What I eat, apparently

Long time no post, eh?

I was a complete slacker this weekend. I’d be partway through eating something when I’d suddenly remember my lonely little camera, lounging away in the hotel room. So it goes. But it’s all good, I remembered a few times, and I can make up the rest.

Pizza is essential eating at the beach. This was a delightful pizza with chicken on it gotten from some place that also had even more delightful chicken souvlaki. Said souvlaki was so delightful that there wasn’t any delight left over for the camera, in that my picture of it really sucked. So here’s the pizza instead:

That’s one of the really good things about beach food, is that there’s about 28374892374 times as many locally owned pizza places as there are chain pizza places.

I also got the joy of eating some North Carolina Style (read: vinegar) barbecue that was actually good, and not dry like I’ve had before. Mind you, I still added ketchup, as I’m strongly a fan of the tomato based bbq, but nonetheless, I could have been perfectly content without. Yeah, I didn’t take a picture of that, either. However, there was also some barbecue on a seafood buffet, which I felt obliged to get. The picture came out dull and fuzzy, so I used my Photoshop friend to help it out.

Apparently, lens flare is barbecue’s best friend! You just can’t say ‘no’ to meat that’s as blinged out as that.

These days, having a window open generally results in the scent of cooked meat wafting in at all times of day (and possibly night, as I’m generally asleep however I can’t be too sure about that). The entirely frustrating part about all of this is my complete lack of grill. I suppose I *could* technically buy one, but that would involve spending money, as well as the intent to spend more then a year living in my currently backyarded rented abode. This leaves me with two tendencies which I vigorously practice.

Tendency #1 is my waiting for the both eagerly anticipated and highly dreaded arrival of the Grill Fairy, whereupon I’d wake up with a sharp jabbing pain in my neck and charcoal down my shirt, but a grill resting sweetly beneath my pillow to make it all worthwhile. No luck on this one so far.

The far better tendency is #2, whereupon I get to mooch off the cook-offs of others, and eat tasties like these:

There’s actually another option in all of this. It’s called “The George Foreman Grill and Extension Cord Method”. It doesn’t produce quite the flavorful taste and aroma one might hope for, but it does indeed fulfill the ‘grilling outdoors’ requirement entailed in, err, grilling outdoors.

A final note: Those with gas stoves are in luck. I greatly enjoy stabbing a wiener (huh huh ‘wiener’) with a fork and cooking it over the gas stove until said wiener is rendered delicious. This also works well with marshmallows. I highly recommend it.

So the beauty of the bean concoction that I made yesterday lies strongly in its cheapness. $.60 for a can of beans, $.60 for a can of tomatoes, a scoop out of a large bag of frozen corn that cost $1.50, a chunk of cilantro for a buck, and misc. seasonings already sitting around. And the rice: a scoop out of a 10 lb bag that cost $6. Oh how I love Asian grocery stores.

And the beans go on forever, as beans are want to do.

My lunch. Or rather, half of my lunch, as the other side of this baby was rather identical to the first.

I got bored and soaked some chicken parts in bbq sauce for awhile, baked them, and they worked as excellent accompaniment to the Delightful Bean Scourge.

I cropped that, not necessarily for the artistic feel, but because the chair that plate sits on isn’t exactly promoting of a healthy appetite, if you know what I mean. And by this, I mean it had been sitting in the sun for a few days and had accumulated the sort of look that such a piece of furniture is apt to acquire, especially considering the feisty tree and bushes nearby.

I still have beans left, somehow. I promise I won’t take any more pictures of them, really.

I have this problem, where I make a thing of meat or pasta or something similar, and I never put in enough ingredients. When I use a recipe, this generally isn’t a problem, but it’s not often I follow recipes (when cooking, at least). I hate having to wash 837482073 measuring cups, and I like to get all frothy and dump in random crap. This does result, on occasion, with food that is blander then it should be, as what would be a large chunk of (insert seasoning of your choice here) to sprinkle on top of a single serving is just barely anything when poured over a large pot or pan of something.

So I dumped in lots of crap this time.

First, the lamb. I shredded up some onion, then some cilantro that was just dying to be used up, then dumped in a vast quantity of garlic, an almost-but-not-quite-as-vast quantity of cumin, some coriander, cinnamon, red pepper, black pepper, and possibly something else I’ve since blocked out. Fried it up, then dumped it on a toasted bun. Onto this I dumped my own concoction of tzatziki sauce (yogurt, lemon, garlic, cucumber), some feta, lettuce and tomato, and the result was this:

In making this, I delicately placed the meat on, strategically slathered the sauce, painstakingly placed the tomato, and lightly layered the lettuce, so that everything stayed there and the sandwich was about 3 feet high, give or take a foot. Then, I squashed it down with my hand, cut it, and took the picture above. As I began to eat, pretty much every single ingredient attempted to crawl onto my hand and fall down on the plate. Lucky for me, only about 30% of them succeeded. Pure deliciousness! And, with the vast amounts of seasoning added, it ended up tasting seasoned rather then like Death Sheep In My Mouth. This is a good thing.