Dog Food AND Other Survival Tips for the Old Single Guy

I love to cook. Unfortunately after some serious alone time after the demise of my marriage and a six year relationship with an x with an extremely limited palette, my cooking skills have gone somewhat atrophied. The x and I never really established that true couply lifestyle. Oh we had a few couply friends, but the dinner party routine never seemed to stick with any of them. The wife and I on the other hand were extremely couply. Heck, I remember one weekend we spent all day Sunday making hand made gnocchi with our couply Italian pals, turning their entire loft into a gnocchi churning out production operation, come to thing of it, outside of the making wine, we turned the place into a typical Toronto Italian garage, roasting red peppers and eggplant, jarin' em' up in oil; gnocchi and tomato sauce. I think we came out of that weekend with enough homemade Italian food to last us well beyond the rest of our married days.

Like I said, the x, on the other hand, although she did like most Italian foods, anything more adventurous than red sauce and mozzarella cheese was a push. Oh, I did sneak in a few good pork chop nights, cooked a few roasts, even developed and perfected a "Glop" recipe that she'd eat a bit of; but her idea of dinner was generally either a pizza slice or a plate full of mozzarella that she'd melt in the microwave throw a handful of salt on and scoop up with tortilla chips. Hey, eat what you like, I'm not judging... Me, I unfortunately slowly drifted into a too lazy to cook stooper of "gut filleing", making "gut paste"; dollar store mac and cheese, maybe dolled up occasionally with a handful of frozen peas. These days, I'm struggling to find my way back to having a more adventurous relationship with my kitchen.

After a few months of single guy-dom, I have managed to clear enough room in my bomb damaged Kitchen, I mean, literally we're talking about 15 trash bags full of whatever it was we'd been piling in the room for three years or so. I mean, there was essentially a path to the microwave, and another to the fridge. She has taken most of the tableware, dishes and whatnot, the stuff she did leave was piled "college dorm" style in the sink, on the counter and all over the stove top. My last super essentially sat there petrifying into some sculptural reminder that I was alone, often drunk and in a pretty surly, "Man not this Fuckity Fuck Fuck, AGAIN", mood.

I think it was a good two months, the weekend that I'd taken a day off work in order to drive her to the Airport in Philly so she could go on the holiday to St. Croix we had planned; the holiday from which I had been scrubbed from the itinerary as it involved bunking with her parents, and my being there may have caused a week of discomfort during their five week stay. Oh well, Presidents Day I turned that into a four-day weekend and proceeded to get my Kitchen "glop" ready again.

This is not about "glop", this is about an even tastier invention [invention, well OK, that's a bit of a stretch], this is about "Dog Food". “Dog Food” happened last week when the funds dried up. A temporary draught in dough based on the untimely withholdings of funds from contracts and pals who, in their defense, just had some unfortunate family issues to contend with; no anger on that front, just another bump to hump myself over.

Anyhow, I found myself with ONE less pork chop and CAN of beans that I'd been dreaming about for most of that afternoon. I didn't really feel like dining on pickles and ketchup... I did however have some frozen hamburger, AND to my surprise a half a bag of frozen corn... Sidebar, a very good friend of mine once had a business plan for this type of situation. He wanted to come up with the programming for a site where you'd essentially type in every ingredient you had on premise, select a mood press a button and have returned to you, voila, a few dozen recipes for the evening meal. I wonder what recipe this site would return me after typing in two pounds of ground beef, a half bag of frozen corn, kosher pickles, a bottle of ketchup and some Lea and Perrins. I guess it would, in all likelihood come back to me with a recipe for "Dog Food".

I'll get off my high "old single man" horse here for a sec, and admit, that the old single man lifestyle isn't all that unique. I mean, it's almost identical to "third year college dude" life [you know after you move out of the dorm]; or the "I just got that first good job and I'm booting all my roomies out" life.

Many of these things I now know are simple derivatives of the "barely married" life I had with the x, and the tips, like how to make "Dog Food" could easily be helpful to some of the young couples I know.

Old Single Gal life, well, I'd never ever hazard a guess on just how crazily complicated that must be. Maybe one of you ladies could share a recipe for melting mozzarella on a plate, throwing salt on it, and scooping it up with tortilla chips.

Anyhow, here's my tip for you today, I've refined it somewhat [made a new batch last night], here's my recipe for "Dog Food", gratis.

