Make Yourself a Meal for $5 in 10 minutes

What you'll need:

Generic Mac and Cheese
Frozen Spinach
Frozen Corn
Ground Beef (buy a small package, like 2 hamburger patty worth at most)
Milk
Butter
Spices

1. Place the water on high heat to boil
2. Mix spices into chop meat - I used Garlic Powder and Italian Seasoning, but whichever seasoning you prefer with your meat is fine.
3. Brown the meat
4. Thaw spinach by putting it in a bowl with hot water
5. Cook corn in microwave (tiny pat of butter if you'd like on this in lieu of water, take the bit of butter you use here off the 1/4 cup you put on the mac and cheese)
6. Put pasta in boiling water
7. Dry the spinach by squeezing it in a strong paper towel (not super dry, but just to get some of the moisture out.
8. Mix corn, meat and spinach together in a big bowl
9. Drain pasta, return it to the pot with the butter and milk and cheese packet
10. Mix fully mixed Mac and Cheese into the big bowl (see step 8 if you don't get what I mean here)

Enjoy this bangin' cheap mixture of food.

Things I Make Myself

So, now that I'm living alone I've been making more meals for myself.
Partially, because I need to save, but mostly because I love cooking.

And baking! I've baked three times since I've moved. Brownies and cakes - all from store bought packets...
but my mother is donating her old mixer to me.
So, look out! I have a feeling cookies are a month or so away.

The cooking is getting out of hand though.
Nothing is simple anymore.
See, I live right by a bakery and this made me think one thing:
BREAD BOWLS.

So, when I had the flu I didn't just have chicken noodle soup.
No! I had Campbell's Select Chicken Soup in a bread bowl.

And just now, I went to make myself some tuna.
But I was like, I don't just want the mayo and tuna on toast.
I want crackers and tuna. I want to make it a dip.

This is what I ended up making:
Sue Funke's Impromptu Tuna Dip
1 can Tuna in water
1 1/2 tbsp of Reduced Fat Sour Cream
1 scallion chopped
2 shakes dried garlic chopped
1 shake pepper
1 shake garlic powder

Stir ingredients together and serve with reduced fat Cheez Itz

I even plated that for myself.
Apparently, this is how I nest.

Simple Meals for One Person

So, I'm broke and good things have come from it - I remembered how much I love to cook.
Here are three meals I've made to consume this weekend and this week.

Boboli Personal Vegetarian Pizza
1 personal pizza
1 handful of frozen spinach from a bag of frozen spinach (defrosted)
1 handful of frozen corn from a bag of frozen corn (defrosted)
3 mushrooms cut and sauteed in a pat of butter, garlic, rosemary, thyme, oregano
1 handful of low fat mozzarella cheese
sprinkling of parmsean cheese

The corn might seem weird in this recipe, but it actually adds a nice texture to the topping.

Spinach and Chicken meal
1 Chicken breast cubed, sauteed in a tbsp. of veggie oil with garlic, rosemary, thyme, organo and a dash of Ms. Dash garlic seasoning as well
1 handful of frozen spinach from a bag of frozen spinach (defrosted)
3 mushrooms cut and sauteed in tsp of veggie oil, onion powder, rosemary, thyme, oregano
1 handful of low fat mozzarella cheese

Combine all these ingredients.
Make sure not to over cook the mushrooms, they should only be in the pan like two minutes tops or else they'll burn or cook away. You want them to add more heartiness to the meal.

Spring Chicken
This is by far the weirdest experimental cooking I did today, but I'm the proudest of it because it turned out great.
1/2 can of dole pineapple chunks in juice
2 packets of apple oatmeal
apple juice
1 Chicken breast cubed
dash of apple pie seasoning

Basically, I saw the pineapple in the pantry and thought, "Man, I freakin' love sweet and sour chicken, but I can't really have the sour part anymore. I wish I could make a sweet chicken."
So I did.

