• 1 can condensed chicken noodle soup
• 2 cans of water (this is more than the recommended)
• 1/2 cup cooked rice
• several pinches of canned fancy cut spinach (refrigerate the rest)
• black pepper
• tarragon
• marjoram
• paprika

The spices and the spinach are what really makes this dish stand out from a boring can of reheated soup. This type of recipe is great for people who aren’t used to stocking their pantries with fresh food. As much as I loathe microwaves, you could even prepare this meal with the microwave.

Reheat the condensed soup following the instructions on the label but use twice the recommended amount of water. Don’t be afraid to leave the heat on for too long with this one because the technique I used involved placing cold rice and cold spinach into the soup right before serving. This means that you can add a dash of paprika and a pinch each of the marjoram and tarragon while bringing the soup to a simmer. Sprinkle with black pepper to taste.

After several minutes of simmering, add the rice and spinach straight from the refrigerator. The reason I use this technique is that the heat transfers from the hot soup to the cold rice and the cold spinach warming the latter while cooling the former, allowing you to serve the soup almost immediately.

My sis and my coz can both attest to my last foray into indulgence. She also pointed out to me that some of her favorite dishes that I have prepared came from a drunken stupor. Like the time I made scones and I didn’t have the right ingredients but somehow, magically, we still ended up with scones.

I’d like to start measuring the correlation of my drunkenness to my ability to whip something up. I will liken it to the ‘uncanny valley‘ factor. The more drunk I get, the better the food is. Until I hit the valley. Then anything produced after that point will be met with revulsion. Am I making any sense here?

We took a squarish four cheese Costco frozen pizza out of the fridge and started pre-heating the oven. This is where some of my philosophy for food comes in. I am sure there were plenty of ingredients we could have put on this pizza to make it more nutritious and more appetizing, but I always go with the ingredients that look like they need to be used. Items that are almost gone and will get thrown out if not used with other things.

I saw a quarter of a red onion and a quarter of a roma tomato in the fridge. Perfect. These things naturally taste good on pizzas. Especially with each other. I also cannot resist placing fresh garlic on frozen pizzas. If you ever have a frozen pizza and fresh garlic in the house, it is a must. Being drunk, I was feeling adventurous. Hell, I’ve had pizzas with tomatoes and onions on them before, but have I ever had a pizza with pimentos on it?

Tonight was the night to find out. After the pimentos made it to the pizza I started feeling a little more adventurous and thought that some more green would help the pizza taste and look yummy. Tarragon. I haven’t used tarragon very much in the past so I used that as an excuse to use some now. After this I realized I wanted some spice in my pizza. Tapatio. Tapatio is one of the best hot sauces out there, it has no vinegar.

We were just about done but then I realized that no pizza can be harmed with some oregano. So in went the oregano and out came the pizza eight minutes later because after all the chopping and dicing, the pizza was almost done.

I can’t describe how amazed I was with myself. At first I just attributed this feeling to narcissism combined with alcohol. After the first three pieces I had to have seconds but my little sister had already beat me to the second serving. This is when I realized that maybe it wasn’t all in my head. My final confirmation was when I woke up and was craving the last six pieces but they had already been consumed by my cousin. My mouth is watering right now just thinking about it. I can’t wait to make this for somebody so that I can try it again.

p. s. If you can tell me why I called it pizza plus and list the source, I will truly respect your trivia prowess.