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Tiki and I live in a dormitory. Over the course of the week the service staff is fairly decent. But when the week ends, they can only coerce some of the staff to work. And sunday is the day they run out of good food entirely. So what do we do? We cook.

Take this time to laugh at the idea of a manakete and a lion cooking food.

Stuffed Mushrooms with rice, this time.

So you get your ingredients.



So here I have some Portabello mushrooms (wash them! Mushrooms can be dirty!, some garlic, an onion, some provalone cheese, olive oil, some green onion that I started cutting up with my knife because I am terrible at taking sequential pictures, affordable canned crab meat, some panko bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and whatever other seasonings I prefer in stuffing I have at all I'm poor.

Ok, start chopping the stuff to go in the stuffing. I cut up some green onions, but that's also for rice garnish. So take some garlic cloves (however many you like, we used around 4) and get to chopping them up. Watch the shenanigans.



Tiki's delicate hand is too lovely to smite the garlic clove...



Skrimir's meaty fist, however...



SMASH GARLIC DEAD



This garlic is very dead. Now the peels can be removed easily!

Next, take your mushrooms and cut the stems out, and de-gill them.



Gills taste fine, but some people don't like them... and doing that makes it easier to stuff them. Chop the stems up and if you like them, add some gills to your pile of shroom evicerations. We had one extra mushroom and not enough stuffing pilings, so we chopped it up to make more stuffing pilings.

Pat your mushrooms with olive oil to make them cook deliciously.



Tiki's delicate hands are well-suited for gently caressing mushrooms.

Next, cut up an onion. We used half an onion, and diced it. To do that, cut it lengthwise into strips, keep it together, and then cook it the other way like... checkerboard style and stuff.



Onion half-chopped. Mmmm... Take this time to preheat your oven. Like, to around 350 degrees or something.

Now take your stuffing pilings, in a few heaps. Throw your garlic and onions and half your green onion into a skillet with olive oil.



So many good things start this way.

Once the onions are translucent and delicious and stop making your eyes go OW JEGUS, add your mushroom trimmings.



These cook down. OK, while Tiki sautees them, I'm going to go open my can of crab.



Skrimir: Search room for can opener.
==>

...

Skrimir: Locate nearby sharp object.



You wield your TRUSTY KNIFE.

It is actually a... well, it's a TRUSTY KNIFE, really.

This joke is sort of dead.

Anyway, add it to your stuffing in the skillet, and let the juice reduce a little bit before adding a handful and a half of delicious breadcrumbs.



This is delicious. Once the breadcrumbs have absorbed all of the juicy goodness, stuff those mushrooms. Also, start cooking your rice however you wish. I didn't take rice photos because rice is pretty standard and I have limited phone memory.



Hellz yeah. Now tear up your cheese and put it on top to melt deliciously.



Now put these in the oven and wait. Continue cooking your rice all this time while you were stuffing the mushrooms. You know. Retroactively-like. But mostly you'll wait and stuff.



Pacing around...



Tiki waits patiently. Feh, what's with her... D<

... DING! Rice and Mushrooms done! Sprinkle the rest of the green onion on the rice, arrange them nicely and...



You have Manashooms and Skrimirice! Eat them!

... Now clean up after.

That looks delicious.

Well, until the cheese is melty and stuff. The bowl mushrooms don't take long to cook, but when you see their outsides darken and become like, geez I am scared what if they burn or so-- take em out. Generally when the outside is all delicious color and it smells tasty and the cheese is melty and perfect.

Unlike baking, cooking is not an exact science. ;D

That looks yummy. You know how I like my veggies.

Working in a grocery store totally changes the perspective of this topic to me.

If I wasn't working there, I would just be like "Oh, this is cool, they're making food."

Now it's more of "Dude, those are Portobello mushrooms and what the hell three kinds of onions plus garlic I don't even see the cheese she's talking about, what brand is it, 4608 4068 4663 4093, is that Filipo Berol olive oil there holy d**k everything in this picture is like 30 bucks"

But anyway. That green shirt is the same color as my hat.
And these doodles are silly.

Well, it seems to be that time again. Time for Tiki and I to cook some more food. Actually, this is mostly me this time-- a recipe from my ancestral house.

Skrimbeans. Oh yes. Many a winter night my own father cooked this for his family, and snarled at us to shut up and eat it because it is delicious.

