I invented food!

Ok, I didn't invent food at all.  But I did invent two meals last week that actually turned out good!  No one ever taught me how to cook and usually it's very obvious, so I am so proud of myself for throwing some pantry items into a cohesive plateful of food that I'm going to pass them on.  Ok, who am I kidding.  These meals are some de-luxe peasant food, and hardly original, but they was yummy.

Chicken Biscuit Slop
I made this on accident because I wanted chicken pot pie but decided last minute I was too lazy to make pie crust or pot pie filling.  Also, this recipe is a science and you must use the precise measurements I give you.

What you need:
Butter
Onion
Chicken
Chicken broth (optional maybe, water would probably work)
Carrot
Celery or celery seed
Green beans
Peas
Cream of Potato soup
Biscuit mix
Milk
Salt and pepper in the usual places
A man who likes man food

First, don't preheat your oven because that's a waste of energy.  Next, melt a big chunk of butter in a large sauce pan.  Toss in half a chopped onion and saute.  Dice about a pound of chicken breast and throw it in with the onions when they look translucent.  Pour in enough broth to cover the chicken cubes and boil.  While that's boiling, chop some carrots (2 or 3 whole carrots or a handful and a half baby carrots.  Precise measurements, remember?) and celery (I almost never have celery and I think celery seed works just as well if you just throw some in there until it smells good).  Put chopped carrots and celery and a handful each of frozen green beans and peas into pot and add more broth to cover everything.  Season.  Boil everything long enough to get caught up on facebook, then come back and see if everything is getting soft.  Remove from heat and stir in one can of Cream of Potato soup.  The slop should be the consistency of a thick soup.  Once mixed thoroughly, pour the slop into the nearest oven safe cooking vessel.  Prepare biscuit mix according to my box, which was 2 cups mix stirred with 2/3 cups milk.  Drop biscuits in a single layer on top of slop.  Bake according to biscuit mix instructions, or until you can smell the food from your living room while you're folding towels.  Makes 4 man servings/6-8 woman servings.

Joe really really liked this.  I think because it was full of starchy goodness and the vegetables were meat-and-starch-flavored by time it was done.  I thought it was just ok, but for the small amount of effort it took to make I decided it was worth adding to the recipe book.

Next!


Cheeseburger and French Fries Pass-the-roll
This is a good one of those make-shit-out-of-nothing meals. 

You need:
5 or 6 potatoes
Ketchup
1 pound of ground beef
Salt and pepper
Ground mustard
Onion
Block of Velveeta cheese
Handful of shredded cheddar
Yellow mustard (optional if you're a wimp)

First, boil that water.  Nothing pisses me off more than having my shit ready to go and the water is still sitting there still.  Peel and thick slice however many potatoes you think you'll need for two layers in your baking dish.  For me it was 5 or 6 decent sized red potatoes.  Boil them.  Chop an onion and throw it into a non-stick pan.  When it is translucent, add ground beef, season with salt and pepper and lots of ground mustard.  If you don't have ground mustard, skip it, I'm not sure it made any difference in the taste anyway.  When your potatoes are soft but not falling apart, drain them, and use half to shingle a layer on the bottom of the pan.  Squirt a ketchup message on top of the potatoes (message ideas: "This is poison!" or "Your butt is big!").  Drain the ground beef mixture and spread it on top of the ketchuped potatoes.  Layer thin slices of Velveeta cheese on top of the ground beef so that every bite has some cheese but not too much (I used 1/3-1/2 of the block).  Layer the last half of the potatoes on top, sprinkle shredded cheddar on top to your preferred level of cheesiness, and throw it in the oven.  Bake at 450 until the top is brown.  I've eaten leftovers 3 times now so it makes at least 6 servings.

It tasted just like a cheeseburger and french fries in one bite!  But without the roll (get it, casserole/pass-the-roll?)!  I usually don't like mustard, but I was so excited with my creation that I threw just a little bit of mustard over top just to see what would happen.  If you make this recipe it is mandatory that you try just one bite with mustard because I can't explain to you how good it is, you just need to try it yourself.

FYI I used a really small rectangular pan for both of these recipes, and would recommend doubling the starch for both if you use a 9xsomething cake pan sized dish.