So what's for supper?

[Juton]

I'm trying to do more home cooking, things more advanced that frozen pizza or barbeque. The problem I am running into is that I'm really culinary uncreative and I don't really know what's possible. So I'm hoping some of you can share what you have for supper in a week so I can broaden my culinary horizons.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Baby spinach salad with home-made vinaigrette dressing.

The dressing is made by mixing malt vinegar and olive oil together with some fresh garlic, cracked pepper, and oregano then allowed to soak in for a few days.

[Doom]

Quesadillas are pretty easy...you can get the flatbread and pre-shredded cheese in the store easily enough (and instructions for quesadillas are on the back of the bread packaging). Get some deli meat or wahtever if you want more than cheese. Takes a few minutes with a skillet, and you can eat one while making the next.

Next up is tacos, which requires a bit more skillet skill for the taco meat...past that you need refried beans, shredded cheese and lettuce, maybe onions and tomatoes depending on your goals (these first two are because gf is vegetarian, so I have to adapt a bit).

For totally non-vegetarian, grab a rotisserie chicken, almost every store sells them now. Toss some carrots and onions in with the chicken as you're heating it up in the oven. You can't hardly screw it up, and it'll give you a feel for how long it takes to cook onions/carrots to taste (and not like the meal is ruined if you undercook by much).

Those are three trivial meals that give the basics of working with an oven or skillet.

[Koumei]

Often we just throw random stuff (some kind of sauce or stock, one or two meats, and the entire Plant Kingdom) in a slow cooker. Alternatively, a stir-fry with just, say, kangaroo meat, carrot, capsicum (peppers, to the Americans), mushrooms, broccoli and a few others, then start randomly adding soy sauce, sweet chilli sauce and mirin.

[Maj]

In the last few days:

Chowderish Soup - Sausage, chicken, corn, celery, onion, butternut squash, potatoes, chicken stock base. Green salad.

Breakfast - Hashbrowns. Bacon. Eggs. Grapefruit.

"Italian" Surprise - Peppers, zucchini, broccoli, chicken, tomatoes, jar of pasta sauce, mozzarella cheese.

Orange chicken - Onions, chicken, peppers, celery, carrots, orange sauce.

Taco Salad - Chicken (or beef, but this week it's chicken), peppers, tomatoes, cojack cheese, onions, sour cream, guacamole, cilantro, taco bell sauce.

Tonight: Italian sausages, mashed potatoes and gravy, green salad.

[rampaging-poet]

Step one: buy a cookbook. Even if you don't follow the recipes exactly, it can give you some ideas on how to start. Also be on the lookout for recipes on the sides or backs of products you buy or are thinking about trying.

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I had spaghetti tonight. For the sauce, I browned ground beef in the bottom of a saucepan, then added chopped onion, bell peppers, and celery. After letting everything cook down a little (i.e. let the veges shrink a bit), I added a store-bought bottle of red pasta sauce. After bringing it up to a boil, I let it simmer for about half an hour. After that, I boiled water for the noodles, which cook pretty quickly once the water boiled.

Another thing I've eaten recently is tandoori chicken. Get whatever type of chicken you want, a little plain or vanilla yogourt, and a bottle of Patak's tandoori paste. Follow the recipe on the bottle.

Curry is also easy. Get a jar of curry paste, a can of coconut milk, chicken or stewing beef, and vegetables to taste. Brown your meat, add the vegetables, and then add the coconut milk and a couple tablespoons of curry paste. Once it boils, it's cooked, but you can also let it simmer longer so the flavour soaks into the meat.

A few weeks ago, I made sweet and sour vegetables and pork. I cut boneless pork into cubes and browned it while I chopped my vegetables. The sweet and sour sauce was made from one part white sugar, one part ketchup, one part vinegar, and (IIRC) a little warm water. If you have cornstarch you can use that to thicken the sauce, but it's fine if you don't. I put the browned pork, vegetables, sauce, and a can of pineapple tidbits in a deep baking dish and baked it for an hour or so at 350 F. Serve with rice.

[Maj]

Don't know if you're interested, but here are some of the cookbooks we have been inspired by the most:

The Joy of Cooking
Betty Crocker Cookbook
50 Classic Curries
Sunset Wok Cook Book
Sunset Chinese Cookbook
Northern Italian Cooking
The Food of Asia
Nourishing Traditions

And I have a recipe box of family recipes, and a binder of things I've collected from around and about. I also subscribe to Cooking Pleasures.

[Maxus]

Little pizzas.

