Late-night cooking (long!)

In My Humble Opinion
1

(Pleasepleaseplease tell me I’m not the only one who cooks brownies, or anything else, at 1 AM.)

I know I’m crazy. But I am female, and when that horrible time of the month comes, I NEED CHOCOLATE.

And when the rest of my family decides to eat up the homemade fudge I made two days ago, well, things like that call for drastic measures.

Making homemade brownies.

So I go to it. Heck, I have all my ingredients! I’m mixing sugar, butter, water, cocoa, eggs like a pro.

Then comes the flour. Oh JESUS, the flour! Whoever made flour made a very very messy product. After one and two-thirds cups of flour make it into the bowl, the kitchen looks like the aftermath of a Michigan snowstorm.

So, I clean it up, and happily go back to mixing ingredients…until I remember that I don’t have the baking powder yet and go to the spice rack to look for it.

Okay, where the HELL is the baking powder? I can’t find it. What happens to brownies without baking powder? No one seems to know…and I’m ready to kill for chocolate. Luckily, Dad (who is as nocturnal as I am) helps me locate the baking powder. Great–final ingredient.

I plop a big scoop of brownie batter into my 13 by 9 inch pan until I realize–horror of horrors–that I have forgotten to grease it. I find the spray and go at it, rationalizing that one section of brownie will just have to stay stuck to the pan forever.

I finish putting the brownie batter into the pan and spreading it out, eating the equivalent of two brownies in batter while doing so.

And now, all I have to do it wait for the stuff to cook and finish cleaning up.

2

And actually, I prefer cooking later at night. This was meant to be a poll, but I forgot to add that point to the end of my first post.

3

Since I’m male, my palate craves salt and grease rather than sweets, especially late at night. Especially on nights when we’ve had fish for dinner, and I have supped lightly.

There is NOTHING like a home-cooked hamburger at midnight, long after the wife and children have retired. Except perhaps a home-cooked cheeseburger.

I AM baking more lately than I ever have in my life, but even if I had a sudden 2 AM Babka Jones there’s no way I’d be flinging flour and cream of tartar around in my kitchen during the wee hours, when I’m sleepy and probably drunk.

4

My late at night thing is fried bacon, eggs, sausages, grilled tomatoes - things I usually have more sense than to cook during the day. Then next morning I am greeted by the sight of greasy frying pans :(. Ike, what’s being male got to do with anything (ok, well, not anything, but a liking for salt & grease, anyway ;))?

Nocturne, if I want chocolate, I’d just eat chocolate bars, rather than cook - I usually need chocolate faster than that ;).

5

When it is really late and i am hungry, i often make fried egg sandwiches, usually, on white bread and with a bit of cheese.

I have also made them with tortillas, and mozzarella cheese.

6

Baking powder???!!! You must have been making cake-type brownies. Really, when you have a chocolate craving, especially a 3am, that time of the month chocolate craving, the fudgy ones are ever so much more satisfying.

And they don’t need any stinking baking powder. Just melted, unsweetened baking chocolate, sugar, flour, and eggs. Mmmmm. Wonder if I have any baking chocolate…

And butter works just as well as cooking spray, next time you’re out. Or margarine, or shortening. I imagine vegetable oil would do the trick, too, or even bacon grease, if you wanted to kill two cravings with one stone.

7

3 fried eggs in butter,real fast,clean the pan immediately…in and out of kitchen in less than 10 minutes

8

After a visit to the pub, a late-night fried egg sandwich (soft white bread and egg yolks soft and runny so they drip all down your shirt) is one of my favourites.

Alternatively, as a quick nibble, I sometimes get about half an ounce of cheddar and blast it in the microwave until it bubbles and crisps, then you can pour off the fat (or dab it off with paper towels) and pry it off the plate, it’s sort of like a cracker without those nuisance carbohydrates.

9

i must be in an egg frame 'o mind…that runny yolk sandwich sounds wonderful right now…balking at the microwaved cheese…

10

My greatest late-night cooking achievement was a ham, cheese and pepper omlette. The egg part of the omlette was a good half-inch thick before folding, and fluffy like you wouldn’t believe.

I was bored, so I took my time cooking it…about 20 minutes over a low flame.

Gotta go, I’m getting hungry…

11

my friend colin once tried grilling frozen baby carrots. at 3am. while drunk, i hasten to add.

he maintains it would have worked, too…except he forgot to switch the grill on properly, and left the gas running for over 3/4 of an hour, filling the kitchen with lethal combustible fuel and forcing us to vacate the house (running drunk into the road, for christs sake) to let the air clear, in case the gas-filled kitchen ignited.

not too funny, looking back…especially as that same night he nearly managed to kill me by poisoning with half-cooked waffles and burgers.

but on the plus side of late-night cooking, i do a good small-hours pizza. everything on it except pineapple and egg, which are pizza blashphemy.

12

lol,
yous guys are very funny…yet, i forget why i am here

13

actually Nocturne I love cooking at night.

(it’s about the only time I can get the kitchen to myself

14

Late at night, particularly at 1am, nothing beats cheese on toast.

Toast one side of the bread under the grill, remove, and slather butter on the ungrilled side. Lay on the cheese nice and thick, splash on some worcestershire sauce and bung it back under the grill.

Takes 5 minutes and it’s the late-night snack of kings.