Jack Monroe #189 Food Crime Pie

[traumatised sideboard]

Sorry @Fruitjack I eat dinner at 18:30 every night but the Onion Police kicked my door in and hauled me off to Onion Custardy. My Onion Solicitor explained that I wasn't personally responsible for the creation of headrush spaghetti and it was all a big misunderstanding so they gave me an Onion Caution and let me go. Anyway, I'm here now and let me tell you, I've been on a ride.

Here are my ingredients (minus the garlic) so you can see the vegan replacements I made should you wish to replicate the recipe. It turns out dried mushrooms can go bad if you have ignored them since 2016 but fortunately I had real mushrooms that I dried out in the oven according to Jack's instructions. To be fair it did actually work but I had sliced them as thin as humanly possible with a very sharp santoku knife. There's no way cack-handed Jack could get them that thin, she'd probs have to get her son to mandoline them for her. I also had to roast the garlic properly since I don't have a microwave and wouldn't want to have to explain headrush spaghetti to the firemen putting out the blaze in my flat anyway.

There's very little actual cooking involved in this recipe, it's just boiling the spaghetti and mixing everything else together in a bowl then adding the spaghetti. I was able to crush the remaining life out of my mushrooms with my fingers because they were so thin but if you followed her suggestion of cutting up dried mushrooms with scissors or hitting them with a rolling pin you'd be left with huge chunks of leathery mushroom. Looking at the garlic, cream, mushrooms, oil and white chocolate in the bowl I had a brief moment of 'what the fuck am I doing with my life'

Here it is before adding the final touches (this is a small rice bowl, I also have massive man hands so please excuse those)

And its final form with some fresh parsley and cheese:

Verdict: it's hideous. Absolutely irredeemable. Not just weird but actively repulsive. I honestly wasn't expecting it to be quite that bad. There is no possible way that this is not a joke. I've been had. What a mug. I think in my scaling down of the recipe I put a bit too much white chocolate in but then I also think that any amount of white chocolate is too much. A creamy mushroom and garlic spaghetti dish sounds quite nice but even if you just removed the white chocolate, this recipe still wouldn't hold up. It's dry AF. Even the mushrooms are dried fuck's saaaaaaaaake.

I'm taking you to Onion Court to sue for damages, Jack. My Onion Legal Team will be in contact shortly.

 

[Orphan_Black]

 

[PoorPatrol]

Scuffin-kid update!

My kids were asking the other day who, if we were able to go on holiday, would feed our lockdown fish.... you can see where this is going?

I said they’ll be fine, because you can buy fish food that’s condensed into discs for slow release food for them....

Got the kids in, showed them the side plate of 11 scuffins (we had dissected and nibbled one) beautifully displayed as a pile of 6mm orangey brown discs.

The kids were like “oh, is that fish food for when we go on holiday?? Are we going on holiday?!” Followed by hysterics.

We are not going on holiday, dear hearts. That them there are scuffins. They’re for you to eat. Now they hate me. #supermum

 

[traumatised sideboard]

@Orphan_Black that is the most upsetting loaf of bread I have ever beheld. I feel bad saying that because I'm sure it's Jack's fault and not attributable to either of your unfurloughed hands. Look how miserable it is to have been thrust into existence.

 

[Hollaaa]

So, as you may expect, both were terrible.

Exhibit A (Jack's) was more terrible. I managed one spoonful. It tasted like it had come straight from the garden into the blender. You povvos might as well eat weeds is the overriding message.
Positives: it would fill two bowls, give the amount of water involved. I had a lot of the stuff in already and if I'd just got spinach and beans at Lidl and left it at that, it would have only cost me just over £2 out of pocket. I still have 2/3 of a bag of spinach left to have in an omelette tonight.
Negatives: cheap veg stock cubes taste overwhelmingly of celery and overpowered everything else. The cannellini beans were 55p in Asda as opposed to 41p for butter beans, when they are in stock. You can't tell the difference between either in this dish, so I would go for the cheaper of the two. I used half a tube of puréed garlic to follow the recipe to the quantity specified. That's a colossal waste of a quite expensive product, and the money would be better spent on a bit of butter or oil to fry off the garlic, onion and beans first. Or even a bit of garlic flavoured oil and omit the garlic. 2tbsps of lemon juice at the end was TOO MUCH and was left floating on top. Almost rendered the dish inedible but I suspect that ship sailed long before the lemon arrived.

