerry spiced rum mixed with key lime seltzer. Talk about an easy way to ruin good rum. It's the first time I ever tried Sailor Jerry rum. Pity me. At 92 proof I thought it would really burn if I drank it straight. But I had a sip, then another, and another, and wow! Not bad! So I poured the seltzer in the glass too and topped it off with more rum. I didn't bother stirring it as it looked well mixed to me. I don't know what part of the key lime tree the seltzer was flavored with. Maybe bark or roots, or bark off the roots, but it's really bad. I added more rum to my drink until it was however much is from the top of the label up on a fifth, and it still tasted like scheisse. I added some stevia to try to improve on the bitter taste of the key lime seltzer but it seemed like an exercise in futility trying to make it taste good so I quit trying. I added more seltzer to my glass as I drank until it was gone. Thankfully that was the last can in the case.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailor_Jerry

https://sailorjerry.com/en/

I'm going to eat some Annie Chun's Pad Thai and take my pills. Unlike instant ramen the Hokkien noodles aren't dehydrated. Hokkien noodles are a kind of fresh egg noodle. They’re basically what we know here in the U.S. as a lo mein noodle and they're pre-cooked and oiled so they don't stick together. I like to have something like this in the cupboard so I can have a meal in a few minutes without a lot of thought or preparation. I may have some more rum but if I do I will be mixing it with ice cold water. 2 parts rum and 1 part water sounds good. Noodle time!

https://anniechun.com/products/noodle-bowls/#pad-thai

[Big Frank]

I tossed some frozen waffles in the toaster for breakfast but don't have any type of syrup or jelly or anything else to put on them. Nothing except butter and I usually don't put butter on them, just syrup. So I micowaved some butter until it mostly melted and it melted the rest of the way when I stirred it. I added some rum and a packet of stevia to sweeten it and microwaved it another 30 seconds. After I toasted my waffles I stirred my rum-butter mixture and finally tasted it. Not too bad except it was much too salty. I wish I'd had the forethought to use unsalted butter. I stirred in a little more rum for the second 2 waffles and that tasted better. I took some unsalted butter out of the deep freeze so I can try it tomorrow.

I haven't had anything since breakfast and I'm starving. I'm going to eat a bowl of instant ramen that's in the microwave right now. It's spicy chicken that I shouldn't even buy because of how hot it is. I don't have any other soup to mix it with except another bowl of the same. If I had a different flavor I'd use half of each flavor in each bowl but these 2 were all I bought.

[Big Frank]

Hard salami 1/3- 1/2 as thick as a credit card (no bread), Sharp Original Mini Babybel cheese, sweet pickled beets. The thinner the meat, the more flavor it has IMO. Guys with thin meat, please keep your minds out of the gutter. There's a lot of surface area of the salami exposed before you even start chewing it. Bursting with flavor might be a good description. For dessert I have a slice of Boston cream pie setting in front of me. **Pie, my eye! It's a layer cake.** It was previously frozen and only needed to be thawed and served. In theory, anyway. More than half of the frosting was stuck to the lid, while it was still frozen, so I know it wasn't anything I did wrong. It came that way. Luckily I know how to frost a cake. I didn't bother getting my spatula dirty, I just used the same plastic knife I used to cut it with when I was done. No dishes to wash at all.

[Sponsor]

[Big Frank]

I just finished a pile of pepperoni panino. I didn't buy a package of premade panino like the picture, but that's what they typically look like. I cut smoked mozzarella cheese into sticks and rolled them in slices of pepperoni. Since I have a big jar of pasta sauce in the fridge I poured some in a bowl and dipped them in it. I ate until the pepperoni was all gone but still have almost half of the cheese left. I cut the sticks of cheese narrow because I didn't want to run out but it would have been better if I used it all. And I wouldn't have finished the pepperoni if I ate more cheese. Panino are good when they're made with Genoa salami instead of hard salami too. Prosciutto must be an acquired taste because when I had panino made with it they didn't taste as good as with pepperoni or salami. Now it's time to take last night's pills and today's noon pills and sleep for as long as I can.

[Big Frank]

Five Cheese Lasagna by Giovanni Rana. "My favorite recipe, made with a blend of mozzarella, ricotta, fontina, mascarpone, parmesan, delicious tomato sauce & signature dough." I don't believe I've ever had lasagna with mascarpone cheese in it before. Between all the mascarpone and ricotta it practically melted in my mouth. One could properly describe it as delicately seasoned too. It was delicious, or maybe it tasted especially good because I was so hungry. I didn't know lasagna without meat could taste so good. I'm looking forward to getting hungry again so I can eat more. The only thing I remember eating with mascarpone cheese in it is Tiramisu, which I would eat nearly every day if someone was here to make it for me. I'm too lazy to make it myself and not willing to buy it very often. I also have some Giovanni Rana Meat Lasagna in the fridge. "My family recipe, made with 100% beef, my delicious tomato sauce, creamy ricotta, melting mozzarella & signature dough." That should really taste good too.

