Mr Bastard had a stroke of genius this week and decided that he needed to wrap the haggis in Pillsbury Crescents, however when he went to the grocery store, he was hungry and he came out with Pillsbury crescents and a ton of sausage (Johnsonvilles Beer Bratwursts to be specific)

So in his infinite wisdom, left over haggis was wrapped in the pastry, and some fried up sausage meat (we usually take the stuff out of the casing and fry it up like ground beef) was also wrapped.

They were delicious, easy and we no longer have a fridge full of haggis.

If  your’e into Haggis and Scotch, you may also be into The Real McKenzies

Salsa
Taco Seasoning
Diced Onions and
Diced Jalapenos

Since I’m a stingy bitch (*sigh…. the preferred term is frugal), I pondered on how to make that sauce useful. Could we freeze it? What the hell would we use it for?  Would it taste good on spaghetti?  Probably not.   What resulted was pretty useful indeed, not only did we get another huge meal out of the deal,   but I managed to get rid of some more ham (Yes, we’re still working on the leftover ham) and some left over chicken from Tuesday’s dinner that was just going to sit in its lonely tupperware until someone threw it out.

So, in addition to our salsa, taco seasoning, onions and jalapenos from the dinner Mr  Bastard had just made, in went two (rinsed) cans  of beans (one can of black beans and one can of mixed beans), some diced ham, a chopped (cooked) chicken breast and a sprinkle of cumin for zazz.  I think most people would refer to this as Chilli, it  certainly resembled chilli. It even tasted like chilli, but it was much much much easier to make than chilli. I left the ingredients in the slow cooker for three hours on low, but since everything I added was already cooked, it was kind of pointless.

Hey, if you ever feel like things are pointless, try to cheer yourself up with a bowl of chilli and some Abrasive Wheels, who are totally cheerful.

The original dish it originated from: Cubed and pan fried chicken, after the chicken is cooked, add the can of soup (sans water/milk) and bovril and heat until the consistency is gravy like, served over rice.  I’m fairly certain if I made a top ten list of comfort foods, this dish would be sitting around number 6.

I’ve personally been known to eat it as… well… mushroom soup and bovril (I think that’s also known as mushroom soup gravy).  I am a grown up now and I’m able to control my instincts to eat nothing but gravy for lunch, but sometimes its hard.

The latest dish is what I imagine Oliver Twist wanted more of, cooked Quinoa, mushroom soup and bovril. It has the consistency of gruel, I think… Actually, to be honest I’m not even sure what gruel is exactly, but this looks to be about right. Don’t eat with your eyes.

Anyway, its delicious and if you’re ever out of gravy, or you don’t know how to make gravy, or you’re not one of those nuts who doesn’t like mushroom soup, this takes 2 minutes to (meeeeedniiiiiight) prepare.  Also if you like mushroom soup gravy, or any other food, you will already know that Iron Maiden rules.

We have  a bigger kitchen table and there are no asthma attack inducing cats on this particular side which is completely irrelevant to what I’m saying.

Anyway, long story short, between six adults and two children we could not even put a dent in the ham. It was huge- huge  and apparently pre sliced and pre cooked, but that’s another story.  So we wound up with some leftovers. I’m going to be honest with you, I’m sick of ham, we have been eating ham sammiches constantly since the wedding at the end of July and for some reason I thought it was a good idea to buy more, so we could… eat more ham? What was I thinking? Cheap lunch meat is what I was thinking, sometimes there is a logical answer.

HAM!

geez.

So I decided to concoct some sort of a new way to eat slices of ham tonight and so far its working itself into some sort of a red stewy mass of … awesome.  Speaking of Red and Awesome – you sincerely truly need to check out Baroness and their Red Album. Fucking amazing music, great for driving. Listen to it as you drive over to try this stew I’m making. Or listen to Baroness while  you make your own damn stew, which is why I’m going to tell you how to now:

In this huge stew I’ve got:

5 Small Diced Potatoes
4 Diced Carrots
4 Diced Celery Sticks
5 Cloves Garlic
1/4 Diced Red Onion
A small freezer bag of diced and sliced HAM
Leftover mix of Quinoa/Onion/Bell Pepper (why the fuck not?)
1 Can Tomato Paste
1 Can Stewed Tomatoes (undrained)
2 Cups Broth
2 Cups Water
The spices, thrown in all willy nilly as usual are, in no particular order:

Chilli Spice
Paprika
Garlic Salt
Souvlaki Spice (Again, why the hell not?)
Cumin
Cock Sauce, not a spice but its spicy!

So far its been in the crock pot on high for 3 hours, 18 minutes. Everything is cooked except for the potatoes and when they’re finished I’ll be packing Mr Bastard his lunch and then going to sleep.

