Gourmet Cooking On A Budget or "Hey! People Might Actually Pay MONEY For This Stuff!"

To start with, I went looking for a Hungry Man dinner with the most separate types of food. Turkey Breast etc. filled that requirement nicely, containing not four but FIVE different types of food! All for a quite reasonable $3.49.

Wow. Is that appetizing or what? I’ll have to see what I can do about it.


Some pre-chopped lettuce I had sitting around and parsley that I got just for this. Parsley: $0.79

The dinner after microwaving. And now on to Part One: Peas.

I had some baby carrots in the refrigerator from god knows when – probably one of the times I’d decided to try eating healthy stuff. They’re perfect for adding a little color, and hey, even Gump knows that peas and carrots go together well.

Sarah had the excellent idea of cutting them into little asterisk shapes, so I went at them with the only thing that could do the job – my Gerber Legend.

Excellent...

But not enough...I needed a bed of something. Ah! Thin carrot slices, perfect!

Beautiful.

Now just put the peas on top and add my little carrot asterisks around the edges...

Melt a little butter over the top...

And there we go.

Part Deux: Mashed Potatoes.

To get that perfect scoop I had to butter my ice cream scoop. Eewww.

Plop it on the plate...

And add some parsley and chives...

And cheese...mmm...cheese....

Then sour cream and butter.

I wanted to do bacon bits, but I didn’t have any. However! I did have crushed chilis that LOOKED like bacon bits. Good enough for me – I just needed to pick out the parts that weren’t seeds (they didn’t look like bacon).

Placing them carefully on the mashed potatoes requires a steady hand, and tweezers.

Done!

Part Three: I didn’t get a good picture of the beginning of the stuffing, but I decided that rather than have the stuff in the middle with garnish around it, I’d invert it and have the stuffing form a ring with thinly sliced and spiraled apples INSIDE it! Here’s me slicing the apple. Woo.

And putting some cinnamon on them (notice strategically placed parsley).

Yum! Supposing you like apples with your stuffing (actually they compliment each other nicely).

Part Four: Turkey. You don’t want to ask why I have this, and I don’t want to tell you.

So the master plan here is to use the sliced turkey on this and make it look attractive. First I added a bed of lettuce, which is important.

Next I started thinking about how I could make it look more turkey-like. Having legs would be nice, but how could I make that weak, processed turkey stand up...hmm...what about a frame made out of a paperclip?

Perfect.

Yes! But still lacking some trimmings...

Like a nice parsley wreath around its neck, a small wall of pineapple around the base, and a small design of apple on the back.

Part Five: Dessert. That thing is like two cubic inches and looks like crap...this is going to take some work.

First, take care of the size. Since it would occupy roughly the same space on a place as a sunflower seed, I’d need some filler. Inspired by those lovely designs that expensive restaurants make on desert plates to disguise the pathetic serving size, I whipped up some chocolate sauce. Made from water, a melted chocolate bar, sugar, and chocolate protein powder. Yummy! (actually it was pretty tasty).

I added ice cream, drizzled the sauce around the plate, and grated some nutmeg over the top.

Alright, but lacking some garnish. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to use parsley on a desert.

Solution: Grapefruit peel. I managed to carve out a passable spiral. No, that’s not a screwdriver.

Is that artistic or what?

Part Six: Presentation. I mean, if I make all this I have to have a final shot right? So I put together a nice little place setting, added bamboo and candles, and there we go. A gourmet meal out of a basic Hungry Man dinner! Yes, I do have too much time on my hands, why do you ask?