I poured half of the pineapple can into the pan - with juice. Then I added some apple juice. Then I chucked in the chicken cubes and let it simmer together. I threw in a tiny bit of cinnamon and then switched to the apple pie seasoning to give it more of the apple sweetness flavor.
As I tasted it I realized that it needed to be over some sort of rice or pasta - but I didn't have any pasta or starch, so I looked in the pantry and saw the oatmeal packets and tried it out.
It was a great addition and really coated the chicken well and made the meal complete.

So, now I have lunch for the week other than pb and j sandwiches - oh and the best part, the chicken dishes took less than a half hour to prepare.

Thought I'd share because I know it's tough to figure out what to make when you're only making food for yourself -- oh and my best tip of all - buy chicken in bulk and freeze it individual, makes defrosting and cooking easier.

Eternal Happiness

On Friday night, after standing for an hour and a half through the hilarious "Don't Touch Me There" show, (It's a testament to how funny a show is, if you have to stand to see it - and after you see it standing for so long you walk out and remember the hilarity more than the discomfort - in this case hilarity won.) I went for a nice dinner with Raquel D'Apice, Joe Powers, and Rachel Parenta.

After which, we went through the rainy, snowy, slushy streets of Manhattan towards our perspective trains. Due to poor foot attire planning, Raquel left us at 1st avenue for the L train in hopes of feeling her feet sooner than never again. This left Mr. Powers, Parenta, and I to trek on towards Union Square and the yellow line trains.

On our walk we passed a Baskin Robbins with a giant sign in the front windows that made me stop in my squishy tracks: NEW REESE'S PEANUT BUTTERCUP SUNDAE AND SHAKE!
We all instantly wanted one, and thought for a minute or two about going in. But it was cold, I was poor, we weren't that hungry, so we didn't go in.

All weekend though, I thought about that sundae.
By Sunday I was no longer thinking about tasks, errands, even during conversations with Pink I would just nodd off and start thinking about how delicious that sundae would be...

So, on our weekly trip to the grocery store Pink and I stopped off at the Baskin Robbins attached to the Pathmark. I asked the guy at the counter for the Reese's Buttercup Sundae --
only to find they were out of that ice cream.

-CRUSHED-

Pink's father happened to be visiting and said that he thought he could see tears in my eyes. The counter guy tried to woo me with other flavors that could be placed into this sundae, and I tried to play along, but I just couldn't settle.

So, when we got home and unpacked the groceries I sat uneasily on the couch fidgeting until finally I could no longer take it.
"I'm going to the one on Steinway."

"What about dinner?" Pink asked.

"It will be my dinner."

I walked to the Baskin Robbins on Steinway and Broadway and ordered my sundae. They not only had the ice cream, but the girl who made it did it up just like the photo that had been dancing around my mind.
Then, when I got to the cash register it rang up $5.95.
I looked in my little red wallet and saw only $5 - and all my change was in my other coat!
I looked up at the older gentleman behind the counter with watery eyes again.

"How much do you have?"
"Only 5, but I've got a credit card."
"Machine is broken," he paused and looked at me and before I could say anything else he said, "No problem. I give you a discount. You looked so happy about that sundae, how could I not?"

I thanked him several times and took my sundae back to the apartment.
And there I sat eating contently a sundae that was so delicious that I was happily full the rest of the evening.

It doesn't take much to make me happy.
Just something like this.

Week Off Day #5

a.k.a. The Day You're All Jealous Of

Last night, I bought the following to ensure that I would not have to leave my house today:
-Crackers
-Bag of Baby Carrots
-Humus
-Brie
-Wheat Pretzels
-Cupcakes
-Herbe Mate Blueberry Tea
-Giant Bottle of Smart Water

I ate this while I watched all my wonderfully DVR'ed/and live TV shows:
-30 Rock
-Sanford and Son Christmas Special
-Scrubs
-The Soup
-M*A*S*H "Dear Sis" Christmas Special
-Monk Christmas Special
-Psych Christmas Special
-Jeopardy!
-Tila Tequila

There was a lot more, but I think those shows kind of give you a feel of how I ran the gambit. It was pretty awesome not being sick and being able to lay on the couch and watch TV for hours. Though I did get antsy from eating all that crap and not moving - so I did 500 sit ups.


