Heartbreak Oatel

Well, my dear friends, I am afraid the day we have all feared has come. We have moved out of our sub-standard accommodation for good, and will thus never again cross paths with Cheng. Though I’m sure this is going to be painful for all of us, I think it is best if we part ways here, once and for all.

As we are never ever getting back together, today’s entry is themed around BREAKUP SONGS. Let the three course fuck-up BEGIN. (I read that in the Raven man’s voice and now so did you)

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The first of our dishes is a bizarre dish that does not seem wholly unappetising upon first glance, however delve deeper and the special Cheng trademarks become apparent. Like a cream egg, but filled with shit instead – though that knock-off American Cadburys’ wannabe (oh I’ll tell you what I want what I really really want) chocolate they now use for cream eggs basically is shit (Ben-)hurhurhurhur

 

Dish 31: Stir-Cry Me A River

Ingredients: Spaghetti, onions (red and white), mince, mushrooms, salt, Sharwoods stir-fry sauce

Method:

1) Fill your glass oven dish full of water and soak some spaghetti in it

2) Fill a pan with water and hurl a mushroom monsoon into the waters below. NOTE – You may scoff and say this step is pointless, but we have these rules in place here for reasons – reasons you don’t understand, reasons you couldn’t possibly understand. There is a higher purpose beyond your realm of comprehension and it is essential that this soaking process goes on. As it is the final entry we thought we would finally reveal what it is and IT IS………yeah it’s fucking pointless actually I was hoping I could come up with a reason as I was typing this but nope, I guess the reasons for this soaking will forever remain a mystery to humanity, alongside the likes of why Stonehenge was built, who Jack the Ripper was and how Firefly only got one season but Jersey Shore managed 6.

3) Whilst the spaghetti and mushrooms soaks, fill a bowl with mince meat. Then proceed to soak this into a mushy paste under a full-blast deluge from the tap. NOTE – If you listen carefully, you may be able to hear the voice of Lucifer himself whispering from the drowned mince below

4) Leave the room for however long or however you little you wish, as the ingredients soak and the planets align as prophesied by the Mayans

5) Return and retrieve your large knife from your cupboard, then grab a red onion. Peel the skin and throw all over the floor, and then cut the onion on the worktop below, cutting with the finesse and dexterity Ed Miliband would display if engaged in mortal combat with a huge bacon sandwich. NOTE – Don’t use a chopping board you crazy fucking bastard.

6) Repeat step 5 with a white onion, except cut more thinly and finely.

7) Transfer the spaghetti and water to a pan and boil, covering with a plate stolen from your flatmate during freshers week.

8) Meanwhile, microwave the soggy mince, to ensure the finest of textures to your well-treated (with water) meat. NOTE – Maximise the potential health hazard to you and your flatmates by covering with a pan lid featuring metal.

9) Transfer your spaghetti back to its glass berth of birth and season with the finely-sliced white onion

10) Assuming your microwave didn’t explode and kill you all, retrieve your tepid mince and add to a separate pan, alongside a huge dollop of Sharwood’s stir-fry sauce and the red onion

11) Don’t fear, for this dish has yet to reach its final form. Whilst this cocktail of…cock coalesces, drain away the mushroom water from earlier, then finely dice your ‘shrooms. OPTIONAL – For a bit of variety you could always try using magic mushrooms – after all, perhaps you’ll hallucinate that you somehow enjoyed this culinary apocalypse. If you can’t get a hold of them, just use some mushrooms you picked from the nearest bit of shrubbery, as they wont make this meal any less appealing and may grant you salvation from the following 2 meals through the sweet release of death.

12) Add the mushrooms and continue to bubble the mixture below

13) Christen this stir-fried fuck with at least three fuckloads of salt, all the while humming the black mass (I assume that’s what Cheng was humming anyways)

14) By the time this mixture has fully congealed, the spaghetti should be pretty fucking cold. Leave this pan until it reaches a similar temperature of stone-fucking-cold

15) When both spaghetti and sauce are as cold as the heart of the white witch, add the sauce to the glass dish and ENJOYYYYYYY

16) Why would you microwave mince for fucks sake

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Next on the menu is a more traditional dish, however it is just as unappetising. A cross between a tuna salad and diarrhoea, this meal is best enjoyed on a hot summer day, seasoned with asbestos and enjoyed with a nice glass of hydraulic fluid to wash the meal away (alongside all of your internal organs – trust me when I say it’s for the best).

