Last week I woke up clutching a hairbrush in my hand. There was a hairbrush on my nightstand that my wife used on my daughter’s hair and I woke up with it in my hand. It was really odd, I don’t remember any dreams form that night and I don’t usually sleepwalk, talk, or grab things, so I was baffled to see it in my hand.
Heh, I was about to give you a recipe for a couple of sauces I make to put on my grilled steaks, then realized they’re both dairy-based, so still wouldn’t work for you.
What really impressed me with my steak was that it was truly med. rare, not medium (yeah, that’s what you’d expect from a decent restaurant, but still, sometimes you’d be surprised). A lot of folks make the mistake of taking the steak off the grill when it’s at med. rare, which means by the time it’s served, it will be well on its way to medium.
The only low point of the meal was the green beans, and that was because I’m not too fond of them, but was told they were ‘sauteed with bacon.’ This intrigued me, so I had to try them. There may have been bacon in them, but they were neither sauteed, nor cooked with the bacon.
Sorry, I could talk grilled meat all the live-long day.
Don’t be sorry! Let’s talk grilled meat all day long.
Dairy-based recipes can be modified. For instance, for Thanksgiving I modified a pumpkin pie recipe from “12 oz. condensed milk” to (eventually) “9 oz. almond-milk” to go with the turkey. It did take two tries, and the first try went to satisfy a sudden, overwhelming craving for pie!
Still alive and doing good but between work and home too many 20 hour days. Hugs where needed and I’ll be back more active after New Years.
Heh, well, in case you want to try to modify (although I’m not sure how you would):
Ingredients:
Heavy cream - 1 cup
Garlic - 1 or 2 cloves (I love garlic, so I tend toward 2)
Cheese (parmesan or bleu) - 8 oz, (coarse grated for parm, crumbled for bleu)
Pepper - coarse ground, to taste
In a sauce pan over med/high heat, bring cream and garlic to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until cream thickens, approximately 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in cheese. Add pepper.
Server over steak (or on hamburgers for a delicious twist).
I sometimes* sleepwalk because of the medication I take at night. One night a few weeks back I wandered into my husband’s room complaining that I couldn’t figure out how to turn the light off (or something like that–we never quite figured it out). About halfway through trying to explain my “problem” to him, I groggily became aware of reality and realized I was out of bed and in another room… I lost track of what I was saying and never was able to convey what my problem was, but he had a hard time getting back to sleep after that and had a rough day the next day as a result 
I felt bad.
Waking up in the middle of doing something weird and not remembering why you’re doing it is a very disorienting feeling.
*very rarely. Like maybe 3 times total.
Hey - I wanted to tell y’all - I have recently discovered the wonderful product lactose-free Lactaid - which allows me to drink lovely chocolate milk once again!
I have always loved milk, but when I found out I was lactose intolerant, I stopped drinking it. I never thought that Lactaid would be any good, and soy milk is blech. But it’s good! And it tastes like creamy yummy milk! And it costs twice as much as regular milk! That is a downside. But still, I can have cereal, and chocolate milk, and plain white milk with pancakes!
All hail the glory that is milk!
Maybe you had a dream that required you protect your family with a hairbrush?
Cooking the cookies now! I’d highly recommend this recipe:
Memaw’s Surprise Cookies
3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks butter
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup sour cream
2lbs pecans, halved
1/4 cup butter, salted
1/4 cup bourbon
1/4 cup brown sugar
4 cups semisweet chocolate chips
Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat butter and sugar in a separate bowl into pale and fluffy. Beat egg, vanilla and sour cream into the butter mixture. Add flour mixture and beat until combined. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm.
Mix your bourbon, brown sugar, and pecans together thoroughly until all the nuts are dampened, then lay them out on a cookie sheet. Dot them with the butter. Bake at 325 for 25 minutes, stirring frequently. Once they’re done, remove them from the oven and raise the temperature to 350.
Wait for the oven to finish heating up and let the nuts cool a bit, then bring out your dough. Roll balls of dough around your pecan halves so that the nut is completely hidden, then place on an ungreased cookie sheet and cook for 12-15 minutes. They should be very lightly browned when done, but have a light, almost cake-like consistency.
Let your cookies cool while you melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler or the microwave, then dip each cookie in the chocolate, place on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper, and set them in the fridge or freezer until the chocolate is firm.
The combination of the semisweet chocolate, the light vanilla and sour cream cookie, and the crunch of the candied pecan inside is like nothing else I’ve ever had.
My grandmother had started making Buckeye Surprises–which have a peanut in the middle instead–but we all like pecans more and the peanut butter was just too much when combined with the pecans. She experimented for a few years with different vanilla cookie doughs until she figured out that adding the sour cream made the cookie extremely light and have just the right hint of sour to play off of the pecan.
It will definitely not take two pounds of pecans to make this recipe, but you have to have extra. Believe me. 
Congrats! To celebrate, try this:
Take a tall, cold glass of milk. Add your chocolate mix/syrup, as you normally would. Now, add about a tsp of vanilla and a tsp or two of powdered peanut butter (like PB2 or something). It’s like drinking a Reese’s cup.
I’ve been thinking of getting something like that for my husband, **Rebo. ** He seems to be having issues with milk lately, even skim milk. He loves milk and I’ve been wondering how well something like that would work.
Those cookies sound pretty good, Peeta. I’m not a huge fan of nuts in anything, but I may just try these.
To bring milk full circle, I learned several years ago here on the Dope (most likely from Zev) that Human breast milk is an exception to the whole meat vs milk dichotomy – it is considered neutral (pareve).
ETA @ markm: Got an easy banana milk smoothie recipe handy?
Then donkey milk should also be neutral, because it is, or at least was in the past, used as a substitute for mother’s milk because it is considered such a close match to human milk.
Banana smoothie:
1 banana
1 tbs peanut butter
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
ice
Blend it all together. If you’re really adventurous, get some goat’s milk instead of cow’s milk. Naturally homogenized and a bit richer, so it’ll have a richer, sweeter flavor.
Wow, learn something new every day! That opens up a whole world of possibilities. Can you make cheese from human breast milk? I’m thinking a nice, juicy, medium rare kosher cheeseburger…
Wasn’t there a news story earlier this year about cheese and/or ice cream made from human breast milk?
Curious questions, both of these. Although I strongly, strongly doubt donkey milk would be kosher. AFAIK, honey and human milk are the only two kosher foods that come from non-kosher animals.
For the question about human milk dairy products and whether they count as milk or meat, paging Zev. Zev, please call your agent.
::musters all her strength to wave hello to the returning mumpers and the noobs. collapses from exaustion::
Oh no! Did all the waving tire you out, or has reality sapped your strength?
If it’s the latter, have some lamb. It’s lower in fat than cow, and the protein will help restore your energy.
it’s all the coughing I’ve been doing for the last couple of days. I actually pulled a stomach muscle.
Oh, wow. I can’t imagine how bad that has to hurt to be coughing on top of having pulled a stomach muscle from coughing. Yeesh.
Are you at least able to take it easy otherwise?