Maison du Fou

This recipe was inspired by the constant misrepresentation, denial, deluded bragging, and outright lying that people do online. In addition to the concept of deception, this sandwich is based on two of the more famous French sandwiches: the croque-monsieur and the pan-bagnat. I invite the gourmands and gourmets among you to take a shot whenever you feel your soul hurt, which will be pretty often.

You need:

A small baguette or similar roll

Miracle Whip

imitation crab

turkey bologna

swiss cheese

cocktail onions

imitation bacon bits

egg beaters

Total cost: $ 10- $ 20

Slice a small baguette or whatever similarly proportioned roll you could find at the local bodega in half. Lay both sides flat. Preheat an oven to 350.

Spread Miracle Whip lightly on both sides. Note that the croque-monsieur is made with a white sauce and Miracle Whip is white; ergo fuck it, same thing.

Cut three slices of precut swiss cheese and three slices of turkey bologna in half and distribute them evenly across both halves of the bread, with the cheese on top of the bologna. Swiss is just gruyere’s less pretentious cousin and turkey bologna is like the ham of the proletariat, so really we’re just taking sandwich-making back from the fat cats.

Place about 2.5 oz of imitation crab on top of the cheese on the bottom slice. Imitation crab is pollock dressed up all fancy-like, making it superior to the lowly tuna, which is only ever used to imitate dirty vaginas. Put that in the oven for 10 minutes on a baking sheet lined with tin foil because fucked if you’re doing dishes today, what with all of the tv there is.

Scramble up one serving of egg beaters, adding whatever spices you prefer. Note that hardboiling eggs must not be all that great since you can’t hardboil eggs from a carton and cartons are the only type of packaging that the government nanobots can’t penetrate. Add some cocktail onions. They will add a touch of class and surely signal to your beloved that you will both be sipping martinis on the beach just as soon as that hapless Nigerian prince is able to recover his inheritance. True, they do not come in cartons (Cocktail onions, that is. You’ve never seen a Nigerian prince, so you can’t be certain.), but it’s good to diversify. It keeps your mind open, unlike all of those heckling bastards online who were too narrow-minded to understand that your PhDs in homeopathy and faith healing make you an expert on oncology.

When the sandwich has finished cooking, carefully place the scrambled egg beaters atop the pollock and give the whole mess a generous sprinkle of imitation bacon bits. Chipotle sauce is also recommended.

Cut the sandwich in half, give half to your girlfriend, put Lars and The Real Girl on yet again, and wonder why your lover hasn’t said anything in the three years it’s been since you assembled her. Enjoy it with a nice, lukewarm glass of wine product.

Finding Uses For Everyone's Least Favorite Candy, Round 3: Sweet Heart and Anchovies Pizza

Yeah, you heard me. Time to get back to making these things edible. Why anchovies? Because so many people don't like them, maybe they'll work well together, like those two weird kids at school that no one else liked. Also, the salty and sweet might contrast nicely. In defense of the poor, maligned, anchovy, they're only gross if you don't cook them properly or if you just really don't like salt. For those of you just joining us, I've established that baking sweet hearts in cheese makes them taste much less chalky. Science! 

Just to be safe, the pizza will be half crazy bullshit and half cheese. No sense potentially wasting an entire pizza.

You need:
Anchovies
Sweet Hearts
Cheese
Sauce
Pizza crust: I'd advise using premade dough or making your own since it's cheaper and better than a premade crust.

Cost: $1 - $10

It's pretty simple, just put your toppings on and follow the directions on the crust to see how to cook it. In my case, 12-15 minutes or until crust is golden brown at 450 on a lightly oiled pan.

Huh, that came out prettier than I expected.

Good lord, I actually had it pegged right. The buttery, salty flavor of the anchovies DOES blend well with the sweetness of the candy. I mean, it's weird, but it's not bad. They're still a bit firm but not nearly as hard as they normally are. If you don't like the taste of sweet tarts or anchovies to begin with, the combination isn't going to magically make itself appealing to your pallet. This is really only for people who already like both of those things. Still, I'm 2 for 3 on these so far. My world view is collapsing. Stay queer...

