Comfort food has been a huge thing this year as everyone’s been at home, longing for something that’ll help us feel comforted and warm, wrapped up like a big hug from a parent, guardian, or older sibling. We’ve been baking bread and cookies, making slow-cooked stews, and pots of our Mum’s best spag bol. But something we’ve not gone back to is those kinda (deeply) fucked-up childhood “recipes” we dreamt up as idiot kids.
You know the ones – you’ve been left to your own devices to make an after-school snack and you’ve got no idea what you’re doing. Or maybe you’ve just grabbed whatever you could out of the fridge and cupboard and tried to create something. Or maybe it was just a simple “I can’t be fucked cooking” meal your parents would rely on when they were desperate.
Us here at PEDESTRIAN.TV decided to dive into our own fucked-up childhood ~recipes~ as adults, recreate them, and see if they still hold up as we remember.
Tomato Paste & Cheese Bread
I haven’t eaten this weird tomato paste/cheese combo since I was in high school. It was a staple for me as an after school treat – I think the OG recipe was in a kid’s cookbook I had but used pizza sauce for the base, which makes 1000% more sense than rich tomato paste.
As an adult, it absolutely still slaps. While the bread goes really soggy from the microwave (yep, you microwave it, not grill it), the taste is delicious. Tiny pizzas in 30 seconds? Fuck yeah. – Melissa
Melty Milo Bread
One of the real dumbass childhood recipes (if you could call it that) I used to do was this melted Milo gastro offence. I remember it was something I’d make when I thought nobody was around. Really all it is is buttered bread with Milo sprinkled on top. Put it in the microwave for like a minute – it’s important the bread is a big soggy and the Milo gets all crispy – and add more butter if it’s not melting right.
I think this might have been me trying to do a Nutella-alternative because we never had the chocolatey hazelnut spread in our pantry, which checks out.
Trying this one of my various childhood recipes again as an adult, I can see where my kid brain was going here. It’s sweet and buttery, and the soft bread kinda makes it like a really shitty bootleg chocolate croissant (like, really shitty). I’d absolutely forgotten how much the melted-down Milo gets stuck in your teeth like a malty concrete though. Not bad, but probably not great for you in the grand scheme of things.
Also, my plate mysteriously got a crack in it after I got it out of the microwave, which seems…ominous. – Courtney
Strawberry Coco Pops
My neighbour would make strawberry coco pops out of Rice Bubbles and strawberry Nesquik and it was pure genius imo.
When I was five, I’d spend most arvos at my neighbour’s house, which meant two things: Nintendo 64 and strawberry coco pops. While coco pops is a strictly breakfast cereal, my comrade’s 3-ingredient innovation used a rice bubbles canvas and strawberry Nesquik (a globally-acknowledged superior flavour) to upgrade the murky staple.
Today, it still tastes like a gap in the market, sickeningly sweet but delightfully pink – possibly easier to digest with nut milk. – Mina
2 Minute Noodle Omelette
This was very much a Sunday night easy dinner Mum would whip up when me and my brothers were being fussy jerks.
It still holds up. It’s all about the flavouring throughout the eggs. – Matt H
Banana Cereal
It’s just a banana, sprinkled with sugar topped off with whole milk. It tastes what I remember actually. The sugar and the banana flavour the milk – it sort of becomes like a mild milkshake at the end. It helps that I really love milk. There’s a lot left over here, and I drink the leftovers out of the bowl like a cup.
It reminds me I think of my grandma a bit. We used to go to her house every weekend and it was the only place we were allowed tea and we were able to make our own. So it was super weak, really milky tea with so much sugar it was hard to dissolve. I think the sugary milkiness of this dish reminds me of that. – Elise
Vegemite Spoon
I don’t like eat it all in one mouthful like you would with Nutella, I just kinda eat it bit by bit. As a kid I would have like 2/3 spoons while making my after school snack of Saladas. And now as an adult, I purposefully use to much vegemite when making toast so that I can lick the knife, and if I’m feeling really weird I’ll just have a spoon. Everyone that knows me or has seen me butter my toast thinks I’m psychotic and look I get it but whatever it’s ingrained in me.
My mum had to send me vegemite regularly during the pandemic because I couldn’t ration myself and kept running out and stores were sold out. I also had friends regular send me vegemite when I was living in LA. It’s a sickness haha. – Bree
Fish Finger Sandwiches
I grew up in a house where anything ‘plastic’ or ‘processed’ was banned, but the minute we started nagging about dinner there were two exceptions to the rule: 2-minute noodles and fish finger sambos on white bread. Of the two, the sambos feel like a ‘real meal’ because you have to properly cook & assemble something, even if that something is fish + tom sauce + bread.
This meal is cheap (soooo cheap, like omg), delicious and easy to jazz up if you feel like being an adult (add salad, sriracha, something pickled and cheese and you’re a Michelin chef). It was and always will be a 10/10. – Isabella
Saucy Noodles
I used to make this one with my best friend (Hi Bec!) and we’d sit on her front lawn under a big umbrella and scoff it down. Not a really involved one of my childhood recipes here; just a packet of 2-minute noodles without the seasoning, and a generous drowning of tomato sauce. I think about this recipe often but haven’t revisited it until now.
Flavour-wise, it’s pretty bland. The tomato sauce is sweet and tangy, but the flavour of the plain noodles (if you could call it “flavour”) kinda negates it a little bit. I’d go this again but maybe cook the noodles with the seasoning next time for a bit more depth. – Courtney
Grilled Pineapple & Cheese
Let me introduce you to pineapple cheese on toast. It’s a slice of pineapple, on white bread, covered in cheese, and grilled for 10 minutes. My dad used to make this as a “‘we’re all too tired for a proper dinner’ dinner. Like, the sort of thing you eat after a long road trip or for Christmas dinner (when you’re still full from lunch).
I remade this with wholemeal sourdough (because I’m a fancy bitch) and pineapple chunks (because I fucked up and grabbed the wrong tin) and let me tell you, it is HEAVEN. Delicious bread, bitey cheddar, and sweet, warm pineapple, seasoned with salt and pepper – this was the SHIT.
Obviously you have to like pineapple on pizza to like this snack, and even though I can’t be fucked with that endless argument I’d still like to say that if you don’t like it you’re wrong. Piss off. I’m eating grilled pineapple over here. – Alex
Turns out our palates haven’t really changed since we created these childhood “recipes”, I guess. And yes I do want to try out that Strawberry Coco Pops one now.
