Halloween Recipes - Creepy Kool

 Gory Halloween warning! It's time to get squeamish with the Ghoulish Gourmet's creepy imagery of raw meat and viscera. I'm about to get medieval for Halloween and the following Dia del los Muertos, or Day of the Dead.

This Sinister Cheap$kate's ghastly recipes are laid out like a bloody scene from a Stephen King and Edgar Allen Poe story. Once you've digested this macabre blog post, your taste buds may nevermore be the same.

And if you're a vegetarian, avert your gaze! Or peak through hand-covered eyes to read my queasy prose. I'm sure to be on Morrissey's #hit list if he ever sees this - he's pop music's most morose vegan. (And I'm a big fan of his songs with The Smiths.)

Some of my most spooky recipes may make your skin crawl, while others will have your taste buds baying at the moon with pleasure, mouthful after mouthful.

Witches Brew - a bubbling cauldron of Pozole.

So read on, and don't forget to click on any recipe name that will bring you kicking and screaming to my original blog post to see all the hair-raising details -- presented with gory gifs, bloodcurdling photos, grisly videos, and eerie text.

Right off the bat, I like my Chupacabra Carne Asada steak and hamburgers medium-rare. Oozing is fine by me - E. coli be damned!

Grilling meat supercharges the flavor and brings out the knuckle-dragging Neanderthal in this Paleo Chef.

The Terminator T-bone

Raw bloody carcasses of meat have been disturbingly depicted in fine art. Rembrandt van Rijn is primarily known as a Dutch painter of moody portraits during the 17th Century, and I am especially influenced by his "Carcass of Beef" (flayed ox) study - just check out the audacious composition with gory details.

And here's the British artist Francis Bacon's 20th Century version, below.

The Chiaroscuro Chef photographs flesh against dark backgrounds lately (shot on a blackened cookie sheet) - usually lit from a single direction, with deep shadows, very much inspired by Caravaggio. An artfully dark and forbidding example is my recipe for Pasta alla Genovese, where I slice and dice cheap beef shank, slaughterous enough to make a zombie weep.

Offal is not so awful to this Carrion Chef. After watching a classic horror flick on the big screen, I cruise LA's fog-shrouded boulevards and alleyways during the midnight hour looking for ways to quell my ravenous appetites...for tacos, that is! 

Buche (stomach,) lengua (tongue,) and tripas (intestines) are on the menu at sidewalk taquerias and taco trucks throughout Los Angeles. Watch the shuddersome viscera-splattered video below to see what stops me in my tracks.

On a sweeter note, while not meat, the gooey insides of a Halloween special edition Oreo cookie are like sweetened bone marrow. You don't smash it to get to the finger-licking orange frosting, a simple twist will do.

Get your hands dirty knawing on my Rosemary's Baby Back Ribs. You'll need extra napkins to soak up the BBQ sauce smeared on your lips and dripping from your fingertips.



My Silence of the Lambs Curry is creepy-delicious. And my video cooking directions are as easy to follow as leading a lamb to the slaughter.



It can get messy cooking with meat. You have to have an iron stomach. Try breaking down a pork shoulder sometimes, like I do below for my ghastly Texas Chainsaw Carnitas video recipe.

It's probably the most artistically nauseating footage I've ever shot - but, boy does it taste heavenly when you cradle a stuffed tortilla, plump with citrus and cola-marinated, slow-cooked pork.



Ground chicken and turkey are mushy and wet, more so than ground beef or pork...ugh.

Check out my ground poultry The Blob Patty Melt video to see what I mean -- yuk!



After chicken, pork is the cheapest flesh. When hacked, mangled, and minced into sausage, it's delicious for breakfast or added to stir fry like my Garroted Green Beans and Gruesome Ground Pork recipe below.

This may sound perverse but it's actually fun to animate with ground meat, it's like playing with Play-Doh, just greasier. Check out my video below to see the messiness.



Are you still with me? Man, are you hardcore! I'm getting extra creeped out just assembling this blog post.

Ever gut a fish? Whoa, that is one freaky task! Slice the belly open, yank out the internal organs then chop off the head -- oh, I'm feeling faint just remembering the slimy viscera and the nauseating smell - barf !!

If you want to scare the bejesus out of your dining guest, then serve them a Jaws Whole Grilled Fish - head on!

This tin-framed, bloody-looking slaughter scene comprised of tomato-sauced fat fingers of sardines is one of my most visited food blog posts. And the morbid visitors are mostly from Europe (Transylvania?) - go figure. My pasta dish, Suspiria Sardines in Tomato Sauce with Olive Oil over Pasta, is a delicious mouthful worth sinking your incisors into.

Sushi is typically made with freshly butchered raw fish. It's so artfully presented that you miss the gore that goes into each delicate slice of aquatic flesh.