Man I've changed. Eating reasonably healthy snack food and then exercising.
At least I still love TV, or else I'd be fearful that aliens took over my brain.

See what happens when I rest people?

Back to work Saturday...
Well, a fate worst than work-
I'm cleaning my room tomorrow.

Week Off Day #4

The day after my birthday I of course had my normal issues with insomnia. I woke up too early and didn't know what to do with myself.

Tom found me on the floor in front of the door sifting through bags of presents and coats trying to match my gloves. He stepped over me to head to the door and I asked, "What time did we get home last night?"

He grunted and said, "No thinking yet." and left for work.

I then went back to bed where I had crazy dreams for a couple of hours, woke back up, took a shower, and went into the dreaded midtown to run some errands.

I ended up getting hungry and stopping in Hot and Crusty which is next to a peep show-so you're not sure this is gonna be a good idea when you walk in, but I ended up having a delicious bagel with tuna and a can of coke.
That meal cost $6. I asked the lady if it was magical tuna, she got a little nervous.

After the crazy afternoon run around on feet worn-to-pain from the heels I had on all birthday day/night (being a woman sucks sometimes). I went to the organic store to buy supplies to make quesadillias for dinner.

After dinner Emily and I flopped on the couch and watched Grey's Anatomy - the episode was very disappointing and if it ever comes back (after the strike which is probably in June at the earliest) I'm not sure if I'll ever watch it again. (SPOILER ALERT!!) You've got main character's in a complicated relationship that are dealing with issues of fear and intimacy - that's a lot of drama right there - why tempt the character further with someone new? It's cheap, be emotional or be sensational, but stop with both! It's getting so tiresome. Either have them together or don't. I'm tired of you throwing in other characters to tempt Meredeth or McDreamy away from each other. It's immature writing for late night drama - that is something a soap opera would do.

Best Birthday Ever

Or, Week Off Day #3
If you have the means, I highly recommend taking the week of your birthday off.
My birthday was wonderful thanks to my amazing friends, and my great family.

I went to lunch at La Bonne Soupe which is absolutely amazing. If you're a foodie, or a lover of good restaurants get your butt to this quiet corner in midtown. Don't get me wrong, the place is hopping and you'll pretty much always wait for a seat - but it's totally worth it:

For about $17 bucks you can get the town's best French Onion Soup, Bread, Side Salad (It's really fresh lettuce and a light dressing which I even enjoy, and I'm not a salad dressing kinda gal.) AND a glass of wine. It might not sound like a lot, but trust me here people - it's delicious.

Then I went to the Paley Center for Media (formerly the Museum of Television and Radio) and went straight to the viewing library. My best friend from college, Will, met me there and we each picked one half hour sitcom to watch. See, they have this GIANT library of TV shows that you can pretty much watch any show ever made.

I picked the Cheers Thanksgiving episode "Orphans". This is probably one of the funniest television episode ever made. The reason it works is because it's a well functioning cast of characters that the actors so naturally portray - there is also a giant food fight that makes it look like the best day of "work" ever. Seriously, if I could act in anything, I'd pick recreating that episode. (When I was watching this I got a hilariously "bitter" call from my brother Mike about how he was tossed aside when I was born 26 years ago. If you think I'm at all funny, trust me when I say that my brother Mike is waaaay funnier than I am. Probably some of the funniest lines I've ever heard in my life were from him.... and not suitable for this blog.)

Will picked the pilot for the show Parker Lewis Can't Lose, because that was Will's idol when he was in school. I had never seen the show before, but of course knew of it's existence, because TV is my favorite part of life. The show is absolutely absurd, but had it's moments. My favorite part is that the gymnasium is decorated for a dance and the theme is "Remember the 80's"; the show was first aired in 1990.

Will and I then took the train downtown and he jumped off at 34th street and I went down to the office. Don't worry - I didn't do a lick of work. I came in just in time for our holiday card photo, hung out for a little bit with people not in meetings, and then went to get my nails done.

After all this fun, I was ready for my party.