Dish 32: So Long And Thanks For All The Fish

Ingredients: Onion, cabbage, tuna in mayo with sweetcorn, salt, oats

Method:

1) Soak a lump of cabbage in a pan of water, per standard procedure – this is vital to avoid desiccation of this most aquatic of vegetables

2) Whilst the cabbage soaks, chop an onion with levels of rapid pace and brutal violence reminiscent of the Breaking Bad prison shanking scene. ASIDE – On the topics of prisons, this meal is (to paraphrase the legendary Malcolm Tucker) like the Shawshank Redemption of this blog, only with more tunnelling through shit and no fucking redemption.

3) Remove the now-hydrated cabbage and tear into chunks with your bare hands.

4) Transfer the ensuing cabbagetastrophe to a pan and gently fry alongside the onions

5) Open a tin of tuna, mayo and sweetcorn. NOTE – yes you can get a tin with all of these in which is an awful reflection on the excesses of western society and evil of processed food

6) Separate the sweetcorn out and toss it into the bin, presumably so as to not ruin the dish

7) When the onions are crisp and the cabbage reduced to a mass of monosaccharides, pour the tuna-mayo combo in

8) Season this all this an ungodly amount of salt

9) Top this off with a gentle grating of (you didn’t misread that)…something green and vegetable-y.

10) Prepare a side of oats to enjoy this with

11) As ever, leave for 30minutes and enjoy stone cold from the pan for best results, mixing the oats in alongside this shambles of a salad. NOTE – alternately, toss this down the sink and order a shit takeaway instead, as that is what Cheng did if my memory is correct

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By now, your appetite for our special brand of cuisine is certainly more than sated, however we would like to go one step beyond in providing you with images of the various levels of culinary hell, so we have one more dish prepared, just for you. Enjoy!

Dish 33: I Will (Probably Not) Survive/Total Eclipse of The Colon

Ingredients: Chick peas, (heinz) baked beans, cucumber, red onion, lamb, celery, asparagus, salt

Method:

1) Place the lamb in a bowl and thoroughly rinse under the cold tap, symbolic of the Lamb of God (note – I mean Jesus here not the metal band) cleansing the earth of its sins (though he obviously did a shit job when such food still persists)

2) When this lamb is adequately hydrated, slam it into the microwave and blast it beyond your wildest nightmares

3) Meanwhile, leave some asparagus/asparagii to soak in a pan, per usual procedure.

4) As the meat is spoiled and the asparagus slightly wettened, slice and dice the cucumber into fine little cubes – cubecumber, if you’ll pardon the pun (it’s a shit one so I’ll fully understand if pardons are withheld)

5) OPTIONAL – I’ve been writing for so long by this point that I reserved this step for a break, during which I listened to “The Thrill is Gone” by B.B King (rip in peace). You might as well use this step to take a step back and contemplate what you’ve done, what you’re doing and what you’re about to stop. Redemption is impossible by this stage, but if you walk away from this dish now you could at least spare the world more suffering.

6) Assuming you skipped step 5 as our chef did, then proceed to dice a red onion

7) Slice some celery

8) Throw these vegetables into an oiled pan, alongside the already-microwaved lamb chunks

9) Hurl in half a tin of chick peas and half a tin of baked beans (a tasty and fibrous combination)

10) Cover with a volume of soy sauce equivalent to the volume of rain Noah had to put up with

11) When most the nutritional value of this meal has been obliterated, go one step beyond by adding enough salt to fully salinate both every drop of water and every human soul on the planet (I literally have no more salt descriptors left by this stage so good thing the blog is finishing here)

12) Repeat steps 10 and 11 over and over again, uninterrupted as mankind falls, the sun burns, the universe undergoes heat death and time itself runs out – second by second, moment by moment, until all that is left is you and the pan, caught in a never-ending loop of salt, soy sauce and misery (like an R-rated version of Groundhog Day)

13) Speaking of heat death, leave this meal until every last ounce of heat has faded, then hurl it into your glass oven dish and ENJOY!

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Remember me and smile, for it’s better to forget than to remember me and cry.

So said Dr Seuss. We hope our blog will stay with you for ever, albeit not in the form of the night terrors and PTSD oh so many of our regular readers have begun to report.

Our final ever song recommendation is fitting: The legendary folk classic Ain’t No Grave, performed and arranged by Johnny Cash (we were thinking the Long and Winding Road but that’s a bit too whimsical and saccharine for my liking, as neither of those words could describe this blog or the meals present within):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0MIFHLIzZY

Lots of Love,

Conor and Joe

P.S.

