Recipe #7: Sharkuterie

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Oh, hi!  Your friendly neighborhood Goldfisherman is back after a brief 3.5-year hiatus with a new recipe for all my Goldfishionados!  I won’t go into detail about where I’ve been, but I will say that no, I had not Flavor Blasted myself to an early demise, and no, Pepperidge Farm had not sued me for creating unsanctioned and unholy concoctions with their products.   I’ve just been busy with life I guess.  I’ve moved twice, and as you will see, I STILL have no counter space!  That hasn’t prevented me from putting together a delicious new creation for you, right on the edge of the counter and up against the sink, which had a hanging planter in it for some reason.

So one thing I want to warn you about before we jump in is that this recipe does not predominantly feature Goldfish.  They are involved, but more in a supporting role.  I got the idea for this recently when I heard someone say the word “charcuterie”, and it made me realize that the first half of that word sounds like “shark”.  Then I wondered if I could make a charcuterie platter in the shape of a shark and call it sharkuterie.  Then I wondered how I could incorporate Goldfish.   Then I wondered if my brain was unwell since this is what goes on inside my head.  I did a quick google search to see if it had been done before, and it hasn’t, much to my surprise.  It was time to dust off the ol’ meat cleaver and get back to work.

I’m not even sure if I can call this a recipe since there’s no cooking involved, but here’s what you’ll need to put all this together:

  • A baguette (woah, bullet points!  WordPress has gotten fancy since 2015!)
  • Various sliced meats and cheeses.  Up to you which kinds, but use a cheese that slices easily and doesn’t crumble.
  • An olive or two
  • Goldfish!  Whichever flavor you want.  Unleash your wild side.

OK.  First thing you’ll wanna do is figure out which end of the baguette you want to be the head and which you want to be the tail end.  The tail end should be more narrow, but if you’re working with a perfectly symmetrical baguette, then don’t sweat it.  Just take a moment to marvel at its beautiful and flawless symmetry.  At the tail end, use a serrated (here I am thinking it was spelled “seraded”) knife and slice some bread off to make a narrow back side.  Be deliberate and fearless with your cuts because if you go in weakly, the bread will tear and it’ll look bad.  Sharks smell fear!

As you see in the pic on the right, the next step is to turn the bread shavings you just made into the fins.  Cut a piece into the shape of a tail fin, and cut a slit through the shaved part of the bread that you can slide the fin piece through.   Then do the same for the dorsal fin on the top and pectoral fin on the bottom (you can tell I learned my shark fins throughout this process!).

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Just be careful if your bread is on the staler side because the fins may crack.   Now you can make a little cutout for the mouth.  I know it’s a scary shark, but go in strong!

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You can tell I wasn’t fearless since my mouth came out a little torn.  All good though, it kinda looks like it has teeth this way.  Now check it out, a baguette shark!

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A Great White(bread)

OK then, it’s now time to create the sea of cheese that it will swim in.  I had a block of cheddar and one of those cheese shavers, and my plan was to shave from the corner for a triangle shape that I could use at the top of the water and create a wave effect, like ^^^^^^^

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This picture probably doesn’t need to be this large…

This did not go according to plan though, since the cheese started crumbling towards the center of the block.  No worries, cheese is cheese and it will be devoured regardless.  You may want to go for a pre-sliced cheese to make it prettier though.

Once your ocean is set up, leave a small space in the center of your plate for the shark to sit, and below it will be your meat-based ocean floor.  I laid down some capicola along the bottom of the plate, and I sliced some salami rolled in mozzarella and placed the pieces on top of the capicola for some coral reef action.

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I also rolled some prosciutto and more salami to make additional underwater plant life.

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Time to plop down the shark!   Here’s where the olive comes in.  Cut it in half, take a tooth pick, and stick it through your shark to create the eye.

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Aaaaaa!!!

Feel free to put one on the other side if you wish, but olives are nature’s poison to me and I try to avoid them at all costs.

