From: arielle@taronga.com (Stephanie da Silva)
Subject: MISC COLLECTION Strange foods (including litterbox cookies)
Keywords: MISC COLLECTION
Organization: NASA Dryden, Edwards, Cal.
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 20:21:39 GMT


[Someone e-mailed to me, asking for the litterbox (cat poop) cookie
recipe.  Rather than post the request, I went right to Stephanie, who
kindly sent this entire collection of strange foods.  MFS]

1. Warm cream cheese in a microwave to a consistency that is easy to spread.
2. Spread it thinly and evenly on a slice of deli ham.
3. Place a Kosher dill pickle on the edge of the cheese side of the ham and
   roll it up.
4. Chill this in the refrigerator, then slice into half inch wide pinwheels.
5. Eat. (This looks wierd but tastes great.)
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These are the proportions for the 11" dish - which also made a small 5" cereal
bowl too (about 3/4" thick).

1 lb. liverwurst
3 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese
mayonaise
red caviar
fresh chopped parsely or chives, for garnish

Slice & dice the liverwurst with a knife.  Add 2+ heaping serving
spoons of mayo.  Mix with large fork.  Spread in dish, chill to firm up.

Let cream cheese soften - add 1 tablespoon mayo - mix.  Spread over
liverwurst.  Chill.  (A generous teaspoon of dried minced onions can be
added to cream cheese before mixing.)

After cream cheese sets up, caviar can be spread over top, and garnished.
Best with rye or crackers, crisps, melba toast.
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A dipping sauce, we used it for artichokes, but I use it for anything
dippable from potato chips to raw vegetable.

A simple mixture of: 
Soy Sauce (REAL brewed soy sauce, not that awful salty stuff!)
Crushed Garlic (we use lots, because we love it)
Brown Mustard (or yellow mustard and a little horseradish)
And a little olive oil, to make it smooth.

It's an intense taste, not for the faint of heart.
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Take a bunch of cocktail weiners.  Cook them to the point of almost being 
done, and then simmer them in a mixture of:

	1 can Cocktail Sauce (Shrimp Cocktail dip type)
	1/2 jar of grape jelly
	1 squeezed lime

Comes out tasting REALLY good.

Another example is one jar (~6oz) of Red Currant Jelly and one jar (~ 6oz) of 
yellow mustard, heated together until smooth.  Add cocktail wieners and heat.
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Appetizer sandwiches:

1 can asparagas (long stems)
1 loaf of GOOD square white bread
butter
mayonaise
salt and pepper

Carefully remove asparagas spears from tin, spread on towel to drain for
at least two hours.  Remove crusts from bread.

Spread each square with butter, then spread generously with mayonaise.
Take a spear and put diagonally on bread - season with salt and pepper.

Roll up from corner.  Then cut the tube in half to make smaller portions. 

Pile on plate, cover with aluminum foil and refrigerate for several hours.

Remove from frig at least 1/2 hour before serving.
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Chopped up canned (not marinated) artichoke hearts
1 small can of chopped ortega chiles
lots of parmesan cheese (about 1/2 cup)
enough mayonnaise to make moisten

This stuff is mixed up and put into a shallow casserole dish in the
oven and baked until it bubbles and browns on top and smells good.
Serve with corn chips, melba toasts, or veggie dippers.

I also do chicken wings baked in BBQ sauce but I use current jelly
instead of grape.
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	One package of Top roman Noodles
	One/half bag of frozen mixed veg
	One can of creamed soup of your choice.

Put some water in a sauce pan (~one cup). Add the noddles and spice
package. boil for three min. Mix the soup with one can full of milk or
water and add to the noodles. add the veg's and simmer until tender.
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1 pound or so ground beef
1 can Campbell's Golden Cream Of Mushroom Soup
Half of a large bag of Tater Tots
Minced scallions (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.  Press ground beef into bottom of 8 x
10" baking dish; season lightly.  Pour soup over ground beef.  Top with
scallions if desired.  Place Tater Tots on top of soup.  If you're
aesthetically inclined and have a little time, lay the Tots out in
geometrically pleasing patterns, otherwise just pour them on and smooth
them with the flat of your hand.

Cook for 45 minutes or until beef is cooked and Tots are
crispy golden-brown.

Sprinkle paprika on the Tots.
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Take enough nice thin-ish leeks and  bananas to fill the bottom of a
flat oven dish. Strip the leaves of the roughest foliage and parboil
them for a minute or two. Cut into preferred sized - an inch or two in
length probably, and alternate them with similarly chopped bananas.

Make lots of *thick* cheese sauce ( for the leeks are full of water)
and pour generously over the top. The leeks and bananas make a sweet, 
vaguely peppery combination, so choose the cheese accordingly.