The Phantom Chengace, Starring Shia LaBeouf And David Bowie (fuck that actually sounds like a film the world needs)

My head really really hurts because I drunk a really really disgusting amount of vodka yesterday and was really really sick. Ergo, I am cutting the usual banterous opening and heading straight into the oncoming mound of shite today. Basically, instead of easing you in with a bit of gentle bants, I’m taking the stabilizers off your bike and sticking you on the M11 with the advice of “just DO ITTTTT!!!!” #ShiaLaBeouf

No picture of the finished dish again, but it looked like this but with scallops, cucumber and carrots added to the mix. (I should have taken a picture of last night’s chunder and used that as the image – a wasted opportunity)

Dish 30: The O-at-piate of The Masses/The Communist Manifest-oat/Sovie-oa-t Russia/Vlad-oat-mir Pu-oa-tin/Karl Oat/The USSR-oat (all of these puns are born equal don’t you fucking dare say any of them are stretching it or don’t work)

Ingredients: RAWWWWW scallops, carrots, cucumber, oats, salt

1) Pour an imperial Chengload of oats into a bowl and leave on the side

2) Grab a carrot from your cupboard and cut on the worktop – chopping boards are presumably too mainstream – and treat yourself to the end of the carrot right now

3) Do the same with a cucumber. TANGENT – I don’t have a joke for this point but here’s a video of a disgusting, green, blobby sea-worm that looks like it deserves to be an ingredient in one of these masterpieces in eating faeces (apologies for the shit rhyme). Also, does anybody else note the resemblance said worm to Katie Hopkins? Both are slimy and unpleasant bottom-feeders, miserably subsiding in an existence that consists of repeatedly dredging up and slivering through whatever filth gathers at the bottom.

4) Put the kettle to boil as you transfer the oats to a pan. OPTIONAL – Feel free to add twice as much water as you need as our chef likes to, after all energy conservation is for losers.

5) When the water has boiled, add it to the oaty repository

6) Compliment with the killer-combo of carrot and cucumber

7) When the mediocre mish-mash gestating below you reaches a level of heat as lukewarm as the relationship between Yoko Ono and the Beatles’ fan base, remove from the ring

8) Add the RAWWW scallops to the mix, you edgy fucking bastard/lady-bastard (I wrote that in a hungover state but kept it as the idea of a lady-bastard is more amusing to me than, say, a bitch)

9) Invest the value of the entire Greek economy into this dish in the form of salt (so actually basically just a really gentle sprinkling)

10) Drop the metaphorical mic (probs your wooden spatula) and strut out of the kitchen, with this miserable meal in hand.

Today’s song choice comes courtesy of famed British sonic innovator Ziggy Stardust, best known for his immensely popular stage character David Bowie – an alien from another dimension. From the avant-garde masterpiece that is Low, Sound and Vision is equal parts innovative and infectious, and is sure to inject some happiness back into your life after the catastrofuck that was this meal (although I think from what I can remember of the sparse lyrics that the song is actually about social alienation).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLxnAlZ63o8

The Cod Delusion

It’s been quiet here for a while, due to the stresses of exams and the return of one of our editors to the distant land of Barnsley. The quiet before the storm, perhaps? Regardless, in this most precious of breaks from my brutally uncompromising revision schedule (at least two hours a day), I have come here to serve up another of the finest of cuisines for your consumption.

There’s a saying, you know: “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” I think the lesson to be learnt from the below is: “when life gives you fish, smother the fuck out of it in a mixture of salt, spinach and oats.” A powerful lesson, and one we could all do with learning.

So sit back and take a break, be it from revision or work (or fixing the third world if you’re a filthy ‘gap-yah’er), and enjoy the culinary spectacle below. (once more no more picture of the finished dish but just imagine the standard oat-egg porridge/broth hybird with spinach and salmon chunks in it)

Dish 29: A Dish of Fish, Finished with Spinach and a Coat of Oats (also an egg was involved somewhere down the line)

Ingredients: Spinach, Egg, Oats (a mugfull, which is roughly equivalent to a metric fucktonne), Salmon, Salt, Butter, Milk

Method:

1) Fill your trusty glass oven-dish with water, then fill it to the brim with as much spinach as physically possible. Like, we’re talking enough spinach to give Popeye a fucking orgasm upon sight. NOTE – as has been established in previous entries, place your oven-dish right between the two-sink spread to ensure maximum risk to the dish and maximum annoyancee for flatmates

2) As the spinach enjoys the many benefits of the soaking process (ie. becoming wet), fill a mug to the brim with oats and place it in the cupboard, as demonstrated above. NOTE – do not leave this mug unguarded, it must be hidden from the world in the darkest depths of your cupboard, like an oaty Rapunsel (though the closest thing to a Prince Charming for this dish and its ingredients is the sweet release of being hurled down the plughole and into the depths of the sewer-y hell below, free from the suffering of this cruel and confusing world)

3) Neatly slice some Tesco’s finest salmon on your chopping board

4) Leave the kitchen for a good 15-20minutes – your spinach of course needs extra time to absorb all that watery goodness.