Here's one of my tastefully shot Sushi recipe videos, the simply presented, Mothra Tuna Sushi.



Shrimp would not seem spooky, right? But, buy head-on jumbo shrimp and try beheading, peeling, and removing the digestive tract/backbone sometimes...yuck! But, man are they delicious when my Mom serves them up in her Stephen King Shrimp & Rice recipe.

Halloween has a dark streak of humor and some of my recipes do, too. Take my wacky Orange Trump Chicken Nightmare on K Street....please. It's the color and shape of a pumpkin and looks like a McDonald's Chicken McNugget, just like our former Twit-in-Chief, but my entree is made with real chicken pieces, not a pink slime meat composite.

How about a recipe where a slice of Bride of Frankenstein Turkey Bacon swallows up a Brussels sprout like a disembodied human tongue...yikes!

I like to cook a whole chicken or leg quarters. There's nothing like the carnal pleasure of ripping apart a cooked poultry carcass and sucking every piece of succulent meat off the bones. My Tingler Chicken Tinga and Paranormal Poached Chicken are some saporous examples.

 Below is the Eviscerating Cuisinier's squishy butchering of a chicken breast and leg quarter. It's the cheapest flesh you can get and I have all kinds of poultry recipes, here.

So get out there and have an entertaining Halloween holiday. It's not all blood and guts! So, I'll leave you with an appallingly tasty ghost story.

Fried Baloney Sandwich

 I've been returning to childhood recipes lately to see if they hold up. And you can't get much more of a flashback sandwich than a Fried Baloney Sandwich.

It's been years since I've dined on Baloney. I remember having it fried then slipped between slices of white bread, with a smear of mayo. These days I like mustard on most of my sandwiches.

Back in the day, almost every household packed them for a school lunch at least once or twice a week. And they were our goto sandwich for a quickie bite on the weekend, after terrorizing the neighborhood (okay, maybe just making a lot of noise with our next-door friends.) It was quick and easy to fix by our haggard mom and dad.

Well, how does it hold up today for this senior citizen? Damn well, thank you. Plus these days you can get almost healthy Baloney with reduced salt, and nitrates and made with low-fat Turkey. Normally, Baloney is made with beef or pork, or a combination of the two. I made my Fried Baloney Sandwich with Turkey Bologna.

Turkey Baloney tastes just like beef (or a beef/pork mix) Baloney. But you do need a little oil in the frying pan as there is less fat in the poultry meat mix. It will stick to the pan without oil. You can use a non-stick pan to leave out oil.

Baloney comes in thick or regular sliced (thin). Of course, you get more slices in packages of regular sliced.  

One peculiar effect of frying Baloney is that the meat bubbles up like an inflated balloon. I now remember how we made 2 or 4 slices from the outer edge to about halfway to the center of the Baloney slice to keep it from bubbling up. 

You want the frying Baloney to brown on the total surface for that extra intense fried flavor. For my version of Fried Baloney, I make an "X" slice in the middle of the Baloney and then press the bubble down, this way the round shape of the Baloney remains.

Since store-bought Baloney is cooked, all you are doing is heating it up for a minute or two. 

Baloney's origins start with Mortadella from Italy. There is a city in Italy called Bologna. Original recipe variations for Bologna go back to Roman times with cured sausage first spiced with myrtle berries. That flavor profile still prevails today. 

Many countries have their own version of Bologna. Modern American Bologna is thought to have started with German immigrants early last century.

In Italy, Bologna is called Mortadella. American Bologna has a similar texture. The main difference is Mortadella has white fat pieces embedded into a slice, while in modern Bologna the fat is reduced and mixed into emulsified meat - it's uniform in color and texture.

Any way you slice it, my Fried Baloney Sandwich may bring memories of schoolyard lunches - for the good or bad?

Fried Baloney Sandwich - Video   Play it here, the video runs 1 minute, 54 seconds.

My YouTube video link for viewing or embedding, just click here. 

Ingredients

• 1 or 2 slices of Baloney. I fry the baloney. Use any type of baloney or bologna.
• 2 slices of Bread - any favorite bread.
• Mustard - I smear mustard on a slice of bread and the fried Baloney.
• 1 teaspoon Oil - for frying Baloney. Baloney may stick to a non-greased pan. 

Directions

There's nothing much to this recipe. 

Lightly oil a frying pan or grill. Over medium heat fry baloney until lightly browned. It will take a minute or two on each side of the Baloney.

Assemble the Fried Baloney Sandwich any way you like. I add mustard to a slice of bread and on the fried Baloney. Okay to use any favorite condiments like ketchup and mayo.

Sliced lettuce, tomato, and pickle are extra sandwich toppings.

