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Sunday DrunKitchen: Child's comestible

So there's that dude, used to be an Iron Chef, I think, that does YouTube videos about making cool, tasty food out of fast food and shit like that. A few weeks ago, I was bumbling through the grocery store and had the thought: "What if I tired to make cool, tasty food out of a tv dinner?"

So I went over to the freezer section and found all sorts of options that...really didn't look that bad. So then I thought, "Are Kid Cuisines still a thing?" Turns out they are, and I decided to do something fun with with the all star nuggets with mac and "cheese," corn, and the brownie.

Of course, when you open it up, it looks a bit different. Everything was frozen and looked...odd. 

So I tossed it in the microwave for a minute to at least melt it down some and came up with a plan: I would remove the breading from the nuggets. The nuggets would be cubed and mixed into the mac and cheese with some seasoning. The nugget breading would be crisped up in the oven, then broken into crumbs to top the macaroni and chicken, which I'd then bake. I'd make a puree from the corn for a little decoration, and I'd make a mousse out of the brownie and top it with the sprinkles.

So taking off the breading wasn't too bad. I poured a little extra virgin olive oil into a bowl, dumped the breading in, and got the bread all coated up. I spread it all out on a cookie sheet and seasoned it with some salt and pepper, then broiled it on high to get it all crispy. I picked out the brownest ones and chopped them up. So far so good.

While the breading was broiling, I buttered up in the inside of a ramekin for the mac and cheese and scooped it all in. I also chopped up the chicken and mixed it in with some salt, pepper, herbes de provence, and paprika, then I topped it all off with a little grated parmesan because why not have more cheese?

Once I had my breading, I topped the ramekin of macaroni with it, dropped a little butter on top, and baked it at 350 for a little while, then broiled it for a minute to get the top all crusted up. What, you expected cook times? Bitch, I'm drunk.

While the mac was cooking, I dumped the still pretty frozen corn into my food processor. I ran that for a bit to get the corn all fucked up, then decided I needed to put something else in if I wanted to make a proper puree, so I poured in some extra virgin olive oil and some fresh chopped parsley, and I let that run for a while. After tasting, I added a little salt and a couple small crushed garlic cloves for some extra punch and let that all run for a minute; I miiiiight have added a teaspoon or two of butter, too? I don't really remember. Anyway, it ended up not being quite as smooth as I would have liked, but tasted fucking heavenly, so I went with it.

Oh, yeah, did I mention I have no idea how to make a mousse? I kept trying to read recipes, but after reading about how the writer "had the most delectable mousse on a trip to the vineyard" or some bullshit like that, I eventually got tired and tried to find another. Anyway, the only thing I really learned was that mousse requires cream, sugar, egg, and flavoring, so I dumped some sugar, egg, cream, and the brownie gloop into a bowl and whisked it a lot. Nothing happened. So I added another egg and whisked. Nothing happened. So I added a little flour and whisked, then I added some butter and whisked, then I said "fuck, this is boring," so I poured it into my other ramekin and baked it at 350 until it looked about finished because fuck it. It looked pretty gnarly, so I chopped off the muffin top and called it a cookie. The rest looked like dookie in a cup. It was not a visually attractive item.

So for plating, I put a spatula against the top of the macaroni ramekin and flipped it over to drop the mac out, then I flipped it back over onto the plate, and it miraculously didn't splat everywhere. Score one for ODG. I used the corn and parsley puree to try to write a "K" on top (for Kid Cuisine because ha ha clever), then I dropped a little more on the plate, too, because it tasted so fucking good.

As for the fudge brownie mousse cookie, I put it on the other side of the plate, then I crushed up the sprinkles and sifted them on top of it, which honestly worked better than I expected.

Surprisingly, the cookieish wasn't too sweet (it actually could have been sweeter...), and the texture was fairly moussey with a slight crunch. The chicken mac was pretty fucking good, though. Wasn't the most appetizing thing to look at, but the aroma and flavor were pretty damn good. Also, mixing some of that puree into it kicked it up another level. I may try to just make something like that from scratch sometime.

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