The Weirdest Thing I've Ever Made
I'm on a deadline, too lazy to get out of jammies, put clothes on and go get something to eat. I look in the refrigerator- I haven't gone grocery shopping in a while, but I have some weird odds and ends that don't really seem to go together.
I go back to my desk.
After about an hour, I get up and roast butternut squash. It looks and tastes good, but it's not what I'm craving. I caramelize onions with fresh thyme, whole cloves of garlic and red pepper flakes. It smells heavenly, but it's not really the meal of my dreams.
I, on a whim, decide to blend the squash and the onions together with sage and leftover turkey stock in the food processor. My stove sucks and literally takes hours to boil a pot of water, so tossing this heavenly concoction with pasta is out of the question. I decide to stuff this mixture into wonton skins, fry it up and drizzle it with Sriracha and voilà, I've made fried butternut squash ravioli. I wish I had cheese, I would have added cheese into the filling and grated Parm all over the top, but I don't so Sriracha will have to do.
Aside from distracting me from a boring article I don't want to write, the point of this rambling post is to ask:
Have you ever thrown something totally bizarre together out of hunger and laziness only to find it's ridiculously delicious?
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27 Comments:
Yes, that would be my "German casserole" I raided my cabinet and found a can of kraut and some macaroni. I sauteed some diced carrot, red onion and parsley in olive oil and mixed in the cabinet stuff, a little mustard, salt, pepper, cayenne and it turned into a family favorite. Sometimes I add kielbasa, sometimes corned beef. I top it with swiss cheese.
smile at 3:12AM on 12/03/08
These both sound really good, I going to try both of these recipes. I just did something weird the other night after waiting for my appetite to kick in for weeks of not eating. I take leftover dressing and gravey that I add stock to and add my Bf's leftover mexican refried beans and rice and made it into a big gloppy mess and ate it so fast it was sooooooo good. When you haven't eaten anything in weeks your tastebuds are so hihgly sensitive. Before I moved in with my BF he used to keep around this stew type thing that he called mulligan's stew that he would take everything from leftover's of any sort whether fruit, veggies, meats, bones anything and just keep the pot going, I threw the s@4t out the second I moved in. His friends and I nicknamed it botulism stew, that stuff was so gross and he thought it was so good.
pjracz10 at 4:45AM on 12/03/08
I wouldn't say it was ridiculously delicious, but my father actually liked it when I made it for him for lunch on the weekends, or he was being nice to my tender teenage (?14 years old) ego and would stick a finger down his throat as soon as he left the table.
My father would have lunch on the weekends at precisely 11:45 a.m. Either I or my mother would cook his lunch. One day, we had leftover rice and I wanted to try something spicy, different, and hopefully not heinous.
I cut up meat and vegetables - fried those up so they were cooked, then made a crepe with butter, sliced the crepe thinly and set aside. Threw the rice in the pan with rayu (hot pepper sesame oil), added the veggies, crushed black pepper, and chunky picante (salsa from a jar) with 1/4 teaspoon of shoyu after I turned off the heat. I would then add the sliced eggs and loosely mix it in the pan so the eggs would retain their bright color.
I made it for years, and even made it for myself when I left the house...but now that I think about it, I haven't made it since moving to the mainland (~15 years).
Cassaendra at 7:38AM on 12/03/08
This might not be the most bizarre thing ever, but my hubby is kind of skeptical about how delicious this is - pasta-filled omelettes!
I had a pasta dish that was rigatoni with summer squash, zucchini and corn. The next day I used it as stuffing for an omelette and it was divine! I'm thinking of trying it with a homemade marinara sometime or other pastas I make. It's a perfect meal, too.
La Divina at 9:09AM on 12/03/08
I roasted a whole (small) barracuda once, but I can't say that it was particularly delicious, since I didn't actually have the guts to taste it. The smell that lingered in my kitchen, though, was enough to turn me off fish for months...
ChristineB at 10:15AM on 12/03/08
I suppose I should clarify slightly about the barracuda...I go to the University of Chicago, home of the famed Scav Hunt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Chicago_Scavenger_Hunt). Last year, one of the big things was Scav Top Chef--basically 8 or 10 cooking related tasks spread out over the 4 days (no. no one sleeps during scav hunt), and I was chosen to represent my team. While I made a lot of crazy things during those four days (a spherical pizza; a 'Baked Marion Barry' tart (we were supposed to make a dessert that represents our home state. I'm from DC, so I reinterpreted a little bit...); Italian dressing flavored homemade potato chips; the list goes on...), the weirdest was definitely the Bedouin wedding feast, which basically involved combining the most bizarre animals and animal parts imaginable into one horrendous culinary creation. My teammates shopped in Chinatown for me, and decided to go for a variation on surf and turf, hence the barracuda. I haven't posted pictures on flickr because I feel it might, um, sully my image slightly. If anyone wants to see it, though, just ask, and I'll oblige! It's cool, in a really scary, unnatural kind of way...
