McMuffinness.

I love McDonald's Egg McMuffins. I do. I can't help it, they're delicious. But since we aren't usually up and ready early enough in the morning to get 'em, it's become a rare breakfast around here. So, with my ability to be satisfied with a reasonable facsimile of something, I decided to try recreating them at home. After all, it's just an english muffin and an egg right? And while i've made many McMuffins at home, I still can't quite figure out what that special taste is that McDonalds has. Still, even though it's not quite the same, I do make a pretty good McMuffin If I say so myself.

First, you gotta start with a sourdough muffin. Put it in the oven on broil 'til it's lightly toasted. You don't want to toast both sides, just the insides or it'll be too crispy. Meanwhile, crack an egg into a round cookie cutter on a frying pan and wait for it to solidify enough to take the cutter off and flip. Once you flip the egg, turn the burner off (don't want the egg to cook too much), add a slice of cheese and let it melt. You should also fry a slice of ham or bacon while you cook the egg. Then once the muffin is toasted, add butter, some mayo and a little ketchup. Then it's ready for the egg, the ham and the cheese. Viola!

Kumla!

You may or may not know what Kumla is, but I grew up with it. My grandparents were from North Dakota, and it seems that there is, or at least was a high concentration of Norwegians living there. Kumla is a Norwegian word I think, and although you may have had a similar dish, it probably wasn't as good as my grandma's Kumla. It seems like everytime I visited them, they happened to be making it for dinner.

Kumla is essentially just potato dumplings, though it's so much better! You boil a big pot of water, flavor it with vegetable broth, cook some meat (lamb, roast beef, etc..) in the broth for a while for flavor, then grate some baker potatoes and form them into tennis size balls and boil them til done. People have different ways of making and eating them, but we always just cut a piece off and swiped it through some butter. It takes a few hours to make, but isn't it worth it for one of the greatest meals of all time?

Boiling the kumla balls.

The finished meal!