Gringo Nachos

After very little thought, preparation, and deliberation, I am back once again with another astounding recipe for those who are lazy, inept, and cheap with their diet. I have been eating this recipe for about a week straight only because I know exactly where all the ingredients are in the supermarket and I can therefore get the fuck out of there as quickly as possible.

So, here are the ingredients:

Ingredients.

Pictured above is calcium and vitamin D enriched orange juice (in the first picture, obviously) and garlic, red and green bell peppers, mushrooms, onions, and freakin' beef (second picture). Not pictured above is salt, pepper, and tapatio (pronounced "tuh-pat-ee-o" because this is America, dammit) sauce because by now everyone should be putting those things in everything. Cereal included.

Step one of this recipe is to drink your way through the fridge to the orange juice. Step two is to throw out the orange juice because that shit is hella old and every time you shake it up the cap leaks and gets orange juice everywhere but you keep buying it because it's way cheaper than name brand stuff and probably comes from the same giant holding tank.

After you're done cussing out the carton of O.J., grab a frying pan, turn the stove on to medium heat, and start heating up some olive oil.

Next thing you want to do is try and grab the largest, sharpest knife you own. I use the word "try" because after your date with the fridge, "actually" doing something is probably not going to happen.

Frugal pro-tip: find a roommate who is a trained first-responder. This will save you money on hospital trips for the many self-inflicted stab wounds.

Now that you have this sick-ass sword in your hand (not in your hand), start chopping up your vegetables. Cut the onion first and throw it immediately in the frying pan.

This is a picture of the previous sentence. 

 Then finish cutting the rest of the vegetables.

Notice the lack of blood in the picture. If your cutting board is as clean as that one, crack open another beer. 

Ideally, increase the alcohol content and drink it while standing directly over the hot oil that should be splattering everywhere by now. 

 The next step is to throw the meat in the frying pan. 

Notice the oil pooled up in the corner of the pan. This is a completely different oven, frying pan, house, and zip code from that chicken recipe and my oven is still fucking crooked. 

Don't forget that you need to rotate your frying pan to more evenly disperse the oil because some lazy ass appliance technician couldn't be bothered to properly install your oven. I'm not bitter. I should be. But sadly, this isn't a new thing for me.

Now throw the rest of your vegetables in the pan.

Then season that shit. 

Drink the tapatio and season with beer.

 By this point I was getting hungry and the meat wasn't cooked quite enough. So I cut it in half to speed up the process. In hindsight, I should have done this before cooking it.

But I didn't.

 

Now for the "nacho" part:

Yes. It's exactly as appetizing as it looks.

At this point I was feeling a little underwhelmed by the amount of effort I had put in (very little) and the end product (stir fry plopped onto a plate of tortilla chips). So I did this: 

  

Much better.

Earlier this week I made this recipe using "stir-fry" beef because it was, like, $2. Now I have mad cow disease.

Totally worth it.

Grilled Chip and Cheese Sandwich

All right, I know it's been awhile but thanks to my unemployment I am able to present a new edition of Frugally Cooking. And as a disclaimer: if you somehow manage to hurt or poison yourself following my directions you're retarded and I take no responsibility for your actions. No one should be eating the shit I write about anyway, this stuff is disgusting.

This is my take on "grilled" cheese. And since some asshole smashed a bag of chips at the store and put it back on the shelf right before I showed up, I threw some in there in an effort to get rid of them without throwing them away.

Here are the ingredients:

Frugal Pro Tip: All of these ingredients can be stolen from your roommate.

The beautiful part of this is that there is ONE dish to clean when you're done. ...Unless you use a paper plate. Which I wish I had thought of when I started this.

Damn.

The first thing to do is to toast the bread. This is the longest part of the process. While it's toasting you can eat your chips. Or in my case, the crumbs that make up the three freaking dollars that was stolen from me by some asshole at the store.

 

Aw. Fuckyeah. Toast.

Obligatory

After the toast is toasted, throw what ever cheese you have on one of the slices. Then throw the chips on top of the cheese. If you're less frugal than I am you could even put another slice of cheese on top of the chips. But then you couldn't make as many sandwiches. Unless you're made of cheese, then you can just go all willy-nilly with it. But that would be catabolism.

Correct example.

Catabolism isn't this cool. 

Once you have it all together and looking like a sandwich, nuke that bitch for about 30 seconds.

The time depends on how hungry you are. I was 4 seconds hungrier than 30 seconds.

The finished product will not look or taste very appetizing, but hey! You managed to feed yourself again and that's what counts right?

Eat it or all that effort was wasted.

Also, you could top it with some Creme Fraiche.

 

Chicken

Hey.

So here's some more food I made.

Meat n' shit.