Rich Kid Prison Spread

For this post, I was actually inspired by the sickening commercialization of St Mark’s Place.  In the spirit of making things safer and more accessible to sheltered, rich, jerks at the expense of what made it cool in the first place, I’m going to take the prison spread recipe and get my gentrification on.  Ideally I would have gone to Whole Foods for the ingredients but, fittingly enough, it’s currently a bit out of my price range.  Ouch.  I’m going into this expecting it to be good.  I don’t know if I will have that wonderful decadence factor, but it will be healthier and with better, if more expensive, ingredients, so really I’m improvi- OH FUCK IT’S ALREADY HAPPENING HERE! (p.s.: This post only has the "prison food" tag to make searching for it easier.)

Ahem.

Anyway, you need:

Charmingly ethnic queso dip

Gourmet spicy Soy and flaxseed chips

Authentic canned sockeye salmon

Genuine Trader Ming’s Pad Thai

Optional: Hot sauce and spices.

Cost: about $10 - $20

Boil some water.  In a resealable container (for authenticity), combine the pad thai noodles (set the sauce aside for now)

the salmon

queso dip to your taste 

and a few ground up chips.  Hand grind the chips, just like the little people do. It'll show everyone how down to Earth you are, even if you do live in a $8000 a month apartment in Manhattan.

Add just enough water to cover it and mix it up a little bit.  Now seal the container and wrap in it in an L.L.Bean  sleeping bag or an ironically hideous sweater to cook.  Actually, the noodles are a bit thick for that so you can just boil it for a few minutes in a pot or one of those charming little electric tea kettles if you’d rather.

Drain off the excess water carefully, mix in the pad thai sauce and spices of your choice.  I added some habanero hot sauce and garlic powder.

Sweet, spicy, and cheesy.  It still feels decadent, but not in the same way.  It’s quite good, but it isn’t the cheesy mess of sodium that prison spread is.  Doesn’t look any prettier either.  I think the other recipes are a bit better, but my palette may just be unrefined or  damaged from all the stuff I’ve consumed for this blog.  Stay queer and kill yuppies!

Seafood Salad Sandwich

I am tired as HELL this week.  Having discovered that roughly 40% of my food has gone bad, I think I’ll just kick back with a sandwich.  I really like seafood, so a nice seafood salad should do the trick.

Bee tee dubs, guess what you can just buy whenever? Did you guess "baby octopus"? Well done!

You need:

Flying fish roe

Baby octopus

Some of that fish cake log from the last post

Mayo

Onion

Red Pepper

Black pepper

Hamburger buns

Total cost: $10 - $20

You didn’t think I’d just pussy out and use canned tuna or something, right?  In all seriousness, I find myself using fish roe more and more in my everyday cooking when I can afford it. You may be wondering “How do I tell flying fish eggs apart from other kinds, you nasty, fucking, psycho?”  Flying fish row are tiny, orange eggs.  They’re usually on California rolls.

Normally, butchering the infants of most animals isn’t that hard but, with the octopus, you need a really sharp knife because these things are rubbery and hard to cut. Just chop them as coarsely or finely as you’d like.  Chop some onion and red pepper while you’re at it.  Afterwards, rip up some fish cake and mix it with the octopus, mayo, veggies and spice.

Kinda looks like it's missing something, doesn't it?  Add a nice big spoonful or two of fish eggs.

 Perfect.  Now slap that crazy mess on a bun.

This is fucking awesome.  It’s the best seafood salad I’ve ever had.  It’s kinda like imitation crab salad with lots of sweet little bubbles.  The octopus is tasty too, but it’s hard to describe it other than “it tastes like octopus”.  I don’t think it would be nearly as enjoyable without some crunchy vegetables in it.  The flavor is good by itself, but the texture would be a little boring without the pepper and onion.  I find myself consuming the unborn and young more than usual lately.  I’m also on my period.  Coincidence or my own brand of delicious revenge?  Either way, stay queer!

Fish Cake Scramble

You can apparently buy Asian fish cakes in the form of a long, thin loaf, kind of like a pepperoni.

 

 Truth be told, I probably wouldn’t have bought this if I hadn’t seen Suicide Club for the first time recently.  (There’s a scene where a woman is chopping up something that looks similar to this.)

"Mommy's funny."

It’s precooked so you can eat it cold. It tastes a bit like imitation crab, which makes sense because they’re both made from pollock.  (Isn’t it weird that I think that Pollock tastes like imitation crab and not the other way around?  That’s weird to me.)  The texture is dry and kinda grainy.  Nothing special on its own, but whatever.

