Cheesy tomato cukes

I’m always amazed when I cook something and it comes out good, and this came out pretty good, so let me quick-bang out the recipe before I forget it.

What you'll need:

• an oven
• a baking pan
• non-stick spray
• 1 adult cucumber
• Flavacol
• 4 slices of cheese
• 1 can of Rotel

① Preheat the oven to 400°. 

② Grease a mid-sized baking pan.

③ Take a full, unpeeled cucumber, and narrow-slice off enough pieces to cover the bottom of the pan. 

④ Lightly sprinkle Flavacol over the slices. Remember, Flavacol is potent, so sprinkle only enough to somewhat slightly change the color of the cuke slices.

⑤ Slice more of the cucumber on top the cucumber you already sliced, and apply Flavacol again, to each layer of cukage. Keep doing this until you run out of cuke slices.

⑥ Unwrap four slices of just plain American cheese, and spread the slices on top of the seasoned cucumbers.

⑦ Open a can of Rotel or generic equivalent, drain the excess liquid down the sink, and pour the tomato chunks all over the cheese. Maybe spread the tomato chunks around.

⑧ Bake the mess for half an hour. By then the cheese slices should look more like cheese than cheese slices, and you should hear a sizzle. 

⑨ Take it out, pour it into a bowl, and eat it.

I brought the Flavacol with me to the recliner, thinking my meal might need another shake or two, but nope, it was delicious.

I’m especially impressed with me because I invented this without a recipe or googling anything. Based on my track record, I wasn’t expecting much, but it's a nice, filling lunch.

Substitutions and chef's advice

My wife would suggest using zucchini instead of cucumbers, and I’m sure she’d be right, but I don’t even know the difference. Do what you gotta do. Cukes are what I keep in the fridge, for salads.

Flavacol is a brand of popcorn seasoning. If you don't have Flavacol, you can certainly make do with salt and pepper and whatever random spices you have handy, but Flavacol is the spice of life.

I use American cheese because I'm an American, dammit, but you can use cheddar, motza, any similar cheese, probably.

Rotel is just diced tomatoes with mild Italian spices mixed in, so you can easily wing it without it.

Cooking time: I am wussy with food that’s too hot, temperature-wise. Half an hour of cooking time got it “just right” in Goldilocks lingo, but if you want your dinner too hot to eat, maybe cook it for 45 minutes instead. 

The stats

Prep time: five minutes
Total time: 30 minutes

Calories: 272 —
oil (?), cuke (30), Flavacol (?), cheese (45x4=180), Rotel (62)

Carbs: 29 —
oil (?), cuke (6), Flavacol (?), cheese (2x4=8), Rotel (15)

Bon appétit, motherfuckers!

11/6/2021

itsdougholland.com 

← PREVIOUS          NEXT →