English muffins, tomato sauce, some seasonings if you want (garlic salt, oregano, whatever. If you have it in your store, go buy a can of Tony Cachere's Original. It's a bright green can, with a red top. That shit is amazing if you have limited shelf space, and a little goes a long way) cheese and other toppings.

Brown your hamburger meat like you would for spaghetti, leave it to drain and split the muffins apart. Put some sauce on it (you can heat it with the seasonings in if you're feeling froggy). About a tablespoon will do. Put a little bit of the meat on top, sprinkle with cheese and pepperoni and whatever else you like on a pizza. Cook in the oven at 350 degrees until cheese is golden brown.

Two makes a decent meal. Cook more for groups, or for later. They heat up okay, or can be assembled, fridged, and then cooked later.

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Jambalaya.

This is a fairly loose 'recipe'. Take rice. Cook it in some kind of soup stock, add solid chunks of meat and vegetables during the cooking. Microwaved link sausage cut into chunks works fine if you're lazy. Call it jambalaya.

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I'm trying to remember the recipe for the Kickass Macaroni and Cheese, but it's escaping me. I know part of the secret is an egg stirred into a cup of milk. I'll ask the folks.

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I'll also asked the recipe of the cooked-down chicken. It's simple, it's just I can't remember it this late at night. Something like "cut chicken meat into chunks, put in frying pan with a little butter and some marinade and garlic on medium-ish heat, stir sometimes, and just let it cook through in the juices'.
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I'll post more when I know for sure.

[Prak]

My parents bought me this cookbook when I first went off to college despite a basic cooking ability, and I found it very useful. It has everything from two different suggested grocery lists (weekly and staples), to recipes, to methodology and even "here's what to do when you're broke."

I highly recommend it if you're not used to cooking.

[rampaging-poet]

Most of my cooking knowledge comes from helping my parents make dinner, but the cookbook I've been using lately is Jamie's Food Revolution. Some of the recipes can be found on the website here.
The front of the book includes a list of basic staples with pictures. Most of the recipes are a little large, fancy, or expensive for me to make for myself all the time, but there's lots of things that are quick to make and/or freeze well. I made the crispy garlic chicken on my first night cooking for myself, and it turned out really well.

[Stahlseele]

Pancakes!
Stir-Fry.
Sunny side up eggs on clies of bread. Or with some slices of bacon/salami under it in the pan.
Poor Knight < = bascially, bread slices cut into about mouth sized pieces, then soaked in some stirred eggs with some spices like salt, pepper and what else you like and tastes good with this . . and then put in a pan and fried untill golden or a bit more brown.
noodle pan.
cook some noodles of choice.
meanwhile fry some sliced sausages, pieces/slices of salami/bacon.
when the meat part is all good, add noodles to pan and fry them in there too. add some spices to your liking.
spaghetti with bacon. not in slices, but in tiny little cubes of meaty goodness.
cook spaghetti, fry bacon dice in pan. when all is said and done, put the spaghetti into the pan for some seconds to soak up some of the nice oil from the bacon. or simply poor the bacon juice over the spaghetti.
mix with the fried bacon cubes. if it ain't fatty/slippery enough, add some butter slices to melt on the hot spaghetti.
and of course, fish-sticks. they go with/without anything.
sliced potatoes fried in a pan. maybe add some bacon squares, maybe fry some bacon slices on the side. maybe some eggs sunny side up to that. or simply poor scrambled eggs into it and have stir-fry with potato slices in it . .

[JigokuBosatsu]

I always suggest that anything you screw up cooking-wise can be seasoned some more and put on top of rice. Expanding on that thought, try subbing out the rice with couscous, quinoa, barley, cracked wheat, etc.

[Prak]

Hobo Pies, from a great cooking blog

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Sounds similar to Whatchagot stew.

[Stahlseele]

I always suggest that anything you screw up cooking-wise can be seasoned some more and put on top of rice. Expanding on that thought, try subbing out the rice with couscous, quinoa, barley, cracked wheat, etc.

rice, yeah, good idea!
milk rice for example, needs being tended while cooking, but is, otherwise, easy enough to make . .
or curry rice. easy enough too, just make regular rice and add curry spices to it.
you can even just fry it in a pan and eat it with ketchup too.

Furthermore: Meat.
It's usually easy to do, if all you do is make a piece of meat.
seriously. as long as you know how long to cook what kind of meat and what spices you like to add, it's just putting it into the pan and handling it.

or if you get one of those aluminium pan thingies with chicken parts in it, you basically just add spices and put it into an oven and wait untill it's done. it's done when you can break the skin like a thin branch!

