(I'm typing, well starting it at least, on the Mac. Which means there's an insane feline snuggled against my chest between me and the keyboard. I'm typing over her head. This always ends in a fight.)
Don't you hate online recipes that have paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs of whatevers before getting to the recipe you actually came for? Of course you do. Just because you're crazy enough to read this blog doesn't mean you have no standards. So let's go.
Cat Foot Salad, while rather complex, is surprisingly easy to make. My original is based on a taco salad, but you can adapt it to the salad of your choosing, Which makes this probably the most versatile recipe ever. You and your furbaby can work on your own parts independently before bringing it all together. You don't have a furbaby? Really?! Okay, sorry, no judgment, I should have started with the ingredients (hint hint, food bloggers and recipe sites).
Cat Foot Salad
Ingredients
1 cat (may substitute other small, agile animal which can get on the kitchen counter, like ferret, mouse, gecko, jumping Chihuahua, etc)
2-4 small (taco) tortillas (enough to line your lunch bowl)
3-5 leaves of lettuce (enough to mostly fill you lined bowl)
1 ear roasted corn on the cob
1 bowl leftover rice
1 bowl leftover taco meat
taco sauce or salsa, lime juice, cheese, sour cream, diced tomatoes, roasted peppers, etc to taste
I know it seems like a lot for a salad you will dump in the trash at the end. So, yes, you can get by with just the absolute basics (cat & lettuce), but you'll know the difference. I was going to just leave it at that and then later on in the recipe spring the "ha ha, now y'all are wishing you had everything." But that's unnecessarily mean. We all try to read all through recipe and craft and diy directions before starting, but sometimes you've looked at a dozen slightly different versions of the same recipe (etc) and by the time you start cooking (etc) you've forgotten which one(s) had the weird direction like twelve steps in. So here's the definite: yes, you can by with just the first two ingredients, but not really so go ahead and have the full salad fixings (of your choice) ready.
Directions
(You may need to skip ahead depending on your pet situation. Also, I am super impressed with how far I've gotten without a bite.)
1 Truly authentic Cat Foot Salad requires a cat, but I'm all for people substituting ingredients to suit. You may have allergies. Your landlord may not allow cats. You might just not like 'em. (Why are you here?) There are some requirements to the type of animal you use. It must be small(ish), like runt cat size. It must be fast and agile. It cannot have a conscience or any tendency to obedience at all. It must have at least one foot, but can have more (it's fine if it has eight just don't tell me about it). So go get something to meet these requirements. I'll wait.
2 Go out of town for a weekend/several days. Leave the animal entirely on its own so it is starved of affection and pets and snuggles, tho not starved of food of course. Arrange some sort of fresh food and water system for your animal while you're away. I shouldn't have to overtly state this, but better safe than sorry.
3 Plan to thaw meat from freezer in the fridge while you're away. Forget to do this.
4 Thaw frozen meat. I used a nice beef shoulder rump something cut, but chicken, pork, and soy meat substitutes will also work.
5 Cook beef in slow cooker on high overnight. Cook times vary a lot for other meats. Good luck. You'll want to cook it with a little beef broth and assorted taco spices. I like roasted garlic, paprika, espresso rub (brings out the meatiness), chipotle powder, cayenne powder, a tiny bit of cardamom, and whatever else I throw in when I can't find the ones I'm looking for.
6 Make cilantro lime rice. I use a whole grain brown, wild, and white blend.
7 You can skip steps 5-6 and just get a burrito bowl from Chipotle. Get two. You'll want to eat one right away. Use the other for your leftover rice and leftover taco meat. Chipotle did not pay me for this promo, but I'm open to it. Money or burrito bowls -- your choice, Chipotle. If you do not live near a Chipotle, that sucks. I get it. There's like four or five in Lexington now, but then nothing until Louisville, which also has several. Really, Chipotle, don't even pay for product placement, just be a little more inclusive when building new stores. There are Qdobas all along that stretch of I64 is all I'm saying.
8 Bake your tortillas. If you can, drape the tortillas over bakeware so they will stiffen in a shape at least more or less like the shape of the bowl you use for your lunches. I bake three on an upside down loaf pan because my work lunch bowls are oblong. They only need a few minutes at 350F. Transfer directly from oven to inside your lunch bowl so they cool into the shape.
9 Wash and dry the lettuce. Chop it into manageable bits. Put all of the lettuce into the fully cooled tortilla.
This is where it gets hairy. Timing is everything.
10 Get out and arrange all of the other salad necessities: roasted corn (Did I forget to tell you to roast the corn? My bad. Step, whatever, 6b I guess, Roast corn.), sauce, cheese, etc etc etc. Go ahead and put your lunch bag on the counter, too. And your coffee mug and breakfast plate. And your travel coffee mug. The sugar bowl. The butter dish and knife. And if you can already have some piles of old mail up there, that will help. Some small kitchen appliances -- coffee maker, toaster oven, etc. Basically, make sure every inch of counter is covered with multiple uneven layers of things.
11 If you've chosen the right animal, it will leap/climb onto the counter, where it will freak out because there's too much stuff and it doesn't know where to put its feet and it knows you're going to shoo it off the counter. So its frantically trying t turn around while also trying to get into a corner or behind the coffee maker. And you're trying to grab it and everything it's knocking onto the floor . . .
12 And the cat's foot (or feet, impossible to predict) ends up in your salad. Yes, the cat is standing ankle deep in chopped lettuce in your lunch bowl.
13 Remove cat from lettuce.
14 Tip contents of bowl into trash.
15 Fill a clean lunch bowl with the rice and corn and meat and whatevers. (Aren't you glad you went ahead and had them ready?) It will not be the lunch you planned, but at least it is lunch.
p.s. I don't have a picture of Cat Foot Salad, so here's the next best thing: cat butt magnets holding up star lights at my desk. (The pic of Nathan Fillion was there when I started. My car is named Zoe after the Gina Torres's awesome character on Firefly, so Cap't Mal on the wall seemed appropriate.)
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