EVERYTHING IS FROZEN

Mode: 2-player
Hardware: Oven
Accessories: Cola

Ok ok ok. So here's what happened. I was going to make this Milanese style chicken salad yesterday, I got a bunch of vegetables and stuff, but then I got a little sideswiped by an invite to the pub for 2-for-1 deals and free coffee. That's the kind of math I can handle. So I was all, what the hey! This stuff can go in the fridge.

Turns out, the fridge was all up on that shit and the next day, all my fresh vegetables are frozen. And I don't really have the teeth to handle a chicken and watercress flavoured slushie.

The chicken was an easy one, that goes in the oven anyway. Breadcrumbed chicken is the key to making this salad 'milanese' style. I was gonna get some fresh chicken breast and breadcrumb it myself, but then I was like... nah. Look at this cheap-ass processed crap. Look at how much less effort that is.

I chop the icy green pepper, carrot and garden peas, and put them in the oven for about 5 minutes.

I figure the warm vegetables will help warm up the leafy salad to a reasonable temperature. I put on some pickled garlic and sun dried tomatoes and hope for the best. Let's be honest. This could be terrible.

When everything was ready, I tipped it together and added french dressing.

Post-Mortem: ** Yeah so soggy watercress and rocket isn't... so great. I guess I like to think I made the best of a bad situation. I swear you should really try a good version of this salad, like go look something up on the internet. And for god's sake, don't trust your fridge.

How to Stamppot LIKE A MAN

Mode: 2 manly dudes
Hardware: 2 manly pans
Accessories: 1 manly glass of pepsi max

My straight up dog bro of the Belgiums, (that's the sturdy pectorals capital of the world) has oft roared his appreciation of the meal known as STAMPPOT. Today I declared that I would do this dish some justice. I have assembled the greatest team of badass ingredients to wage war on the scourge known as hrungnir.
No wait, I mean hunger.

Potatoes, the American-born spud stud voted UK and Belgium's #1 hunkiest vegetable for 7 years running.

Spinach, the patron vegetable of burly sailors. Famous agriculturalist and scimitar-wielding badass sort Ibn al-'Awwam describes spinach as 'The captain of leafy greens.'

Shiitake Mushroom, the spirit fungus of the samurai warrior, whose Shii energy, if channeled correctly, has the power to produce a rich umami flavour.

(not pictured.) Beef. Yknow, from cows.

I carve up the potatoes in the shape of minaturised abs. Skin on, as nature intends. They go in hot water for a good 20-30 minutes.

After the potatoes have had some time, I prepare the beef and mushrooms; you can use corned beef, minced beef, proper beef. I actually used leftover burgers because I had a ton of them.

Here I flexed my triceps (not pictured) and mashed the potato and spinach together. They combine forces during the intensity of battle and do well together.

Now I heap them all on top of eachother, with a helping of ketchup and sweet chilli sauce. As you can see, It takes the form of an erupting volcano. Symbolic of our efforts.

Post-Mortem: **** Nothing says burly man-food like a big bowl of pink tinted mush. These potatoes are now bro-tatoes. Your dinner is served.

Pie of the Future

Mode: 1-2 player
Hardware: Pan, Oven.
Accessories: Ribena

Circles are pies of yesterday. Tomorrow, pies are square. Square like this oven-safe dish I have. Square like the crisps that are called squares. Square like Tobi.

Time to start by making a huge mess, as I make a non-dairy pie crust. Here are the ingredients:

2/3 cup of non-dairy vegetable spread
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon vinegar

Mix these together, adding the vinegar last, and then add water in small amnounts as needed until it becomes, yknow.. doughy.

I put that dough in the fridge to set for a few hours, JOKE, more like 10 minutes while I made the pie-filling. Here I have chicken and spring onion.

I'm going to make some kind of gravy/broth/sauce, using chicken stock, rosemary, oregano. I don't really have much going on in the cupboards at the moment. Oh also, now is a good time to HEAT the oven.

