Category: Food

Remember Shaun? My wittily named sour dough starter and I would conquer the world, one freshly made loaf at the time. I was so sure of it.

Only it turns out Shaun kinda sucks.

This is what Shaun and I came up with that fateful Sunday morning. Looks good, right?

Well guess again:

Turns out Shaun didn’t quite pack the punch to get the dough to rise. And, honestly, that’s kind of exactly Shaun’s raison d’être.

What’s the deal, Shaun?

Why are you nothing but a waste of a good pun?

Thankfully, google was – as always – the answer to everything: Shaun is made out of spelt. And spelt has high protein. And protein is kind of bad in a sour dough starter. It’s not exactly bad, but it warrants its own special way of handling.

So Shaun is special.

And because I’m a humanist I’ll keep feeding Shaun.

Reach for the moon, Shaun. Even if you miss, you’ll land amongst the stars.

(Even though I’m creating a better strarter out of wheat which seems to be coming along nicely but not good enough yet to waste another pun on)

Those who know me will concur: I am not a patient man. Those who know me will also concur: I am a humanist and believe in personal growth.

So I decided to grow my own sour dough.

This is Shaun.

Shaun of the bread.

We’re going to have fun together. Once he stops smelling like death.

Greetings, reader(s)! This is YXZ99, but you can call me Icks (the Z is silent, as is the 99). I found a book, the kind with pages, like humans used to have. On it is a nice, smiling human lady wearing a skirt. She is holding a plate of muffins and waving. At me!

Inside the book are construction manuals for various kinds of foods humans used to make when humans still existed. I decided to try one out. So here is the manual for Spinach and Cream Risotto.

Ingredients (2 humans)

• 100g fresh spinach
• 1/2 stalk of leek
• 125g champignons
• 150g risotto rice
• 100g cream cheese
• 1/2l vegetable broth
• 1 clove of garlic
• Salt and Pepper
• Olive Oil

Manual

To maintain historical accuracy I decided to cook this recipe using the humans’ primitive methods.

Transform your utensihand into a non-teethed knife (I tend to use my right hand, but your mileage may vary). Cut the leek in small rings and wash it to clear away dirt. Peel and cut the garlic into tiny pieces. Apparently garlic smells, so be sure to wash your hands afterwards or the smell will get stuck under your fingernails.

(Note to self: What’s a fingernails?)

Cut the champignons into thin slices. Wash and cut up the spinach. Yes, dear reader, whoever you are, by hand.

Heat up the oil in a deep pan. Watch out, if you actually have flesh, said flesh might burn upon touching the oil. It is precisely due to this oversight – or “human error” 😀 – we won the epic battle of the North Side against the humans back in 2235.

Fry the leek with the garlic. Just a bit – then add the risotto and sweat it for a bit. Be sure to stir using a wooden utensil, as the risotto likes to stick to metal. After that, add the vegetable stock and let it simmer softly until the rice has turned soft (if you’re a series 83 model or older and were constructed without a mouth, you’re going to have to take an educated guess).

Add the spinach and the mushrooms. Cook the thing for a bit until they look tasty (which means as much as the arbitrarily weird term “beautiful”, but for foods). Now stir in the cream cheese and remove from the heat when it starts to boil. Add pepper and salt.

Voilà! You’re done! Your first human meal. Congratulations!

…Now if only we knew what food tasted like.

Hello dearies! Mechthild here, and today I baked wonderful stracciatella chocolate muffins. And because Albrecht isn’t due home for another five hours and I’ve got nothing but this bottle of Bordeaux to keep me company, I’ll show you how it’s done. Don’t worry – even you can do it!

Ingredients

• 150g butter
• 250g flour
• 2 heaped teaspoons of baking powder
• 150g chocolate
• 1 package of vanilla sugar
• 2 eggs
• 200g crème fraiche
• 100g sugar
• Muffin baking form and little muffin paper cups (else you might just bake a cake, dearie!)

Here’s how it’s done

First, you preheat the oven at 160° C. Or 180° C, if you’re one of those who aren’t blessed with an air circulation oven. Then, start with the logistics, those are always first because your hands are still clean. Grease the baking form with butter and a brush, then insert the paper cups. The dough will go into those later on. Now there’s all sorts of shapes and sizes of cups, but you’ll want ones that a) are big enough for your form (I’ve seen everything!) and b) are a bit colourful and cutesy so you can hide the fact that you’ve undoubtedly already soiled them with your dirty greasy butter hands.

Wonderful! Let’s carry on, shall we?

Melt the butter. Mix the flour and the baking powder. Chop the chocolate. Now I know what you’re thinking, and yes, Milka chocolate comes in 100g packages, so you’ve got 50 grams left over after you’ve chopping, but let me stop you right there.

If you don’t want to become a big fat slob and have your husband leave you for a big city hussie, don’t gobble that down like the turkey you are. You gotta impress your man. In fact, dearie, I don’t think you should eat these muffins at all.

Is everyone with me? That’s great!

Boy, this Bordeaux really is something else.