The dish consists of chicken, onion, garlic, and olive oil.

aka... This plus chicken.

Now, some of you may be thinking "W.t.f., mate? Chicken? Are you made of money?"

The short answer is... yes I am in fact made of money. 
But I know where to buy cheap ass shit too. This whole meal cost me about $10 American currency. It will feed me for about a week.

I had to haggle with management to get the rib meat.

The first thing I did was beat my meat.

  

Like it owed me money.

 

You don't need to abuse your chicken like you do kittens; you could just fist the piss out of it until it is about an inch thick. 

Keep in mind that hitting it too hard will rip the meat. It took me about three or for non-flesh ripping punches before the thickness was adequate. 

And yes, insinuating that I can make actual flesh ripping punches makes me feel better about myself. If you're having a bad day or have anger management issues then by all means commence the flesh ripping. It only affects the presentation anyway, which if you're the latter, you probably don't give a shit.

Next step is to add oil and about half an onion to the bottom of the pan.

It made my camera's eyes water too.

Use a food processor if you have one. Cutting onions sucks. Asshole onions.

Then throw the rest of the onion, some garlic, seasonings, and that submissive chicken on top.

Burn fucker!

After that add some more olive oil on top of the chicken and throw the lid on it. 

If you live in a cheap ass apartment, your stove top may not be entirely even.

Not a level cooking surface.

This causes all the shit in the pan and the pan itself to favor one side. There is an uneven puddle of oil and the pan is also slightly lifted up on one side. To compensate for this I turned teh pan and teh chicken every five minutes.

When you flip the chicken, try and put the onion and other crap you threw in there back on top of the chicken. This enhances flavor. 

 

Enhance.

Total cook time was about one and a half beers. Or twenty minutes. 

Whichever quantity of time you measure in, always make sure that shit is cooked through. One thing that sucks more than onions is salmonella.

Introduction

Hello!

Welcome to my "Frugally Cooking" blog.

My name is Greg and I am lazy, broke, and don't like to cook very much. My intention is to blog about the shit I decide to cook up when I get home everyday. Being broke and lazy has required me to become resourceful when it comes to feeding myself. Given the current economic climate and vibe I get from people I am in contact with everyday, I know I am not alone.

I am not sponsored or endorsed by any company whatsoever. The products I use were either on sale or something my old lady picked up at the store.

So enough horseshit.

Here's what I made to day:

Shit on a plate.

If this looks in any way appetizing, please continue reading:

It consists of instant mashed potatoes, shells, and some franken-sauce I made.

Here's what I did:

1) Cook the pasta. The directions are on 99.99% of the boxes. I usually add salt, pepper, olive oil, and garlic salt to the water for flavor.

• Tip: Keep salt, pepper, and other desired seasonings near or on the stove. I usually forget to add seasonings while I am cooking. Placing them here sometimes helps me remember to add them.

• Tip: Place your beverage away from where you cook. I have knocked over countless beers while cooking. This is my solution:

Hello best friend

2) While the water is boiling, raid your fridge and pantry for random ingredients for a pasta sauce. Here's what I found:

mmmm. ...Stuff.

• Based on these ingredients I derived this formula for how to use them:
  
• Mayo, butter, and milk (not pictured) are for consistency and volume.
• Caesar dressing, garlic, and cheese are for flavor.
• Olive Oil is for because I put it in damn near everything.
  

3) Put it in a sauce pan.

• But I used about 4 or 5 "forkfulls" of mayonnaise and about half that in butter.
• Be very careful with the salad dressing as the taste is very strong. I started with less than a tablespoon and added to taste.
• I was pretty generous with the garlic, however I like how it tastes. If you don't like it, don't use it.
• The cheese also has a pretty strong taste and the texture is very relevant in the sauce. I was lucky that the cheese and the dressing taste well together.

4) Now mix it up and heat it up.

• When the sauce becomes consistent, taste it. It will be pretty rich. I like my shit bland, so I added some milk and a little water and salt. This step is really a judgment call on the cook's part. My only advice is to add very little at a time until the flavor is to your liking.

5) The tomato.

• I cut it up, dipped it in the sauce, and decided it tasted all right.
  
• I ended up using it just fo' decoration. That's it and that's all, man.

6) The Backup.

• ALWAYS have a backup. While it may be not as frugal to do this, most of these recipes are a shot in the dark. Some are good, some are swamp monsters. Investing in "instant" type dishes is not a bad idea and they can be had for usually under a dollar. For example, top ramen, box rice (off brand rice-a-roni), and instant potatoes.
• This way if you fuck up beyond repair there is at least something to eat.
  
• They also serve as decent side dishes.

Go team.

That's it. Let me know what you think. And yes, I know the title is grammatically incorrect.