What is broke ass? I was born poor, I grew up poor, I've been broke ass most of my life. And one thing I can say with confidence... is being broke ass SUCKS. I know what it's like to feel the frustration of trying to live a normal life when your wallet/purse wont allow it. But, I've managed to entertain a very impressive dating life and stay active while working 40-60 hours a week for low wages. I'll show you all kinds of tricks that I picked up along the way.
Enjoy killthecrap.com's "Broke Ass(tm)" section brought to you by me, The Midnight Sun.

06/17/2006

Broke Ass Picnic

Okay, so here I am, it's 8 at night on a Saturday, I'm sitting at home, broke as fuck trying to get ready for a getaway I planned for tomorrow full of jetskis and beaches and sexy women with phat asses.

I'm sitting here, realizing I have no food whatsoever. Now, being the Broke Ass(tm) originator himself, I'm not worried. But one thing I realized... is I'm sure there are a lot of people out there that are worried. So today what we're going to talk about is realizing what your assets really are, and assessing how to use them to do what? That's right, live life to it's fullest, even when you can't afford to.

Okay, so I have no food right? Wrong. I have food... it just doesn't seem like much. My fridge is almost completely empty. So are my cupboards.

If you find yourself in a similar situation; I want you to do a few things before flipping out and robbing Chino... the owner of your local bodega/liquor store/western union.

Step 1: Take a deep breath. It can be very easy to become a big ball of rage where every day is a freakin battle just to make ends meet. But remember, this is simply life. Life is dynamic, and life tends to punish us all equally one way or another. The only difference, is how you handle yourself. So relax.

Step 2: Actually stop and take a look at what you have. Granted, I don't exactly have what it takes to make a PB&J... but that doesn't mean I can't eat something delicious tomorrow at my picnic. In fact.... I think I can make a few things that I'll be looking forward to eating.

Think not? Well, let's see what I have available:

5 Potatoes
6 Cloves of Garlic
1 Loaf of Bread (donated by the woman)
Salt
Pepper
Adoboe All Purpose Seasoning
Parsley
6 Eggs
1/2 Can of Mayonaise
2 cans of tuna
3 strips of bacon
1/4 bottle of Thai Peanut Sauce
1/8 box of rice noodles
Probably 3 tbsp of olive oil
1/3 Bottle of white wine vinegar

Okay... that's pretty much all the food in my house...

deep breath.

Okay, so, what the hell am I going to do with all this crap?

Well... I have garlic, and I have bread... perhaps garlic bread? Nah... no butter... can I substitute with oil? Believe it or not you could... but oil's pretty expensive... I don't really think that's a great idea. Okay, so garlic bread is out. What else do I have? I have eggs, and I have mayo... and I have tuna... so I could make egg salad and tuna salad, and I have bread so I could make sandwhiches out of it. Okay great, so tomorrow I'll have a couple egg salad sandwhiches and a couple tuna sandwhiches... problem solved.

NO damnit. I said living your life to it's FULLEST, not to it's GOOD-ENOUGH-EST. Kill The Crap baby, why? Because you deserve more. You deserve better then a couple of crappy sandwhiches in a little tupperware wannabe picnic basket with some bread and sugar water on the side. You deserve better and if you've survived this long, Damnit you've EARNED better.

Alright, so how do we zest the sssshhhhit out of this picnic?

I'll show you exactly how I did:

First, my dishes: Egg Salad sandwhiches. Tuna Salad Sandwhiches. Thai Noodles. Boiled-baked-then fried seasoned potatoes and roasted garlic, seasoned potatoe salad.

Egg Salad Sandwhiches:
This one's easy-
6 eggs, hard boiled (to hard boil an egg, boil it for about 12 minutes, longer if your stove has a hard time boiling water. Take one egg out, spin it on the counter, if it spins fast without wobbling at all, it's done)
Mayonaise
1 capful of vinegar
Pinch of Salt
Pinch of Pepper

After the eggs have been hard boiled. Put them in a strainer, or pot of cold water and peel the eggs. Some people like to roll the egg first to crack up it's shell and then peel it off. I like this method as well, it's the fastest, it's a little messy, but just rinse the eggs off a little bit to get rid of any shell bits. Discard of the shells.

Cut the eggs in half, holding the tip of each half, squeeze the egg yolks out and set them aside. Take the white parts and chop them up as coursely or as finely as you like.