Now here comes the best part ; the mutherfrikkin Goldfish.  These will act as the “pilot fish” in the display, clinging to the shark for safety while feasting on the scraps of food that fall from its mouth.  Or scraps of salted, cured Italian meats in this case.  Kind of like your dog while you’re in your kitchen eating that Italian Combo from the deli.  Sprinkle some fishies along the sides of the shark like so:

Sharkuterie

Behold, your very own sharkuterie!  I brought mine to a Super Bowl party and it was a hit, despite people being reluctant to cut the shark up.  If this happens to you, slice a few pieces yourself to break the ice.  After all, shark meat is a delicacy in some countries.  I will tell you that the first items to get eaten off the platter were the Goldfish.  Because obviously.   Good thing I brought the bag to replenish the supply (and snack on for 3 hours straight in lieu of eating an actual dinner).  Enjoy!

Recipe Remix! Goldfish Mozzarella Sticks, BAKED

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Ah, this takes recipe takes me back.  The fried Goldfish mozzarella sticks were the first Goldfish-crusted concoction I ever posted to this blog, back when daily views topped at a measly 1 a day; far from the staggering 3 views a day I receive now.  We’ve come a long way.  In an effort to stay humble and remember my roots, I thought it would be fun to try this recipe again, but switch it up and bake them instead of frying.  Sounds like a good idea, right?  Well you’re wrong.  You’ve never been more wrong about anything in your life.  This was a trash fire of an experiment, a hot mess of biblical proportions.  Let me explain.

Given that there are jillions of baked mozzarella stick recipes on the internet, one would think that this would be easy to pull off and enjoyable for all.  The authors of these recipes are all lying tramps.  This is not easy to pull off, and they came out like straight garbage, yet I followed every step of these recipes to the tee.  I basically mimicked the steps of my fried Goldfish mozzarella sticks recipe up until it was cooking time – coat the cheese sticks with egg, then the ground Goldfish, then egg again and Golfish again.  Each coated stick goes on a foiled baking sheet and into the freezer for 8-24 hours.  All was good until that point.  I preheated the oven to 400 (this was the average temperature from all the recipes I read), and once it was nice and toasty in there, I threw the sticks in for the 5 minutes or so (5-7 minutes was the average baking time from these dumb ass recipes).  After the 5 minutes were up, I took them out and looked at them.  And cried.  The cheese was melting all over but the coating wasn’t cooked at all.  You ever drop an ice cream cone in the sand?  Yeah.  The oven had a thermometer in it so I knew for sure it was at 400, and I timed it diligently with my trusty wristwatch.

I therefore conclude that baking mozzarella sticks is not possible, and that it’s a huge scam propagated by Big Oven.  This was a disaster on par with my twice-baked potato fail of 2013.  I had photos of this debacle, but they are so gruesome that they’ll likely get flagged by WordPress for being too obscene.  I also lost the cord that hooks my camera up to my laptop, so there’s that too.

Lesson learned.  Fry everything.

Recipe #6: Marshmallow Gold Fishie Treats!

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I got this idea in the middle of writing my previous post, while pontificating on the forgotten and neglected meal of dessertfast- stuff you can eat for dessert, breakfast, or at any time in between those two meals.  This here recipe makes for a great dessertfast.  When I first told people I was going to make Rice Krispie “Crisp Rice” treats with Goldfish, the main concern was the savory and sweet collision that was sure to be explosive, violent, and maybe slightly disgusting.  But these treats exceeded my wildest dreams, and not only are they not slightly disgusting, they’re quite delicious!  This is also an absurdly easy recipe, even for me who is a total spazoid in the kitchen.  So lets get down to the nitty fishie, shall we?

