2 Day Old Cole Slaw

portion old cole slaw
salt & pepper
tap water
tequila
12-pack beer

hit snooze. finally wake up 7:45 a.m. turn on t.v. to keep the bad thoughts away. turn it up loud.

open fridge. take out cole slaw, sniff. think, it could be OK. drink a couple glasses of tap water to keep your remaining electrolytes vital. slug tequila directly from bottle. slug again. ah.

salt & pepper the shit out of that old cole slaw. munch. wish for fried chicken. crack a beer, champion. happy breakfast.

get on the phone now. call any and all of your similarly unemployed, 'head friends. where there's a will there's a way.

Warrior Stew from Kevynn

One Top Ramen package.
Throw away the noodles, because that'll make you poo even more than usual.
Pint glass full of water.
Pour flavor/spice packet into water.
Chop up a hot dog that's been in the fridge for too long.
Hope that it's not bad, but the heat'll kill all of the make-you-ill stuff, so who cares.
Put hot dog slices in pint glass also.

Microwave for two minutes or until all of the crap boils over and makes a mess that you're not going to clean up.

Sip and chew in front of computer.

Enjoy, Bubba...

Lentils for Peace from guest loser Panacea

Need: two cooking pots with lids
dried lentils
rice
onion bits (dried)
curry powder
salt and pepper
yogurt (optional)

In first, two cups dried lentils and four cups water.
In second, two cups rice and four cups water.

Starting at the same time, bring both to full rolling boil.
Stir the rice, turn the heat down to lowest setting, and cover.
Stir the lentils, turn heat down to lowest setting, add 1/4
cup dehydrated onion chips, 1 tablespoon curry powder,
salt and pepper (or Cajun spice blend, why -don't- you have
this?) to taste, stir again and cover.

Let simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring the lentils
occasionally but leaving rice alone.

Put cooked rice in beat-up old cake pan, forming a ring.
Put lentils into center of ring and over rice. If not vegan,
put a splop of plain yogurt on top.
Wrap in tin foil and towel and take to protest / potluck.
Share.

indian buffet

fill your biggest pot full of water and bring it to a boil. while water is heating up, peel and grate half an english cucumber. mix this up with some plain yogurt and garam masala and fresh mint from the garden if you have it. when the water boils, slide in three tasty bite pouches of your choice. one should be a rice pilaf, and one should be something sloppy like dal. let them boil for three to five minutes. while the pouches are heating up, take two naan out of the freezer and toast in a dry skillet over medium-high heat.

decant tasty bites into bowls. serve with major grey's.

shrimp scampi for losers

50 mg Benadryl
one bag of frozen pre-cooked shrimp (i bought mine with the little tails already ripped off, because i am an especially lazy cooking loser)
something oily (i used olive oil, but the only reason i have it is because i stole it from my ex)
minced garlic in a jar. once you start buying this stuff, you will wonder how you ever lived without it.
lemon juice. i just used the reaLemon stuff in the squeeze bottle.

the benadryl is important when you are a cooking loser with a shrimp allergy. shrimp is probably my favorite food, so omitting it from my life is not an option at this point in time. once you've swallowed the benadryl, you're in business.

thaw shrimp. grab a pan or a wok or something. saute garlic in whatever oily stuff you have around until the little garlic chunks are soft. throw in the shrimp, add some salt and pepper and stir it around. keep stirring until your entire kitchen smells like garlic shrimp and your stomach is ready to revolt against you because you haven't eaten all day. add some lemon juice and serve it up. watch closely for hives over the next 24 hours.