As with almost all of my other posts, I don’t really know what to do with it.  I do, however, know that I could go for a tofu scramble, so some scrambled fish cake surely wouldn’t be amiss.

You need:

Fish cake

Cooking oil

Barbecue sauce

Whatever veggies you like

Optional: cheyenne pepper:

Total cost: $10 - $20

Heat some oil in  skillet at medium temperature.  Cut up about 7 oz of the fish cake and remove the casing, if need be.   

Then you can just knead it with your hands a bit to break it up.  

Chop up whatever veggies you want.  

Pictured: 2 mushrooms, a brussel sprout and about an ounce of onion.

Mix the veggies and fish cake together and add cheyenne pepper to your taste.  Transfer the mixture to the pan and saute until the veggies are tender.  Add barbecue sauce to your taste during frying.  Basically it’s done when the veggies are.

Weird but good.  It’s got the soft texture of lox, but the barbecue sauce and onion sort of interact with the fish flavor to make it taste a bit like pickled herring. The brussel sprouts have a very subtle flavor that works surprisingly well with the dish and the mushrooms add a nice bit of texture to it.  Not bad for a first try.I’d also like to thank my girlfriend for doing the photography for this post (even if she did voice her disgust every step of the way and initially reacted to my blog with shock and horror).  Stay queer!

Prison Spread Deluxe: The Second Offense

I'll give you all a moment to stop rolling your eyes...

Done?

Ok.  I found a more complicated prison spread recipe!  The basic one I made earlier was good but I didn't really explore.  It would be like making a vanilla cake and saying “Ok!  That’s all for cake!  No need to experiment!” if I didn't try another version.  Also, I’m broke.  Anyway, this particular recipe is based off of something called “pork rind soup”. The process this time is a bit more like what you'd have to do in prison.

Well, guess what?  We have another record breaker!  My search for pork rinds took me to 6 and was fruitless.  I’m actually happy about that because I hate pork rinds and the amount I needed would have left me with excess.  

You Need

Doritos: .50

A spicy beef stick of some sort

Hot sauce

Mayonnaise

Spicy nacho cheese

Ramen

Cheez-its

Pickle relish

Total: $1 - $10

Make yourself some ramen, but don’t add the spice pack yet.  While that’s cooking, dice up the beef stick and set aside some chips and cheez-its.

If anyone cares, that's about a half serving of cheez-its

Drain off most of the water and transfer the noodles and remaining water into a ziplock bag.  Crush up the chips and cheez-its and microwave your nacho cheese for about 20 seconds.  Now add the crushed chips and cheez-its, cheese, diced beef stick, a spoonful or packet of relish, a spoonful or packet of mayonnaise, some hot sauce and the spice packet to the bag.  Seal it and knead the bag to mush the stuff together.   

 

Now wrap the bag in a towel and let it cook for about 5 minutes.

Ohh, that is mad spicy.  I like it.  You can taste the cheese more than in the first recipe.  It has a sticky, soft and creamy texture.  The chip chunks are soft, but not soggy and the slim jim is less chewy.  The relish adds an occasional small hint of sweetness.  I think too much of it would have made it too sweet and overpowered the cheese.  What’s nice that that the relative scarcity of the added chips and meat means that it’s very distinct when you get some in a mouthful, so the flavor is somewhat dynamic.  Gotta admit, I didn’t expect this recipe review to need this much depth and complexity...or any at all to be honest. Stay queer!

Prison Spread

“Spread” is a general term for ramen + whatever the fuck else (usually other junk foods from the commissary) cooked with hot water in a trash or ziplock bag.  I figured I should explain that straight away because people react to the term "prison spread" with varying degrees of apprehension whenever I bring it up. Microwaving may be involved depending on the prison and the prisoner’s level of privilege.  Apparently it’s very popular and it’s easy to make enough to share with cellmates.  This is my second foray into prison food.  I’ve been looking into prison food recipes a lot lately because they're so easy and inexpensive. You know what I noticed?  Prison snacks tend to display creativity, whereas dorm food tends to display laziness.

That’s a bit telling, isn’t it?  Meditate on that the next time you’re writing yet another unappreciated screenplay/short story/ sonnet/ song about two Williamsburg twenty-somethings trying to come to grips with their feelings of mutual attraction while being faced with with the soul-crushing ennui caused by living in a world where consumer culture is so prevalent and poisonous that the only way to rebel against it is to ravenously indulge in very worst and most tasteless parts of it and look down on others who do so without irony.  Please do so for twice as long if there’s also a subplot about one or more characters reconciling with rich parents that never understood them.  You know, the one you have that’s totally going to blow people’s minds and open their eyes to the corporate dystopia and social stagnation that only you were special enough to notice?  (I’m VERY happy to be done with college. Can you tell?)