Ingredients:

– 5 cups of Baby Goldfish (you’re going to use about a bag and 3/4s)

– 1 10-oz bag of mini marshmallows (you’ll use most of this)

– 1/4 cup of butter, which is 4 tbs (I shamefully had to google this)

Goldfish Krispie Treats Ingredients

That’s it!  Only 3 ingredients.  Well, there is a secret ingredient, but I don’t even know if you should use it.  To be continued.. I’ll let the suspense boil over on this..

M’kay.  Prep a 13″x9″ casserole pan by buttering the bujeezus out of it.  Get down and dirty with it.

I probably could've skipped this horrendous photo

I probably could’ve skipped this horrendous photo.  I promise those are burn marks on the pan, not filth marks!

Once that’s done, take the 1/4 cup of butter and dump it into a big ol’ pot on the stove top.  Turn the heat really really low, because the internet says if the butter burns and browns, it won’t be as sticky or gooey when mixed with the marshmallows.  And nobody wants that, now do we?  So melt that butta up, and when it’s all liquidy, toss in the marshmallows.  You’re gonna stir all that stuff constantly until the marshmallows melt and it’s all even and creamy.

Gold Fishie Treats Marshmallows

Gold Fishie Treats Mixture

a’like-a this-a (my Italian accent, ladies and gentlemen)

This is where the secret ingredient comes in.  I put in 2.5 tsp of milk in there because some charlatan on a recipe website said this would make it gooier.  Do 1.5 tsp instead.. more on this later.  OK, now take it off the heat and dump in the Baby Goldfish.  Keep stirring!  This is some real sticky icky icky!  Ooo-wee!

Gold Fishie Treats Baby Goldfish

Make sure you coat all the fish evenly and don’t you DARE stop stirring!  Once you have a glutinous glob of Goldfish, take another spatula, butter both sides of it, and then scoop out the fish into the casserole pan and spread it around evenly.

Gold Fishie Treats in pan

Now this is where the recipe hits a minor snag.  There wasn’t enough to cover the whole pan, as you can see.  I mean, I could’ve spread them out more but they would’ve been so thin that it would have dumb.  But this is no biggie.  Now comes the horrific part of having to let it cool.  Good luck with this.  Staring at it with unblinking, lustful eyes may help it cool faster though, so I recommend that.  Needless to say, I jumped the gun and cut at them with a dull blade like a crackhead.  Check it:

Goldfish Krispie Treats

Oops, you can tell I’m not wearing pants in this one..

Goldfish Krispie Treats Gooey

Oh yeah.

These taste good!  I would even dare say great!  Well.. this is coming from a Goldfish extremist.  But I really believe that these will taste better than you think they will.  Its a different type of taste than the Rice Krispie version, yet the marshmallow makes it similar enough that it’s not completely foreign.  Goldfish and marshmallow are not things you would associate with one another, but they compliment each other well here.  This isn’t too sweet or too savory- the marshmallow covers up some of the saltiness of the Goldfish, and the Goldfish covers up the sweetness of the marshmallows.  It’s not too crunchy or crumbly either.  The reason I said to cut down on the milk is because they are a bit too gooey at first, but this is likely because I let them cool for a total of 4 seconds.  Just slow your roll and they will probably be fine.  This recipe makes about 9 treats or 1 treat the size of a car battery.  Enjoy!

Merry Fishmas!

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Ho ho holy crap, look what Santa put under the tree for me!!

Christmas Goldfish

And my stocking was stuffed to the brim with Christmas Goldfish!