At the Liar, all the regular's showed up, and had brought me many funny gifts. All silly wonderful inside joke gifts. Then there were drinks, oh were there drinks. I chose "The Pink Drink" that Shafer often makes my friend Ben Kissel. He told me what was in it at one point, but I forgot -it's that good! Work, comedy, and old friends came to hang out and enjoyed the newer, larger liar - with a foosball table. I lost at foosball, but had a pretty hilarious time trying to play and drink.

Then, the bold, the crazy, and the comedians headed to Second on Second for Karaoke. The DJ Chris had no idea what he was getting into when we rolled in. It was a very crazy music selection from Britney Spears (It is hard to do those songs when you're wasted! I'm sorry girl.) to Barry Manilow (Little known fact, I know every word to Copa Cabana.) I got my request of having Shafer do his rendition of "Your So Vain", he does it all in first person. Arthur and I did some Jimmy Buffet as well. But, the best act of the night had to be Ann and Lindsay (The Brunettes) singing Gangster's paradise. Simply amazing.

I can't thank my friends enough, for not only coming out- but for also all the great messages I received. Thanks again everyone for helping me ring in my 26th year so happily.

The Pride of Poultry

I gotta say, making a turkey is pretty darn gratifying.
And it gets you respect.

When I tell people that I woke up at 6am to make a 20lb turkey for an indefinite number of people - friends, collegues, and family alike look at me in awe

...or maybe it's just that wide eyed smile with the hanging jaw you give someone that is totally nuts.

I'm taking it as awe.

For some reason, when you're able to endure the process of cooking a bird though, people are really willing to talk with you about it. And ask you all the questions you're totally willing to answer because you're just as giddy.

It's like I matured into this special cooks club.

I hope it comes with a pass to cut the express line at Whole Foods.

"Miss Funke, We Done Did Good"

Well, we pulled it off. Three roommates with one dream: a Thanksgiving meal with our friends.

I dunno if you had a slow enough Sunday to follow our high jinx, so I'll recap (click links for full blog):

My freelance check came in, and my roommates and I decided to actually go through with our Thanksgiving dinner. (Originally, I held back because I didn't think I could chip in, and we weren't sure if we'd have the time either.)

This meant that I had to cook my first turkey.

Which was intimidating, and sleep depriving.

I learned the biggest concern when cooking a turkey is that it might be dry.

And after all that, no one was showing up.

Well, Fred the turkey took almost 10 hours to cook, and gravy is a lot harder to make than I remembered - here are some tips on making turkey gravy:

• DON'T ADD A TON OF CORN STARCH! Man, that gravy tasted nasty...with like a chalky after-taste to boot.
• DON'T TRY TO SAVE IT WITH A TON OF TURKEY DRIPPINGS...it becomes gelatinous and no matter how much stock you put in, it still kinda looks like chunky snot. (It was eventually delicious, but briefly, as soon as it cooled it was grossest fat chunk gel ever.)

We had two guests arrive in time for pigs in a blanket (Tom's mini hot dogs in Pilsbury croissant), our friends J and Ben that we know from the Liar. They came with high spirits and ready to help and in the last hours we pulled it together.

The table was upstairs, the boys had put up the mini tree, hung the big bow on the door, and strung the lights. Emily and I brought up the meal- it was a ridiculously large, but absolutely delicious.

Between courses we went across to the park and went on the slides. We learned this helps you make room for pie. On our way back we rung our neighbor's doorbell and they joined us for desserts and another round of the main meal.

Then we all just sat around contently talking about which foods we enjoyed the most, and the ones we didn't get to, but wished we had room for.

Everyone went home with left overs and the accord that we may have outdone real Thanksgiving.

All Emily, Tom, and I know is, we really pulled it off! We put a Thanksgiving meal together, and it was worth every penny.

The Most Expensive Meal for Three

Well, the guests were supposed to show about oh...an hour ago.
Fred is still not done, but we could feed an army.

Our pals who were stoked to come over seem to have forgotten their excitement and won't answer our calls/ messages. You would think free food would lure 20 and 30 somethings. Especially a giant home cooked meal. Emily even made the pies from scratch!

