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Sunday, February 14, 2010  

Dare for Dinner

For about a year now, Trash and I have been having our friend Chao over pretty regularly for what she calls "Bad Food Night," although it's anything but.

We can't remember all of the magnificent successes of this tradition, but we do remember what kicked it off. Trash of all people hit on the idea of making meatloaf, but instead of using plain saltine crackers for the filler, we'd use Chicken in a Biskit™ crackers.

It ended up being one of the best meals we ever made. Instead of bland meatloaf, it was infused with that delicious bird-dust that makes Chicken in a Biskit the magical gourmet experience it is. Alas, Trash hates Chicken in a Biskit on both philosophical and gustatory grounds, so she wasn't even able to sit at the table with us while Chao, his nephew, and I polished off not only the whole meatloaf, but a three-liter bottle of store-brand grape soda. She can be a bit of a food snob.

But that hasn't stopped her from coming up with more recipes she thinks will scare us away. The more whiskey-tango, the better Which, as long as there's meat (and especially bacon) in it, hasn't happened so far.

This is not to say there hasn't been a misstep or two. For instance, there was the time I burned the beer-marinated meat on the grill. I don't like burned, Chao doesn't like beer, and Trash doesn't like meat, so that one had three strikes against it right away.

Then there was the batch of bacon brownies I decided to make. Originally the plan was to simply coat the backing pan in bacon grease, but when Trash suggested replacing the cooking oil with it as well, I couldn't resist, even though I should have. The brownies smelled fine, sort of, but they tasted like brownies that had been used to clean the barbecue.

But other than that, everything has been a success, if by "success" you mean "stuff we love that Trash finds disgusting." It's especially fun since she makes most of it.

I can't even recall what all has come out of our slow-cooker, oven, and stove on these nights, which is too bad. Most nights, we (that is, Chao and I) say this was a success, and we'll have to try it again. But so far all that's come around again is the original Chicken in a Biskit meatloaf.

Most of these recipes are either invented on the fly, or Trash finds them online at prestigious gourmet sites like Epicurious, Bon Appetit, or This Is Why You're Fat. Or sometimes we'll just search for recipes based on a certain ingredient. That's how we ended up with Sour Cream Chicken in a Biskit Chicken last week.

You start by marinating chicken in sour cream for an hour (you know, just to get that sour cream flavor all through it). Then you "dredge" it through a mixture of Chicken in a Biskit crumbs, grated parmesan, and tarragon, and throw it in the slow-cooker with a couple of sticks of butter. We probably could have gotten by with a stick and a half, but the Chicken in a Biskit stuffing that resulted was nothing short of transcendent.

In fact, we're pretty sure we're going to do that one again, and soon. We liked it enough to even remember it. And though last week's Pepsi roast with egg noodles was another standout, we need to start recycling some of these ideas already.

Maybe this week we'll come back to the barbecue bacon lasagna. That was good stuff, and this time I won't even overcook it.

posted by M. Giant 9:18 PM 3 comments

3 Comments:

How long in the slow cooker?

By Blogger Phyllis S, at February 15, 2010 at 6:25 PM  

I was caught unawares by a pretty severe snowstorm several years ago, and I found out that stale Cheez-Its make awesome meatloaf filler.

By Anonymous Leslie, at February 17, 2010 at 4:01 AM  

Seriously, it was amazing. I'd pay top dollar in a restaurant for it, but sadly, there aren't a lot of restaurants that offer slow cooker meals - which is ridiculous.

By Blogger Chao, at February 18, 2010 at 9:02 AM  

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