stocking stuufer

I must’ve been a good Goldfisherman this year!  Immediately after taking that pic, I hooked the stocking loop around my ear and went to town, feed-bag style.  I’m sure it’s how Jesus wanted us to celebrate his birthday.  So the big question – do the Christmas Cheddar fish taste any different from the regular cheddar fish?  Kinda!  I figured they wouldn’t, and I didn’t taste anything different about them at first, but day 2 of eating them I noticed an odd aftertaste.  Nothing bad, but not the typical zing of the standard cheddar flavor.  Maybe it’s the food coloring?  The fact that I was eating them out of a stocking that had been stored in the corner of my closet for a year?  Consider it a mystery for the ages, but nevertheless, they were a tad askew.  Keep in mind- this is coming from me, who eats Goldfish like it’s my job (hey, why isn’t this my job??  Somebody pay me for this, will ya?!), so most people will probably think they taste great.  And they do!  I just taste-tested the friggin hell out of them, and had them for breakfast, brunch, lunch, linner, dinner, dessert, and dessertfast for 3 days straight.  Speaking of dessertfast, Goldfish would be good as a Rice Krispie treat… omg.. OMG.  OH.MY.GOD.  Gotta go!

My Goldfish Halloween Costume

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Happy Halloween ghouls and goblins!  Actually, more like Happy Thanksgiving, turkeys!  Sorry that this is a month late, but I was waiting on additional photos that are evidently non-existant.  But check it out, I was a bag of Goldfish crackers for Halloween this year!  Here’s how I made the costume.

First, I got one of those 30 gallon leaf bags that people with lawns use for raking.  Actually, I got 5 because the internets doesn’t let you buy just one apparently.

Leaf bag

I was hoping to find a white one so I wouldn’t have to paint it, but alas, True Value doesn’t cater to weirdos.  My first idea was to spray paint the whole thing white and then draw the package design on with markers, but this project started about 36 hours prior to Halloween, so I had no time for that nonsense.  Instead, I google image searched for a good picture of the front of a Goldfish bag, sent it to Kinkos, and asked them to print it as an 18×24 poster.  They did it in half a day!  Lookie here:

goldfish package image

Not bad, Kinkos!

I cut the border off and proceeded to ghetto rig attach the poster to the bag using duct tape.

Goldfish halloween costume taped

I also threw in some staples for good measure.  Now onto the painting.  I live in an apartment and don’t have a yard, so this was a tricky situation.  I figured that spray painting on the sidewalk in front of the school across the street would get me arrested in about 4 seconds, so I climbed out my kitchen window and tarped my fire escape and started spraying with wild abandon.  Despite being outside, I managed to stink up my apartment so bad that I had to leave, but it came out pretty sweet!

painted goldfish bag

For the back, I decided to write out the nutrition facts and ingredients.  This was a grueling endeavor, as it took every ounce of control to keep my chicken scratch handwriting from coming out, and even still, I did a pretty lousy job.

goldfish costume ingredients

Did my 3 year-old niece write this?

I also snuck a special ingredient into the list:

made with smiles and

Time to cut the holes for the arms and cut out the bottom.  After some adjustments to the neck hole to prevent strangulation, the costume was completed!  I threw on a white thermal and black jeans and was on my way.

goldfish costume

I forgot to take a pic of the back while I was wearing it, so this photo below was from the following morning and kinda looks like I wrestled a honey badger in this thing, but you get the gist.

finished back of goldfish cracker costume

Rough night…

Oh, and I wore a fanny pack underneath and had a ziplock bag full of Goldfish crackers in it.  Folks were a bit grossed out at the sight of me seemingly pulling Goldfish out of my underwear and handing them out, but people still ate them.  Because Goldfish.

Voila!

 

My brother went to Goldfish HQ and brought me back this swag!

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Look at this rare sh!t!

rare flavors

Flavors beyond the wildest of imaginations!  Salsa con queso??  Queso fiesta???   Just stop.  I immediately ripped these open and shoved handfuls of each down my facehole.   Taste test time!

Now, I’m not big on the puffs, even if the flavor is “nuevo”.. I prefer the crunch of the classic ‘fish.  But these salsa con queso puffs were sexual in nature.

Salsa con queso

Apologies for the blurry photo, I was trembling with excitement.

It’s not what you’d expect: They taste more salsa-y than cheesy, but if I were blindfolded and asked what these tasted like, I probably wouldn’t say salsa either.  Maybe a pepper jack mixed with ketchup?  OK I’m not doing it justice.  But they were the biggest hit of the bunch!

