Children are wonderful, because they are the future. However, children are shitty cooks.
If you asked a child to cook you dinner, there is a chance you will get a peanut butter jelly sandwich that has fallen in a litterbox. The peanut butter and jelly will not be spread evenly, there will likely be a bite taken out of it, and the child will probably have ruined your entire kitchen during the process. I do not trust children with many food-related tasks. For the future, a child should be educated on basic cooking skills, so educational toys exist to try and teach babies how to either cook poorly or burn an entire house down.
The Easy-Bake Ultimate Oven is one such toy that exists to teach children about baking. It is an extremely simple piece of cooking equipment that has a low-powered heat source. When I was a child, my sister had one. The old version of the Easy-Bake oven actually cooked food with a household lightbulb. It was a total piece of shit and never cooked anything. This version of the Easy-Bake Oven does not use a light bulb, which is an advancement in its technology. But I had a pressing question — can you only cook the shitty fake mixes that come with the Easy-Bake Oven, or can you cook real food in it, like, say, meatloaf?
As you know, I am a pioneer in food so I must ask these very important questions to advance the knowledge of useless children.
The Easy-Bake Ultimate Oven comes in a large box. It is supposed to include one bag of cookie mix. Mine did not have a bag of cookie mix, probably because it was opened at some point by some jerkoff who thought the next owner would not notice the missing bag. Either that or your mother could not contain herself, and she pilfered the mix before I got to it. I need to have a serious talk with her.
The box is large enough to house a homeless cat. Cricket now lives in it permanently, but the property taxes are fairly high and she doesn’t have a job. She is going to get foreclosed upon and evicted by the bank. I will have your mother buy the property later and she can live in it instead of living in my closet.
I like to make a fairly basic meatloaf, starting with a mirepoix. A mirepoix is simply a mix of onions, celery, and carrots. I cooked it down until it was tender, in a skillet.
Then, I blended the mirepoix in with 1.5 pounds of ground pork and 1.5 pounds of ground beef. I added breadcrumbs, an egg, a dash of Worcestershire sauce, a dash of fish sauce, salt, pepper, and fresh parsley. Some people will insist you need veal for a perfect meatloaf, but don’t listen to them. Veal is expensive because it is a cow baby. Meatloaf should not be expensive and I generally recommend you not eat babies that aren’t human. Eat human babies instead.
Remember, meatloaf is meat that is shaped into a loaf like bread. Something that silly shouldn’t cost much.
I mixed that blend by hand and put it in the pan. It looked pretty good. Harvey and Mr. Bee agreed. Don’t overmix meatloaf; if you mix it too much it’ll compress and have the texture of breakfast sausage.
Once I pressed the meatloaf down into the pan, I put it in the heated Easy-Bake Ultimate Oven. A strange burning oil smell came out of it and I wasn’t sure if it was actually on, save for a little light on the front that lit up. I put the Easy-Bake Ultimate Oven on the back porch to cook because I had convinced myself I would die if it caught on fire. I am not a fast runner so if the back porch lit on fire I could fall down the front stairs in a rapid fashion if it was necessary.
25 minutes later, I pulled the meatloaf out of the Easy-Bake Ultimate Oven. And it worked. It fucking worked. The meatloaf was actually cooked. Basically when I thought of this idea, I thought it wasn’t going to work at all, because I am a pessimist who lives a cold existence. But seeing cooked meatloaf coming out of an Easy-Bake Oven gave me hope for children and their capabilities for cooking with toys.
I tasted it and it was very good. My only complaint was that it was slightly rubbery, but I might have left it in the toy for too long. It doesn’t say what temperature the oven goes to and I didn’t use a meat thermometer, so there is still a chance I can die of diarrhea. I always imagined myself dying of diarrhea.
Today, however, you guys get a bonus. I made a video detailing every step of the way, you can see my face, hear my voice, and it even has cool sound effects. You will enjoy it very much. Please watch it.
I have a serious thing to say now: I found out I will be losing my day job in one month due to a company reorganization.
I am very sad because I like my job. I get to write about food for an actual living, but that will go away soon.
Since I am the least-senior member of the marketing department, I am automatically the first one to lose his head. I need a job before my lease is up at the end of May, which is soon, otherwise The Pizzle might actually die for a while. I am not asking for money — if you all know of any jobs around Chicago that involve writing good content, maybe you can send them my way. Someday when I can be a jackass for money making all of you happy on video and in writing, that will not be an issue. But right now I feel scared and even more alone than I remember because this is the second time in less than two years. Life is not easy sometimes.
My email address is dennis at spacesbetween.net. Even if you don’t have a job for me you can at least email me to say hello. I will be very happy to hear from you.
In the meantime, if you have an Easy-Bake Oven, now you know, you can cook meatloaf in it. Delicious, silly meatloaf, that is appropriate for children. And really dumb adults.
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