Exhibit B, my adapted version.
Positives: it was really filling, I only managed half of what I put in my bowl, so I could have got two portions out of it after all, instead of one and a bit. The fresh spinach still gave it a very planty vibe but in a ooh vitamin C and iron good for you way, not an I'm eating the grass verge on a roundabout what has become of me way. I thought that the beans were a good alternative to using potato in a soup, and would do that again if I didn't have any fresh spuds in. Good idea. The chicken stock cube also levelled off the planty vibe but of course that changes it to only 90% vegan, given the butter I added as well. Frying off is compulsory and missing that step is a dick move (new hill alert).
Negatives: 4 cloves of garlic to 300ml liquid is TOO MUCH. Before I blended the soup I was getting strong moules marinières energy and not in a good way. One would have done, or use of garlic flavoured oil would have been okay. And I like garlic. Also a little squirt of lemon was enough. And I was heavy handed with the pepper mostly for the lolz but it didn't need that much.

Overall verdict: if this was served in a restaurant I'd want Julie Walters as my waitress.

 

[Orphan_Black]

(Did I do it right? )

 

[traumatised sideboard]

You've finally done it @Billybellend you irreverent and ephemeral smol pixie, your very own thread title after being the first person to nominate @BlendedSlop's words. We've run out of Yakult now but we do have Jackult which is Jack's new range of fermented gut-healthy drinks. It's probably better if you don't know what's in them.

In the last thread
-Jack is maintaining radio silence so we went down memory lane and reminisced about some of her most hideous slops which included spaghetti with mushrooms and white chocolate, a lemon drizzle brick with no drizzle and fried sprout scones

-absolute madlad @PoorPatrol was inspired by the recipe for vegan tomato scuffins and made a batch. You can look at the results here. Mmm, love it when my baked goods are semi-solid.

Spoiler: housekeeping

Please use the words ‘thread title’ (two separate words) when making a bid for one as it makes it easier to search. Also, try to hold off to the latter part of the thread if possible (after post #500). And remember - no swears are allowed.

There is a thread in the off topic forum called Food and Drink where off topic chat is encouraged if / when Jack is quiet.

New to Jack? Have a look at the wiki.

 

[DinosaurSenior]

Night night kitty. It was all just a terrible dream.

 

[Silver Linings]

I caved! Coopsy has a starring role and it looks semi recently filmed in the shitty bungalow.

Like your Patreon on other people’s.

 

[Orphan_Black]

Fraus. It needed the 20 minutes extra. It still don't seem right. It's like a sponge left to get mildew-y in a grubby bath.

Whilst it cools I'm off to walk the dog and re-evaluate my life choices...

 

[JayRamShamFour]

Hello Hausfraus! Lurker and first time poster here. Been reading this thread from the very beginning for a couple of months now and this is literally the best thing that I have ever read! Aside from JM's antics, you guys are all incredible and I have loved finding out about you all . Only on thread 37 and even stopped following JM on Twitter just after I discovered her and then subsequently here so that I don't know what madness is coming next . Anyway back to thread 37 and grunka lunkaring away, I hope what's to come is good .

 

[Orphan_Black]

Inspired by @PoorPatrol valiant effort with the Scruffins, I'm making the 2p bread. I have my ingredients, I made my well (that's a hole), mixed with a butter knife, heavily floured my work surface, oiled my hands, duffed up the dough (POW!) and now it's resting whilst the slow cooker heats up....

We deserve the rest.

 

[MancBee]

I have never seen this legendary cutlery drawer before and bow it’s going to haunt my fucking dreams!

Here's my cutlery drawer as an antidote, in case you've missed that too.

 

[Orphan_Black]

I love your timer!

Aldi specialbuy! (Let me go full Jack and grift some shit whilst my bread bakes)

 

[Mr Krabs]

View attachment 572143

My rent bounced 8 months in a row. Lemme tell you all about budgeting.

 

[Orphan_Black]

The cat has chimed it's time to turn the bread, I peered into my slow cooker like an eager child on christmas morning, awaiting surprises! I gingerly lifted my pot's lid and behold! It looked good! It smelled delicious, Dear Hearts. Oh what a smug smol pixie I felt, I giggled feverishly!

Then I turned the mofo out and fuck me it's a slimy brick. Back in you go for another forty minutes. @HotesTilaire your warnings are ringing in my mind at this point. I'm dreading the texture

 

[Pocahontas]

The peach competition is a bust. You have to sign up to your choice of a list of mags (?) to enter / be a member already. But it doesn’t tell you how to be a member ... and I decided I didn’t want to enter my details into Life! Death! Prizes! Still crushed.

This squiggle had something to say:

 

[Billybellend]

Thanks for our new thread!

@Billybellend WINNER WINNER SLOP FOR DINNER!

YES!!!! YES YES YES YES YES!! Thread title cherry officially lost...thank(space)you, dear hearts Today has been a very good day, but this is the spunk on the lasagne

 

[Harrybosch]

 

[HotesTilaire]

You’ve baked a Stewie from Family Guy, the bread needs slicing before it becomes sentient and murderous!

Also you can tear the bread up and mix it with a tin of chopped tomatoes and dried mixed herbs- pappa al pomodoro allegedly