macstack

I'm a sucker for old weird recipes, and I like bringing them to work pot lucks to inflict on my coworkers (I don't bring things that are inedible, just weird post-war crimes, I always eat a piece myself).

For the 2024 potluck, I fixed up the Super Supper Salad Loaf:

A bologna chub is prohibitively expensive in these times where hipsters love trash food, so I elected to go for it with a couple Spam loaves.

The filling is mashed peas, minced onions, mayonnaise, salt, and pepper, with gelatin.

Then you chill it for the gelatin to set, carve some radish roses, and glue those together with mayonnaise on top and to the side of your loaf.

Taste notes on the Loaf: It's basically a spam sandwich without bread. Not great, not terrible. Glad I didn't use miracle whip.

In Albuquerque, if you go down to Yale, pretty close to UNM, there’s this little place called “La Urraca”. They have Colombian food. The chipotle chicken arepa plate is really good. I recommend it if you haven’t been there.

For 2025 pot luck season, I started working with a recipe for Tuna Mousse. Essentially, the recipe is "take a nice tuna salad, and then put it in the food processor with some gelatin". I had hoped to put it into a one-time-use mold that was shaped like a moose, but alas, my 3D print failed, and I was out of time to recover. My tuna salad has tuna, mayonnaise, celery, capers, onions, relish, and pepper. Nothing too outlandish.

So I thought for a bit, and decided: it will be a pie.

I took some stale doritos, powdered them in the blender, and then added butter to make a TACO BELL DORITOS LOCOS pie crust.

Then I poured the processed tuna salad in (we added red food coloring, because it was kind of a sickly gray, and Luca insisted).

We let it set up in the fridge overnight.

I had a slice at the potluck, and so did a few other people. You wouldn't believe how much of a good tuna salad is in the texture. Anyway, I won't be making this one again, it was fine, and the dorito crust did add to it overall, but still, the lack of texture was a deal-breaker.

The only time I felt bad was when this woman took a big old slice, apparently thinking it was strawberry rhubarb or something, and took a great big bite, and got a horrible "do not want" look. I didn't feel bad enough to warn her, but I did feel bad.

Went full freakin' vegan tonight: tofu tikka masala.

Delicious.