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!

Imp Eyes

Well, science damn it!  Three weeks without an update! I was kicking myself the whole time, I swear.  I’m doing something Halloween-ish themed 49 weeks early.  You’re welcome.

While sitting in class like a month ago, I was struck with an idea for a blog post.  (Yes, I’ve been sitting on this the whole time.  The idea well has not run dry) It’d not really something you could give to trick-or-treaters, but it could be fun (if unappetizing) to have a tray of these at a party.

You need:

Peanut butter cups

M & Ms

1 lb of ground beef

Total cost: $1 - $10

Roll the ground beef into balls and press an indent into them.  Ground beef puffs up as it cooks so make it pretty deep.

Now cook them in an oven to your desired done-ness.  The gristle and fat will pool in the indent, so flip them over about halfway through cooking.  It took me about 20 minutes at 400, but I suspect my oven may not be working properly.

Remove the chocolate from the top of the peanut butter cup and place one in each indent.  The beef will still be hot so give it a minute for it to melt into the beef a bit.

Now press and m & m into the “iris”.

The beef, chocolate, and peanut butter taste good together. The sweetness of the peanut butter cup might be a bit much, but it doesn't overpower the beef.  Also, I gotta say, I find this wonderfully aesthetically pleasing.  It looks gross and sloppy, and that just screams Halloween to me.  For added effect and flavor, maybe it could be served in a dish of ketchup or flecked with hot sauce.  I thought up a few variations on it too.  Maybe I’ll make a few sometime.  I declare this a success! They all said I was mad when I told them that I wanted to combine beef and candy!  Well, who’s mad now!?  Stay queer, kids.  Stay queer.

Spicy Crab and Pineapple Omlette

I was going to do something Halloween-themed, since it’s my favorite holiday.  Unfortunately, my schedule has been more crazy than usual.  In fact, I actually made the dish for this post over a week ago, I just haven’t had the time to write something up. Expect something Halloween-themed (or at least filled with candy) next week.

I decided to try a little crossover of Caribbean and omelette this time. Caribbean often combines fruit and seafood to delicious effect. I see no reason why it shouldn't be a part of breakfast.

You need:

Crab (canned is fine): 3.29

Cheese: 1.79

Eggs: 1.79

Salt and pepper to your taste

Hot sauce: 1.29

Total cost:  Less than 10 bucks.

More seafood, more omlettes, as it should be.  It may seem like I’m being lazy and cheap, but that’s just because I am.  Now, this recipe is very similar to the eelmlette, but there is a fundamental difference.   Step 2 of the eelmlette is “add eel”, whereas step two of this recipe is “Add pineapple hot sauce, cheese and crab.”.  You will notice that none of those things are eel.  (We will ignore for now that the eel wasn’t actually eel either.)

Ok.  Step 1: Start making an omlette.

Step 2: Add pineapple hot sauce, cheese and crab.

Step 3: Finish making omlette.  

Those of you who live in temperate, sub-tropical or tropical areas with access to the ocean will probably be totally unsurprised to hear that hot sauce, crab, and pineapple all taste very nice together.  Those of you who do not, are allergic to shellfish or who scream like a little girl who just stepped on a worm when presented with any cuisine more exotic than a corndog, may be a bit surprised.  (Also, if you’re in the latter category then kindly fuck off back to mommy’s kitchen.  This blog is for those of us who ate sandwiches with the crust on as kids and like our orange juice with extra pulp, bitch!)  The pineapple gives you a nice little burst of juice whenever you bite into a chunk and mixes quite nicely with the hot sauce and cheese, although the pineapple juice can make it a little runny.  I like the texture of the crab meat and the flavor is pretty subtle.  I guess I just didn’t use enough crab.  Also, it made my girlfriend throw up in her mouth. It’s her own fault though, she’s a vegetarian and she watched me make it, so she should have known better.  That’ll teach her to be supportive!  So yeah, sorry for the lateness and brevity.  I just finished with my midterms and I have a proposal due tomorrow. (The cash monies!  I needs them so bad!)  Happy Halloween everyone!  Eat loads of candy, get drunk, and stay queer!

