Jack Monroe #77 Further into the depths of culinary depravity

[Dogmuck]

How can making a lasagne be so difficult? Crap strewn across every surface? What the duck is she doing?

I thought this, surely it’s two pans, one for the meat etc and one for the spunk sauce. A square deep dish for the lasagne. Those two pans would be washed (I’m anal like that) and in the dishwasher whilst the lasagne was in the oven, put any excess ingredients away, quick whip round with a cloth on the surfaces get a cooling rack out ready and boom! Dinner done, kitchen clean.

She’s just a detty mingebag I’ve seen the state of her nails and that hob. Bet her curtains need a wash too


Cue East is east

 

[kachoochoo]

you've been in there a long time now. I'm starting to get a little freaked out.

 

[colouredlines]

Did you remember to add the calories from the LARD?

I didn't!! So yes, there will be more calories depending on how lardy you like your tuna.

(Jack sneakily omitted the lard and the breadcrumbs from her ingredient list...so much for precise costing!)

 

[Lumpyspaceprincess]

My husband also uses every single pan/plate/utensil when he cooks. He’s a terrible cook.
Is there a pattern emerging

 

[Malacandra]

Hope you had a lovely wee break.You sound responsible as possible at this time unlike someone we could mention . We're lucky enough to live by the seaside but till lockdown took it for granted .Lovely you got to spend quality time making memories with your grandchild

Thank you. It was wonderful. We hadn't seen her for months because of Covid and all that we did was play at the cottage and on the beach and playgrounds. She didn't even want to watch tv. We read stories and did colouring in and she declared it the best holiday ever.

 

[Lanie]

Isn't the asking for people to make a fuss off her to the TV stations similar to her asking for mail from her fans?

I don't know for certain but if I had to do that it would because I wasn't being noticed enough off my own back or am I reading too much into it?

This isn't meant as a nasty comment btw I am just trying to better understand things?

 

[TurnedUpInTipp]

Everything she prepares looks as though she should be photographed sliding it into a black bucket, elbowing her way through a steel door and using some plastic scoop/shovel type thing to fling it on the ground for the rarest pigs at Marwell or Longleat.

 

[NellieBoo]

Yes That was the Lasagne Challenge video on the Guardian Food YouTube channel. "I've never made a lasagne."

J Monroe, January 2014:

I asked my blog readers what they wanted me to tackle. The one that cropped up time and again was the humble lasagne. I promised I'd give it a go, wincing inside. You see, despite cooking every day for years, I'd never actually made a lasagne. All that snapping sheets of pasta, two different saucepans and an oven on the go. It felt like too much effort and energy use for just us – and my son never asked for it.

So, I bought one from M&S, unwrapped it, felt through that sticky white sauce and revealed layers of minced meat, tomato sauce and pasta sheets. Not so mysterious. Later, when I pulled my own out of the oven, hot and crispy around the edges, topped with bubbling cheese, and sat it beside its shop-bought relative, I couldn't believe I had made it to the age of 25 without cooking one from scratch.

J Monroe, March 2019:

Making lasagne is an arse. A labour of love. An every-pan atrocity strewn around the desolate wasteland of what was formerly your kitchen. I have made dozens of lasagnes in my short lifetime, and halfway through every single one comes the moment, without fail, whereby I survey the three pans on the hob, the piles of everything, the crap strewn across every available worksurface and some of the not-available ones, too, and I wail inside that I could have just bought one for less than a quid at the supermarket.

What was that about being unable to lie, ever...?

Thank you! I thought I was making things up .

 

[SweetTransvestite]

Here goes nothing....View attachment 252561View attachment 252562View attachment 252563View attachment 252566View attachment 252572View attachment 252574View attachment 252580View attachment 252582View attachment 252585View attachment 252586

Next time Mrs ST & I have a row, I'm making this for her dinner

 

[Saint_clemmie]

I’m very happy to join you, although I’m aware that when I go to sleep, I’ll be back in the Then again.

Welcome! This reminded me of being stuck in the “upside down” in stranger things, quite a fair representation of life in Jack land I think.

 

[TheDragonWithAFlagon]

How can making a lasagne be so difficult? Crap strewn across every surface? What the duck is she doing?

All you need is two pans and a bit of discipline/organisation.

