The Uncle Bill Cookbook
Dear old Uncle Bill (actually my ex-wife's relative), a widower, had a haphazard approach to cooking. We kept an eye on him and were regularly appalled and astonished at some of the stuff he fed himself.

Here are three that spring to mind:

"Easter Bacon"

1: preheat some kind of grease (olive oil, lard, a knob of butter, Brylcreem) in a frying pan
2: when it looks / smells hot enough, lob in rashers of bacon
3: (optional) take phone call from elderly relative, keeping eye on bacon & turning occasionally, until you need to look something up on the internet and forget about the bacon until it burns
4: when bacon is cooked, turn heat under pan off - this gives the bacon a chance to soak up plenty of grease (unless it's all burned away)
5: realise you have no bread: all you have is hot cross buns, so butter a couple of them
6: realise you have no ketchup of any description: put a smear of very old marmalade on each HXB, add bacon

Tasting note: crispy bacon served in a hot cross bun is actually rather lovely


"What's that funny smell?"

1: put kettle on for instant mashed potato
2: open 220g tin of Grant's Haggis, plonk/scrape into a small saucepan and heat through gently, stirring occasionally
3: that doesn't look like much... rifle through cupboard until you find...
4: a 170g tin of John West crab meat chunks; add this to the haggis
5: while this is warming through (or burning), make the instant mash - but:
6: you should ignore the instructions and add too much water
7: that mini-stilton someone got you for Xmas will nicely melt into the runny mash and thicken it up
8: serve, consume and when later challenged, declare that it was very tasty


"Lumpy"
(this extraordinary dish actually requires some forward planning)

Shopping:
1: time your visit to the supermarket to coincide with all the near-expiry stuff being discounted
2: you are shopping for meat - any kind, but mince is de rigeur - whatever's cheap
3: the doctor says you have to eat more vegetables, so grab a couple of onions while you're at it
4: stock up on toilet rolls and Gaviscon

Cooking:
1: fry the diced or sliced onions gently until soft
2: brown the mince, then transfer with the onions to a huge casserole dish
3: whatever cheap meat you bought - beef, pork, lamb, chicken, sausages, etc. - cut into 1 inch cubes and fry it all up a bit
4: transfer to the casserole dish
5: dissolve gravy-type things (OXO cubes, Bisto granules, whatever you have at the back of the cupboard) in hot water and lob all that into the casserole dish
6: cover the dish and stick it into an oven at whatever temperature takes your fancy for an indeterminate period of time - 3 to 6 hours is good
7: consume over the course of a week with accompaniments such as mustard, bread and pickled onions, hot or cold, for breakfast, lunch or a light supper
8: do this every week for 3 months or until your doctor tells you to stop

Epilogue:
The old duffer died years ago - of heart failure, unsurprisingly - but I still remember him fondly.
( MisterPunch did it that way on, Fri 29 Jun 2012, 14:39, 3 replies)

Good stuff, a click for you methinks.

(fibonacci_cunt cunt, cunt, cuntcunt, cuntcuntcunt,..., Fri 29 Jun 2012, 16:27, closed)

This man was clearly a genius and should be celebrated with a BBC4 documentary and his own bench in a park.

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Fri 29 Jun 2012, 16:43, closed)

I am fairly convinced that
you and I share the same "Uncle Bill". Mine lived in Reading and had a very similar range of culinary "moves". I spent a couple of weeks at his house whilst doing a placement at Reading University, and had many similar experiences. Only question I would have would be: did your Uncle Bill talk endlessly about his medical ailments?
(gearanach #wankwankwank, Fri 29 Jun 2012, 20:21, closed)