Spam is very serious business

I am kind of obsessed with Spam. I used to have a Spam t-shirt. My nickname was Spam Lady for a couple of years when I was younger. I am super disgusted/intrigued by Spam recipes. So it was only fitting that I got the Spam card during Apples to Apples.
Hey, and you can almost see my new glasses! (They are really really awesome.)

More later, I'm a busy bee.

By the way, have you ever played Apples to Apples? It might be the best game ever. Go buy it.

Now. ♦DiggIt! ♦Add to del.icio.us ♦Add to Technorati Faves

Actually:

Dear Friends:

Real Life or internet (and close by)
One of my resolutions this year is to be a better friend/see my friends more so....

If you want to have a home cooked meal that I have posted about, or would like to serve me one - let's work it out. I am all about cheap or not so cheap home cooked meals this year.

Let's switch off!

Or, if you are reading this and we don't know each other - think about doing a potluck. Or just a dinner party. For your friends! I think 2009 is a good year to be awesome. Awesome in a delicious way. ♦DiggIt! ♦Add to del.icio.us ♦Add to Technorati Faves

WOOOOO

YEAH! Happy New Year!

Sorry for disappearing for a little while in there. I can explain:

I don't own a computer. Yeah. I know. Lame.

My roommates computer? Died for a little bit in there.

My mom's computer? Well, the computer is fine. The monitor broke. Blogging without a monitor is hard.

And work? Well, work decided that busy work was better than no work and being caught blogging would mean the ax. After almost five years. Awesome.

So mostly? I'm sorry.

My life hasn't changed that much...

I wish I had something exciting to blog about. I will, in a night or two, when I remake an amazing meal that I made up a couple of weeks ago and want to recreate. In the meantime I will post a meal that I made recently that two years ago made Seth fall in love with me more than he already was. (Which is my favorite because it is SO FUCKING EASY)

Please keep in mind that I am bad about recipes and tend to cook the way I was taught:

Roasted Potatoes with Sauteed Spinach and Sausage

Take as many potatoes as you think you will eat. As long as they aren't baking potatoes, it doesn't matter. On the high end you have your baby yellows or reds. On the low end you have whatever is not a baking potato at your ghetto local super market.

Preheat the oven to 345.

Chop them up into tiny bitesized pieces. Put your cut potatoes in a bowl with enough olive oil to coat them, a generous amount of salt, some fresh pepper, fresh rosemary* (No really, include the rosemary, it makes a difference), and whatever else you have around that you think will taste good. Mix everything around until the potatoes are coated in delicious randomly spiced goodness, put them in a baking dish, toss a couple of full garlic cloves on top, and stick it in the oven for at least 45 minutes.

Every oven is different, my oven runs cold so these potatoes can take over an hour. It sucks. Check them after 45 minutes and if they are done, congrats! Your oven rules! If they aren't, then wait a while.

About 20 minutes into potato cooking, take a package of spicy italian sausage and cook them in olive oil until done. I have never found the cooking instructions for sausage to do me any good, so look it up on the internet and improvise from there. You should come out with crispy outsides and awesome insides. (I wish I could do better at explaining this, but cooking sausage seems to be a science that eludes me.)

When the sausage is done remove to a plate and cover in foil.

Throw a bunch of washed spinach (NOT FROZEN) into the sausage pan, cook until it seems like far too little, along with some more salt and pepper.

Serve sausage on top of spinach with roasted potatoes on the side. Marvel at the reaction you get.

If you need help, let me know and I will be more than happy to come over and recreate this. I know exactly what I'm doing when I cook it, writing about it is a different story.

UPDATE: Ducky - writing this made me realize that I owe you a casserole. Please e-mail me to work out a time. ♦DiggIt! ♦Add to del.icio.us ♦Add to Technorati Faves

"Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it."

I was looking in my spam folder on gmail the other day when I noticed a link at the top of the page, one of those ads that are supposed to have something to do with what you're reading, and it said "French Fry Spam Casserole."

Excuse me?

I clicked on the link and was greeted with one of the most disgusting recipes I have ever encountered. Behold:

Title: FRENCH FRY SPAM CASSEROLE
Categories: Main dish
Yield: 8 servings

1 pk Frozen french fry potatoes,
-thawed (20 oz)
2 c Shredded Cheddar cheese
2 c Sour cream
1 cn Condensed cream of chicken
-soup (10 3/4 oz)
1 cn SPAM Luncheon Meat, cubed
-(12 oz)
1/2 c Chopped red bell pepper
1/2 c Chopped green onion
1/2 c Finely crushed corn flakes

Heat oven to 350'F. In large bowl, combine potatoes, cheese, sour
cream, and soup. Stir in SPAM, bell pepper, and green onion. Spoon
into 13x9″ baking dish. Sprinkle with crushed flakes. Bake 30-40
minutes or until thoroughly heated.

Holy shit.  What do you do if someone serves you this?  And do you think there is a
set of rules somewhere that says you must live in a home with wheels in order to cook this?