Cook in the oven till the veggies are done! 
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Watergate Salad

1 box pistachio pudding
1 tub cool whip
1 cup walnuts
2 cups green grapes
1 cup pineapple chunks

Make the pudding as directed, then fold in the cool whip.  Mix in everything
else and then chill.  
____________________
        
   Apple cream pie  
   
Mix 1 small pkg vanilla instant pudding plus 8 oz sour cream.
Add a little milk.  Spread over a pie crust filled with canned apple
pie filling.  A quick and easy dessert!
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Keep in mind; in spaghetti sauce, brussels sprouts look very much
like meatballs.

I had some luck a few weeks ago in disgusting my friends who'd never
heard of a Fluffernutter (peanut butter & marshmellow topping), by 
not just making one, but by using a tortilla instead of bread.  Much
easier to make, eat and transport.
____________________

On a related note, the first time anyone showed me fluff, and explained about
fluffernutters I was appalled. Maybe it's an East Coast thing. Fluff has never
passed my lips, glowing bluely in its dangerous little way.
____________________

I saw some PBS cooking show where the guy was showing a traditional 
Louisiana way of cooking ham.  Braised & basted in root beer.  It was probaby
originally done with sassafrass leaves or roots.
____________________

Use of Coca-Cola appears to be a standard Southern cooking trope. All
of those little Junior League cookbooks - not to mention the Wednesday
Food section of the local fishwrap - are just *full* of recipes
involving mixing Coke with Jello. 
____________________

You might try one of the recipes like the one we used one Kentucky Derby
day which involved lots of bourbon in the ham juice.

But be more careful when you do it.  It makes a big noise when the oven
door suddenly almost blows off its hinges.
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Hot Sam, a Soft Pretzel Mall Chainstore, used to have a fudge dipping
sauce.  Unfortunately, it wasn't popular enough (I was perhaps one of
the 5 who ever tried it), so they went back to boring old
cheezfoodsubstances and mustard.
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Mixing chocolate and salt apparently produces some kind of brain chemical. 
Ditto french fries dipped into your chocolate shake.  

Ditto using hard pretzels to scoop up chocolate ice cream.  Check it out.
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Nevermind chocolate and salt, go for the gross-out and mix chocolate
and capsaicine.  There are two or three must-haves in my chili:

  - Unsweetened cocoa added near the end of the cooking time

  - Sauce thickened with pureed dried chiles (mostly pasillas, with
    New Mexicos, a handful of chile arbol, and other oddities like
    tuong added to make it hot enough); thickening with masa is for wimps

They say that chocolate evokes the same chemical reaction as being
in love, and capsaicine causes the body to produce endorphins.  So a 
good bowl of my chili is like love when you don't care about the pain.
____________________

The Food section of the local paper recently ran a recipe for chocolate-
chip-and-chile-powder cookies. I was the only person in the house who could
even bear to read it, which surprised me, since the person most appalled
by the concept was the same man who puts vinegar and brown sugar on fried
potatoes. 
____________________

Two slight curves to recipes that have been mentioned:
1) Use "sour cream and onion" potato chips with the chocolate ice cream.
2) Granola cereal in apple juice: microwave on high for 2 minutes.
____________________

I had a boss who ate ketchup and that kraft grated american cheese
food in the gold can, on spaghetti. This is not an aspersion on their
pseudo italian product, this is orange colored stuff that basically
looks like grated kraft american cheese.
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I have been told (butcher at John Dewar Meats) that to get the beautiful
color on the skin of a turkey, you baste it with ginger ale during the last
hour. I guess the sugar caramelizes. So it doesn't seem odd to cook with coke,
either, to me. And coke definitely tastes MUCH better from those little
bottles. In Jamaica, they grow sugar cane, so the coke is made with sugar AND
they put it in those little bottles. I had a bottle with every meal.
____________________

Here is a gross cocktail for your list:

NUCLEAR WASTE

1 measure blue curacao
1 measure Bailey's Irish Cream
top up with one pint cider (or lager if you prefer)

The end result is a sort of greenish-brown liquid with scummy bits floating
in it and a THICK layer of scum on top. Tastes wonderful, though,
especially if you dunk chocolate bars in. (These are referred to as Control
Rods, and the bar of preference is a Toffee Crisp, if only because the
crisped rice pieces start floating around in the drink and making it look
even nastier)
____________________

The nuclear wastes I've seen mix blue curacao and orange juice (and vodka).
Turns everything a very nice shade of fluorescent green.
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Gooey Chicken

This one sounds a bit strange, but I've made it many times for guests
and have had very good results with it.