1. Turn on the oven. Chop the onion, put skins into the bin. Chop any vegetables and put the ends/cores into the bin. Open the meat packet and put the plastic in the bin. Turn on the hob and break the mince up with your fingers (if it's fresh, tip it in if it's frozen). Put the meat tray into the bin. Add the onion and a small pinch of salt. Crush some garlic into the pan if you're using it. Put the rest of the meat packaging into the bin, along with the garlic skin from the crusher. Wipe over the countertop/wash the chopping board and put it on the drainer to dry, along with the knife you used and the garlic crusher.

2. Fry off meat (or peppers/courgettes), onions and garlic until the mince isn't pink/the vegetables are softened. If you don't want meat, take a tin of lentils and drain them into a sieve over the sink, throwing the empty tin into the bin. Put the drained lentils into the pan and put the sieve into the sink. Add tomato puree, then a tin of chopped tomatoes and put the empty tomato tin into the bin. Leave on a low heat to bubble away and quickly wipe up any spills from lentils or the other ingredients.

3. Make the white sauce. Melt butter in pan, stir in an equal quantity of flour and stir with the wooden spoon you used to break up the meat and veg (after it's been rinsed under the tap) to cook the flour. Put the wooden spoon into the sink. Add a thin drizzle of milk whilst whisking until it looks like single cream. Keep stirring it as it heats - it'll suddenly thicken when it's ready. Turn the heat off both pans at that point and quickly wipe down any spills of flour, wash the knife you used to cut the butter (if you used one, most of us just use the washed wooden spoon). You've now got time to wash up the spoon.

4. Start layering your lasagne sheets, meat and white sauce into a cheap IKEA dish. When you're done with that, put the white sauce pan in the sink with the water running and the meat pan back on the hob whilst you wash up the sauce one. Put the white sauce pan onto the drainer, then wash up the meat one. Put that on the drainer, along with the now clean whisk and wooden spoon, as you've washed them up now as well.

5. Turn back to the lasagne. Put grated cheese on top. Grind some pepper if you must. Put it into the oven.

6. Wash the grater and any knife you used to slice a chunk of the cheese off, wipe over the surface.


You've now got a lasagne in the oven and a clean kitchen.

 

[Malacandra]

they'd be so slimey! Jack why would you treat mushrooms like this

No wonder SB loathes them.

anyway, I noticed this yummy scrummy gratin was tagged in "entertaining" (ye gods it is) and I thought what else does she think is suitable for entertaining? so I had a scroll.

in amongst the bleak brown offerings, I thought oh this looks ok, you know, there's large bits at least

View attachment 252795

then upon studying said recipe, it concludes thus

View attachment 252796

"make a slurry"
followed by a plea to get her on the telly.

some things never change

I bet it smells like a slurry too.

 

[Shesaidwhat?]

J Monroe, January 2014:

I asked my blog readers what they wanted me to tackle. The one that cropped up time and again was the humble lasagne. I promised I'd give it a go, wincing inside. You see, despite cooking every day for years, I'd never actually made a lasagne. All that snapping sheets of pasta, two different saucepans and an oven on the go. It felt like too much effort and energy use for just us – and my son never asked for it.

So, I bought one from M&S, unwrapped it, felt through that sticky white sauce and revealed layers of minced meat, tomato sauce and pasta sheets. Not so mysterious. Later, when I pulled my own out of the oven, hot and crispy around the edges, topped with bubbling cheese, and sat it beside its shop-bought relative, I couldn't believe I had made it to the age of 25 without cooking one from scratch.

J Monroe, March 2019:

Making lasagne is an arse. A labour of love. An every-pan atrocity strewn around the desolate wasteland of what was formerly your kitchen. I have made dozens of lasagnes in my short lifetime, and halfway through every single one comes the moment, without fail, whereby I survey the three pans on the hob, the piles of everything, the crap strewn across every available worksurface and some of the not-available ones, too, and I wail inside that I could have just bought one for less than a quid at the supermarket.

What was that about being unable to lie, ever...?

Ok granted I use Dolmio sauces but I find lasagne quite an easy dish to make and that’s coming from me. -Those of you in the F&D thread will know what a rarity it is for me or my still needing to be swapped for a Jellycat toy husband to cook an actual meal for ourselves.

 

[Bugger13]

Congratulations to @Scarletfever for the thread title! 85 reactions Your inauguration into the thread is now complete and Vlad expects your company at his table at your convenience.

