Okay, so this by far the rudest recipe yet. Outright insulting.

The Thugs tell me to ‘plan ahead, you lazy fuck.’ and then later tell me to go cry myself to sleep. Seriously.  Who else has EVER been like that in a cookbook? Talk about Thugged up. Hilarious.

Anyhoo. So I marinate the fuck outta the tempeh, and pop it in the fridge for 5-6 hours.

Then I fry the planks.

(That word always makes me think of pirates.)

While they’re frying I have time to get the sandwich fillings prepped. While I’m slicing tomatoes I start to wonder why it is that the rudder the Thugs are, the funnier it is, and the more I like it? Does this make me some sort of masochist? Should I be worried? Have I got issues?

Fortunately, I don’t have time to dive much deeper down that rabbit hole because then the tempeh is done, and now I can stack the shit outta these sandwiches. I can therapize my infatuation with the Thug Kitchen cookbooks some other time.

I prep a sandwich each for hubby and me, and he bites in to his first. I ask him how it tastes and he says, ‘healthy’. Straight away my head translates that to ‘boring.’ I instantly think of chewing on dry things, like cardboard, and grass, and wheatgrass, and wheat germ. (Ok, half of those things I’ve never tried, but they sound bad don’t they?) My tongue shrinks, and my mouth dries up just thinking about it.

I sit down and take a careful bite. There’s nothing boring about this sandwich. It’s squishy and moist, and full of flavour. There’s also crunch from the carrots that takes it up a notch. Healthy is no longer boring. The Thugs have seen to that. They’re Sandwich Masters. (If you havent tried the smoked almond and chickpea sammies on page 53 you’re missing out. Not just on sandwiches but life-it-fucking-self.)

Next, I’m making Spaghetti Pie from the new book. It’s just too tempting. Read about it here.

I know I should probably be sticking to the task at hand and just cooking the recipes from TK1. But who the fuck am I kidding? I have no resolve. I’m too easily tempted, and the new book looks sooooo good. It’d be like having a new car and not driving it. Or a new bed and camping out on the floor. It’d be criminal. And also sorta weird.

 Besides, if it comes down to it and I’ve gotta somehow squeeze cooking 30 recipes into two weeks or something at the end to get the challenge done, that’ll just make it more interesting, right? Uh, right.

Or just fucking disastrous. Whatever.

82 recipes left, and 254 days to go.

(Seems like ages but I can’t believe we’re already 111 days in. Yikes.)