3 lbs chicken, cut into serving pieces  
1 1-lb smooth cranberry sauce
1 8-oz bottle of french dressing
1  package dried french onion soup mix

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Put the chicken into a shallow backing
dish.  Combine remaining ingredients into a sauce pan,  heat over slow heat
until bubbling, then pour over chicken.  Bake uncovered for 1 hour or until
done, spooning sauce over chicken as it cooks.  
Good with rice, with sauce spooned over it.

I make a similar recipe, but using sauerkraut instead of cranberry sauce and 
thousand island dressing instead of french - surprisingly good!
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Litterbox Cookies

There are two flavors-chocolate, and gingerbread.
The cookies are dense and not very sweet, this is necesssary
so that they will keep their shape during baking.  If you use white flour
or sugar they may be tastier but they won't look like shit.

Chocolate ingredients:

1/2 cup honey
2/3 cup (1 and 1/3 stick) butter or margarine
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla or peppermint extract
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
grape-nuts(tm) cereal

Gingerbread ingredients:

1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup molasses
2/3 cup(1 and 1/3 stick) butter or margerine
1 egg
2 and 1/3 cups whole wheat flour
spices-ginger, cinnamon, cloves to taste(maybe 1/2 tsp each)
grape-nuts(tm) cereal

Mix-ins:

coconut
chocolate chips
butterscotch chips
peanut butter chips

To make:
Microwave the honey till it bubbles(about 1 minute). add the butter, and
the molasses, if any.  Add the egg, mix well, then mix in all the other 
stuff. A dd mix-ins of your choice to some or all of the batter.

Chill 1 hour in the freezer or several hours in the fridge.  Roll dough 
logs of random length and the diameter of cat poops.  Roll logs in grape-
nuts and bake at 350 degrees till done (10 to 15 minutes).

Serve in a disposable cat litter box on a bed of grapenuts, with a cat
litter scoop.  I hear you get lovely effects by decorating the box and 
scoop with melted chocolate or pudding.  

This recipe worked especially well at the halloween party where the table 
was already decorated with plastic flies.
____________________

Dirt Cake

1 medium-size flower pot (about 8 inches in diameter works well, or
  use two small pots about 6 inches in diameter).
1 garden trowel.
3 large gummy or plastic worms (optional [optional?  no way!]).
  Plastic flowers.
1 16-ounce bag Oreo cookies.
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, softened.
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened.
1 cup confectioners' sugar.
1 teaspoon vanilla.
2 4-serving-size boxes instant chocolate-fudge flavor pudding [a
  penciled-in note on the recipe claims vanilla is better]
3 cups milk.
1 12-ounce tub whipped topping, thawed.

Crush cookies until they resemble potting soil, set aside.
Cream butter, cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth and
fluffy.  Set aside. Combine pudding mix and milk until well
blended, then fold in the whipped topping.  Gently fold cream cheese
and pudding mixtures together.

To put the cake together, layer 1/3 of the cookie crumbs followed
by 1/2 the pudding mixture, 1/3/ of the crumbs, the rest of the
pudding mixture and topping with the remaining cookie crumbs.
Refrigerate 10 to 12 hours.  About 1/2 hour before serving, remove
from refrigerator and decorate with flowers.  Serve by digging out
portions with the trowel.  Serves 10 to 12. 
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Served to me at a 4th of july party

1 storebought angel food cake
1 box red jello
Mininture marshmellows
1 can fruit coctail

Cut up cake, add cocktail and marshmellos, make jello, and pour over.
and pat yourself on the back for working so hard in the kitchen.
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Spider Cake (once made as a tease for a woman who HATED spiders)

Take your average cake mix.  Bake it up in 2 metal bowls--1 bigger than
the other.  One unmolded, cut the bigger one (the "body") in half,
horizontally.  CAREFULLY scoop out an adequate cavity in each half.
FILL with well-whipped set green Jello, and reattach the halves.
Frost black, arrange on serving platter. Use licorice stix as legs.
Use 2 BIG green gumdrops and 6 little ones as eyes.  When the cake is
cut into, it spurts green goop, just like a real spider when stepped on.
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Spam & Pickle sandwiches

Get out your trusty meat grinder.  Insert medium blade.  Open can of
Spam, slice into chunks that will fit into grinder.  Grind.  Also grind
in one pickle.  I think originally we used dill.  I prefer sweet.  In a
pinch you can just add some sweet pickle relish (to taste).  Finish the
grinding with some bread or crackers (just to get the meat through.)

Now, to this pink squiggly mess, add your choice of moistener
(mayonnaise, Miracle Whip, etc. [Skip the M vs MW war please]).

Smear some more mayo on the bread if desired.  Spread a good thick
coating of Spam & pickle on the bread.  Top with lettuce.  Devour. 
Variation:  Toast the bread.
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Use the new Berry Blue jello, and pour it into individual cups or a fish 
bowl.  Before the jello is all the way set, add gummy fish, sharks, life 
savers, shells, etc., and make an Alcoholic Aquarium.