From guest loser erica:

my friend tony gave me this recipe for authentic mexican tacos:

1 bottle of tequila
2 taco bell tacos

Fat and Gooey Tuesday from guest loser Peggy

- Plan on making gumbo for a festive, Mardi Gras-themed family dinner.
- Have 11-year-old remind you at 5:30 that he has basketball practice in an
hour, and he has
invited his friend to stay for dinner before practice.
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees for Jack's frozen cheese pizza.
- Have husband walk in from work and ask "What's burning?"
- Open oven door and find remains of Keebler Fudge Stripe Cookie package
that you had hidden in
there away from 16-year old son, who would eat them all and not leave any
for his brother's
lunchbox.
- Remove oven rack and melted cookie package from oven (with mitts), and
place on top of stove,
then open kitchen window to fan smoke out before the fire department shows
up because the
alarm system is connected to them when the smoke detector goes off. It
would not be the first
time. (See: Infamous Indoor Ancho Chile Toasting incident of 1999.)
- Throw cookie package in sink, and notice that the sections of cookies have
fused into a
not-unattractive, nouveau-towerish sort of mass. Briefly consider serving
these as dessert,
perhaps with ice cream. Discard idea after getting whiff of noxious melted
cellophane.
- Put cookie mass down disposal.
- Peel melted plastic off oven rack, which comes off surprisingly easily.
- Let oven air out a few minutes and put pizza in. Serve with applsauce and
milk.

1974 was not a year to be a Cooking Loser.

Screw corkscrew into cork, pull hard, remove from bottle of wine.
Pour wine into a large glass, drink.
You've just had one of your 2-4 daily servings of fruit!
Pat yourself on the back for eating right today.

Good morning from guest loser Andre:

Breakfast Burrito

1) Heat a flour tortilla in the microwave for 45 seconds.
2) Smear on Nutella.
3) Roll.

hot dog bits in baked potato

potato
hot dog
butter/margarine & sour cream (if have)

* bake the potato in oven till done
* slice up hot dog into bite sized bits and microwave on covered paper plate for 1 - 1.5 minutes
* slice open potato and use fork to impregnate it with tons of butter/margarine and/ sour cream as well as yummy bits of hot dog

salt & pepper to taste

Caitlin. Another guest loser with tuna:

Drain 1 can chunk white tuna (because chunk light is too ghetto even for you)
stir in 1 tablespoon mayo
Stir in some dill weed and some black pepper
(or 1 tablespoon relish if you prefer)
toast 2 pieces bread
turn on the broiler.
spread tuna on toast, put a slice of american cheese on top (and a slice of tomato if you have one, but you're a cooking loser and you don't, so fuck the tomato)
put a piece of tin foil on a baking sheet (so you don't have to wash anything) and put the toast-tuna-cheese on the tin foil and broil it for a few (2-3) minutes until the cheese melts, but watch it so it doesn't burn.

Voila. Loser dinner for 2. This is where you admit you don't have anybody to eat a tuna melt with, and so you give the second one to your dog, who will probably throw it back up on your livingroom rug at 2 in the morning.

tedious grillin' (not for when you are high)

get some fresh asparagus. it should be a decent size and not that pencil thin stuff. i am serious. while you're at the store, also pick up some soy sauce, sesame oil, a garlic bulb and some sesame seeds. ok, soak some bamboo skewers for a couple hours in water. get two skewers, and use them to make raft looking things out of the asparagus - put one through the bottom of the stalk and one about two inches up from that. be careful to do it through a thick part, or your asparagus might break and you'll get all pissed off and throw it really hard at the sink. each raft should have something like 6-8 stalks of asparagus on it.

ok, is your grill ready? if it's not, you had better turn it on now. while it is warming up, put one tablespoon of soy sauce and two tablespoons of sesame oil and a couple cloves of minced garlic in a bowl and stir them all around. carry your plate of asparagus rafts, the marinade bowl and the sesame seeds outside to the grill. brush one side of the rafts with the marinade and sprinkle with the sesame seeds. put it marinade side down on the grill, and brush the top (unmarinated) side with the marinade and give it some seeds too. turn it over after about 3 minutes and let the other side cook for about that long. use your own good judgment to tell when they're cooked enough. i trust you.

maybe you want to grill some other stuff too. don't worry. just wrap your rafts in some foil and put them in the oven on the "warm" setting. they'll just sit and happily marinate a little more and be great when whatever else you are grilling is done. i am serious about not trying to do this while you're high. many have tried, few have succeeded. enjoy your goddamn rafts.

