Karma Cuisine OR "I'm sorry am I to understand there will be no side dishes?"

So I got crazy in the kitchen today. I was supposed to go to a movie with some people and we were going to have a potluck on the lawn whilst watching the holy grail. (As in Python not Indiana Jones) But alas the Yeti cancelled and it dominoed from there to moi. So I went home instead and poked around the kitchen for dinner. When I was a little kid and the food drive came up at school, I'm afraid I was not the best child in the pack for donating food. I can't count the number of times I brought in refried beans and mandarin oranges. Maybe a tomato soup. It's bad you know. I always wondered looking in at all those cans of sweet mandarin oranges and various flavors of pinto beans how these poor people were supposed to actually eat this shit. I mean it was the stuff my parents didn't want or had canned. I mean really.

So tonight I embarked on a culinary adventure. Yes the challenge was to cook dinner with no cholesterol out of my somewhat (now even more) bare cabinets.

What did J.R. come up with? Oh my it was bad. Yes it was. I had garbonzo beans and saffron rice left over from something or other. I also had some tomato and green chili something or other from another occasion. So... I made the rice. Yes that went fine even without the ole rice cooker. I got the tomato goo hot and drained the garbonzo beans (not stupid) and added those. I also added some benign sauces from the fridge to try and cut the spice on the "oh shit I thought those were mild chilies god dammmit" sauce. That worked ok. I mean it wasn't too super nasty hot. Just more of a you're not going to have any allergy problems tonight because you will have nothing left in the sinus region of your head kinda thing. So I poured that over the rice. Looked good. Smelled pretty good. I was excited and I even had grand plans for lunch tomorrow.

Did it eat good? um no.

I can't begin to explain how bad it was. I sucked it up and ate some of it. I then set a goal for 1/2 of it. I mean I'm full now so I gave it a good try. I ate enough and my brain went, "Hello stomach yes this is brain. We spoke to the tongue and it's wanting you to play full so it doesn't have to deal with any more of this shit and the kid will swallow some pride and throw it away." Apparently pride is on the filling side because I swallowed and had the garbage disposal (aptly named as what I fed it was in fact garbage.) deal with it.

So next time I go to donate food to a canned goods drive. I'm gonna give up those garbonzo beans and see what the fuck they can do with them. OK no I won't I'm going to designate the Hope Link as my charity this year for the giving thingy they do at work. They have a great food bank that I imagine has real food.

For now I'm going to go try and make some type of desert out of a can of Mandarin Oranges and a 2 year old thing of rediwhip. Wish me luck!