The other favorite was the queso fiesta flavor-blasted (non puff) Goldfish.  These kinda tasted like the salsa con queso puffs, but having the traditional Goldfish crunch and texture gave them extra points.  They shaded a bit towards the pizza flavor, which isn’t my favorite, but there was definitely a unique cheesiness to them.  I think naming them “cheese party” was a correct choice.

The saddest part of all this is that these flavors are impossible to find!  I had never seen them before and I haven’t seen them since.  Makes me wish I didn’t eat all of them in 4 minutes.

Gather ’round and read this lovely story (that I stole from Pepperidge Farm’s website).

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Man, I’ve been a sucky Goldfisherman lately.  To the 0-2 readers I have each day, I apologize for not blogging, it’s been a cray-cray summer.

Since the educational system in our country is deeply flawed and this isn’t taught in schools, I will take it upon myself to teach a history lesson on how Goldfish crackers came about.  As you will soon discover, it is the most important event in the history of mankind.  To quote the great Master of Ceremonies Hammer, “Ring the bell, schools in, sucka”.

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Pepperidge Farm founder Margaret Rudkin was one of the great business leaders of her time. She was born Margaret Fogarty in New York City in 1897, the oldest of five children in a second-generation Irish family. A striking young woman with bright red hair and green eyes, Margaret graduated valedictorian of her high school class, and then spent nine years working in New York before marrying Wall Street Broker Henry Rudkin in 1923.

Fourteen years later, Margaret was a 40-year-old-mother of three young sons, living in Fairfield, Connecticut on a beautiful property called Pepperidge Farm—named for an ancient Pepperidge tree that grew there. The Rudkins had moved into Pepperidge Farm in 1929—the same year as the great Stock Market Crash. The Rudkins faced many challenges during the Great Depression—but as parents, one of the most difficult challenges was dealing with the severe allergies and asthma of their youngest son, whose condition made him unable to eat most commercially processed foods.

Based on the advice of a specialist, Margaret put him on a diet of fruits and vegetables and minimally processed foods. Then one day Margaret decided to try baking him some all-natural stone ground whole wheat bread with vitamins and nutrients intact. At a time when puffy, aerated white bread dominated the market, many skeptics—including her son’s doctor—didn’t think it was possible to bake nutritious bread that was also delicious. Margaret proved them wrong.

an entrepreneur emerges Photo: an entrepreneur emerges
Having never baked bread before in her life, Margaret’s early progress was slow. “My first loaf should have been sent to the Smithsonian Institution as a sample of Stone Age bread, for it was hard as a rock and about one inch high,” Margaret quipped. “So I started over again, and after a few more efforts by trial and error, we achieved what seemed like good bread.”Margaret’s bread was much more than “good”—it was the best bread her family and friends ever had. Her son loved it, and it helped his health so much that his doctor actually “prescribed” it to many of his patients. Dr. Donaldson even endorsed her bread saying, “When Mrs. Rudkin makes bread, she makes bread—the finest bread the world has ever known.”

Photo: the birth of pepperidge farm the birth of pepperidge farm
She approached her local grocer to see if he would be willing to sell her “Pepperidge Farm” bread, but he was skeptical. Not only was Margaret new to the grocery trade, but she had the cheek to insist that her premium bread be sold for 25 cents a loaf to cover her costs– even though the going price for bread was 10 cents.To convince the reluctant grocer, Margaret sliced up her savory bread and gave him a taste. In an instant, the sale was hers. The grocer not only took all the loaves that she brought, but by the time she arrived back home, he had left a phone message asking for more. “Although I knew nothing of manufacturing, of marketing, of pricing or of making bread in quantities, with that phone call, Pepperidge Farm bread was born,” Margaret later said.Henry Rudkin began carrying Margaret’s bread with him on the train to Grand Central Terminal to be sold at specialty shops in New York City. And as word about the extraordinary product got around, the tiny company grew. It had no business model, no strategic plan. Margaret just baked the bread by hand in her kitchen, making sure that every loaf was as good as it could be.yadda yadda yadda, she was successful.. getting to the Goldfish soon, I promise…

