Breakfast for dinner? Why the shit not?

It’s day 272 of the challenge, which leaves just 89 days to go and  38 recipes left.

The challenge: To cook all 115 Thug Kitchen recipes from their first cookbook within 365 days (AKA the year I learnt how to cook vegan whilst burning and breaking a lot of stuff in the kitchen.)

This time I made mixed veggie and tofu chilaquiles, and they were DA BOMB! Really, really good. Surprisingly so. They look alright in the cookbook, but they’re not a recipe I’d normally think to try if it wasn’t for this challenge. No offence to the Thugs, I’m just not usually into what looks like soggy nacho chips and crumbled tofu.

MAN WAS I DELUDED. I didn’t know what I was missing.

You NEED these things in your life. They will elevate the shit out of your breakfast game.

I’d decided to go shop for all the tricksy “hard-to-get” ingredients from the book and see what I could find. So I went to a little Middle Eastern store and found a bunch of cool herbs and weird and wonderful things that are harder to find elsewhere. Like molasses. The whole experience was weird because I turned up with my cookbook, my shopping list, and a clueless expression. I had no idea what the ingredients looked like, or what they were called in Danish (P.S. in case you didn’t know, I live in Denmark) I was bumbling around searching for tapioca pearls, trying to interpret Chinese and Polish writing on the packaging. The guy at the store kept shaking his head and asking why the hell my shopping list was in English. He seemed angry and confused. The whole thing was sorta funny.

I filled my basket with a heap of stuff that I was blindly hoping was right. I got to the counter to pay for my shit, briefly stopping to help another English-speaking customer on the way. He’d looked just as confused as I felt and had been asking the shop guy for molasses. I’d  just found some, and spoke his lingo, so I showed him where to find them on the shelf. He thanked me, we exchanged names, and that was that. As I was about to leave with my shopping I realised I’d picked up a rotten pineapple, so the shop guy told me to go swap it for another one. When I returned, there was a woman in my place at the line giving me evils because she thought I was trying to jump the line, when I just wanted to  collect my shopping and show the guy my pineapple. (It was a rather nice pineapple).

Now this lady clearly did not like pineapples. Or maybe it was just me she didn’t like. She had a face like she’d been sucking on lemons and she casually elbowed me as I was reaching for my shopping. I looked up at her, surprised, and she poured me a dirty look the way I’d pour a friend a whisky sour; casually with a sarcastic twist. Eventually I grabbed my bags and sent her a mental ‘fuck you’ as I breezed out the door.

When I’d gotten home and unpacked my bags I realised that what I’d picked up wasn’t a bunch of tomatillos but actually green aubergines?! How the hell was I meant to make salsa verde with those things?

 

I also realised that I’d got more than I’d bargained for, because I’d accidentally grabbed someone else’s shopping bag along with my own! I felt like a thief!

I decided to call the store to see if I could locate the shopping bag’s owner. I wanted to return the shopping, or at least find a way to reimburse them. As the phone was ringing, I wondered if the shopping belonged to the lemon-mouthed-lady. I had visions of calling her up: ‘Hi, remember me? Yes, that’s right, the girl you intentionally elbowed. Yeah I accidentally walked out with your shopping. I’m just calling to let you know that I’ll be thinking of you as I eat your pomegranate. BITCH. Bye now!’ click.

Anyways, it turned out the shopping had belonged to the gentleman who’d I’d help locate molasses. He’d even left his phone number with the shop dude in case I called. So it was all some mad loop event type thing. When I rang him to apologise he just laughed and said, clearly we are meant to have a cup of coffee together. We arranged a time for him to come collect his stuff and I reassured him that I’d “help” him by eating all the fresh fruit in the bag so that it wasn’t all moldy by the time he came round for coffee. I also told him that I could not guarantee the safety of his chocolate bars, and that they may or may not be eaten by the time he got here.

So it all turned out alright in the end; my husband, son, and I made a new friend in the process, and even got a nice hit of vitamin c from the giant ‘stolen’ pomegranate that we ate.

It didn’t solve my salsa verde problem though, because I still didn’t have tomatillos. All I could think to do was try to make some with green tomatoes instead and hope that the Thugs would approve of my attempted adaptation rather than see it as a bastardization of their original recipe.

I loved cutting the tortillas into pizza wedges, and toasting them in the oven. They came out all crunchy and golden. The tofu was a-crumbling, the veggies were a-sizzeling, and the wannabe “salsa verde” smelled amazing. I felt like I was making a weird frying pan type lasagna as I layered up the various ingredients. This was so different to any recipe that I had ever made before.

And then before I knew it, it was ready! And it was so green and perfect! It was really fast to make, and could have been even faster if I’d made the salsa verde in advance.

We had it for dinner, but it’s technically a breakfast as it’s in the “Carpe Fucking Diem” breakfast section of the TK cookbook. But who doesn’t like breakfast for dinner? Or leftover dinner for breakfast even. I served it with some home-made pineapple salsa and some habanero hot sauce on the side. Yum. (I told you it was a good pineapple)

And I can tell you right now it works really well the next day as lunch leftovers. Both hot or cold. It becomes more ‘lasagna like’ with time. (Not that much time passed before it had been completely devoured)

All in all a total Thug Kitchen success, despite petty theft and tomatillo-aubergine mix up.

But look how far I am willing to go for you guys, and for my desire to try new foods? Turning to crime to provide the ingredients for the blog is a whole new level of dedication(or insanity), even for me.