5) Return to the kitchen, egg in hand, and crack the egg into a pan

6) Fry said egg, according to standard procedure (ie. you might as well not bother)

7) Put the egg to one side and melt some butter in the pan

8) Fill this pan with the oats and kind of half-fry them. NOTE – Yeah this is fucking odd but not enough so compared to the usual insanity for any real comment. I mean, it’s like that time Shia LaBeouf said he wasn’t famous any more because he got caught plagiarising a short film, and then went around with a bag on his head. People kind of shrugged and went “yeah this is odd but it’s Shia LaBeouf, who we all know is as robust mentally as Transformers is narratively” and moved on without further comment. This step is the culinary equivalent of that incident.

9) Splash a somewhat-substantial layer of milk into another pan (say 100ml) and transfer the fried-oats to this, also adding the Salmon

10) As carefully as possible, drain the water from the sea of spinach gathered in your oven-dish down the sink. NOTE – yes this step is doomed to failure from the start but don’t worry about having to clean up the spinach-y debris from the sink below – that’s a job for your flatmates!

11) Add however much spinach is left after the previous step to the mixture, as well as the chunks of badly-fried egg and an imperial Chengload of salt. NOTE – “A Chengload” is a new official measurement, replacing the outdated metric fucktonne/metric shittone system we have been using. A Chengload of salt is equal to the amount of salt in the Dead Sea, by our current calculations.

12) Gently bubble this mixture for a few minutes

13) When finished, transfer to the glass oven-dish and enjoy this abortion of a portion

Today’s song is a topical warning on the impending technological apocalypse (that is if Cheng’s cooking does not kill us all first), aptly titled Reapers and courtesy of the ever-restrained folk-rock trio Museford and Drones (yeah that’s a shitty pun on Mumford and Sons but it’s still had more thought and love put into it than the insipid “indie” shite M&Sons recently tried passing off as an album)

#MumfordAndSuck #HereComeTheDRONES

#MakeDronesNotWar #HowILearnedToStopWorryingAndLoveTheDrone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcNEC9NaJuE

Swampghetti: The Tale of the Spaghetti Swamp

Today’s entry is a little different from usual, as we present a literary accounting of one of the most unsanitary events in the history of our kitchen, a chapter of this story we were unsure we would be able to tell. In the end, fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately), we manned the fuck up and decided the world should know.

However, we decided our usual formula of swearing with humour sprinkled atop would be inappropriate, so we accordingly decided to opt for swearing seasoned instead with a layer of horror. What we have ended up with is the blogging equivalent of a Hammer Horror: sure, it’s not going to win an Oscar, but it’s got a lot of love poured into it, as well as Christopher Lee in the lead role.

Get ready for a tale of the murkiest of evils and muckiest of events.

NOTE – events may be ever so slightly stylised. I think this is as close to the truth as we will ever get, nevertheless.

This post was written to be enjoyed to the soundscape of the equally terrifying “Night on Bald Mountain.”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCEDfZgDPS8 (originally we planned to get Morgan Freeman to narrate this to the afore-linked music, but realised you can’t pay Morgan Freeman’s fee out of your overdraft – we think this is a good compromise)

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On a cold and bitter Northern night (in fairness I don’t think there’s any other kind), an ill wind swept across the land and thick, black clouds spread across the night sky, smothering the light of the moon and plunging the land below into an oppressive darkness.

A black, black darkness. A dark, dark blackness. Basically, it was real fooking dark, areet?

…In the kitchen of flat 2, the sound of silence penetrated every crack and every crevice; the flickering of the ever-faulty light could not be heard, nor the gentle buzz of the boiler. Not even the sound of banter and Futurama from next door’s kitchen could be made out through the deathly silence – the chimes of its garish theme tune, such a constant and incredibly fucking annoying feature of kitchen life in flat 2, were conspicuous in their absence. It was as if in that moment, every life in the world (or at least South Yorkshire) had felt something – the kind of feeling that causes the hairs on the back of your neck to rise, your stomach to churn and your heart to stop beating, your very person to stop breathing.

Suddenly, a crack of thunder broke the silence as a flash of lightning lit up the room, and thus was revealed a dark silhouette looming over the hob. With a wooden spatula in his hand and darkness in his heart, the villainous Frankencheng stood poised like a bird of prey, waiting for the right moment to strike, savouring the thrill of the hunt. Madness was in his eyes as he stared at the hob below, empty but for a lone pan. Steel-cast and encased in gun-metal black, water gently rippled atop, soon to be turned to purposes darker than anybody could possibly have thought possible.