ChristineB at 10:20AM on 12/03/08
I wouldn't call it ridiculously delicious or thrown together in hunger, but...to answer the question in the post title:
The weirdest thing I've ever made was frousse. What's frousse you ask? Yea, I'm still not quite sure. But there was a recipe for it on our site that told me to mix together chocolate and raspberries and bananas. It sounded good, but I had no idea what to do with it.
Hillary
Chew on That
Chew on That at 3:16PM on 12/03/08
Banoffee pie. 'Nuff said?
Stufsocker at 3:42PM on 12/03/08
So many of these concoctions sound delicious.
One of the yummiest 'weird' things I make is a sauce of pureed, roasted cauliflower, garlic, & white beans that I slather over pizza dough for a "white pizza". I then top with cheese and greens. The sauce is strange, but I totally love it! http://tinyurl.com/6j3cjs
I think I'll soon try to make up a concoction of (leftover) homemade cranberry sauce and cottage cheese. Anyone got any ideas???
MakeARoux at 3:48PM on 12/03/08
bagels with hot sauce.
dearrie at 7:01PM on 12/03/08
Oh dearrie!
izatryt at 7:15PM on 12/03/08
Okay, ChristineB, I'll bite -- I want to see! =)
Weirdest thing I've ever made? I scraped together some odd things when I was in Italy (oh, that Euro/dollar ratio was a bitchh), but off the top of my head, the most recent oddity was boxed mac'n'cheese and the golden brussels sprouts featured here recently. The brussels sprouts were too much "green" flavor at once, but not filling enough, and for some reason the mac just sounded soooo goooood, haha.
kfarrel3 at 7:15PM on 12/03/08
oh izzy!
dearrie at 7:20PM on 12/03/08
Zucchini peelings sauteed with olive oil, garlic, crushed red pepper, tomato paste, basil, and at the very last minute - angel hair pasta. Genius.
embolini9 at 10:21AM on 12/04/08
Yak. You know, the funny-looking furry cows?
dbcurrie at 5:23PM on 12/04/08
Watercress soup. We made it on a whim on a family backpacking trip when we found watercress growing in the creek. The soup turned out to have more bugs in it than watercress, though, so it never got eaten. It's remained an inside joke between my family and the friends that went with us, for the last 20 years.
buffy at 7:03PM on 12/04/08
The strangest thing I've ever made by far are apple-beet muffins. At first, I just wanted to create something funny to eat while watching The Office . . . the whole Schrute Farms/Beets thing.
Sounds totally awful, right? WRONG. They're really sweet and delicious; moist and apple-y.
I posted the recipe on my blog today. If you're at all interested, it's worth a look. Instructions are for a half batch. But, indeed, the weirdest thing I've ever made.
http://makemethod.vox.com/library/post/schrute-farms-moses-apple-beet-muffins.html
-- Ashley M
makemethod at 12:09PM on 12/05/08
@Ashley, they look sooo pretty and moist!
Kerosena at 12:17PM on 12/05/08
Thought of this when reading the thread about what isn't worth making from scratch...and someone mentioned bean soup.
My favorite bean and cheese dip of all time:
1 can Campbell's condensed bean with bacon soup, UNDILUTED
as much shredded cheddar cheese as the soup will absorb
Combine over medium/low heat in a nonstick saucepan, turn into serving bowl, serve hot with corn chips (Fritos Scoops work well...you're looking for pretty strong chips here).
Calorie and sodium content classified, of course. =)
akk328 at 12:32PM on 12/05/08
Meatcake. 3-layer birthday cake made of meatloaf and frosted in mashed potato.
shoneyjoe at 3:37PM on 12/05/08
Oh Dearrie and Izzy!
carolrsfMISSESTEXAS at 4:57PM on 12/05/08
Bleu cheese on anything for breakfast when I'm pregnant. With coffee.
carolrsfMISSESTEXAS at 4:59PM on 12/05/08
My grandfather would take two pieces of bread, smothered each one with about 1/8" margarine, covered them with bacon bits (the crunchy artificial kind), added a slice of cheap bologna and american cheese. Made one at our college cafeteria in his honor once and almost gagged.
CJSchmidt at 6:06PM on 12/05/08
Whenever I do a "let's see what's left to make a meal", invariably I end up with a sauce for pasta, a filling for tacos, or soup. Probably my three favorite quick meals.
PerkyMac at 12:20AM on 12/06/08
@MakeaRoux a strudell.
pjracz10 at 3:47PM on 12/06/08
Kitty litter cake. For a cat-loving co-worker. It was so realistic, some other co-workers had trouble eating it. It even included tootsie roll poops!!! Fun!
lamora at 11:57PM on 12/08/08
Just yesterday, I thawed out some Brunswick stew and realized it was more Brunswick than stew. I didn't want to dilute the flavor with broth so instead I made some Velveeta and shells and crumbled some bacon and put it all together. Delicious.
Also a perennial favorite: A-1 with cucumbers
Ginger hummus
aebgiven at 12:00AM on 12/09/08