Weekend regurgitation: Enchiladas and butts. It’s what’s for dinner

Last night we went out as a family to dinner. This means that before we set out, Nate and I went through a half hour chorus of What do you want to eat? I don’t know, what do YOU want to eat? I asked you first. I asked you second. Stop being a smart ass. Should I be a dumb ass instead? Too late.

During dinner, the girls started with giggles and ended with laughter and ran the entire gamut in between, which included nagging, bickering, insulting and one quite impressive verbal smackdown which included such gems as YOU RATHER LARGE, UNFORTUNATE, SMELLY, BUTT-FACED PILE OF POOP.

In other words, we could have stayed home and enjoyed the exact same dining experience at a fraction of the cost. Except no one would have waited on me and where’s the fun in that, I ask you?

I leave you with a post and recipe I wrote last year for enchiladas. And before you even ask … yes, the frequency with which the word “butt” is associated with food related matters on this blog is, to say the least, disconcerting.

Happy Sunday, everyone!

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How about some buttocks for dinner?

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Look what I did! Look what I did!

I cooked something out of nothing!

I can’t believe it.

The last time I cooked something out of nothing was almost nine years ago and the result is currently running around the house annoying the very first thing I cooked out of nothing.

I think I’m going to call this dish Andy’s Rocking Sensational Enchilada Shells or ARSES for short, because the word “arse” means buttocks and the word buttocks has always made me giggle and I think the world would be a much nicer place if people giggled more.

Don’t you?

Anyway, I’m pretty proud of myself because, as I’ve mentioned before, I can rock the heck out of any holiday meal but the heinous, gut-wrenching, loathsome, I’d-rather-chew-off-my-own-eyelids task of weekly dinners? They suck my will to live.

But this time I yanked on my big girl panties and channeled my inner and somewhat less crude Die Hard Bruce Willis and screamed a wicked Yippie Kai Yay Fluffenutter and kicked in the door of my pantry and went to town.

In a figurative sense. Because if it had been in a literal sense, we would have had take-out from Pizza Hut instead and I’d have nothing to blog about today and where’s the fun in that?

Here’s my recipe, in classic Creative Junkie fashion. Oh, and lest you think I’m going to become a *gasp* cooking blog, I just have one word for you:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Here we go:

• 1 box of large shells
• 1 pound hamburger, or, as Helena would say, one pound moo.
• 1 jar salsa, which reminds me … can someone tell Max from Dancing with the Stars to call me already? I’m tired of waiting. Geesh. Men.
• 1 can corn, drained
• 1 can of OH  MY GOD, PEOPLE ACTUALLY EAT THIS? IT LOOKS LIKE A JELLY ROLL OF POOP which, loosely translated, means 1 can of refried beans. UGH.  How people eat this stuff plain is simply beyond me.
• 1 can enchilada sauce
• 8 ounces of shredded taco cheese, or 6 ounces if you’re a dairy whore like me and can’t help gobbling it up once the package is opened.
• 8 ounces of cheddar cheese which should be 8 full ounces because you learned from your mistake with the taco cheese and stapled this package shut until you were ready to use it. Right?

Now here’s what you do with all this stuff:

1. Cook your shells, rinse them under cold water, drain and tell your eight year old to stop asking if she can have gum every two seconds and give you a minute’s worth of peace for the love of God.
2. Brown up your hamburger in a large skillet and drain the fat and tell your arteries YOU’RE WELCOME.
3. To the cooked hamburger, add in the jelly roll of poop, salsa and corn and cook over medium-low heat.
4. Tell your fifteen year old to knock it off already or you will knock it off for her and she’ll never find it again.
5. Add some salt and pepper and cook the meat mixture for about ten minutes over medium-low heat until it’s all blended and has the consistency of … well, you don’t want to know.
6. Tell your eight year old that you are perfectly aware that it looks like BLECH but it won’t taste that way. Hopefully.
7. Say the “hopefully” part under your breath.
8. Take the meat mixture off the heat and then fold in whatever taco cheese is not currently residing in your small intestine. Shout at your kids that if they don’t stop yelling each other to death, you are running away from home and taking the Skinny Cow Truffle Bars with you.
9. Spray a 13 x 9 casserole dish with non-stick spray and say a really bad word when it gets on your hardwoods and turns them into a skating rink.
10. Repeat the word over and over as your back gives birth to a slipped disc because you never did learn how to skate.
11. Take a little of the meat mixture and spread it on the bottom of the casserole dish. It will be lumpy and look like … well, you don’t want to know.
12. Fill each shell with a heaping scoop of the meat mixture. I was able to make 24 shells and still had some meat mixture left over.
13. Smoosh as many shells as you can into the dish and then pour the can of enchilada sauce over them. I only used half of a small can because it smelled funny and I was scared.
14. Tear open the 8 ounces of cheddar and dump it all over the top. See now, aren’t you glad you had the forethought of mind to staple it shut in the first place?
15. Cover with tin foil and cook at 350 for about 30 minutes or until heated all the way through with the cheese melted in such a way as to give you an orgasm.
16. Eat way more than can possibly be good for you.

I’m going into my kitchen now to figure out how I can disguise the leftovers so that I can serve them tonight because Nate believes that leftovers are a plague upon humanity.

Much like my opinion of weekly dinners.

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