*Ahem*  Yeah, so prison spread…

You need:

Top ramen

Nacho cheese

A can of tuna

Hot sauce

Pretzels

Total cost: $1 - $10

Ok, I know I said that this is usually done in a trash or chip bag but frankly I just don’t want to.  I’m cheating and using tupperware. This is my reward for not being too big a nuisance to rich, white people. Anyway, start by breaking up the ramen in the bag.  Dump it into the bag or container and set aside the seasoning packet.  Now, add your can of undrained tuna.   

You can either add pretzels to it as it is, or you eat the spread on them.  Hell, do both if you want.  I think I’ll use them for dipping though.  

Add just enough hot water to cover it, seal up the bag or container and let it sit for about 2 minutes, more if you want softer noodles.  While that cooks, heat up your nacho cheese in microwave, if available.  Once the spread is done cooking, drain carefully drain off about half of the excess water (or don’t, it’s up to you) and add the cheese and seasoning packet.  Top with hot sauce and mix it up.

Awesome.  It’s like the best chip dip ever. It’s a spicy cheese dip with soft pasta and meat after all.  Like the slim jim surprise, it’s ridiculously filling works well as a comfort food.  You know what?  I see no reason why this should be kept in the domain of prison.  Set this shit out at a party next to a big bowl or pretzels or tortillas chips.  Yeah, it’s not fine dining but, if anyone complains, just invite them to read what goes into pate sometime.  There are a ton of ways to make this too.  Add whatever you want.  Mayo, popcorn, jalapenos, veggies, etc.  There’s no one recipe for spread, it seems like ramen is the only consistent ingredient.  For the sake of authenticity, stick with stuff you can get in prison, barring things like toilet sangria…unless you’re over 21 of course.  Stay queer!

Sardine Turnovers: Sardines and pastry, together at last.

As I was merrily gallivanting through the internet, I stumbled upon this little gem (scroll down a bit):  http://weirdrecipefinds.blogspot.com/2007/10/sardines-nasty-little-fish.html

 

This apparently came from some unspecified cookbook.  No word on how it tastes, so I decided to rise to the occasion.  I like sardines and turnovers but it never occurred to me to combine the two.  Fortunately, we all know that two good things are always better when combined, like guinea pigs and computer chips, or durian fruit and pate. I'm sure this will be similar.

Ingredients:

Frozen pie crust

1 can of sardines in water

Sweet pickle relish

Milk

Lemon juice
Yellow mustard

Price range: $10 - $20

Preheat the oven at 400 degrees.

Press the moisture out of 3 tablespoons of sweet relish, which in no way resembles a discharge that pediatricians have to familiarize themselves with in order to diagnose intestinal illnesses in infants.

Drain the sardines and add them, the relish and the mustard together.

Nothin’ says lovin’ like spinal cords in the oven.  Now mix them together.

I’m not sure if this looks better or worse.

Anyway, cut a pie crust into 3X3 inch squares and put some of the mixture in the center.

Pinch the opposite ends of the square together tightly, cut some vents in the top and brush with cold milk.  If you don’t have a pastry brush, you can use your fingers.  

Near the end of this process I realized that I had too much crust left for the rest of the filling so I opted to make one big one.  Who am I to impose conformity on my turnovers?  Each is an individual and shouldn’t be forced to fit my definition of not wad-shaped!  In the picture below you may see the clumsy fumbling of an amateur, but I see the indomitable spirit of radical individuality!

FUCK THE SYSTEM!

Anyway, pop them into the oven at 400 for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350 and bake them for another 10-12 minutes.  The finished product:

Huh, they kind of look like little mutant lemur heads.  The flavor of the mustard is a bit overpowering.  I’m actually reminded of a regular fish sandwich more than anything.  Thankfully, the cooking process robbed the sardines of their stench and fishy flavor.  I guess if you like fish sandwiches you’ll like this.  Probably not going to work that way for people who like turnovers, but hey, who knows?  I don’t think “turnover” is really the appropriate term for it.  Perhaps “fish wad” but that probably won't take off.

Stay queer!