[TAB]

https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/crispy-jalapeo-pieces-063959


These things are more addicting then redneck crack(aka deer jerky)

Super un healthy.

[Big Frank]

I almost bought a 1 pound bag of those at the GFS Store last week on my way home from the doctor. They were on sale but I only bought a 1.5 pound bag of crispy fried onions on sale. I'm snacking on them right now. The jalapenos are good in chili IMO. I like the flavor plus I like something crunchy in it. They're a step above Fritos in chili. The last time I ate a pound of those fried jalapenos I was in pain but couldn't stop.

P.S. Don't pay any attention to the nutrition labels. If you do you'll never eat more than a spoonful of these a day.

Now I'm wondering how good would a green bean casserole be if you mixed jalapenos with the onions when you made it? That sounds good to me.

[Big Frank]

Not long after I posted about the big bags of fried jalapenos I bought from GFS a couple times, I remembered something. If you don't have an industrial-size appetite and/or don't want to buy a big container of them until you know if you like them, French's makes them too. They should be setting on the shelf at your local grocer right next to the fired onions. French's may be the first ones to make them, I don't know, but they do make good ones.

The last thing I ate was spicy chicken breast strips early this morning. I took a picture of some I had yesterday. When they were almost fully heated I added pasta sauce and microwaved them another minute. Then I topped them with crispy fried onions. I don't have any cheese or I would have put that on instead of onions. Thinking about a block of Parmigiano Reggiano to use with it has me salivating. The first plateful I had a couple days ago, I was going to dip in hot pineapple rum barbecue sauce, then while it was microwaving I remembered I had Frankenmuth chicken seasoning and used that instead. And I'm glad I didn't dip them in hot barbecue sauce because I forgot that I only bought spicy chicken strips. After one bite my mouth was confused, and I said to myself WTF? Frankenmuth chicken seasoning isn't spicy.

I drank almost a fifth of rum with my chicken so I didn't need more in the sauce anyway. It was Cherry Vanilla Captain Morgan Spiced Rum that I finally cracked open the day before and had a drink. It's only 30% alcohol and tastes sweet like a liqueur so I put it in the fridge overnight and drank the rest of the bottle straight. I bet it would taste good on vanilla ice cream but it's too weak to make mixed drinks with. I most definitely prefer 160 proof Austrian rum to 60 proof Captain Weak Sauce for mixed drinks. I never really knew what people meant when they said "weak sauce", but I think I finally get it.

Here's a pic of the Boston Cream Pie I re-iced, re-frosted or whatever, with a disposable plastic knife. I think I did okay considering what I was working with. It sucks when you have cake crumbs in the frosting AND you're spreading it on a cake covered with loose crumbs from where the frozen frosting was ripped away. I don't own a pastry brush to sweep the crumbs off but that would have helped. I cleared a spot on the counter to take the pic of the chicken strips while standing on the other side of the peninsula. The only way I'm not standing with everything my shadow is by having my back toward the kitchen window. There were NO kitchen counters until I bought new cabinets and put them in. I got help from my dad's general contractor/carpenter friend to figure out what kind of counter top I needed in an L shape where one side has a backsplash against the wall and the other is a peninsula I walk around every day. He got that made and we put it in together. I did the rest of the planning, measuring, ordering and installation myself. I think it worked out pretty well for a first try. Well, I did get a brother-in law to help me lift the 59" and 63" cabinets and rest them on the edge of the "furring strips"(?) I screwed to the walls until I got a few screws in the cabinets. So I didn't do everything but the countertop by myself. But I didn't need any help with the 39" cabinet.
 
Well it's time to go re-heat the chicken strips that are getting cold in the microwave and put some sauce on them. I'm eating Suckerpunch bread & butter pickles with them. I ate dill pickled green beans with them yesterday. I had dill pickled beans in a bowl covered with sweet pickled beets to go with my chicken the day before. I finished the beets first because they were so good and the beans second, they were better when they had some beet juice on them, and today I'll finish these pickles which I really like. Then I probably won't touch another pickled anything for awhile. If I ever get to the store and put something else in the fridge.