As another flash of lightning raked across the night sky, the impasse was broken. The isolated blackened pan, clinging to the surface of the hob, was filled to excess with spaghetti, water splashing over the hob as the tentacles of pasta settled. The tendrils within were soon blasted with the very heat of hellfirehobfire itself, as the dial was slowly but surely turned to its very limits, the hob screaming as it was pushed to its very limits (although our hob is really fucking shit to begin with).

The fires of the hob ring burnt with the same manic energy as their overlord, and the spaghetti began to boil and bubble in the dark recesses of the hob, Cheng let out an evil cackle that elicited a fear far more dark and insidious than the booming thunder in the skies above. Grabbing his soaky Salad Mix, he hurled this into the pan like it was fire raining down from the heavens upon the unworthy heathens below.

Suddenly, there was silence.

The hob’s purpose complete, it was shut down, and thus there was a lull, a brief respite – the calm before the storm.

The heavens broke once more as the sky was torn asunder. Lighting blared and thunder boomed. (it was also fucking pissing it down with rain by this point, proper pissy northern rain n’ shit)

His face illuminated by the flashes of light, Cheng now knew that the time was right. Raising the pan high above his head, he let out a guttural cry and hurled its contents deep into the sink below, where they nestled amongst the pieces of stir fry he had disposed of identically the day before. In a moment of madness, he grabbed a whole chilli and flung it into the bubbling marshland, and as this unsanitary mixture gathered below, he unleashed the full power of both taps and recited a dark and vile chant of the underworld that we cannot repeat on this blog, nor we would wish too.

As the last syllable escaped his lips, suddenly the storm stopped. Removing the plug, Cheng then turned and left the kitchen without another sound, his work done.

Only the next day would the full extent of his crime be discovered…

As the people of flat 2 returned to their kitchen the next morn, they could feel a malevolent whisper in the wind. The vilest of stenches filled the kitchen, and its source was the sink on the right. “Why the right and not the left?” you ask. The people of flat 2 knew not why, either, but that was hardly the first question to cross their minds, which was (if I recall correctly) along the lines of “what the fuck is this shit oh my fucking god I think there’s something alive in there I can see it moving.”

Their feelings of revulsion were not misplaced, for the sink below was filled with the kind of vile muck you’d expect to see in a sewage system, not a kitchen – not even the kitchens of Crewe flats. (ok sorry that last part probably is hyperbole a step too far)

Its waters were brown and pungent, with green flotillas atop, perhaps algae, perhaps worse. A lone orange chilli drifted aimlessly across the surface of the murky liquid, seasoned with a solitary green leaf, accompanied only in its stark orangeness by the several thin strands of carrot clinging to the bottom of this swampland. The plug itself was visible atop this layer of evil, as the most visible of reminders that this wretched water was to become a permanent feature. At the edge of the waters, a jar of peanut better lay capsized in the thickest muck of this swamp, adorned by the two saddest, most pathetic-looking strands of spaghetti ever to feel the gaze of human eyes.

The waters were thicker and more abominably unpleasant than you can imagine – almost impenetrable by the human eye alone – however gathered near the bottom it was just about possible to make out several thick of spaghetti, resembling more pond life than what had once been food. At the very bottom of this unsanitary swamp was a layer of silt – mostly rice, salt and noodles, it would seem – and suspended throughout the malevolent currents were eerily still layers of oatsdetritus, likely not edible even before their wretched fate in the sink.

At the very core of the sink, the plughole was hardly-visible, with the central mass of the past two days’ discarded dishes concentrated here; carrot slices, onion chunks, pasta tendrils and oaty clumps clung to the body of the plughole. This was the blackened heart of the sink, and if you stared into it for too long you could hear whispers from the underworld and visualise the face of Lucifer himself.

After the initial horror, the panicked residents of flat 2 fought a bitter and long battle about what to do – if there was indeed anything they could do – in the hopes of vanquishing this evil from their sink. Ultimately, they decided to go with Joe’s plan: “fuck this Cheng can clean this shit up let’s just use the other sink.”

His words were raw and failed to conceal his disgust, but they were rooted in an undeniable logic that spoke directly to the people of flat 2. The residents of the flat thus departed, but although Joe’s advice was taken, this peace was a false one. Each time they scrubbed their dishes, each time they got a glass of water, each time they filled the kettle for a proper Yorkshire brew, the sink would be there, a painful reminder of what had been lost, and a painful reminder of what could not ever be regained.

