I like the cheap chorizo, both pork and beef derived – the kind with lymph and salivary glands on the list of ingredients, that comes packaged in thin plastic so it looks like a big bloody turd before you cook it, and fries down to a sort of gritty meat pudding awash in reddish orange grease you have to drain off before you serve up.
Don’t decry it before you try it. The stuff is flat-out spicy and delicious, and makes a profoundly satisfying meal when spooned onto tortillas and splashed with green tomatillo salsa.
Re: baloney, nope, maybe I was from West Va in a previous life or something but this time around, I’m from Illinois.
A weird thing we used to eat: fried cereal. Melt some margarine (butter? What do you think we are, the Rockefellers?) in a skillet. Add chex or cheerios, cook till hot. The best: wheat chex.
Chorizo is highly tasty and make a wicked ingredient in omelettes.
After reading this thread I am going to have to go to the store tonight and purchase some Potato Buds and Niblet Corn. YUM!! Cheap and delish when you mix them together with copious amounts of butter.
I long for Hamburger Helper, my husband has forbidden it in our house. I’ll have to just make some up to bring for lunches at work. My favorite is the Stroganoff flavor.
The other “low brow” food that I enjoy is generic or store brand “Cheez Doodles”. I can eat a whole bag without thinking about it. Also, somehow they taste even better if they are just a bit stale.
I was weaned on that stuff, except we never toasted the bread. We called it “chipped beef gravy.” Yes, it was white bread…is there any other kind of bread?
There was a bit on TV about some restaurant that opened serving nothing but this kind of stuff. Mac and cheese, beefaroni, PBJ sandwiches, side of Cheetohs, whatever you snarfed in your childhood you could find there. I imagine it was frequented by people who stopped in after their adult kickball league etc.
Kraft Mac and Cheese
Hormel beanless chili scooped up with corn chips
Rice with butter, salt and pepper (I’ve graduated from white rice to basmati, though)
Arby’s, once every five years or so
Oh man… those things are great, dog-food like meat included!
God forgive me, but I dig on McDonald’s 99 cent double cheeseburgers. On occasion, I’ve also been known to eat a filet-o-fish and make sloppy joes.
One of my favorite, yet totally low-end things is one of those 50 cent burritos (bean & cheese, beef & bean, etc…) deep fried, and covered in wolf brand chili and shredded cheese or cheez whiz.
Basically you take a biscuit, stick it in a deep fryer for a coupla minutes, and then smother it in a layer of gooey glaze. Denser than a shot put and probably has enough calories to fuel a small plane engine. But god a’mighty, they are yummy. I’m surprised my sister and I managed to escape morbid obesity after eating those things in our youth.
Oh, and for some really old-fashioned low-end food, I regularly make pinto beans and cornbread. Top it all off with a little chow-chow (hillbilly salsa, for those who don’t know), and that’s good eating.
Oh, gods, yes! It’s like falling off the wagon – one is too many and a dozen aren’t enough. I stand there, a coupla times a year, shameful but defiant, ordering “six crappy tacos an’ a small coke to go.” Takes me all day to eat all 12 (they come in sets of two), and I’m fine for a little while . . .
Come to think of it, I’m a trash-food junkie, complete with cravings and sneaking a “hit.” Fried boloney, blue box mac & cheese, tuna casserole with canned C of Shroom soup, corn dogs, and even worse <pause for gasps of horror> Wyoming Tacos (you don’t want to know) and fried hamburger patties smothered in Campbells golden mushroom soup.
Heck, Pansy, I can mail you some if you like–it’s not like several days in an envelope is likely to change them substantially…
Yeah, I get the jones for them Gag in the Bag nasty fuckers too. Also Taco Hell, but for me it’s the Cheesy Gordita Crunch with the spooge inside and that crappy Fire sauce all over them. Sheesh, I’m such a whore I make them give me extra Fire sauce I stash in a drawer to put over my nachos and suchlike–they must be putting crack in those packets, I swear.
I have a regular need to consume large portions of fried chicken from Albertson’s and jojo potatoes drenched in ranch dressing. How is it that supermarkets have totally nailed the perfect fried chicken formula?
Little Debbie Pecan Spinwheels. Kill me now.
Burgers really require pasteurized processed American cheese. At any given time I likely have sharp white and yellow cheddar, pepper jack, asiago, chipotle cheddar and any of a bazillion wonderful cheeses du jour–but if it’s a burger it needs sleazy “cheeze” or it’s just not right. Along with diced jalapenos and caramelized onions, but that’s beside the point. I draw the line at Velveeta, however, which is fish bait.
Jalapeno poppers are the Devil’s testicles but I cannot resist them, especially when purchased from a vaguely unclean hot food case in a non-chain gas station. Shoot, there’s a whole subsection of hot case “road food” that probably takes IQ points away every time I eat it. Lucky for me I can spare it…
hangs head me too. It’s my defaultalways-have-a-gallon-in-the-fridge dinner wine. I do like other wines, mind you, but a good $7 jug o white zin is just special in its own way.
Another vote for Kraft Mac and Cheese and also Taco Bell.
Also corn muffins from the cheap mix. (Jiffy was my favorite as a kid, but they use lard and I’m a vegetarian now so I have to go with the slightly higher end Betty Crocker). I like it so much more than corn bread from scratch, which I really don’t care for much at all, in fact. The fake from-a-cheap-mix stuff though? I could eat it all day.
I also love frozen waffles. Even store brand. I eat them straight out of the toaster. No butter, no syrup. I actually think they’re a little gross with syrup or butter on them. But plain? I could eat a whole box.
What’s supposed to be the matter with white zin? kaylasmom and I both enjoy a glass of wine that’s sweet without being syrupy, and white zinfandel fills that order nicely.
Oh yeah, those are good but it has to be the cheesy tasting kind, not the sweetish “party spread” kind. I forget the brand name but they have the right stuff at Winn Dixie.
Do yourself a favor and make your own. It’s very easy, and oh so good.
And, Kolga, if you haven’t tried Arby’s jalapeno poppers, you should. They are very, very good. I’m sad that the Arby’s near my house has closed.
RR
