Extremely Stupid Recipes

Everyone has their own favorite meals, chosen from the familiar food groups. Steak, potatoes, spaghetti, oatmeal, and miscellaneous whatnot. But it's all so common. Sometimes I wish there were other things besides that, like if everything was edible.

You might have an old desk you want to get rid of. It's a shame to let that much food go to waste. Or how about this, I threw out an old printer a few weeks ago. I'm sure with the right set of choppers and a digestive system more advanced than mine, it might've made a nice diversion from my usual boring fare.

The whole thing reminds me of a tour I took of a psychiatric hospital museum in Missouri. They display a bunch of metal, safety pins, screws, and assorted things some guy ate there years ago. He was on the right track of what would be more desirable, if only we could digest it. It truly did look yummy.

What'd that guy have? Let's establish this much, he had an appetite. What did he not have? Just guessing, I'd say he didn't have a cookbook, recipes. He was simply eating the stuff raw and letting it go at that. But think of it, he could've been fixing delicacies, mixing screws and things with actual food, and perhaps other non-metallic non-food objects, for more of a taste sensation. I might've recommended to him something along the lines of a raisin bread, but instead of raisins the things he obviously craved.

Of course he needed his metal -- that's where you get iron -- but what if there were a few softer bits of wood in this bread, even something fine like the shavings off a small dowel. It'd give just a hint of wood grain flavor, then it'd be nice to have a few safety pins glazing the crust; in addition to being delicious it'd be beautiful. Might've won a blue ribbon, which are also delicious, significantly tangier than red or, certainly, green. Green ribbons need to ripen.

I'm not putting a lot of effort into the following sample recipes, because I know most of you are prejudiced against them. But let me warn you, for my own piece of mind, that you should not try any of these recipes without at least consulting with your nutritionist. And probably your doctor.

The first one is pure food, so you could try this one:

Spaghetti for One
1) Fix a normal batch of spaghetti.
2) Eat all you want.
I like this recipe, since there's no tedious measuring to get a precise single serving.

The others are more off the beaten path, so all warning and disclaimers apply:

Gorilla Stew
1) Capture a gorilla.
2) Since you can't do that, eat a turkey sandwich.
3) But since it's also hard to catch turkeys, have a peanut butter sandwich.
4) Spread peanut butter on bread.

Rubber Ducky Chili
1) Prepare chili according to the standard recipe, with one major change. Use rubber duckies instead of beans.
2) Serve with quackers.

Railroad Spike Soup
1) Boil railroad spike until soft.
2) If the spike doesn't soften in five hours, remove the broth from the pan so it doesn't all evaporate.
3) Boil spike another five hours. On the off chance it never softens, cut celery to resemble a spike.
4) Mix celery with broth.

Macrame and Cheese
I don't have a good recipe for this. Even if I did, I can't sew.

Helping the Disadvantaged Make Their Own Granola

I've been looking into the whole matter of helping the disadvantaged make their own granola. And here's what I found:

Granola is a delicious snack often eaten by the health-conscious, made by assembling together a number of healthy ingredients. These include, but are not limited to, oatmeal, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, wheat germ or bran, powdered milk, raisins, almonds, canola oil, and honey. Then it's a feast, when everything is just so, prepared according to the specs.

I've actually probably been eating granola all wrong most of my life, since I've mostly had the granola bars or some other prepackaged store-bought granola-like treat. How much better it would probably be if you made it from scratch, according to a recipe by someone who already knows how to make it. I'm definitely hoping to try it. You can find many recipes for granola online, or you can search various granola recipe books for good recipes for granola.

I probably should say, I've never really been on the granola bandwagon, such as it is. Why exactly that is, I have no other excuse than the simple fact that I'm lazy and not in the habit of trying different things. I like to say, even though the fallacy is easily demonstrated, that I never eat anything for the first time. I'm in a groove -- some call it a rut -- and once there, I have stayed.

But a big heaping bowlful of granola sounds pretty darned good right about now. There aren't that many treats in the house. A few cookies. A little ice cream. The same old same old. Nothing like granola. But you know what? Even though I've found all these killer recipes for the stuff, that would mean going to the grocery store and probably spending $30 to make it. Or a little less. So at this point, I'm just going to suffer without.

Today's bottom line is simple: Granola is good and good for you. But if you haven't got the stuff to make it, and don't feel like going to the store, you're out of luck.