And so the Swamp of Spaghetti remained, and has remained to this day, consuming any and all leftovers…

The Kraken

As June draws ever nearer, so does the end of this most cherished source of culinary inspiration. However, as the great Eugene O’Neill once said: “There is no present or future, only the past, happening over and over again, now.” I couldn’t think of a more apt description of the ongoing events in the kitchen. Sure, there may occasionally be the odd bit of pasta instead of oats, or only a shittonne of salt rather than a fucktonne of salt, but none of this matters when every meal is built upon the same base of culinary debauchery.

(unfortunately we do not have a picture of the finished meal)

Dish 28: Spaghetti Seafood Salad / Moby Dick (it’s funny because there’s seafood and dick is a synonym of penis – the level of wit here is higher than ever and has not at all deteriorated due to exam/essay related pressures)

Ingredients: Spaghetti, mussels, prawns, salad mix (red onions, lettuce, thin carrot slices and various assorted pieces of shruberry), soy sauce, salt

Method:

1) Soak your spaghetti in a pan for a few minutes, then bring to the boil and cook. NOTE – Fuck thermodynamics, don’t bother with a lid #fuckthepolarbears (if you must use a lid, use the plate you stole from your flatmate as a superior alternative)

2) Whilst this spaghetti cooks, soak your assorted Salad collection in a bowl for however long or however little you wish. NOTE – it is ESSENTIAL that you balance this bowl right between the two sink basins (where else would you leave your bowl of soggy salad?!?!) as two of your flatmates are washing up. Therefore, we recommend you leave it long enough to slightly irritate both flatmates.

3) By now the spaghetti should be done, so drain away the water, scoop the spaghetti into an oven dish, fill this dish with cold water and leave this dish in your cupboard until the spaghetti is cold and…wet?

4) Fry the salad (?!?!) because why the fuck not if it can fit in a pan you can fry it

5) Mix the salad in with the spaghetti

6) Add the cold sea food and garnish with soy sauce. Of course, don’t forget to add the usual levels of salt – for this meal, let’s say the kind of levels of salt you’d reserve for your evil uncle Scar’s advice on how rampaging through that elephant graveyard will really impress your homeboy Mufasa. NOTE – I haven’t seen the Lion King for years but I think that’s how it goes down. Feel free to comment below if I butchered the finer plot details of Hamlet the Lion King.

7) OPTIONAL – Enjoy (or not)

8) Throw any leftovers down the sink, alongside the remnants of the stir fry you hurled down the sink yesterday (one of our sinks has basically become a repository of leftover shit cooking, it’s really quite disgusting)

Today’s song is Dead Inside by Muse (not at all a metaphor about the state of your stomach if you consume this): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTcJWhmdzpg

Conclusive Proof That There Is No God (If Spiderman 3 didn’t convince you already)

Have any of you ever heard of the Epicurean paradox? It goes something like this:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

Keep these words in minds in mind as you delve into the horrors below.

P.S. Happy (belated) International Hummus day!

 

Dish 27: Lettuce go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky like hummus on a bed of lettuce – T.S. Eliot(ish)

Ingredients:  Half an iceberg lettuce, hummus, 5 slices of seedless brown bread (have a sixth contingency slice prepared, however – things go wrong sometimes), a grow your own chicken kit (or “egg” if we’re being technical), a tin of Weight Watchers tuna mayo with sweetcorn, ground black pepper (or dirt if you prefer), loads of salt

Warning: We do not advise eating the knife that you see above, however do keep it handy in case you want to remove your own tongue or need to fight off the men in white coats that will take you away if you embark on this culinary endeavour.

Method:

1) Pull apart an iceberg lettuce. NOTE – Only an iceberg lettuce will be able to handle the titanic hummussy thunderfuck that’s coming its way.

2) Leave this lettuce to soak in a pan, because as we all know lettuce is fundamentally too dry for consumption otherwise

3) Whilst the lettuce is soaking, use a different pan to hard-boil an egg

4) The lettuce should have absorbed the water now using its innate sponge-like quality, so lay it out on a casserole dish so that it covers the entire dish neatly. NOTE – The sheer quantities of lettuce should block out all light, so that the light of the sun cannot penetrate the sea of lettuce through the glass

5) Launch a fuckload of hummus at this platter of greenery

6) Open the tin of of tuna mayo with sweetcorn and slap it onto the bed of lettuce. NOTE – We advise using a tin opener, however feel free to simply bash it open against your skull after all there’s a chance you will damage the part of the brain that processes flavour, which you will not want functioning if you are to eat this

7) Add enough salt to accompany every tequila shot that has been or ever will be consumed. OPTIONAL – perhaps have a tequila shot or 60 at this point

8) Add half an imperial fuckload of black pepper

9) Stir the fuck outs of this, so that it binds in an ectoplasmic form that is so disgusting that even the ghostbusters will not answer your call. NOTE – the History Channel are a good alternative to ghostbusters for any ghost-related inquiries.