I was listening to The Descendents and preparing a popcorn topping this afternoon  out of a splash of Lime Juice and Valentina hot sauce when I accidentally went a bit overboard with the lime juice. Naturally, to compensate I added  a lot more hot sauce. Too much.  I only used a little bit of the sauce for my popcorn so I turned my mind to dinner. I had a sauce, what could I make with it?

I ended up marinating some chicken breasts in the mixture for a few hours then placing them in an oiled baking pan along with the rest of the sauce.  I sprinkled a bit of parmesan cheese and black pepper over the chicken and then put them in the oven to bake 375F for about 35 minutes. Flipping and recheesing once.  I had a pan of water in the oven to keep the chicken moist.

The chicken turned out so delicious, I really can’t wait to make it again.

The dinner that came out of our laziness was quite large so I will tell you about two of the dishes we served.

The first dish is actually something  magical we’ve discovered in our local grocery store recently; relatively cheap pre made appetizers which come in space pods! SPACE PODS OF DELICIOUSNESS. Foil space pods that are cooked in boiling water and then opened up to reveal dishes which I’m far too impatient to try making from scratch.  They are made by a company by Gits and if you find one of these thin little boxes at your grocery store, do try one.  We had some lovely curried chickpeas as a side:

The second dish was cubed chicken pan fried in a surprisingly delicious mixture of … stuff.

1 Can Tomato Paste and a relatively equal or slightly lesser amount of Plain Yoghurt
Some Diced Onion
Two cloves of Garlic
Splash of Lime juice
Some Tikka Masala Spice …. its red, that’s all I know about it.
A bit of Chilli Spice
Some Cumin and a bit of Black Pepper

We served the chicken over rice with some flatbread  nearby for soaking up the sauce.

If you’re also a fan of faking it,  you may like The Cock

I decided to whip up a quick meat free sauce using the first things I saw in my fridge and within ten minutes I was sitting at my computer with a delicious meal blogging about it.

I sautéed a diced green bell pepper and 1/4 cup of diced onion in olive oil.

Next I added a hand full of chopped fresh spinach, a generous splash of lime juice, an extremely generous helping of hot sauce, one can of tomato sauce and 1/4cup of salsa.

For spices I threw in pepper, garlic salt and Tikka Masala

Served over spaghetti.

So good and so fast. Speaking of good and fast have you listened to Zeke?  You should, they’re one of my all time favourites.

You’ll notice the small amount of food, beer, excessive condiments and mostly empty pickle jars.

So I was relatively desperate to have a fast, easy filling supper with what little food I’ve got in the fridge.  The result –  a green onion, spinach and cheddar cheese omelette, not a combination I would have considered had there been any thing else in my fridge but surprisingly delicious.

In a small frying pan over medium heat I  wilted a rather generous handful of chopped fresh spinach and two chopped green onions in a tbsp of olive oil (with a sprinkle of pepper)

When the veggies were soft I poured a mixture of five eggs and a splash of milk and topped with a few slices of cheddar cheese.

I’m far too impatient to make a nice looking omelette so the end result was more of a scrambled egg but everything tasted delicious just the same.  Also, had we prepared any meat to go along with this meal, it would have been nicely accompanied by some ham… but we don’t have any ham.

If you’re in Saskatoon or Calgary this weekend, check out the CD Release double header for my band The Rigormorticians and our friends in The New Jacobin Club.

For this evening’s dinner I used four Roma tomatoes, 8 diced asparagus stalks, one diced shallot and one clove of garlic together with a splash of lemon juice, lime juice and about a  tbsp of white wine vinegar.

Meanwhile, in a frying pan I fried up some de-cased hot italian sausages (ground meat style) Once the meat is cooked I added the vegetable mixture and a copious amount of Cumin, Chilli Pepper, Black Pepper and a bit of Garlic Salt. If the sauce is too runny, add a wee bit of corn starch to thicken.
Serve over red lentils.

Delicious, the right kind of spice and wonderful when paired with the snazzy yet mellow Volbeat,

Saturday night was also spent at Verns  for Black Earth’s cd release party with Ghost Factory.

The best part about Verns aside from the clientele and music – is the stew.  Delicious home made stew. I didn’t have a bowl this weekend, but its been cold and miserable out so in my slightly exhausted/hung over /partied out state I decided to make my own easy stew today – easy because every ingredient was thrown in – none of this measuring garbage.

Equal parts water and chicken broth (or beef broth) (enough to cover the ingredients)

Siracha hot sauce (to taste)

Soy sauce (splash)

Cumin

Basil

Chilli Pepper

Garlic salt

Small cubed beef chunks (1lb?)

2 Diced Potatoes

1 Diced Onion

A handful of sliced jalapeno peppers

Red Lentils

Barley

slow cooked for about…. 5 hours and served with buns (or burnt bread sticks like we had… horrible day to have the windows open by the way – dont burn things)

This stew takes about 10 minutes to prep, a bonus for lazy Sunday afternoons.  If you get the chance check out Black Earth’s new cd – on  sale for only $2.00.