Recap of thread #76

1. She posted the recipe for her sausage, bacon and many-veg casserole on her website. Good old Brenda gave it her best shot.
2. She served up a bacon bagel that looked like it had spent forty days and nights in the desert.
3. The camera roll on her phone is looking ‘wonderfully autumnal’. If by ‘autumnal’ she means a wasteland of dead organic matter, then we’re on the right track.
4. She doesn’t eat biscuits and she only eats cake that she made herself. What’s that? Biscoff, you say? Custard creams? Yellow sticker doughnuts? Not Now, you cretin. Then.
5. Dear god, another recipe, this time for blended sweetcorn and instant mash and tiny veg. And more of those lovely looking sausages.
6. She appears to be dating a ‘very large, very handsome, very well groomed fox’. Ok, ok, an actual fox appeared in her kitchen. Well, they do like the smell of offal.
7. She put her potential dinner choices to a vote. None of it, just none of it.
8. She’s considering the idea of bringing her Twitter out of lockdown. It’s for the greater good. It’s what Viv and Gladys would have wanted.
9. She put her political / sharp observational humour hat on and enjoyed a rousing early afternoon tweet bleat. She got some facts wrong. Sorry, Jack, but I am quite stubborn about facts sometimes (I’m not autistic though).
10. Just so we know, she’s ‘generally mostly a hard rational and not hysterical person.’ Must have been the mink doing all that howling and raging then. Oops, she deleted that post. I’m keeping it here so that we remember she is not hysterical.
11. Apparently she’s gone for Baked Tuna, Courgette, Mushroom and Cheese Gratin for sups. Can’t wait for the photos!
12. Just as this thread was closing, a recipe for the above was uploaded to her website. At first glance, there is mention of ‘fingering a leek’. I hope no firm young carrots were involved. To be continued after the watershed ...

Spoiler: Jack for Dummies

For new joiners to the thread, here is @Passive_Aggressive_Lemon ‘s ‘Jack for Dummies’ post (edited to include updated info):

Thought it might be useful for new followers to have a post at the start of each thread with some info.
Limegoss article about Jack versus Jamie Oliver : https://limegoss.com/jack-monroe-jamie-oliver/

Thread #31 is the infamous one in which Jack turns up to talk to us directly. She makes her appearance on p. 17.

For anyone wanting to relive the glory days of her two-week stint on Daily Kitchen Live (DKL), have a grunk a through threads 2-9.

*** JACKISMS ***

Jack’s most oft-used reply to questions on recipe substitutions:

Yes, absolutely x

Some other favourite Jack quotes:

‘Babe, same’

‘I did a chaos’

‘My maverick brain’

‘My sad little face’

‘I’m BUSY’

‘I HOOTED / I am FIZZING’

‘I laughed up a lung’


One of Jack’s followers once referred to Tattlers as sad hausfraus and Jack herself has likened us to a cabal. Therefore we have become the Cabal of Hausfraus™️. She also recently referred to us as ‘gossip mavens’ (so, we are gossip trusted experts). ** Recent additions to her terms of endearment for Tattle: conspiracy wankers, obsessive groups of completely unhinged bullies, bullying ninnies, and malign, vicious bullies **

To ‘GrunkaLunka’ your way through a thread means to catch up on posts. Named after a member who rather epically caught up on many threads in a short period of time (and is also a fearless pioneer of the space-time continuum. She really was here both Now and Then).

Jack once threatened to use her Liam Neeson skills to TRIANGULATE our whereabouts in order to intimidate us, so that’s what we mean by that. * She may also threaten to take us to court - do not be afraid, this is not the first time and it won’t be the last. *

Jack once sideboard modelled a Vivienne Westwood dress, seeming to infer that it’s what Viv would have wanted (as if she were dead), and then got snippy when corrected otherwise. There may be some ‘RIP Viv’ jokes (she is, of course, NOT dead)

We sometimes joke about being on Vladimir Putin’s bitcoin payroll list for being evil trolls.

During her stint on Daily Kitchen Live, Jack produced a godawful looking lasagne, with a thin white sauce that never thickened up, just disappeared. It was widely likened to ‘horse spunk’ - there may be some horse ‘spirit’ lasagne jokes.

Her last-uttered line to Matt Tebutt on DKL was: ‘Thank you so Matt much, Matt’, which made us all HOOT.

Jack ended a tweet that listed her (not unimpressive) four-and-a-half GCSE results (A*, A, B, B, C) with: ‘Now duck off’. We sometimes like to use this in our own posts for comedic effect. We are NOT telling other fraus to duck off, simply paying homage to Jack’s own genteel humour.

