Rusty's Armory

The Devil’s inside the can …

Posted on February 1, 2020

One treat I liked as a kid was deviled ham sandwiches. I suspect that it must have been inexpensive since we didn’t by expensive meats back then. But it was salty and hammy, and the little strings of  desiccated ham got caught between your teeth and could only be removed with a toothpick and much sucking of the teeth.  It was wonderful stuff.

But since I got religion, I don’t eat no ham, but I haven’t forgotten the taste. Bacon. Spiral cut, sugar cured ham.  Ham bones in beans.   I do miss it from time to time.  Or I think I do, since I don’t eat it.  So in looking for high protein/low carb snacks, I came across chicken deviled something-the-other.  They said chicken on the can, so I bought a can and hid it in the pantry.  I am surprised Snookums didn’t tell me I had to eat it outside since she keeps a pretty close eye on the larder and it is hard to hide stuff like that from her.  She doesn’t approve this kind of gourmet.  The woman doesn’t know what’s good.

Today I got carried away with breakfast, and served up a working man’s breakfast of runny eggs a-la bell peppers, hash-browns with onions, and turkey sausage links.  It wasn’t bad, but we were still full when dinner rolled around and so a every working-man for himself day was declared.  We do that ever so often when we find a good excuse to not prepare dinner.  I don’t know what the upper limit is on those declarations would be, but we have never reached that high bar in spite of several each month.

So later, I got to thinking about that can in the pantry when my stomach started making suggestions.  Yeah.  That would be a gourmet supper for one!  Spread on saltines paired with Château Diet Squirt, I sat back in my brand new $59 executive chair to enjoy this latest discovery in modern food technology.

Bleah! What some nasty carp that was!  Grainy with some chunks hidden in a porridge looking matrix of mystery food, using the term food in its loosest sense.  But my loyal dining companions ‘Becca da Beagle and her brother Tic were watching, and so I scrapped the grainy goo into their waiting maws until it was all gone. They seemed to like the stuff, but you can never taken my mutts assessment of food seriously.  I have see what they will eat.

I saw an internet meme that went “I was hungry and looked in the cupboard for some food, and there was only ingredients.”.  That’s me.   When I go foraging on an every man for himself day, I want to open something and eat it.   I don’t want to fry, mix, toast, cut, spread or plate anything.  Just eat it.  A spoon or fork is as far as I want to mess with it.

So I have been trying to stock stuff I can just eat, yet will last awhile just sitting in the pantry.  The do make vienna sausages out of chicken that are bad.  

Please stop with the clucking …. some day I’ll sneek a peek into YOUR cupboard … 

They are about two for a dollar, and they kind of work, but I need more variety.  And I have to really watch the label.  My once favorite brand on close examinatons said it also contained pork and other meats beside chicken.

But down here we also get a lot of food from Mexico and I found a brand with just chicken.  I can trust the Mexicans, right?

Yogurt works.  But you have to use it up.   Ice cream bars, but expensive.  String cheese, but not very filling.  Bakery goods give me heartburn so raiding the cookie jar in the evening is out.

I dunno. There has to be something that isn’t loaded with sugar that you can eat without dragging every damned put out of the cupboard just too cook it  …