Dying a Hash related death...

[side_show]

So, for this Christmas, since my SO constantly talked about his grandmother's recipe for Heavenly Hash and how he craved it and missed it so, I decided to give him the gift of getting the recipe from his grandma and making it.  So that is what I did.  When I asked her about it, the SO's mother overheard me and grandma talking and said "Oh, you mean cholesterol on a plate?"  So his grandma gave me the recipe, and being the city-fied girl that I am, I knew nothing of Hash except of the brick of pot type thing, and I was pretty sure that's not a dish that grandmas traditionally serve.  So I took down the recipe without really thinking much about it, picked up the few things we didn't already have.  It was only until I set out to make it last night that I really realized how horrifically unhealthy it was.  I mean... It's so bad for you.  As I was making it, I was thinking, "Oh, no, this will be our downfall!"  You can tell the boy comes from old farm stock when a family recipe like this is passed down through the generations. 

So, since 'tis the season for eating badly, please share with class the most unhealthy things you've ever prepaired/eaten.  For me, it had to be the hash.  Here it is:

Heavenly Hash:

1 1/4 pound ground beef
5 strips of bacon
1 large cooking onion - chopped
1 cup celery - chopped
1 tsp salt
1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 can condensed tomato soup
3/4 cup Velveeta cheese
2 cups cooked macaroni
1/2 Tblsp butter

Set element to medium heat, melt butter in skillet.  Cook bacon and onion until bacon crumbles.  Add beef, salt and celery (that's right, don't drain the grease from the bacon - you're going to cook everything in the grease from the bacon).  Cook until meat is fully browned. Add cheese, lower temp, allow cheese to melt, mix cheese into the meat, add the noodles and cans of soup, mix until fully combined.  Pour Hash into casserole, and cook uncovered in oven at 350 degrees.  Serve. 

I think I actually felt my chest tighten as I ate it, but it was damn tasty.  It's very unlike my cooking, as there is really no seasoning added, but I guess, really, with all the bacon, and the bacon grease flavoring all the other ingredients, there is no need for any other seasonings.

[pmcd9]

Celery, tomatos, onions, that sounds like a very healthy dish to me.  Hm, the heavenly hash diet.  Lose 10 pounds, ask me how.

~Paul

[V-Adore]

My personal favorite Totally Unhealthy Food is "steak fingers," which appear to be everywhere in the South. They're chicken fingers... except made of chicken-fried steak. With white gravy on the side.

I think they've singlehandedly lowered my life expectancy by five years. Mmmmm.

[jough]

Man, I put on two pounds just reading that recipe.

[AlohaDawg]

My personal favorite Totally Unhealthy Food is "steak fingers," which appear to be everywhere in the South. They're chicken fingers... except made of chicken-fried steak. With white gravy on the side.

I think they've singlehandedly lowered my life expectancy by five years. Mmmmm.

Burger King has these disturbing-looking 'chicken fries' right now - is that like what you are talking about?

[V-Adore]

Burger King has these disturbing-looking 'chicken fries' right now - is that like what you are talking about?

Nah, these are... well... egregiously Southern. There's no actual chicken involvement, just... battered, deep-fried steak in "finger" form. With gravy. I cannot stress the gravy portion of the experience enough.

[jough]

Oh man, I'll bet it's that greazy white southern gravy, too, like they put on chicken fried steak?  That sounds like it would be awesome in fry form.  But how does the gravy come?  In little cold sauce packets?  I mean, is this drive-thru fare or what?  The whole point of the "____ finger" is for portable dining.  Without the need for portability there's no point in making something in stick form.

[Choop]

My personal favorite Totally Unhealthy Food is "steak fingers," which appear to be everywhere in the South. They're chicken fingers... except made of chicken-fried steak. With white gravy on the side.

Sounds like a cup-o-gravy to me. Which ain't nearly enough.

[pmcd9]

Oh man, I'll bet it's that greazy white southern gravy, too, like they put on chicken fried steak?

Yeah, that's it.  It's a Chicken Fried Steak in a "Finger" form.

~Paul

[V-Adore]

Yeah, that's it.  It's a Chicken Fried Steak in a "Finger" form.

~Paul

Yep. And the gravy comes in one of those little Styrofoam cups they use for salad dressing "on the side," except bigger.

Seriously, I'm not sure if you could get less healthy if you just ate solid lard.

[side_show]

Wow, deep fried steak.  That is awesome.  The last time I made steak, which was in fact not very long ago, I remember thinking, "Hey, I should totally cut and deep fry steak - I'm sure some crazy people would eat it!" and then I thought that someone probably already tried that by now, that it was only really a hop-skip-and-jump away from chicken fried steak, and sure enough, it has been done. 

It's gross to me.  Especially with the idea of a Styrofoam cup of gravy on the side.  I beat it that super thick kind of gravy too.  I'm sure I've told my disgusting KFC gravy story here, once, a long, long time ago.  I will not tell it again, but all you really need to know is that I am permanently turned off to gravy in Styrofoam cups.

Another horrifically unhealthy food memory that involves the SO and I:  We were at a summer carnival thing called the Red River Exhibition, and we saw a booth that sold deep-fried Mars bars or Snickers on sticks, and we thought, "hey Elvis can't be wrong," so we went and got one to share, and there was a variety of toppings to choose from - we got whipped cream, and caramel sauce, and something else sprinkled on top.  It was stupidly expensive - over $5, I think.  We ate it fairly quickly, as a Mars bar, no matter what it's coated in, is quite small when shared between two people, nevermind if it has been deep fried, and is therefore melting.  So we ate it, and threw the stick out, then we ran into a buddy of my SO's, went on some rides, looked a depressed animals in a petting zoo, etc.

That was about two years ago, and recently we saw some TV blurb about the same food item and  I mentioned how we had shared a deep fried Mars bar, and the SO was like "No, I've never eaten a deep fried mars bar!" And I was like, "yes you did, we shared one at the Red River Ex.  It was gooey.  Then we ran into Joe."  He remembered running into his friend, but he continued to insist he never ate a deep fried Mars bar.  It's so strange to me that he wouldn't remember this - it was a food event - but he honestly doesn't remember eating it.

[pmcd9]

The gravy in a cup is a more recent innovation of the steak finger variety.  The original chicken fried steak idea involves pouring the gravy directly onto the deep fried battered steak.  Also, CFS gravy is unlike KFC gravy.  It's actually thicker and white, which I suspect makes it even more disgusting for you.  The CFS is generally served with french fries so ketchup is involved as well.

~Paul

[wombat]

White gravy like sausage biscuit gravy?  Which is a rather frightening but delicious thing that I only encountered late in life.  And which it's probably just as well I don't encounter more often.  I have still never met a chicken-fried steak, though.

[side_show]

Oh, I know the white gravy well, my grandma used to make it all the time.  Us French Candians call it sauce-blanche.

Also, this thread has caused me to think about and crave the two most evil bad for me foods ever:  The McChicken and poutine .

[jough]

I love that Canadians have a name for "french fries with gravy on them."  Poutine is an awesomely awful thing but it has a good name.

Also, is it not pronounced POO-TEEN?

That web site you linked to is wacky.