*Back in the mists of time, one funny frau used a Jimmy Nail ‘She’s Lying’ picture to illustrate their thoughts on one of Jack’s latest tales. @Alpha Beta thought it was Novak Djokovic, the cabal hooted and Novak Nail was born. You may see reference to Jimmy Nail, Novak Djokovic, or the combination of both: Novak Nail. All demonstrate that she’s lying.*

Also:

• She grew up in a 5-bed (mortgaged/owned) house
• She got a £4.5k Omega watch for her 21st birthday
• Her dad's a bleeping LANDLORD (an oldy, but a goody)
• Jack and Louisa are no longer in a relationship - in Jack’s words: ‘She [Louisa] left’.
• Her record for staying off Twitter since the start of these threads is 114 hours and 47 minutes.
• She is 90% vegan. The other 10% likes to nom nom on Five Guys burger and discounted chicken slices.
• During her appearance on DKL, she was asked why some mince has a higher fat content. ‘It just does.’
• The information held on her by Companies House has her year of birth WRONG. She was born in 1988, not 1978.

Here is a link to Jack’s Tattle Wiki page, which also includes clips of Matt Tebutt muttering ‘Terrible!’ on Daily Kitchen Live, courtesy of @Yel) and @Bookweevil ‘s hilarious Glossary of Jack.

We are terrible for going off on tangents and using too many gifs, so there is another thread where we don’t discuss JM but instead talk about biscuits and stuff. For good light relief when JM is doing too much chaos, come to the Food & Drink threads in Off Topic.

Haha-uncle monty quote!

 

[Veronicaaa]

Oh I just love looking through all the terrible recipes on her website. The intro to that sausagne abomination is a very interesting insight into how much Jack hates cooking. Like, truly hates it.

View attachment 252813

Less washing up because she doesn't bother actually cooking the sausages #topJacktip reduce washing up by not actually cooking.

 

[Montrachet]

J Monroe, January 2014:

I asked my blog readers what they wanted me to tackle. The one that cropped up time and again was the humble lasagne. I promised I'd give it a go, wincing inside. You see, despite cooking every day for years, I'd never actually made a lasagne. All that snapping sheets of pasta, two different saucepans and an oven on the go. It felt like too much effort and energy use for just us – and my son never asked for it.

So, I bought one from M&S, unwrapped it, felt through that sticky white sauce and revealed layers of minced meat, tomato sauce and pasta sheets. Not so mysterious. Later, when I pulled my own out of the oven, hot and crispy around the edges, topped with bubbling cheese, and sat it beside its shop-bought relative, I couldn't believe I had made it to the age of 25 without cooking one from scratch.

J Monroe, March 2019:

Making lasagne is an arse. A labour of love. An every-pan atrocity strewn around the desolate wasteland of what was formerly your kitchen. I have made dozens of lasagnes in my short lifetime, and halfway through every single one comes the moment, without fail, whereby I survey the three pans on the hob, the piles of everything, the crap strewn across every available worksurface and some of the not-available ones, too, and I wail inside that I could have just bought one for less than a quid at the supermarket.

What was that about being unable to lie, ever...?

You are on fire today @colouredlines - literally on fire with the intense ephemera of a 1000 garlic cloves peripatetically roasting in a sunlit pink microwave.

 

[SweetTransvestite]

"Add the lemon and herbs and stand to one side for a moment. The jug, not you!"

Oh Jackie, that's a real knee-slapper. I'm positively HOOTING over here. Usually I'd say don't give up the day job, but, well, we're only too aware how well that's going.

This, I can forgive as her heart & one true passion has always been the medium of mime.
..Are you aware of her work, BlendedSlop?

 

[Malacandra]

She's going to get a bleeping shock when SB hits his teens if she thinks a 200 cal evening meal will fill him up . In fact I'd be surprised if it was substantial enough now!

 

[NP]

Why does JM makes every recipe 10x harder than it needs to be? That “sausagne”... I mean, WTF is that? Why not just have a sausage tomato-based pasta with cheese grated on top? BBC Good Food have a really nice sausage pasta that we occasionally have midweek. You cut up the sausages, fry them, make a basic tomato & chilli pasta sauce, cook pasta. Add together. Done. Not a blender in sight and it actually has texture.

 

[Flash123]

If she’s using that frozen veg, it’s already cut up small.
Fresh veg would be the same after it had been Macked though.

I thought she had bought this perhaps https://groceries.asda.com/product/soup-mixes-meal-kits/asda-vegetable-base-mix/1000042812793