hell yeah! a snack!

this is pretty easy to make. the only trouble is having the right ingredients on hand all at the same time since your babydaddy likes avocados too and might eat them first.

anyway. acquire half of a ripe avocado. cut it into flattish pieces. put the pieces on some bread. take another piece of bread and put a piece of monterey jack cheese on it. put your bread and ingredients together and you have a great sandwich! you do!!! you are a beautiful butterfly. a good dessert for this snack is a bowl of that new s'morez cereal without milk.

nerdy girl rebecca is a loser:

Loser Sandwich

The situation:
You would make burritos if you could, but all you have is tortillas and a can of refried beans. The cheese has gone bad to the point where you can't just cut off the moldy parts and use the rest and you've got no veggies that you're willing to touch at this point, even if it means getting them out of the refrigerator and into the trash where they rightfully belong. You are considering a call to HAZMAT as broccoli is surely not supposed to look like that. At least you think it was broccoli.

With the burrito plan down the drain, you decide to settle for a sandwich, but the bread is even moldier than the cheese, except for that baguette you purchased on a whim two weeks ago and never ate (hard as a rock). Also, you don't seem to have adequate sandwich fixin's available.

Solution:
Not to despair! You've got peanut butter, right? And tortillas. Spread peanut butter over half of a tortilla. Then it's just a matter of finding something complimentary to top off the peanut butter. I prefer Cool Whip or, if it's available, some good, old fashioned honey. Other possibilities include syrup, jelly, and powdered sugar. If you're not in the mood for something sweet, consider ketchup or experiement with other condiments. Or, if you've just ended a relationship, you've probably got some chocolate
syrup lying around, so you might as well just squeeze that out on top of the peanut butter. Fold tortilla in half and enjoy.

Gassy Station

Buy Twinkies™ at gas station.

They were on sale, right up near the register. Super Uptight Man is taking all day in line in front of you because he has to have a copy of the receipt in quadruplicate signed by baby jesus apparently, so you have plenty of impulse buy time.

Eat Twinkie™ on walk from counter to car.

Throw wrapper on ground by Super Uptight Man's car and burp directly AT him in defiance of his Uptightness.

Rev your engine and yell SAYONARA FUCKER! as you squeal past him.

Laugh hysterically and be glad Spring has sprung in your neck of the woods.

Popped My Cherry Pan Mushrooms

- Be struck by the delicious prospect of fried, breaded mushrooms in your very own home! Purchase them at your corporate food emporium of choice.

- They've sat in the freezer for a while, and now you're ready to tuck in. Open the box. Do not be dissuaded by the clumped frozen mass that is the entire contents of the box. Refer to directions. Think: oh, shit. I thought this was an oven thing. Well, it isn't! You need a Fry Daddy. Don't have one? Break out that frying pan, tiger! Whoops - where's the vegetable oil? Thank god, you've got some.

- Cover bottom of pan w/ veg. oil. Turn up that heat - but not too much! When shit seems hot, dump in that frozen, breaded mass that is your tasty mushrooms.

- Oh shit! The clumped mass is burning on one side! Turn that shit quick!

- Ok, it's black on one side. No worry; it's just crispy. Figure: you'll just cook 'em till their soft. Think about which salad dressing remnant you're going to dip this shit in, and how great that'll make it taste.

- Admit that the fuckers are black beyond belief now, and taste like pan. Taste. Nope, you were wrong! They taste like ass.

- Turn off stove, let the shit cool, then bag it up and toss it. Or, if you have no pets, just toss the nasty shit.

- Order pizza. Drink all inebriates within reach. If no money, find friend or other loser associate to enable such end.

White, Charming Trash

Look at the price of fresh asparagus and balk.
But buy it anyway, it's better than fetid.
Boil or steam the asparagus. I don't know how long because I just keep chomping into a test one to see if it's done. Take it out of water when it's at desired consistency and let cool. Now take the whitest bread you know (Wonder is better than French) and spread a little butter on some slices, a little cream cheese on others. Then roll the cooled asparagus in the white bread. Yes, the crusts must be cut off beforehand.

