By Ola Mazzuca; Photography by Frank Mazzuca
In this entry of Blasphemous Meals, I cover three recipes from the Hellbent For Cooking book (Bazillion Points) that should not be considered junk food, but fun food that accomodates chill evenings or badass gatherings.
Pair wisely with an imported beer or exquisite wine.
Cheers/Salute!
Welfare Nachos
By Jason Decay of Cauldron/Goat Horn
Decay’s spin-off of the menu fave from Toronto Mexican resto and music venue, Sneaky Dee’s, is a real treat for any movie night or lazy day.
After a long shift at work, I arrived home to prepare the nachos. I used multigrain tortilla chips with a ton of refried beans, cheese, jalapeno peppers, tomatoes and onions. The dish is quite colourful and pairs great with an ice cold Heineken or Brio, for those who don’t drink.
The fried egg was an added twist… that I removed shortly after the photo.
A great pairing to this dish is Cauldron’s track, “Making Noise and Drinking Beer.”
Infernal Swiss Alps Macaroni and Cheese
By Brogi of Messiah
When it’s raining out and you’re craving something hearty, mac and cheese is the way to go. The Swiss death/thrash guitarist’s take on the classic goes above and beyond gourmet standards with its marriage of sweet and savory.
This mac and cheese begins with caramelized onions atop elbow pasta in a parmesan-light cream embrace with diced potatoes and pieces of bacon. A side of applesauce brings out a pinch of black pepper and nutmeg for a pleasantly distorted finish.
The result is colossal decadence – like the riffs of Brogi – wishing you were eating this meal in a log cabin surrounded by snow-capped mountains.
Soul Brownies
By Scott ‘Wino’ Weinrich of St. Vitus/Shrinebuilder/Wino
“Cue “Pyramid of the Moon”. Turn the nob to 11.
Open that pack of Duncan Hines $2 brownie mix.
Reach into your jacket pocket for that bag of weed.
Wait…WTF…. Where’s my grass?!”
Well, let’s just put it this way. There was no grass to begin with! And even though I can count a handful of names that could lend me some, I don’t smoke the sweet leaf.
In order to follow through with Wino’s chocolate-induced high; I substituted the recipe’s star ingredient of medicinal cannabis for hemp seed and pistachios (the greenest nut I could find!).
Hemp seed’s mother is the Cannabis Sativa, a plant very environmentally friendly that requires few pesticides when not grown industrially. It can be eaten raw, sprouted, made into milk or prepared as tea. The grainy seed has healthy edible oils that contain 80% essential fatty acids, found in fish and peanut butter. Hemp carries an abundance of health benefits, as it is high in fiber, antioxidants, chlorophyll, calcium and iron.
Hemp seed can be purchased in bulk and found in a variety of health food stores.
So maybe these brownies don’t cause you to veg out for hours on end, listening to doom, but one bite will send you into space for sure.
