The Inmates Have Taken Over the Asylum

Champion Chowder...or, as the inmates are from New England, "Chowdah."

This is Megawatt and Paul coming at you live from the asylum. We just wanted to take this opportunity to share with you, the lovely readers, our delicious invention that is Champion Chowdah.

• Grill three onions and four potatoes (kick one potato into hallway for mom to find...see image below)
• Boil grilled veggies for approximately seven minutes 
• Throw in 10 pieces of already cooked bacon
• A whole stick of butter
• A decent amount pepper WITH whole pepper corns,
• A lot of Oregano
• Enough salt to cancel out the pepper
• Two cups of 1% milk,
• Three bags of three different cheeses
• And a dash of Mountain Dew.

Those are the makings of what we like to call Champion Chowdah. Oh yeah, none of this can be made on a kitchen stove, you have to *pioneer it like a champ…that’s why it’s called Champion Chowdah.

*That means you either have to cook it on your grill/BBQ or over a roaring bonfire if that's what it takes.

 ***Disclaimer***: If you are ready to gain 10 pounds of pure muscle instantly, Champion Chowdah is not for you. Also if you don’t want your ass to explode I highly recommend you NOT digest any Champion Chowdah. Basically if you’re not a champ/have no desire to become a champ, this is not for you.

Now I’m sure you’re asking yourselves, “How did these kids come up with something like that?”  To be honest we’re not sure…All we can tell you is to leave two 19 year olds home alone with a barbecue and I’m sure they’ll come up with a nice little treat of their own.

Megawatt and I thought we would share this life changing experience with you from two perspectives, the head chef (Megawatt) and the spectator/facilitator (Paul).  The spectator job was harder than it sounds. I had to make sure no harm befell the house…or us, as a result of harm befalling the house.  Megawatt's mom would have busted an entire can of "harm" on us had anything happened to her house, or her kitchen, which is why *pioneering the chowdah was important!

The head chef, me Megawatt, was out on a lovely day, sitting in a lawn chair looking at the BBQ. I mean it was a beautiful day so I decided I would pioneer the hell out of some onions. I then got the brilliant idea to boil them on the side burner. Then I remembered that onion soup was better out of a Lipton soup packet. I thought for a moment and looked at Paul and the idea came to my mind, potato soup! I grilled away because I needed to prove to Paul, the male figure here, that I, a woman, can grill. What better way to do it than with potatoes?

 

 I realized then that we had a great invention. Champion Chowdah.  After putting a stick of butter in the pot, Paul told me he would no longer “eat the effing onion soup”. Oh but he eventually did. He was a champion! I proceeded to add the rest of my ingredients in and let it bubble away on the grill. 

I dished up Paul, my mom, and me a huge bowl of chowdah each. My mom didn’t like it at all and I think there might even have been some gagging on her part, but Paul and I ate it and are therefore complete champions. My mom? Not so much.

There were only two things that came to mind for me, Paul the spectator, during the creation of this lovely dish. “I fucking HATE onions!” and “seriously Meg? A whole stick of butter?”

 

Paul trying to choke down some chowdah...

To conclude this post, we'd just like to say that the Champion Chowdah did not taste as good as it smelled.

Megawatt and Paul

Post Script: A Mother's Observations

Oh.My.God. 

So this is what they get up to when I'm not around. 

I walk into the house after a doctor's appointment to find a lone potato in the hallway (see above photo) and both kids out on the back deck (Paul is here so much that we are claiming him as a dependent on next years taxes...not that I mind or anything!), cooking a pot of "something" on the side burner of the grill.  Megawatt notices the perplexed expression on my face and says, "Oh hey mom!  We're cooking some chowdah out here and we're totally pioneering the shit out of it!"  To which I reply, "Yeah well, you know, we have a stove, electricity, hot and cold running water INSIDE the house?" 

Megawatt brushed off my questions and continued in her attempt to prove to Paul that Girls Can Grill.

Long story short...I give them both 5 stars for the effort and a big fat 0 for taste.  The only way I can describe it is to tell you that the potatoes were dreadfully undercooked and that the onions overpowered EVERYTHING.  Well OK, the taste of bonfire smoke overwhelmed everything, because that's exactly what their concoction tasted like...a bonfire!

Oddly enough, feeling the need to one-up each other again, the two of them set out to out "push up" the other. 

Geronimo coached each kiddo along...well OK, he annoyed the crap out of them, batting at their heads and trying to grab a nose here or there.

 

 

My arms hurt just watching all of this...

 

Resting afterward, Paul telling Megawatt that he was sure he out pushed her by 2...

 

I have no clue how many push ups each of them actually ended up doing.  I had dry heaves just watching them try to one-up each other.

A word to Paul and Megawatt...next time use one of the damn cookbooks!