But alas, no.

We are now drinking some left over beer and wondering if it's possible to eat 6lbs of turkey each, and all the sides, and not explode.

The concept of having a pie each to ourselves is alluring though.

We are in need of a Thanksgiving miracle.
Come on Fred, make it work!!!

Don't You Dry on Me!

Well, we're at the six hour mark. Fred the turkey is looking pretty good. He's snug in his tinfoil comforter that I keep stripping away every 45 minutes to pour more drippings upon him.

I've lowered the temperature from 325 to 300 in hopes of avoiding any chances of drying him out. It's something Emily and I both fear so much that we added an extra layer of foil on him for good luck.

We're about an hour away from prepping all the side dishes. This should be interesting. We're under the belief that since this is all for fun it won't be stressful- but somehow the three of us know that when we're at zero hour things are gonna be hectic around here. I've gotta go prep myself for the madness, but I'll leave the menu down below for your enjoyment:

The Astoria House Pre-Thanksgiving Dinner Menu

• Pigs in a blanket
• Pepperoni and crackers
  
• A 20lb turkey named Fred
• Sweet Potatoes with Marshmellows
• Crazy/Crunchy String bean casserole
• Mashed Potatoes
• Stuffing
• Corn
• Can o' cranberry
  
• Corn bread
  
• Apple Sauce
• Pumpkin Pie
• Apple Pie
• Apple Crisp

All this food, and it looks like we're only going to be about 6-8 people right now...

You are probably wondering if we're absolutely nuts right now. The answer is yes, but we're happily insane.

Flipping the Bird!

When I was watching the instructional video on how to cook a turkey I laughed like a 13 year old when they said quite seriously, "Now you must carefully flip the bird".

Because I have the sense of humor of a 13 year old boy.
Other things I will laugh at:
Guys named Dick
Anyone saying "That's what she said."
Fart jokes
Poop jokes...you get the point.

Here's the thing though, I am such an adult that I flipped my own bird!
It was pretty thrilling for a Sunday at 10am.
Reasons why this is so exciting:
-The turkey is 20lbs. and I didn't drop it taking it in or out of the oven in the tin foil roaster we bought at Stop n Shop.
-Fred and I are old pals, and I treated him with the dignity he deserved.
-I topped him with butter and bacon, ensuring everyone will be heart attack ready after the meal.

He's looking decently succulent now. My hope is that he stays that way and I don't space out while working and forget to keep douse him in his own juices.

Cooking a turkey isn't pretty folks, but it's a task I've chosen to take on because....well I'm not really sure why we're doing this besides the enjoyment of food and inviting friends over for impromptu parties. That's enough though, right?

My First Thanksgiving Turkey

His name is Fred.
Roommate Tom, and new-roommate-Emily, and I named him in the Stop-n-Shop where we found him. We had originally picked out a frozen turkey, named Bill, but after a call to Tom's mom we learned that it's pretty much impossible to defrost a turkey within a 12 hour period. So, Fred was an expensive thawed out bird with lots of watery blood in his packaging.

As the youngest of four children, I've seen a lot of Thanksgiving cooking being done, but I am usually on the sidelines. It was usually my job to do simple things: arrange platters, make appetizers, cut veggies, peel potatoes.

Now, I am cooking my own turkey. I watched a 15 minute video, Emily got some advice from her Aunt Susie, we've got the directions off the package, and I've got 25 years of observation logged. So, at 6 am this morning I started cooking Fred.

I dunno if it's because I've named it, or the fact that I had my hands up it's carcass, but I feel a strange connection to Fred. It's like we're in this together, and you better be freakin' delicious Fred.

I'm off to go peel sweet potatoes, but I'll keep you posted on how this all goes. Especially when I flip the bird. That's gonna be interesting.

Don't fail me now Fred!

Waiting for My Check to Come in

I've been working part time on some freelance writing assignments four about six months now.
During this time I've been paid only once, and the money they owed me was piling up.

