a tin of sardines (nice ones from Fresh & Wild in olive oil, but basically a tin of sardines)
a bowl of peas.
And tomato sauce.
This is not good at my advanced age. Halp! I cannot cook. Or even food shop. The cupboard is bare. I keep opening it as if by magic nice food will suddenly appear in there by itself.
Why don't you post me a nice easy recipe in the comments - I will make it, and review it for your reading pleasure. And even post a photo if it looks edible. BTW I'm vegetarian - yes yes I know, but have been one since I was a nipper and it's a hard habit to break - I will have seafood & fish though. (technically, a pescatarian.)
Go on! I'll give control of my life over to you. You gots the power. It'll be just like the Dice Man, except without the choice to sleep with a teenage girl which curiously always seemed to be one of his options.
About Courbet (yet again)
1 day ago
25 comments:
I subside mostly on jacket potatoes with either tuna or beans and pasta with various sauces.
I can make a mean nut roast though.
Recipe, please... (for the nut roast.)
This has a lot of ingredients but they only have to be chopped up and put in layers in a pan. Basically it's like eating your five (plus) veg a day in one go and feeling smug about it. Briam – Greek dish. Makes a vast amount.
Set oven to gas mark 4/350F/180C
have big wide, shallow ovenproof dish. grease with lots of olive oil.
1kg ripe tomatoes, sliced thickly
1 large potato, sliced
1 large aubergine sliced
2 medium courgettes, cut into coins
250g okra (topped and tailed and sprinkled with lemon juice) or
artichoke hearts or skinned broad beans
2 -3 Green peppers (sliced)
2 - 3 onions
4 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon of dried oregano
salt and pepper
100g of feta cheese (or more if you're obsessed with it, like me)
Put layer of tomatoes on the bottom of the dish. Then layer on all the
other veg in turn, sprinkling garlic, onions, salt, pepper and oregano
as you go (between the layers). Top with a layer of tomatoes. Sprinkle
on some more olive oil. Crumble feta over it.
Put in oven for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or 2hrs (the recipe isn't very well
written and can't seem to decide, I've frequently left it in for less time). Is very nice hot, nicer cold, after
a day. Have it with flat bread, crusty bread, good rice, pasta... Nice with plain yoghurt too.
A thai curry where you just substitute the chicken with vegetables (firm ones that hold up to a bit of cooking) has been a really good standby for me when catering for vegetarians. It's also really quite satisfying to make the whole thing from scratch although you need a food processor to blitz up all the coriander, basil, ginger, garlic, lemon grass etc. I just wish I could make sticky rice.
Nigel Slater's recipes are always adaptable and his book Appetite has lots of recipes which are infinitely adaptable, plus a whole section on vegetable cookery and recipes.
Take:
1 tin of tuna,
1 tin of corn,
1 wholemeal pitta,
1 generous splash of french dressing.
Add drained corn to drained tuna.
Jumble thoroughly in a bowl.
Flick odd bit of corn into air and catch in mouth.
Celebrate.
Add generous splash of dressing to mixture.
Churn everything together with a fork.
Lick fork.
Toast and slice pitta.
Stuff mixture into pitta.
Consume.
Place remainder of mixture in fridge for further use.
Annie,
Happy New Year to yer!
Sardines on toast sprinkled liberally with cayenne pepper and a tiny bit of salt are an excellent snack.
Re the toms, saute onions and loads of garlic in olive oil, throw in toms, sling in glass of last night's old red wine (if such a thing could ever really exist) or not as the case may be. Then eat.
Re the peas, boil and eat wiv a bit of butter.
x
Ha ha, Annie, I was so taken with your widgit, on't right> that I'm giving it a trial on my blog. Pip pip!
Any variation on this is always worth eating - the simpler the better.
I'm exactly the same as you and largely exist on muesli and ryvita with cheese. But I have just been sent this recipe so I will pass it on to you:
You will need an assortment of fresh mushrooms: shitakes work best, but since they are expensive, you can also add chanterelles, oyster mushrooms, girgolas (don't know how these are called in English) or Portobello mushrooms. Portobellos and regular champignons taste too mushroom-y so I prefer to use more of the other varieties.