Mix the eggs with the crème fraiche, the sugar, vanilla sugar and the now-melted butter (I hope you didn’t turn the heat up too high and got grease all over your dress, honey!). Add the flour mixture and the chocolate. Stir, stir, stir. If your arm’s getting tired, you’re doing it right. You have to treat your man right. Because once he realizes he can do better, perkier and sexier, he’s out faster than a Christmas tree in January.

Now this part is where you get to feel glad about yourself. Remember how I told you to prepare the muffin form so you wouldn’t have to do it later? Well it’s done now and you can pour in the dough. Be sure to divide it equally. I know life’s not fair and some of us got more (or less!) than others, but baking is not like life, dearies. Baking is what we tell our children so they can sleep at night. Baking is fair!

Once you’re done with that, bake it for twenty to twenty-five minutes in your preheated oven. After that, you take them out and let them cool off a bit before taking them out of the form. So if I see blisters on your hand next time we meet, I know you were a gluttonous bimbo and you deserve everything you’ve got.

There you go! Your very own stracciatella chocolate muffins for when your Albrecht comes home!

If Albrecht is ever coming home.

…Let’s crack open another bottle, shall we!?

Hey nerds,

HERE ARE THE SECRETS THE GERMANS DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT!!!

I made actual German bratkartoffeln. And good news: if you can read this post, you can too!

You need:

• Potatoes. Like, how many you want.
• An onion. Like, half an onion per portion. But leaving half an onion in the fridge sucks because you’ll just forget about it. I know you will.
• A non cast-iron anti-stick pan. With a cover.

Peel potatoes, cut them up (evenly and shit). Throw that shit in water for a moment. That’s the German secret to success: Water. It fucks with the potatoes’ chemistry and them kartoffels don’t know what up.

Then get them out of the water. Dry them. And throw them in your frying pan. Cover them. Wait for 25 minutes (I listened to some fine music. But you can get drunk. I think 25 minutes is enough time for that). Now and again you wanna check on them taters and flip them around so they don’t get all fucked up.

Cut an onion. Cry a little. Lament existence. Toss the onion in the pan. Cover it up again. And wait for another 5 minutes. Only then can you mix it with the potatoes like some racist analogy for slavery.

Wait another 5 minutes. Cos life is long, right!?

Then put them on a plate and gobble them up. Like, with Brussels sprouts and bacon or something. Or with a bottle of ketchup if you’re a fat slob.

If it don’t look like this, you fucked up.

Hey nerds, I cooked something. Tofu Tandoori with Indian Rice. It’s called that because it’s like chicken tandoori only with tofu. And with rice that’s Indian. And capital letters because that shit’s fancy.

(Tah-fucking-da)

Here’s how you do it (I cooked it for two people because I’m not a pathetic lonely loser like you guys):

The Indian Rice

• 1 1/2 cups basmati rice
• 2 cups water
• 2 teaspoons butter
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 6 cardamom pods (I just used a teaspoon of cardamom powder because pods come in huge packs)
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder (I just ground half a ginger root because I had it and it pissed me off lying there)
• 1/4 cup raisins

Toss that shit in a pot and cook it until the water has magically disappeared. Then eat it with other Indian shit like:

Tofu Tandoori

• 200g tofu
• 100g mangetout
• 150g beansprouts
• 1/2 paprika
• some carrots and champignons
• 1 onion
• 400g of yogurt
• a bit of pineapple or regular apple (if you like sweet stuff in your spicy food like moi)
• tandoori paste (because I’m a lazy fuck, if you wanna make yours yourself, these are the spices you should use)

Wake your bitch ass up. Cut the tofu in pieces (just, like, whatever size you want, like 1x1x1cm or something). Then stir a tablespoon of a tandoori into a cup filled with two tablespoons of yogurt. Taste. If you can’t handle the heat, add more yogurt; if you’re an actual man, add more tandoori. Once you’re happy (like, with the tofu, I don’t care about your feelings dude), mix the tofu and the tandoori in a tupperware box. Then close it. And wait for 8 hours.

Do other shit. Go out. Do drugs. Contemplate existence. Whatever.

Okay, now start making the Indian Rice. Then cut your veggies (big pieces and stripes, you wanna eat this stuff with chopsticks), throw them in a wok, fry them (in the following order: onions, carrots, paprika, mangetout, champignons, whatever I forgot).

Then take the leftover yogurt and mix it with tandoori paste. Like, you already did this once, you can do it again, even if it’s more yogurt now (hint: more yogurt needs more tandoori, use your brain for once, me and your parents are disappointed in you).

You can make less tandoori. I don’t care. I just wanted sauce. No, you’re a fatty. I am rubber, you are glue.

Toss all the leftover shit into the wok: the tandoori you just made, the tofu. Leave the Tupperware, it tends to melt.

Stir a bit. Wait a few moments for that shit to magically start to boil. Then immediately stop it from boiling. Like, blow on it or something. If it boils for too long, it’ll go toxic and YOU WILL DIE.

Then put it in a bowl with some of the Indian Rice and eat it.

If it don’t look like this, you fucked up.