During the 1950s, the Rudkins often traveled to Europe. On a visit to Belgium, Margaret became captivated by a unique collection of fancy chocolate cookies produced by the purveyors to the Belgian Royal House. Margaret bought the rights to produce and sell the delicate biscuits under the banner of Pepperidge Farm. Half a century later, Milano®, Brussels®, and Bordeaux®—are still some of their most popular products.

The next European discovery came in Switzerland in the 1960s. The Rudkins discovered a unique little fish-shaped cracker that Margaret knew would be another winning addition for Pepperidge Farm. And of course, the rest is history. Irresistible Goldfish® crackers soon took America by storm, and they remain the best food ever invented (OK I ad-libbed that part).

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So basically, if it weren’t for Margaret Rudkin, a whole bunch of people would’ve died because her bread was life-saving.  It may have been your ancestors, so you owe your life to her.  Pay tribute by eating a bag of the white cheddar Flavor Blasted Goldfish because they are awesome.

Class dismissed.

Here’s a shamefully late Memorial Day post

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I was prepared to post this when I got home from the Memorial Day BBQ I was at, but forgot and then continued to forget for 2 more weeks… until today!

uuuuhh...

uuuuhh…

I don’t even remember what that is.   I think it was Goldfish on a hot dog, but look at it closely… it looks like a loose meat sandwich on a bun with Goldfish on top.  And what’s up with that brown sogginess on the inside of the bun??  Gravy?  Doody?  I have a hard time believing that the person holding this grotesque monstrosity survived eating it, but hey, at least there were Goldfish involved.   If he’s still alive, I’ll ask him how/what it was and get back to you.   If he didn’t survive, we’ll remember him along with the rest of our fallen heroes next Memorial Day.

New Taste Test: Fudge Brownie Goldfish Grahams!

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I saw these buggers in the store the other day and figured we were due for another taste test, especially since Pepperidge Farm has been churning out new Goldfish Graham flavors like their dad-gummed pants are on fire.   This bag looked particularly intriguing at the time because it was randomly sitting in the pasta sauce section of the supermarket I was in.  Fate, obviously.  Since I reviewed some other Grahams in a previous post, I won’t get into the titilating packaging details again, but here’s a pic of me holding the bag while crouching in a park in Bushwick in the middle of the night, because that’s normal:

goldfish grahams fudge brownie

I cracked open the bag and took an extreme close-up of them for your viewing and palm-reading pleasure:

goldfish grahams

“I seeeeee a BICYCLLLLLLLE…..”

And no, I did not reach into a litter box.  Those are some fine looking fudge fishies, generously coated in “flavor crystals”.  I threw all of those in my mouth at the same time for maximum tastification and also gave a few to my cronies who were lurking in the dark with me that evening.  Some of the reviews I heard included “they taste like Teddy Grahams”, “mmm!”, “it’s the cookie part of the Oreo”, and “who the f#@k are you?? Stop forcing Goldfish into my mouth, you psycho!  I’ll stab your face!!” from a not-so-friendly passerby in a hooded sweatshirt.  I agree with the Teddy Grahams and Oreo comments – it’s a perfect hybrid of both.  It has the taste of the Oreo cookie with the texture of a Teddy Graham.  They’re tasty, but like the other Grahams I’ve tasted, the only resemblance to Goldfish is their shape.  It would have been a lot better if they took regular cheddar Goldfish and drizzled a thin layer of fudge chocolate over them.  Holy sh!t, I think I need to do that at home right now.  Wow.  Gotta go!

Verdict: Tasty, but would be better ground up and stirred into a milkshake.