The check finally came in and I'm using most of it to pay off many bills, but I also promised myself a hundred bucks or so of "fun money".

I thought hey, maybe I'll get an iPod, or a pretty dress, or some movies I really want (I currently don't even own my favorite movie of all time, Annie Hall - although I do look at the DVD prices about once a week and tell myself, Sue you don't really need to spend $10 on a movie you've seen countless times.)

This weekend I'm cashing the check and I've spent the money on something fun -
a Thanksgiving dinner for me and my friends. My roommates and I all put in about a hundred dollars each and now have a full feast for some of our close friends for tomorrow... that we are boldly going to make ourselves.

Well, it's no iPod, but it is pretty awesome.

Gobble, gobble pals.

Sunday Dinner

I come from a family where "family night" was pretty much every night.

There was no missing dinner, drive-thru feast, or pizza Fridays. Funkes ate together and all went to bed at a reasonable hour - thanks to Mama Funke's ability to make a home cooked meal and raise four kids all before 7pm when Dad rolled in from a busy day in the city.

Sunday dinner was the penultimate meal of the week. In fact, Sunday was pretty much all about God and food.

We'd wake up and get into our Sunday best. Church was at 10:30 in the morning and lasted until 11:40 - unless we "received and leaved". The "receive and leave" was when you ate the body of Christ, bowed most reverently toward the big JC with a giant smile, and then went straight to the door and frolicked down the grassy path to the car - skipping out on boring announcements and final prayers. You were home about 10-20 minutes earlier, but it made a difference.
Because you were getting a nice sandwich.

It was the kind of sandwich that dreams are made of. Best bread, handmade condiments from the finest ingredients, leafy greens grown organically, and giant beef steak tomatoes that rested on thoughtfully selected deli meats.

We'd then break for the Sunday mystery movie.

Around 4pm we'd have cocktail hour in the living room. Everyone had fancy drinks. Minor's got Shirley Temples (who am I kidding, I was the minor). Adults got Pimm's cups or Mom's famously strong Manhattan's. There were cheeses, smoked meats, liverwurst, crackers, sometimes even mini pizzas with pastrami and provalone - creative recipes from my father's mad-cook mind.

My father only cooked on the weekends. When he did he might as well have been a top chef. Food was prepared delicately, perfectly, and deliciously. Of course, tears might be shed and words might lead to blows but dinner was consistently pretty damn good. Served in the dinning room, on the good table cloth. At least three courses. Sometimes, we'd go all the way through cordials and get to cheese plates and fruit.

It was a day of rest, and good conversation. Most Sunday nights I remember laying in my bed with a full belly and a giant smile as my head hit the pillow and I passed out.

So, when new roommate Emily moved in and made chicken pot pie last weekend for Sunday dinner I was fondly reminded of a past time long dropped but never forgotten. We all agreed we enjoyed the week starting out with a home cooked meal.

This Sunday was my turn. I made stew. Sure, I didn't make tons of courses, there was no happy hour because we're tired from the week's drinking, and we just don't have the patte and brie kinda money - dinner alone was nearly charged. But, the warmth of the home cooking, and the fun of having a sit-down meal together made it feel like Sunday at home.

Food Shows Make Me Way Too Happy

I am an excellent quitter.

I feel I am able to quit things
because I'm really good at vicariously living.


Like since I've quit smoking, I go out for second hand smoke breaks.
When I miss crack, I just walk down to alphabet city - kidding. I never did crack.

But now that I can't eat many foods,
I'm way into watching food shows.
Like way into it.

I'll even watch that show Hells Kitchen.
Which if you DVR is great for like 10 minutes.
Watch him curse someone off,
then see that hot,
steamy, delicious,
succulent forbidden
food
presented all sprawled out and colorful
on the plate...

Yeah, I'm way into it.

For breakfast today I had half a bowl of apple oatmeal
For lunch today I had a chicken, spinach and fake mozzerella
sandwich with no dressings or condiments
For dinner I had a smoothy

So, you have to get why I'm loving seeing people fry and smother sauces on food.

All plain food and no grease makes Sue watch Food Network in the dark.