I did this over Memorial day weekend.  I was fortunate enough to find a 
candy shoppe that carried all kinds of gummy goodies: fish, sharks, shells, 
worms, and Coke bottles.  I used 9 oz. clear plastic glasses, and made each 
of them different.  One was even a 'toxic' aquarium with lots of coke bottles, 
gummy Life Savers posing as old tires, and all the fish floating on top!

1 8-serving box of Berry Blue Jello
4 packets Knox unflavored gelatin
5 cups boiling water
2 cups alcohol (I used vodka, but I think rum would have tasted better.)
____________________

My most interesting was Banana Egg Roll with Honey:

Fried banana, wrapped in a fried egg, with honey poured over it.

This was in a restaurant in Nepal; as a dessert it left a lot to
be desired!
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The recipes for "nuclear waste" reminded me of the Glycol Punch I made
for a party.  My friends and I don't drink (alcohol :), so this is sick
for all ages!  

Glycol Punch has two primary ingredients:
Diet Mountain Dew, which has an decidedly evil odd yellow glow to it. Diet 
is necessary so that you don't over sugar people.  BTW, we also tried other 
sodas, including Squirt, 7-up and Sprite, but none had that evil yellowness.

 A flourescent blue liquid. I know for a fact that the raspberry
"little hugs" drinks for kids are the perfect color.  There is a recent 
Kool-Aid blue flavor that I'm sure would work well, too.

For the "little hugs" the ratio is about 4-5 barrels to 1 2-liter bottle
of soda.  Adjust as you think best.  I'd start by pouring out the soda
and adding the blue.  You know you've got it right when you get the
sickly yellow-green of many Glycol-based Antifreezes.  Plus, when you
drink, it fizzes!  
____________________

The author is Mike Nelson from Minneapolis, and the title is 'The Worst
Cookbook in America'.  He has been searching out the world's most
god-awful recipes for 10 years.  He is still negotiating with publishers, 
but hopes to have his cookbook out in time for the Christmas season.

Some of the recipe titles are:

Sweet-n-Sour Spam
Hamburger Jello
Pig's Ear Salad
Chocolate-Covered Chicken
Tuna-Marshmallow Supreme.

Here is one recipe from the book:

Tuna Twinkie Souffle

1 Tbl rendered chicken fat, divided use
12 Hostess Twinkies
Salt
White Pepper
1/2 tsp dry mustard
4 eggs, separated
2 cans tuna in oil, drained, reserve oil.

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Grease a 7-inch souffle dish with 1 tsp of chicken fat and
1 tsp tuna oil.

Slice Twinkies in half lengthwise.  Remove and reserve
cream filling.

In a large food processor, combine Twinkie cakes, half of
the Twinkie filling, and the remaining chicken fat and tuna oil.

Blend until the mixture has reached the consistency of a thin batter.

Transfer ingredients to a medium saucepan and cook over low heat.
Stir in salt, white pepper, and mustard.  Remove from heat.

Beat in egg yolks, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.
Fold in tuna.  In a medium bowl, beat egg whites until stiff but not dry.
Fold beaten egg whites into tuna mixture.  Pour into greased souffle dish.

Bake in 350 oven 40 to 45 minutes, or until puffed and golden brown.
Top with remaining Twinkie cream.

Serve with a tossed salad.
_____

I used to work with a person who loved peanut butter and put it on just
about EVERYTHING she ate.

I personally witnessed peanut butter on or in hot dogs, chili, noodle
casserole and (ultimate gross) sauerkraut !!!

She even took along the jar when she went to Burger King and put peanut
butter on top of cheeseburgers. 


   Goop

   3 medium Potato(e)s
   1 small can tomato sauce
   1 16 oz jar of tomato salsa (the hotter the better)
   2 cloves garlic (chopped fine)
   2 tsp basil
   1 heaping tablespoon of Mayo (Best Foods or Hellmans)
   1/4 to 1/2 cup cubed sharp cheddar (Tillamook Extra Sharp)

   Cube and boil potatoes until _just_ underdone.  Add tomato sauce, salsa, 
   garlic and basil and over medium heat continue cooking til potatoes are 
   done. Mix in mayo, which should thicken the sauce and then add cheese.
   When cheese starts to melt and blend in, spoon into bowls, get a bag of
   soda crackers and a cold beer and enjoy.

I know it sounds weird, but it's really pretty good. If I can find some nice
ground lamb, I'll saute it with a little onion, garlic, dash of thyme and a
dash or two of Durkee's hot sauce. Drain out the excess grease and mix in. 
Now it's a two potter, but well worth it.



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