Clean the mushrooms with a damp cloth, cut them in bite size pieces and some 8-10 hours before serving, marinate them in the following mix:
* Citrus juice (lemon, lime, orange or any combination of them. I usually squeeze two lemons, two limes and an orange)
* A bunch of cilantro, chopped (you can also add some parsley)
* 2 garlic cloves, chopped
* 1 or 2 green onions, chopped (or red onions)
* A bit of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped (optional)
* 2 dried jalapeño peppers, chopped. I like it hot but I tossed away the seeds when I prepared it for you. I suppose you can also use fresh jalapeño. If I don't have jalapeños, I use a dash or two of Tabasco sauce instead.
* Salt and pepper (I use pink salt and black pepper)
Marinate the mushrooms tossing the mix occasionally.
Just before serving I add a bit of olive oil and, if necessary, more salt and pepper.
Enjoy!
If you have leftovers, you can have them the following day in a sandwich or wrapped in nori sheets.
Talking of Nigel Slater - here is a good cheap, nutritious and very easy supper to make.
I am doing this from memory and don't do quantities by wrote but will do my best:
Get an oval baking dish
Buy some mackerel fillets
Buy some nice potatoes (Maris Pipers)
Buy a med size pot of double cream (not long life!)
Buy some semi-skimmed milk
Buy some good wholegrain mustard
Garlic 2 fat cloves
Spinach
Brown Firm Chestnut Mushrooms
Fresh Bay leaf x 2
Fresh black pepper
Heat the oven up to around 180
Slice the potatoes into £1 coin thick slices
Cover the bottom of the dish with a layer of the potato slices. Lay a bay leaf on top.
Then rip up a fillet of mackerel and scatter randomly over the potato layer. Add coarsely chopped chestnut mushrooms and random pieces of spinach (or fresh watercress if you prefer).
Repeat this whole process three times (except bayleaf only once more) until you have a layer of potato pieces for the top.
Then get a measuring jug. Crush 2 fat cloves of garlic. Chuck in the jug.Then pour 300ml of thick double cream and top up with 200ml of milk. Add a huge big over full tablespoon dollop of good quality wholegrain mustard.
Stir it all together vigourously and pour over your layered potato/fish mixture - keep stirring as you do otherwise the mustard grain won't be evenly dispersed and will sink to the bottom of the jug. Finish off with a big grind of fresh black pepper and shove in the oven for an hour until top crispy.
Serve with steamed fine green beans.
Or just have on it's own. The original recipe is without spinach and mushrooms but I have added them over the years.
This is also excellent cold the next day.
Happy cooking!
Happy Birthday, Annie...
Give this a try...
I meant Happy New Year!
But if your birthday is anytime this year, enjoy!
Go her recipes are simple, generally have only a few ingredients and many are vegetarian. Her potato & lentil soup with saffron & orange was particularly nice.
Wow! Overwhelmed by the lovely bloggers. Watch this space for your recipes...
Hi Dan! Happy New Year!
Happy New Year, Cream!
M, thanks for that, it looks like a lovely food blog...
People who don't eat tinned vegetables, turn away now!
Get some risotto rice; arborio should be easy to spot in supermarkets. Get a tin of chopped tomatoes, mixed pulses or something; try and get something with sauce or juices, rather than something that wants draining.
Boil a kettle and stick 60-120g or half a cup (depending on appetite, which meal it is, etc.) of rice in a saucepan.
Pour on boiling water. About the same by volume as the rice: the rice probably needs a little more, but adding it after is much easier than trying to take it out. Reduce the amount of water if the tinned veg has sauce with it.
Add the tinned veg. Season if you like.
Simmer on a low heat with a lid on (askew if it looks like it might boil over). It might need to cook for 20 minutes or more, but with the heat low it'll only need stirring once in a while. Risotto purists will probably tell you not to stir, but they're probably also better cooks than us and even though the rice won't burn, whatever else you put in just might.
Periodically eat a couple of grains to test. If the rice isn't done and the mixture is dry add a little water.
Optionally add some cheese: don't waste the good stuff, but a few little sticks of mild plastic helps the texture. Put cheese in near the end of cooking so it's melted but not mixed right through.