Skrimir's father never lies. scream

Things you will need:
2 1 lb bags of dry beans (black or pinto)
4 garlic cloves
1 whole big yellow onion
some peppers, hot, sweet, or both (I used hot pepper paste!)
Some fatty meat unit
Pepper/salt
appropriate spices, if you want.
Rice (if you want to serve it with rice)

A sharp knife.
A cutting board
Some bowls
a big stock pot (with cover!)
a pot for rice if you want rice
tongs for fishing things out of spitting oil
probably some kind of stirring spoon, preferably wooden.
Stuff to eat it in and with! biggrin


This serves 12 people if you pad it with rice. Holy crap, I know. Get ready for leftovers.

OK, first take 2 bags of these beans.



Then, go back in time 1 day and soak them in water overnight.



That's what they look like after. But you want to cover the dry beans-- they will soak up water-- and keep them covered. Stuff soaks out of the beans overnight that you do not want in your body. What is this?

MONTEZUMA'S REVENGE. Let's just say that afterward, when you drain the beans the water will be black and the beans will no longer be 'the magical fruit.'

START COOKING THESE BEANS AT LEAST 3 hours before dinner time. Prep time aside, you want to be simmering these on the stove for at LEAST two hours. Maybe more. Like, start cooking these beans around lunch or so. This is WEEKEND FOOD.

OK, now set those aside in a different pot I guess. Next, get your fixin's.



You don't need much for this recipe. All of this cost me less than 8 bucks. I have food for a week. So, first chop up your onions and garlic pretty fine.



There is probably no recipe I will post here that doesn't start kind of like this. Sorry, folks who don't like to chop onions or SMASH GARLIC DEAD.

Ok, put that stuff in a bowl or something because you will need it later. Next, take out your meat unit. I got a big arse hunk of salt pork. Get the fattiest, cheapest cut you can. It's important for it to be full of fat. No, don't give me the 'I AM LEAN ON A DIET stuff. All of this is going into 12 servings of beans, so it's not like you're eating it all yourself.



This is salt pork. And everybody knows what you do with salt pork...



... Nooo... try again....



There we go. Hacked into delicious porky gobbets. That's what you do with salt pork. Now, you put this stuff in the bottom of your STOCK POT YOU WILL COOK THE BEANS IN:



This has a purpose. Don't do it in a separate skillet! You want to brown these until they are crispy fried crackles. This meat is fatty, so you don't need to add any additional oil. In fact, in the case of salt pork you kind of have to evaporate the water in it before it crisps properly. Let's see how far along...



... Nooo... not yet... almost...



Yes, that is what I am talking about. See all that oil left over in the bottom of the pan? You are going to take out all of the cripsy crunchy salty nibbles out of the pot now (DO NOT SNACK ON THEM YOU NEED THEM! D< ) and leave the oil. Be careful when you do this. Oil is hot and spits and OW OH GOD BOILING OIL MY HAND IT IS LIKE MEDIEVAL TORTURE AW FUUUUU--

Ahem. Now you are going to dump your onions and garlic in that and cook them until they are translucent.



Like this, complete with steamy goodness. Now is also the time to put any peppers, hot or sweet, in to cook, too. I waited a little bit because I am using Asian roasted hot pepper paste (that my mother sent me! YAY!) and it's already kinda cooked a bit. I used a few dollops this size.



Be careful how hot you make it! You can always put more spicy in, but you can't take it out!

OK, there's a reason that we cooked all this stuff in 1 pot... that's because the crusted on delicious fried crisp bits in the bottom of the pan are finger licking delicious and you want them in the beans. So now put the meat cracklings back in the pot...



... HEY! Did you forget about the beans themselves? They are sitting over here waiting for you.



Put them in, too-- then add just enough water to cover the beans... and then a little bit more after that.



POOL PARTY! Now put a lid on that stuff. Some water is going to evaporate, but you want to not boil this stuff away.



This is because you are going to simmer this until dinner time. Over time the odd (not-incestuous) slurry of water, oil, meat, onion, and bean will transform into a glorious dish that will put fire in your belly, a spring in your step, and obnoxious bullheadedness in your attitude.

You probably shouldn't leave the house while this is cooking. That's dumb. During this time, cook your rice or do whatever. Beat up common household objects to pass the time. PUNCHING THINGS MAKES YOU A MAN.

SRSLY.

So, after you work up an appetite mangling that ugly lamp your in-laws gave you, come back to find this cluster-orgy of deliciousness simmering cheerfully away on your stove.



Serve it in a bowl, over rice, whatever your heart desires!



A winner is you!

Olive oil, about three bucks.
Portbello alone, about 4 bucks.
That's already seven.
All the onions and garlic would total around 2-3 bucks.
Every spice to the left, cluding the crab, around 7.
The knife, part of a ten piece set, around 50, so 5 bucks.
The cutting board, given its size, around 5 bucks.
So that's ~26 dollars you have there.

Depending on the olive oil you got there.

Just to remind you where I was coming from.