Ingredients:
1 Onion [optional, as fresh anything is kind of a dicey proposition these days]
2 Pounds of ground beef or pork, or 1 of each if you don't mind mixing your barnyard pals in a pot.
2 cans of tomato paste
6 pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon
1 decent sized bag of frozen veggies
1 Jiggery Joo of Lea and Perrins
1 quarter sized pile of salt
6 or 7 Marlboro ultra lights
And whatever spices you like and managed to hold onto after the break up [optional]

Instructions:
First, clean just enough dishes from the pile to cook, stir and later eat your "Dog Food" from. You'll need a cutting board [if you went for the onion option]. A knife, or a hammer perhaps to reduce the onion into a more edibley sized pieces. You'll also need a good sized pot/frying pan. I have this old vinyl record sized deep dish frying pan that pretty much serves all my cooking needs regardless of the menu. OK, next step, cut or smash the onion into small chunks and toss 'em into the fry pan, oh you'd probably want to grease the pan up with a nice virgin Olive Oil first. Forgot to mention this.

One thing I learned from Alton Brown on the Food Network. Olive oil is the Single Old Guy in the kitchen's best friend. It takes the heat, doesn't smoke, and does a good job hiding the smell and taste of cooking things that are approaching or at their expiry date. Maybe I assumed that everyone knew that you should have at least a bucket full of Olive Oil on hand at all times.

OK, cooking "Dog Food"... OK, onions are on the fry; next step light up a marly and pop top a tin of beer, you've just completed some of the most serious cooking chores you've completed in months, a small celebration is in order.

Next Step: while the onions are frying, tear the plastic wrap off the top of the Styrofoam meat packets... wait 'till the onions are kinda, well sweaty, caramelized perhaps, ok, until they're almost, just almost blackened. Toss in your meat.

Now, you might want to crumble the meat into the pan, think bite sized again. Ground meat has a tendency to "hamburgerize" into meatball like chunks when cooking, so a last little grind of the ground will go along way down the road when it comes to good eatin'.

Meat is on the burn. I usually put a lid on the pan at this point, grab another beer and give the pile a chance to cook through. But, hey, the lid is optional, hey the smell of cooking meat [mmm cooking MEAT], a beer and a smoke, honestly guys and gals, if they sold that scent as an air freshener... well, you get the picture. When the pile is cooked through; you'll know this after chopping up the bits of meat you failed to grind thoroughly earlier, it's time to dump in the tomato paste [oh ya, sorry, you will need a can opener].

Tomato paste, Tomato paste on it’s own is NOT food. Lick the fork after scraping this goo out of the can and you’ll quickly realize this. Although the cans of tomato paste I use list the ingredients as simply, “tomatoes”, which we all know ARE food, the paste of the poor tomato is impossible to eat. Tangent, DO NOT use tomatoes sauce, crushed tomatoes or whole tomatoes. Remember, we’re making “Dog Food”, not “Doug Soup”. The paste, when combined with the other more edible foods, simply binds the flavour, oils and spices into a cohesive… Tomatoes paste takes “Dog Food” from schlop to dinner.

We’re almost there. We’re now at the point where the remaining four beers, your spices and four or five Marlboro’s come in handy. We’re at simmer time. One, you have to let the paste and meat simmer for a bit, time to chuck in some spices and simmers some more… Knife a hole in the veggie bag, toss, stir and simmer. Simmer, simmer, simmer for an hour, two hours, heck pass out and let the whole thing just sit there on the stove top… It’s only “Dog Food”…

You know, I like food that gets better with age. “Glop” tastes ten times better the next day. “Dog Food” likewise gets better and better the longer the veggies, meat oil and spices get to mingle all dance hall like. On the nights I cook these feasts, I’ll maybe have just a small tinee tiny bowl.

These are meals meant to feed me on all the nights I don’t feel like cooking. These are the pots of goo I call my bestest friend after that bad day at work. These are the great big covered pots of six minutes in the micro while I’m watching the Simpson’s; Meal in a bowl, don’t think about nothing but my most recent obsession, I can feed myself… meal. After all you ARE an OLD SINGLR GUY; cooking everyday, well that just takes time away from more important things, like drinking, your book, and TV. OR things like fear, dread and angst… HUH, wait, Have I reverted back to my punka roots?

Tip today, cook “Dog Food”… Next weeks tip, “How much Cyalis is enough Cyalis for the Old Single Guy”, and/or “How Strategically Wearing the Odd Piece of Women’s Underwear Can, Indeed, Get You Through the Next Lonely Saturday Night You Spend with your 20/30 Something Pals at the Corner Local”.

Enjoy Your Dog Food!