As you can see I'm making do by filling out the pie with some frozen vegetable mix. Also the stock/herbs have gone in there too. Look at all that vapour coming off the frozen vegetables. I like to pretend that they are exorcized evil spirits that are utilised in the preparation of these obnoxiously flavourless carrotstick things.

But also ALSO I have some bacon that I made earlier. I destroy it with my bare hands and add it.

This is the best dough-rolling that I have achieved in ever, possibly. It actually stayed together and shit. Fancy that. In the oven it goes for 30-40 minutes.

Post-Mortem: This is less of a chicken and bacon pie and more of a rosemary and other stuff pie. It's still nice, though. Particularly with ketchup. You might assume this indicates some kind of flavour failing on my part, but I really just like ketchup on stuff. Is square truly better than round? Inconclusive. ***

Nasi Goreng: The Third Rice.

Mode: 1-2 player
Hardware: Steamer, Pan.
Accessories: Fruity Jews from Concentrate.

Good cook, bad taste. That's me.

Nasi goreng is the indonesian equivalent to all those other meals that actually just mean 'a bunch of stuff thrown together in a pan with rice.' Like Jambalaya, Curry, Chop Suey, paella, etc.

So I've got a pack of pre-cooked mixed seafood, a long sweet pepper, spring onions, and some lettuce instead of cabbage, cause it was on sale. I also have some AUTHENTIC DUTCH nasi goreng sauce. It's kinda interesting to note that indonesia is to the netherlands what india is to the UK. We kinda invaded it 'for the queen' at some point, and now they provide us with most of our convenience food.

Anyway, so I put some rice in the steamer for 20 minutes before I did anything else.

I chopped and put all the variabjetables (that's a word I made up in secondary school, true story) in the pan with some oil.

Ding! The rice is done. I don't have any saffron, which is the stuff that makes rice yellow. I added a little bit of paprika and nutmeg to make up for it.

I added the rice and the seafood and the nasi goreng sauce to the pan. I read somewhere that you can basically make a good equivalent to kejap manis (pronounced KA-CHOP MY KNEES) using just soy sauce and ketchup.

Post-Mortem: I seem to have a bad way with frying rice. It never comes out all tough and oily like in chinese takeout (for better or worse?), it tends to be more... sticky and smashed up like a soggy couscous, possibly due to my overzealous loving abuse I give to everything. Like that Lennie guy from Of Mice and Men.  ***

2 recipes so goddamn simple your retarded lolita fantasy wife simulator could make them.

Mode: 1-2 player
Hardware: Steamer, Pan.
Accessories: Peach Cordial

This one goes out to Harvest Moon fans, and the like.

Honey Mustard Chicken Salad

This one was so simple, I made it the other day and only took one photo, so I'm just tacking it onto this post, basically. Chicken fillet and pack of mixed vegetables (green beans, sugar snap peas and broccoli) go in the steamer for 20 mins, pack of mixed leaf salad goes in bowl, hot vegetables and chicken go on top of salad, honey mustard dressing goes on top of that.

****


Beef and Whatever Stir Fry.

First, rice goes in steamer for 20-30 mins.

Next we take... whatever. I gots me some beef, a crunchy vegetable mix, onion, and some pad thai noodle sauce(?) Some whatever, basically. The lesson here is that ANYTHING goes with a beef stir fry. You could do hoi sin, sweet chilli, lemon, barbecue sauce, unicorn tears, fermented cockroaches and half a cactus stuck in a blender with a pinch of rosemary. Use your imagination, or don't and just see whats in the cupboard. Probably better in the long run.

They all go in the saucepan with some cooking oil for about 5 minutes until less pink coloured and more food coloured.

Then add sauce, I also added a bit of sweet chilli and powdered ginger. Because not leaving things alone is your right and privilege as a self-proclaimed food guru, and not because I think it will make any noticeable difference.

Disclaimer: These meals were also HEALTHY! But now you've learned the recipe you can't un-learn it just to spite me without blunt head trauma because they haven't invented mind erasers yet, and if they did I'd use it to forget I ever watched terminator 3, which was about robots from the future managing to go back in time to reignite the ruination the entire franchise with tedious post-matrix sci-fi babble and excessive pandering to young adults.

***