Cut the rolls in half or into more bite-size pieces.
Arrange on lovely Melmac serving dishes. Wear pearls. Garnish with cocktail(s).
Well, always garnish meal with cocktail(s).

Oatmeal Pan

• Set oven to 375 degrees. Make sure there's nothing in it, like a baking pan, aluminum foil, or a plastic bowling ball. Double check for those bowling balls, because they are black, easy to miss, and make one hell of a stinky mess when they melt.


• Start with two and a half sticks of butter. Read the directions, discovering you have to beat this into 3/4 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 cup of regular sugar.


• Fuck that. Nuke the butter for a minute or so until it's melted, then beat in the sugars.


• Toss in a raw egg. It's generally better to remove the shell first, but that's just me.


• Add a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Resist the urge to chug the vanilla bottle. It's never worth it.


• Mix everything together. Note how the egg white forms this "window" into the rest of the mix. It's all yellow, except for where the brown sugar shows through.


• Stare at the directions some more and think to yourself that you should have read it sooner and mixed this shit beforehand.


• Take the box of baking soda out of the fridge, remove one teaspoon, dump it in the mix. If you just put the box in the mix, start over and figure out the damn pronoun correctly, dumbass. Then put the box back in the fridge so it can continue to suck up the fungal odor from all the rotting leftovers.


• Add in one teaspoon of salt, one teaspoon of cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg. Mix well.


• Add in one and a half cups of flour. Mix quickly. Continue until you feel the burn in your forearms.


• Add in three cups of oats. Mix well. If you're doing this correctly, you will end up with Popeye-sized forearms. This is a harmless side effect, unless you're in that 0.01% of the population who lives with a multi-jointed skinny woman and a very large mumbling man. These people should take spinach quickly, rather than putting up with the five minutes of abuse that's sure to follow before you finally get pissed off enough to finally take it.


• Form the batter into lumps and put them on an ungreased cookie sheet.


• Get all macho and fit the entire mix on to the cookie sheet at once. Feel proud.


• Lick your fingers. You'll die from the salmonella in the raw egg, but who cares? It's delicious!


• Put the cookies in the oven to bake for 8-9 minutes. Or, more like fifteen, because it never looks right after just nine.


• Remove the cookie sheet. The lumps have now flattened and merged into a gigantic lumpy mass with a handful of gaps where you didn't put the lumps close enough together.


• Use a knife to cut the mass into squarish or circlish shapes. Resist the urge to look up "squarish" and "circlish" in the dictionary.


• Eat. Do not share.

Mott Cromby has a friend and he's a cooking loser, too

Gourmet Vegetable Melt

1 bag of frozen peas, corn, or other favorite frozen
vegetable
1 bag of shredded mozzerella cheese

First off, don't buy cheese in a chunk. Don't kid yourself. You're not going to shred it. Just buy the
pre-shredded stuff. Sometimes it's actually cheaper. My pal Mott Cromby suggests that if you're really hard
up, some crumbled-up Kraft Singles slices will suffice.

Pour vegetables into a normal soup/cereal bowl. Fill the bowl almost to the top; some settling will occur
during cooking. Gently jiggle the bowl so that the top of the vegetable pile becomes fairly flat.
Sprinkle mozzerella cheese generously over the veggies. Don't be afraid to use too much - cheese
just molds in the fridge anyway.

If you're feeling adventurous, fill the bowl halfway, sprinkle with cheese, then pour in more veggies and
sprinkle again. It's like a layer cake, with no cake.

Microwave for five or six minutes. This is longer than it seems like it should take, but remember, these
are some densely packed frozen veggies. There will be a few in the middle that won't ever thaw no matter how
long you microwave them. The goal is to get most of the vegetables at least soft and the cheese melted.
You can always entertain yourself by watching the bowl spin around and pinching more shredded cheese from the
bag.