Witches Brew Coffee

The Sinister Chef is cursed to be a cheap$kate. But you can benefit by checking out this food blog and my Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube accounts. The moldy Chef model was broken when I started making my food videos over a dozen years ago. 

So keep checking back for a cauldron full of tasty treats. Don't burn me at the stake for my budget ingredients because one day you or someone you know, who's hit hard times, may need my price-slashing cooking tips to save a few bucks. 

So allow me to put a spell on you in a tasty way to keep visiting here this month...and beyond!

                                Play it here, video runs 1 minute, 53 seconds.

To link or play on YouTube, click here.

National Pasta Day Recipes

 National Pasta Day - what's not to like? I probably have the most food recipes involving pasta. Just type and enter the word pasta into my blog search window to see them.

I'll save you some search time and highlight some of my most delicious ones below. And click on any recipe name to see the original blog post with tasty text and yummy photo illustrations.

Dried Pasta is still cheap. I find it in my local 99c only Stores and Dollar Trees.

SpaghettOs are still around since when I ate a can or two in my high school daze.

You should have a pasta sauce to start with. My homemade version is quick and easy to do.

My Tomato Marinara Sauce is a click away, here. Check out the video.

I like recipes that you can devour a few ways. My Lighter than Air Meatballs fit the bill. I usually have the Meatballs in tomato sauce over Pasta. 

You can also make a fat Meatball Sandwich. My Meatballs have a lot of veggies that make them lighter than the average Meatball. I like the addition of spinach and mushrooms in my Meatballs. It's okay to leave out some veggie ingredients for a more solid Meatball. Check out my video below.

For the simplest Pasta recipe, how about canned Sardines in Tomato Sauce? It's ready to go once you've cooked some spaghetti. 

Open a can of Sardines in Tomato Sauce, heat for a minute then top the spaghetti with fish fillets and tomato sauce, it could be easier and quicker to do.

One of my first recipes on this blog was canned Baby Clams with Spaghetti.

I sometimes find baby clams, but small cans of chopped clams show up quite often and cheaply.

I can still find small packs of cooked salmon and I have mint in my small garden, so combine the two and add peas for my Peas, Mint & Salmon with Pasta.

The other main sauce for Pasta is made with cream. I like sauteed Mushrooms with Cream and Pasta. 

Another creamy dish is my Ham, Peas, & Cream with Pasta.

My favorite cream Pasta meal is a ripoff recipe called Olive Garden Fettucini Alfredo. 

It's just pasta, cream, and parmesan cheese. Okay to add a little protein and a favorite veggie.

One of my earliest stop-motion videos is Baked Pasta with Cauliflower & Cheese. It's basically a Mac & Cheese with cauliflower. Cauliflower and cheese are a tasty combination.

Let's go from heavy to light. Saute some kale in a little olive oil then add garlic and you have a veggie Pasta. Click on my Pasta with Kale, and Pasta with Brussels Sprouts, here.

You can't get much leaner than my Veggie Pasta Salad. Steam your fave veggies and mix in a light salad dressing to add to cooked pasta. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

I also like frozen, canned, or jars of veggies to add to a Pasta salad like my Peas, Artichoke Hearts, Broccoli & Wheat Pasta recipe.

My nephew Zak has a filling Cajun-style Tuscan Primavera Pasta. 

I always have a fun time when I cook with my family.

Zak's Tuscan Primavera Pasta uses pine nuts. I find them quite expensive. A cheap substitution is bags of nuts I get from Dollar Stores. The amounts are enough for a serving or two. If they are salted it's easy enough to shake the salt off or even rinse the nuts. When you saute them they will dry out. 

Try my Pasta with Garlic and Cashews...or Almonds, or Peanuts, or Walnuts - you get the idea.

You can combine almost any protein to pasta. Chicken is still cheap so try my Chicken & Lemon Cream with Pasta. 

Sometimes, I like ground poultry instead of beef as it's now often cheaper. Everyone likes Baked Lasagna, just add Ground Chicken.

Salami or Pepperoni anchor a pungent pasta sauce. All you are doing is heating up the meat with a little onion and garlic then adding pasta. Click here to read all about it.

A delicious slow-cooking pasta sauce is made with the cheapest cut of beef I can find called beef shank. It has a bone with marrow, so this is an extra-rich meaty sauce. 

The other main ingredients are half a dozen sliced cheap onions. Do try out Pasta alla Genovese. 

I'll end with my most outré entree, a Spaghetti alla Carbonara with Bacon Bits. 

No self-respecting chef would ever use Bacon Bits instead of Panchetta. 

Well, I'm a bottom feeder and proud of it. If you don't want to use Bacon Bits then fry up a couple slices of Bacon and it's still a cheap dish.