Eelmelette

I continue my campaign of destruction against the young and unborn this week.  Why?  Because I found this in a grocery store:

 

You don't see that every day.  Also, it’s supposed to be spicy.  Good enough for me.  What better way to try them out than to smother them in congealed milk and lovingly wrap them up in a layer of chicken menstruation?  They look kind of like giant pin worms.

 

You need:

Eggs

Cheese

Baby eel

Total: $1 - $10

I usually don’t add milk to omlettes.  The chef in Deep Blue Sea discourages it at one point in the film, and any black, comedy relief character who manages to survive in a film about giant, monster sharks probably knows what’s up.  That’s not why I usually don’t use milk, it’s just that you can’t argue with that kind of logic.

So yeah, here we go.

STEP 1: Start to make an omlette.

STEP 2: Add eel.

STEP 3: Finish making the omlette.

It seems that more and more of my posts contain foods that conceal horrible secrets. Unfortunately, my pics got deleted.

It has a weak sweet and fishy flavor but it tastes really good with the cheese and some red pepper.  The texture isn’t weird or nasty at all.  They feel sort of like soft, short pieces of cooked spaghetti.  I thought actually having one in my mouth would feel gross or something but it’s really fine. 'Twas a fine eelmlette indeed.

Ok, confession time: it’s not REALLY eel.  It’s “Eelbroods of Surimi”.  Surimi is made of fish, there’s no eel in it.  Interestingly enough it lists “natural aroma of eel and ink” in the ingredients though.  As far as I’m concerned, it’s still weird. Besides, why spoil the illusion before the very end of the post?  Where’s the fun in that?  Also, I bought it before I realized that, so there’s that too,  Stay queer!

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!

Prawn Chips

This post is actually due to a happy accident because when I bought this...

...I was under the impression that the box contained potato chips or kernels flavored like shrimp.  I assumed that the choice of packaging was just a little marketing quirk.  Instead, I got this:

 

That’ll teach me no not read food packaging properly.  A brief scan of the back of the box reveals that you have to fry them. I’ve seen loads of weird flavored snacks in Asian grocery stores before, but never something like this.  Don’t you buy chips so you don’t have to cook?  That’s half the reason why people tend to stock up on chips before they get drunk.  If you rolled these out in the middle of a party it’d probably result in brns.  Although I suppose you could always relegate the actual frying to that one shirtless, drunk guy who tends to show up at gatherings of twenty-somethings and won’t stop yelling “WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” and that no one actually invited; he just thinks all parties are open and the beer is always free cuz that’s how it works in college movies and who will invariable sulk off, muttering insults under his breath like the naïve, entitled, little mommy’s boy shit he is when told to leave, despite the fact that there was absolutely no way he was going to hook up with any of the women there without the aid of rohypnol.  Then again, those guys tend to be terrible cooks, so you run the risk of a grease fire breaking out.

You need

Prawn chips

Oil

Total cost: $1 - $10

Heat some oil over medium heat. The chips are really thin but you want to be sure that they’ll be covered since the box says that you’re supposed to deep fry them. The actual frying is surprisingly cool. In a few seconds they puffed up, became opaque and lost some color.   

Transfer them to some paper towels to let them drain. 

Cool!  It’s like a puffed potato chip or a soft rice cake.  Don’t worry if a chip hasn’t puffed completely.  Any spots that look uncooked are just a bit crunchier, that’s all.  They have a buttery taste with a slight hint of prawn.  It can be a bit hard to notice at first but the more you eat the stronger it is. I approve. At first I was slightly annoyed that I’d have to fry them myself but I really like how they’re warm and kind of oily.  It's kind of cool that I have freshly fried chips too. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to market chips that you have to fry up yourself, but I guess that why I’m not rubbing shoulders with the snack food barons.  Stay queer!