Add a capful of vineger (I don't know like a teaspoon's worth) and mix in about 3 tablespoons or more if you like of mayo. Finely "dust" the surface of the mixture with salt and pepper. Season as much or as little as you like, but as you season, do it in small incriments. Dust it a little, mix it, taste it, if it needs more, dust it again. The KEY to good cooking, is timing, patience, attention and enjoyment. You need to add ingredients at the right time, remove ingredients from heat at the right time etc. You need the patience to be able to add spices slowly and blend the flavors evenly, you need the attention to detail to be able to tell what flavors belong and what flavors don't. This ability to know what works helps you to get away with things, believe it or not, a dash of lemon pepper could replace the vinegar and salt and pepper so for the most part you can makeshift-gourmet anything.

Here's a tip: Toast some of the bread, but not all. Varying the flavors helps vary what your body "feels" like it ate. So if you have one egg salad on toasted bread, one on plain bread, it feels like you had two different sandwhiches.

Potatoe Salad:

Chop the potatoes in this fashion: Cut the potatoe in half, lay both halves flat, cut three lines down, three lines across. Now you have nine small pieces. Do that to all the potatoes.

Boil the potatoes, I boiled them at the same time that I boiled the eggs, you can do this with certain foods but not others. Anything that doesn't taint the water with it's flavor is fine to mix. Or foods that go well together can boil in the same water. (set aside enough for the boiled, baked then friend potatoes coming up next) Also, in the same water, boil three to five cloves of peeled garlic.

The key to good potatoes for potatoe salad is to test it with a fork. Lay a chunk on a plate and gently but firmly press down with a fork so the potatoe extrudes between the prongs. It should take little effort to cut through the potatoe, but not so little effort that it completely gets pulverized by little effort. It's what we call Aldente` (spelling anyone?) soft but firm.

Heat up a frying pan. Take out your bacon, dice that badboy up as fine as you like. On a medium heat, cook the bacon until it is crispy.

Remove potatoes and garlic, slice the garlic up and mash it a little.

In a bowl, add the potatoes, garlic, about 3 tablespoons (more if you like) of mayo, the bacon, a capful of vinegar for some kick and of course, salt and pepper. Now, while the eggsalad has most of the same ingredients, it won't FEEL like the same meal with just potatoes instead because of the bacon. The bacon will give it a meaty bite, and depending on weather or not the bacon was a smokey flavor, might add some real body to the taste.

These are all little tricks to making a wonderful event out of what could have been the most depressing day of a person's life. There is no such thing as pathetic, only stupid, lol. With the proper amount of thought and creativity, anything is possible.

Hopefully you have some tin foil, if not, a simple baking sheet is fine. Coat the tinfoil/bakepan in oil. Lay the portion of boiled potatoes that you set aside in the foil and lightly season with, pepper, adoboe spice and parsley. Close up the tin foil and bake at about 375 for ten minutes. Then turn off the oven, open the tinfoil and leave it in the disipating heat while you prepare the next dish. After that, toss the whole thing in a frying pan and lightly toast the outside, done.

Next dish: Tuna Salad.

Feel free to get fancy with this, but I chose to just take some tuna from the can and add mayo. I figure with all the fancy seasoning, to then have a simple sandwich adds value to it's simplicity, as opposed to having an entire "simple" meal where it's just one simple thing after another.

Next dish Thai Noodles:
Believe it or not, most "Rich People Food" is actually just poor people food with fancy names. A Lemon Sprizter is freakin lemon water. Sparkling water is seltzer. Thai noodles can be made with ramen noodles, crushed red pepper and peanut butter. Or, since I had some left over rice noodles and peanut sauce, I went ahead and boiled the noddles (rice noodles cook fast, just taste them, take them out once you like the way they taste, or take one out, let it cool for 30 seconds and toss it at the wall, lol, if it sticks without splattering. It's done. If it splatters, it's overcooked, so keep an eye on your timing.) Add in about two tablespoons to every handful of noodles and you'll get a nice mix of flavor without being too overpowering.

What about transport?
Awwww, crap, you want tupperware now too? Hell no, not in this house anyway, a little tinfoil and a bunch of plastic cups (tightly sealing off the cups with tinfoil, that new press n seal stuff is awesome if you can afford it. You get sandwhich baggies, saran wrap and plastic lids all out of the same material) makes dividing servings easier, allows you to walk and eat easier and to pour the ingredients onto bread easier. So in the end, it's broke ass but more effective. Bring some paper plates if you can, that way you don't have to worry about breaking your good plates. Napkins/paper towels and some ice and water will top off an excellent picnic that started out looking like crap.

Now you know why this site is called KILL THE CRAP dot com.