10) Remove the egg from the shell and use a spoon to slice and stir it into this into the green gunk below

11) Toast five slices of brown bread, if your toaster only has four spaces as ours does, well you’re on your own we have no idea how this is achieved  – if you have any ideas feel free to email in

12) Scoop this sandwich filling out of the casserole dish and slap it onto the toast

13) Eat,, Pray, Love. Ok, maybe not that last one, and hopefully not the first either, but if you still somehow believe in a god after reading this, praying is probably a good shout.

Todays song choice is the emotionally reserved masterpiece Psychosocial by Slipknot

Nigel Porradge

Yet again Cheng has achieved the impossible, creating a meal as disappointing as this morning’s results were for Ed Milliband. If you look deep into this dish you can see pure unhappiness and discontent rippling in the layers of egg, milk and oats much like the rippling of an NHS cubicle curtain. If you do attempt this meal we would recommend doing it soon as you’ll probably require NHS assistance after eating and BUPA is somewhat costly. Anyway, here’s how to make this disaster.

Dish 26: Cheng’s Cabbage C-oat-lition

Ingredients: Nick Egg, Ed Milkiband, Oats, Red-Ed Cabbage, A serious flavour deficit, Oatanomic Crisis

Method:

1) Soak some Red-Ed cabbage in a pan for the allotted 30 minutes.

2) Noisily hack said cabbage apart – perhaps use a yellow knife to symbolise Nicola Sturgeon hacking Jim Murphy and Scottish Labour to pieces.

3) Partially fry an egg, the ideal level is 30.4% fried (far from a majority, you will note)

4) In another pan boil a fucktonne of oats. NOTE – As the mushy forms stare into it and you will be able to see the future, indeed it would seem that the future looks rather shit

5) At a certain point stir the egg into the oaty mixture, we’re not sure when but our best prediction is that it must occur in election season

6) Add the red cabbage. NOTE – While the sheer amount of cabbage that went into this dish was impressive, the lack of proportional representation means it is almost invisible in the above image (seriously there is red cabbage in there I saw him put it in)

7) Much like the way Nick Clegg poured his hopes and dreams away when he signed up to the coalition, pour milk and stir it in to achieve the glamorous marbled effect

8) Remove this from the hob quickly enough to assure that the milk does not warm up

9) Leave this until stone cold and separated, much like the youth of this country after the exit poll

10) Eat up, cry and keep it down (or UKEEP it down rather, huhuhuhuh)

11) If you’re peckish for afters, enquire if Paddy Ashdown is going to eat his hat or if you can have it.

Today’s song recommendation is a tranquil tune intended to calm you down and keep that blood pressure low, which is aided in that this is the first dish that doesn’t involve salt!!!!!!!!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSvFpBOe8eY

Food Wars VII: The Sauce Awakens

Today is Star Wars day! Accordingly, Fondueinflat2 are proud to announce the next chapter in the epic Food Wars Saga. Food Wars VII: The Sauce Awakens. This promises to be the most large-scale and captivating episode yet, with our two heroes up against the greatest evil they have ever faced.

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(just imagine this text is yellow and scrolling across the stars to the sound of John Williams: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG5OsfOuEy0)

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A few days ago, in a kitchen somewhere in South Yorkshire…

FOOD WARS

EPISODE VII

THE SAUCE AWAKENS

It is a time of peace in the kitchen of Flat 2. For at least a few days, everybody has been too distracted by essays and revision, and there has been no sign of any oat-related monstrosities. There are no signs of ready meals nor anybody reduced to eating pot noodles. Nobody’s plates have been stolen. Even the worktops are vaguely clean. For longer than ever before, the kitchen is at peace.

However, there has been a great disturbance in the sauce – the villainous Darth Cheng has returned to the kitchen, bringing with him destruction to food and misery for all. With the aid of the Galactic Chengpire, the evil powers of oats and salt have wreaked terror across the kitchen – the sink is blocked, there’s onion peel all over the floor, and various people’s cutlery has become casualties to the disgusting leftovers he hurls down the sink.

Right now Darth Cheng is preparing his most poisonous dish yet, that will put an end to the light side of the Sauce forever. Only Joebi-Wan Cannoli and Dunwindu can put a stop to his evil plans, and restore balance to the Sauce….

