How To Make Jelly Beans

Sometimes, when you haven’t bought groceries for a long period of time, you are forced to make do with what you have on hand in your pantry. I’ve created many exotic dishes this way—there was one time I only had four pounds of fresh mangoes, a cup of brown sugar, two sticks of celery, a pile of cranberries, a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, two yellow onions, a few ounces of apple cider vinegar, a half cup of minced ginger, three garlic cloves, a pinch of salt, and some love. From this, I was somehow able to craft a batch of what I named Third World Cranberry Mango Chutney, for that is how I imagine suffering people cook. They make what they can, and then create folk music on garbage can lids. After that I pan-seared a twelve ounce steak in some butter and poured the chutney over it. I took one bite and threw everything away, because I realized that I do not like chutney, and the taste had ruined the steak.

So, the other day, I found myself with literally nothing but some very old grape jelly, and half a can of black beans. I put those beans in a pan, then added the jelly and let it simmer for five minutes.

I named the dish Jelly Beans. They did not taste good.