Serve when the rice is cooked and the mixture is of a nice consistency (per your taste). Arborio and carnaroli are sturdy and will take quite a while to overcook, so if you want to simmer a little more to thicken the mixture you can.
If the fat isn't too much, serve with some parmesan. (Again, don't waste the good stuff unless you really want to: your supermarket's 'Italian grated hard cheese' works fine).
The recipe used to be more complicated, more like real food, but I live on my own and I can't be bothered to cook properly for one.
Carrot and ginger soup.
Chop and par-boil 2 or 3 carrots. Chop 1 onion and 1 big hunk of ginger. Fry onions and ginger for a few minutes to soften. Take the carrots out of the water and add them to the frying pan with the onions and ginger. Keep the water and add a veggie stock cube to it. Bit by bit, add the stock to the frying pan. After a while (maybe 15 mins?) switch it off and let it cool. Then blend. If you want, add black pepper or a wee bit of sour cream or a splash of orange juice.
If you're feeling adventurous and have people around then I'd recommend The Hairy Biker's Ultimate Fish Pie.
I made it at the weekend since one guest was one of those awkward vegetarians and it was delicious (he says modestly).
recipe here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/theultimatefishpie_87821.shtml
Chop up vegetables.
Pop in pan.
Cook and stir around a bit.
Dollop of soy.
Say "this is easy".
Eat with rice or noodles.
Be sated.
Woo! A cornucopia of riches, and new people! Hey Alan and Jimmy Page's Trousers, welcome back Timorous Beastie and QE! So pleased, I'm almost getting enthusiastic about cooking, which is the idea... This might even stretch to 2 weeks of eating right...
Pasta of choice
Broccili
Garlic
Olve oil - lots
Anchovies -optional
Boil your pasta.
Half way through this, gently heat oil in a pan.
Add finely chopped garlic. Cook garlic but don't let it brown. Add anchovies if you like; stir them in and they'll mush-up nicely. Continue to cook gently.
Trim and steam the broccili untill just the other side of crunchy.
When pasta is done stir it into the olive oil and garlic so that it's thoroughly coated.
Serve with greens on top and parmesan and black pepper.
Cheers, Arabella. I love broccolli, me. The kids at school call it 'little trees'.
You mean there are people who don't call it little trees??
One of my favourite filling things at the moment is basically a lasagne but with grilled aubergine in the place of the pasta, which sounds demented but trust me, ok? I think I got it from one of Valentine Harris' books.
Basically, get a decent-sized aubergine and slice lengthways, about 1/2cm thick, and rub noth sides with salt: put a colander into a bowl (or your sink if you have as tiny a kitchen as me) and line it with the slices. Leave it for about 20 minutes - some kinda icky-looking, bitter, brown water will dribble off and your aubergine will taste better.
Make your red sauce with whatever you'd like (or get it from a jar) and make your white sauce (oh who am I kidding, everyone gets this out of a jar, but I always add a bit more parmesan to it for this recipe). Rinse the aubergine slices and then make up your lasagne as normal: layer of red, layer of aubergine where you'd have pasta, layer of white. I usually find two layers of each is quite sufficient. Sprinkle loads of parmesan and black pepper on top and oven on 200c for about half an hour.
Or ignore me, as all I have eaten today is a slice of dry toast and some bacon flavour Super Noodles with the flvour sachet left out. Not a natural chef, me.
Violet! Raaaaah! We missed you!
Aww. I am finding it very comforting to be reading blogs again, in a very sad sort of way. I've had an injury to my blogging finger. And to my cooking brain, apparently, as I forgot to mention that in my recipe for "Lasagne-But-With-Grilled-Aubergine-Instead-Of-Pasta" one actually has to grill the aubergine, brush it with olive oil and whack it in a griddle pan for a few minutes each side.
Better give the ol' brain a bit of a wind-up before I attempt an actual post of my own, I think.
Why is everyone suddenly obsessed with ninjas, then?
Post! Post! Post!
Who wouldn't want to be a ninja? The world needs more ninjas. (I think it's just a satisfying word to say.)
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