When you remove the bowl from the microwave, it will be hot. Microwaves heat dishes just as much as food,
regardless of the hype. If you don't have oven mitts - and you don't - a towel or two will do, as will the
overly long sleeve of your shirt.

If you're lucky, some of the cheese will have dribbled down in the cracks between the veggies and combined
with the melted ice that formerly encrusted said veggies to form a smooth, watery cheese sauce. Most
of it will remain in a rapidly hardening shell on top. Stab repeatedly with fork and enjoy!

From guest loser Cosine:

Tuna Enchilada

Ingredients:
Can of Tuna
Can of Enchilada Sauce
Toast
Cheese (optional)

Pour enchilada sauce and tuna into sauce pan and heat. Pour over
toast. Put cheese on top if you wish.

Variations:
If you don't want to dirty a plate, dip the toast into the sauce pan
and eat directly out of the pan. Also, taco sauce (including Taco Bell
packets) can be substituted for enchilada suace.

Imperial Chicken

You need:
* some boneless skinless chicken breasts (4 is good, but whatever)
* 1 1/2 to 2 cups of breadcrumbs (put some slices of bread in the oven on 250 for about 20-30 minutes if you need to make them)
* Parmesan cheese, maybe 1/2 a cup - here's where I'm going to get picky on your ass. Get some decent Parmesan, if you can. That powdered shit just isn't going to cut it. Di Giorno Parmesan, which can be found in most deli cases by the other cheese, is pretty good for this recipe. Any actually-grated Parmesan will do.
* spices like oregano, basil, parsley (Italian Seasoning works fine)
* a stick of butter or margarine (1/2 cup)
* some garlic - garlic powder works ok, I guess, if you're a total loser, but aspire to something better and get real garlic...either pre-minced in a jar or fresh.
* juice of half a lemon (dude, if you don't have this, don't panic)
* Some milk (or mayonnaise, or both)
* paprika (if you don't have this, don't panic either)

In some kind of container or bowl, mix together about a cup and a half to two cups of bread crumbs with a big handful of Parmesan cheese, a bunch of spices (you've got to do some individual thinking here), salt and pepper to taste. Set aside for a bit.

In the interim, melt the stick of butter with the garlic and juice of half a lemon (i.e. cut a small lemon in half, rid yourself of most of the seeds, squeeze actual lemon over the small saucepan into the butter & garlic). If you don't have a lemon, things will turn out all right anyway.

Get out the chicken breasts. Run them under the kitchen faucet a few seconds and dry them with a paper towel. Then, dunk them in the milk (a mixture of milk and a couple of tbsp of mayo works well for better cohesion, or you can just put some mayo, but they'll be a little greasier). For gods sake, dunk them in something so the breadcrumbs will stick. After dunking them or mayo-ing them, roll them in the bread crumb mixture. Lay in a 13x9 baking pan (which will fit a maximum of 5 large chicken breasts). Repeat until all chicken breasts are breaded and laid. When breasts are arranged in the pan, dump the remaining breadcrumb mixture over them evenly. Drizzle the butter/garlic/lemon crap over the breaded chicken breasts evenly. Throw some more parmesan cheese over the top of it all. Sprinkle with paprika. If you don't have paprika, it's clearly not going to matter. Do without, if you must.

Put the baking dish with the chicken, etc. in it into the oven, which is set to 350 degrees, for about 40 minutes. After that, take everything out of the oven and serve with a salad or rice or both or something.

Get fat. Be happy.

From guest loser Meredith:

pussycat, can of corn.

open can. tell cat to shut up, it's not cat food. pour can contents into bowl. sprinkle heavily with monterey seasoning, cajun seasoning, and salt. add butter. microwave two minutes. meanwhile, open whiskey bottle, pour large shot into pint glass, add water, add pussycat mix, stir. retrieve corn from microwave. bowl may be hot. consume, then pass out on the couch.

1. smoke bowl
2. spread strawberry jam on graham cracker
3. eat
4. lapse into diabetic coma