It’s that time of year again, wherein people around the world forsake contact with anything except their keyboards and their imaginations. That’s right, National Novel Writing Month is slowly creeping up on us.
As most of us are writing whilst doing other things (raising children, working full time, going to school, attempting to take over the world) we need to find food that can be cooked up fast and keep us going. And, you know, keep the acid from the coffee we swill like it was 24k gold from completely eating the inside of our stomachs. Therefore, I’m going to post some of my favorite fastish food recipies here. That is, foods that mimic those provided by the fast food chains, but save you the time used, you know, in putting on pants and leaving the house.
This recipe takes 11 minutes to prepare if using a 5 ounce Russet potato and both a microwave and a toaster oven.
‘Chicken’ Bowl
1. Put 2 chicken nuggets in toaster oven. Set timer for 11 minutes on the highest heat setting you can coax out of it. I actually use Quorn’s Chik’n Nuggets, which aren’t real meat.
2. Wash and puncture a potato a few times. Toss in microwave for 5 minutes on high. If you don’t have a toaster oven, throw the chicken/chik’n nuggets in on a plate opposite the potato and set it for 3 minutes.
3. Put 1/2 c of frozen corn in a microwave safe bowl that will be big enough to hold the whole shebang. Add 1/4 teaspoon salt and some nice black pepper.
4. If you’ve got the chicken/chik’n nuggets in the nukerwave, it should have dinged about now. Pull out the nuggets and send the potato spinning for another three minutes.
4. If you like cheese, now is when you cut yourself up/grate some up.
5. The potato should have dinged about now. Poke it with a fork to check doneness; it needs to slide through easily. If it’s not done, send it spinning for another minute.
6. Remove the cooked potato from the nukerwave and stick the corn in, uncovered, for about 30 seconds.
7. Go to fridge. Pull out milk or milk-equivalent. I’ve been making this for years with soy milk, you can also use chicken broth if, you know, you have some lying around and opened.
8. Toss potato on top of the corn. Start mashing it to death with your fork. When it’s in wee pieces and the corn’s pretty much mixed in, slowly add about a tablespoon of milk or milk equivalent as you mix. Add another tablespoon if it still looks dry, but do it slowly or else you’ll have potato soup. Which isn’t bad, per se….
9. Cut up the chicken/chik’n nuggets and sprinkle on top. Cheese can go on top too. Other good sprinklins include chives, dehydrated onion, garlic powder… remember, this needs to be fast so you can get back to your novel! If it requires grating, grinding, or peeling, you can eat it in December.
