ICSA 63: I Know I Don't Feel Like Opening My Mouth

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Goons with Spoons > ICSA 63: I Know I Don't Feel Like Opening My Mouth

bombhand: Jun 27, 2004

I know I'm not alone here when I say that Calvin and Hobbes holds a very special place in my heart. That's why, when the idea of a Calvin-themed ICSA meal occurred to me last Thursday, I had no choice but to scrape together a last-minute entry. My apologies for the photographs; I was using a camera I hadn't used before and I don't know how to use the controls. I think I activated a filter or something on some of them?

Honey, What The Heck IS This?: A Meal Fit For a G.R.O.S.S. Kid

First: Monkey Heads (Stuffed Peppers)

Second: Spider Pie (Green Bean and Mushroom Pie)

Dessert: Chocolate Pudding

Really? We're Having Monkey Heads?

This one was easy, thanks to the exposition from Calvin's Dad. Stuffed peppers it is! Since I wanted a sausage stuffed pepper and I have a vegetarian in the house to feed, I made one with beans instead of sausage.

I soaked and cooked the beans ahead of time, and cooked some wild rice as well. Other ingredients include canned tomatoes, parsley, rosemary, garlic, onion, bread crumbs, and egg for binding. The sausage is missing from this shot; I browned it separately so I could add it in later. Cooked the onion and garlic until soft, added paprika and other spices, then the tomato and wild rice and let it cook down a bit while I prepped some other stuff. When I was ready, I prepared the heads.

Hollowed out the peppers, and then cut a narrow slit in each side. Sliced a mushroom into ears, and inserted the stem into the slit. Seems to do the trick, we'll see.Addedd breadcrumbs to the tomato mixture, then split it into two. Added the beans to one, the browned sausage to the other. Had far, far too much filling for two peppers. Topped the filled heads with more breadcrumbs.

I put them into the oven with the spider pies, about half an hour at 350F.

S-s-spider Pie

Spider Pie was a bit trickier, but more fun to think about. There's nothing in the comic to really indicate what Calvin's Mom "really" made, so I had to figure out what kind of dinner casserole might have something in there that Calvin could believe were spider legs. Charmmi suggested green beans, which I thought was a perfect solution. I've always thought of green beans as feeling kind of hairy.

Basically, green bean casserole prepared as a pie. Green beans, mushrooms, cream, pastry topping. Was going to do puff pastry, but forgot to pick some up, so pie pastry it is - the pastry blob here has been resting in the fridge about an hour. Bacon for my pie.Browned the mushrooms in a pan with oil. Added onions, then some more oil and some flour when the onions were soft. Let the flour brown a bit, then added chicken stock and cream. Steamed the green beans separately until partly cooked, then added in to the skillet. When the liquid thickened up a bit, portioned it out into two small casseroles, adding bacon to one. Topped with squares of poorly-rolled pastry dough.

For a Lustrous Coat: Chocolate Pudding

Calvin doesn't have any problems with dessert, except tapioca pudding. I tend to agree, so chocolate pudding it is. It's a pretty standard process, so I didn't get a prep shot. Sugar, cornstarch, and cocoa powder are whisked together with milk and cream over a high heat. At first, when the mixture's still cold, the cocoa powder clumps up and looks terrible.

When the mixture warms up and approaches boiling, it thickens up. Off the heat, chocolate chips are stirred in until the mixture becomes nice and smooth. Then it's poured into a bowl and refrigerated until set. It'll need a couple of hours.

The pie and the heads were done at about the same time. With a hastily-constructed green salad, dinner is served.

Here's a shot with some visible spider legs:

When it came time to actually eat I wasn't very hungry. I'd had a big lunch and if the deadline weren't today I would have put the whole thing off to another day. But I soldiered on and ate my dinner. It was pretty okay? I think if I were actually hungry the monkey head would have been great, though I'd put some tomato paste into the stuffing if I make them again.

edited for weird line breaks, thanks Notepad

bombhand fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Sep 8, 2014