The Recipe Source has some other gems as well: 

1. Cantonese Sweet And Sour Spam

2. Dipped Spam Swiss Sandwiches

3. Classic Spam Potato Salad

4. Vegetable Spam Stuffed Acorn Squash

5. Deviled Green Eggs And Spam

6. Spam Breakfast Bagels

7. Hearty Spam Breakfast Skillet

8. Spam And Egg Brunch

9. Elegant Potato Spam Casserole

10. Double Cheese Spam Bake

11. Spam-Mac Casserole

12. French Fry Spam Casserole

13. Spam Cheesy Broccoli Bake

14. Speedy Spam Quiche

15. Quick Spam Quiche

16. Speedy Spam Quiche

17. Cricket's Spam Quiche

18. Spam Strudels With Mustard Sauce

19. Spam Vegetable Strudel

20. French Fry Spam Casserole

21. Savory Spam Crescents

22. Spam Swiss Pie

23. Spam Vegetable Soup With Cheese-Topped Croutons

24. Spam Meal In A Bundle

25. Creamy Spam Broccoli Casserole

26. Spam Hot And Spicy Stir-Fry

27. Spam Hot Vegetable Salad Sandwiches

28. Spam Veggie Pita Pockets

29. Vineyard Spam Salad

30. Spam Ala Gary

31. Spam Stew With Buttermilk Topping

32. Spam Breakfast Burritos

33. Spam Confetti Pasta

34. Spam Primavera

35. Spam Broccoli Pecan Salad

36. Spicy Spam Kabobs

37. Healthy Spam Peppers

38. Coconut Beer Batter Spam with Raspberry Horse

39. Spam Denver Biscuit Souffle

40. Spam Fajitas

41. Spam Hashbrown Bake

42. Spam Vegetable Casserole

43. Spam Ala Gary

44. Spam Primavera

45. Spam Hashbrown Bake

46. Delicious and 'Good For You' SPAM Salad

47. Spam-Bolaya

48. Easy Spam Triangles

49. Gingered Spam Salad

50. Spam A La King

51. Spam-Mac Casserole

52. Spam Salad Cones

53. Spam Skillet Casserole

54. Spam Stuffed Potatoes Florentine

55. Spam Imperial Tortilla Sandwiches

56. Spam Western Pasta

57. Spam Fettuccini Primavera

58. Spam Hawaiian Pizza

59. White Spam And Garlic Pizza

60. Hawaiian Spam Pizza

61. Spam Reuben Sandwich

62. Spam Pizza Pockets

63. Dipped Spam Swiss Sandwiches

64. Spam Imperial Tortilla Sandwiches

65. Spam Imperial Tortilla Sandwiches

66. Maui Spam Muffins

67. Mondo Spam Deluxe On Rye

68. Bone Hunter's Spam Delight

69. Spam Carbonera

70. Super Spam Cheeseball

71. Spicy Spam Party Dip

72. Spam Meat Spread

73. Spam Fiesta Dip

74. Spam Western Bean Soup

I've bolded the important recipes.

Number 9, Elegant Potato Spam Casserole.  Right, because anything including Spam is going to be elegant.

Number 68, Bone Hunter's Spam Delight.  The name caught me off guard, but the recipe is even better:

Recipe By     : James I. Kirkland Ph.D.
Serving Size  : 1    Preparation Time :0:00
Categories    : Meats

 Amount  Measure       Ingredient -- Preparation Method
--------  ------------  --------------------------------
  1      can           spam

Open can. Take a green branch from a Utah Juniper. Sharpen the point. Plunge it
through the Spam. Hold over a low fire of Juniper wood. Turn slowly. Roast for
about 15 minutes. May be eaten off the stick or sliced onto some hard tack.

                  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

 NOTES : This is a delightful meal eaten often by underfunded paleontologists in
  the field.

WHAT THE FUCK. I was always under the impression that if you had enough money and brains to get your PHD you would have absolutely nothing to do with canned meat. Apparently I was mistaken.

And finally, my personal favorite, number 38: Coconut Beer Battered Spam with Raspberry Horse.

Horse is apparently a typo for Sauce, as it is not mentioned in the recipe at all. The raspberry horse is made from "raspberry sauce or jelly" and horseradish sauce. I've been on the verge of throwing up all night and this might actually push me over the edge. I also hate coconut, which doesn't help matters.

Spam, ladies and gentleman, it will blow your mind.

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NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM

The Tigerlily introduced me to the awesomeness that is Angelo Pietro Sesame Miso Dressing ages ago. She was so excited about the stuff that she blogged about it. Now I am doing the same because HOLY SHIT, this stuff is amazing.

Seth and I recently started shopping at this Japanese supermarket in the East Village which, if you're in the area, I totally recommend. They have great prices on fish and sell large pieces of sashimi for ridiculously low prices. I am in love. They also carry all sorts of awesome Japanese snacks, udon noodles, lots of frozen dumplings and an awesome candy selection. On top of all that? More salad dressings, soy sauces, and oils than you can shake a stick at. Oh yeah.

Sunrise Mart
4 Stuyvesant Street, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10003
212-598-3040

So, back to the salad dressing. While shopping at Sunrise Mart last week I saw that they sold the miso-sesame dressing and promptly bought a bottle after calling the Tigerlily and checking that it was the correct flavor. Seth looked at me like I was insane. "Five dollars for a bottle of salad dressing?" I tried to explain the awesome to him, but he still thought it was too expensive. The next night he tried it for himself while eating dinner at my apartment. The day after that I got a phone call. "It's the sesame miso one right? I want to make sure I get the right flavor."

So now Seth has been converted and you will be too. I've started to dream about this salad dressing. I'm considering bringing a bottle to keep at work. I'm obsessed.

In other NOM related news - Seth has trained himself to make an awesome key lime pie. He tried the recipe for the first time on Thanksgiving because he knows that I will do anything for key lime pie. ("What would you do for a Klondike Bar?" Absolutely nothing. Replace "Klondike Bar" with "key lime pie" and I will follow you to the ends of the earth.) Anywho, he had a couple of extra limes and a cupcake tray lying around and decided to make key lime tarts. Which he has been feeding me for dessert the last two nights. He also made bangers and mash with a mushroom gravy which kicked my butt.

Basically, I love him a lot.

And food. I love food a lot. ♦DiggIt! ♦Add to del.icio.us ♦Add to Technorati Faves