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Dish 25: The Dark Side of the Sauce

Ingredients: Oats, Egg, Prawn, Mussels, Salt, Breadsabers, Humus, Tomato Ketchup, (you don’t know the power of) The Dark Side, it is also recommended you play the Imperial March to help inspire your evil powers.

Method:

1) Soak a selection of mushrooms in water infused with the teachings of the Sith

2) Whilst these soak, fill a pan of water with water, oats and maybe a dash of force lightning.

3) As you leave this pan to boil, crack an egg into a pan (and all over the worktop) and fry it. NOTE – Salmonella is intended, so don’t fry it for long.

4) When the oats reach the boil, add the egg in ewok-sized chunks

5) Chop the mushrooms with your lightsaber and toss them into the bubbling evil below. NOTE – Don’t try and be Darth Maul and use a double-bladed lightsaber, people will just think you’re overcompensating.

6) As this foul creation boils with the power of the dark side, unleash the dark power of your assorted seafood collection (prawn and mussels) into the pan.

7) Good, good. Let the hate flow through you as you fill this meal to the brink with salt, for only hatred of food can explain the sheer quantities of NaCl that were unleashed upon this evil excuse for a meal

8) Look at the vile attempt at a meal below and be afraid. For fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering – suffering is all that this meal will ever be able to cause.

9) Your work is not yet done, Young Padawan. Fetch two French Breadsabers from the cupboard, as well as your most powerful instruments of the Dark Side of the Sauce yet: Tomato Ketchup and Humus.

10) Smear this tomato sauce, as red as the fires of hell, all over the bread, then cover the top with a layer of humus.

11) Surrender yourself to the Dark Side and tuck in. By this stage, you’re beyond redemption. You monster.

12) OPTIONAL – After the first taste of this exercise in evil, this may come in handy.

How to get Food Poisoning in 10 Simple Steps

Unfortunately today we don’t have a picture of the complete meal to share with you, but we do have step by step instruction on how to make this hideous dish. So sit back, relax, grab a bucket just in case and, enjoy the blog post.

Dish 24: Mince Summer Nights Scream

Ingredients: Beef Mince, Rice (with weird seed things in if available), Cucumber, Patak’s Tandoori Paste, Salt, An incredibly strong immune system

Method:

1) Slice up half a cucumber into centimetre chunks, make sure that you don’t soak the cucumber because this time we want the pesticides, leave these on the side to go warm

2) Place some rice in a bowl of water and microwave until sort of cooked, also find some random seeds and put them in, the rice will of course become a solid mass. To remove tip the bowl upside down onto a plate and get this incredible igloo effect.

3) To complete the igloo effect leave the rice out to go cold. OPTIONAL – Snack on an orange and some toast while you wait

4) While these various ingredients are going lukewarm, ruin some good quality mince by putting it in a bowl of water and microwaving for any amount of time you like. Try to achieve this sort of half cooked aesthetic if possible it will ensure that you gain some form of food poisoning.

5) Remove the mince from the microwave and rinse it, yes rinse it, for at least 20 minutes.

6) Stare in to the putrid bowl of half cooked meat and see if you can visualise the face of Christ within it, or more likely Lucifer

7) When that fails, shed a single tear and mix the mince into the rice, make sure you do this in a tiny bowl so it goes everywhere

8) Add in the cucumber, and slowly and methodically mix in a jar of tandoori paste, do not heat this up otherwise it will be too close to real food

9) Enjoy, or more likely don’t

10) When you’ve had a few mouthfuls of this tasty treat, hurl the rest down the sink all over your flatmates plates and leave it for them to clean up. (I’m not bitter)

With this meal, we at flat two would like to recommend this uplifting Kate Bush track which is of course based on the cheery novel Wuthering Heights

Survival of the Fishiest

  Dish 23: Oat my cod I don’t believe it

Ingredients: Oats, Egg, Prawns, Squid, Muscles (de-shelled), Spinach, Salt, No tongue or mouth or face or existence

Method: 

1) Soak a full pack of spinach in a casserole dish pointlessly

2) Whilst that is soaking fry two eggs to that point where they are sort of translucent and inedible 

3) The spinach should have finished soaking by now so take it out of the dish, or leave it there this makes no difference 

4) Add one piss tonne of oats to the eggy pan and cover in water. Stir in to get that lovely marbled effect and boil the fuck out of it 

5) Cry.

6) Pour the oaty eggy mixture into a bowl and stir in the selection of fish and spinach 

7) Wait until dish is stone cold and stir in a Mediterranean worth of salt. Bon oatpetite 

8) Soundtrack recommendation for this meal is Killing in the Name by Rage against the Machine 

https://youtu.be/bWXazVhlyxQ