[Maxus]

Got the recipe for the cooked-down chicken.

You can used bone-in chicken meat, but boneless cooks faster.

Melt some butter in the bottom of a pan. Add a little garlic and stir it around. Add the chicken, and add whatever seasonings you want to try on it. Be sure to flip and stir the chicken around to keep it from burning and try to get it evenly coated. Add in whatever else you want while it's cooking--bits of vegetable, peppers, whatever you think would soak up the flavor well.

When it's cooked through (cut one of the larger pieces in half to see), turn off the heat and serve with whatever you want. The pieces should be a very light brown, almost white, on the exterior, apart from the speckles of whatever you added on them.

[PoliteNewb]

Common stuff that gets eaten around my house:

Spaghetti: super easy and versatile. Besides the traditional tomato sauce, you can throw in cooked ground beef, sausage, mushrooms, olives, whatever you like. Or you can use alternate sauces (vodka sauce is the bomb). Or you can just toss the noodles with butter and garlic, and add some parsley and/or parmesan cheese.

Burritos: also pretty easy; just heat up refried beans (you can mix in a can of pinto beans if you want), add stuff, roll in a tortilla. Stuff = lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, olives, salsa, sour cream, guacamole, etc.

Meatloaf: the secret is to use lean meat, breadcrumbs (NOT oatmeal), and mix some worcestershire sauce and au jus mix into the meat mixture before cooking it.

Green Chili Pork: throw some boneless chops into a slow cooker with a can of green chilis and a can of green enchilada sauce, and cook the shit out of it until it shreds up nicely. Serve with rice.

Yakisoba: cook up some ramen noodles, WITHOUT the seasoning packet; drain. Dice up some bacon and cook it in a wok, then throw in some chopped up cabbage or broccoli and fry it for a while, then add the noodles and pour yakisoba sauce over it.

Mexican chicken: throw some boneless chicken into a slow cooker with a jar of salsa and cook the shit out of it. Serve with rice, shredded cheese, and sour cream.

Breakfast: buy a waffle iron; once you expiriment a little and find just how long it takes to make a waffle, you can make them perfect every time. I love cooking (and eating) bacon, but I find an easy way to do it is chop it into 1" pieces and just stir it up in a wok; drain on a brown paper bag. Eggs are however you like them. The tricky part about breakfasts is making all the different components finish up at the same time.

Eggplant Parmesan: slice an eggplant as thin as you can (1/4" if you can do it); dip in egg, then breadcrumbs. Fry up in shallow oil until golden brown on both sides. Serve with spaghetti, with sauce and mozzarella on top of the eggplant.

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches (should be self-explanatory, I hope)

Shepherd's Pie: cook up some ground beef, seasoned to taste (season salt, black pepper, thyme, and a bit of curry is usually good), then mix in some brown gravy mix. Cook some diced carrot, onion, and celery in butter, then mix it together. You can throw in some other vegetables if you want...mushrooms, peppers, whatever. Cook it for a while, then pour it in a pie dish. Mix up some instant mashed potatoes and spread this over the meat mixture; sprinkle with cheese if you like.

[Maj]

Meatloaf: the secret is to use lean meat, breadcrumbs (NOT oatmeal), and mix some worcestershire sauce and au jus mix into the meat mixture before cooking it.

Way back when my step-dad died and our finances shrank accordingly, my mom switched from making meatloaf with beef to making it with turkey. My siblings and I called it "fake meatloaf" because it may have looked like meatloaf, but it wasn't the same.

Fast forward a decade... Mom decided one day that she would splurge and make beef meatloaf as a nice treat for us. Surprise, surprise... Universally, the consensus at the table was that it was disgusting. None of us have gone back to "real meatloaf" (except when I made the two for Ess and converted him).

Of course, ground turkey isn't cheaper than ground beef anymore, so meatloaf isn't really on the menu lately.

[tzor]

A good meatloaf requires the trinity of meatloaf meats, beef, pork and veal. It requires a REAL MAN (TM) to make sure it doesn't fall apart by wacking the shit out of it and it also requires the SECRET INGREDIENT.

So the day after turkey day I convinced everyone that we should consult the Gordon's Fisherman. I cheated a little by getting the TGIF onion rings.

[Prak]

I never understood peoples' aversion to meatloaf, because I grew up with my mom cooking her father's awesome meatloaf recipe. Basically:

2 lb. Ground Beef
1 lb. Italian Sausage
1 egg
2 cup Italian Breadcrumbs

optionally: 2 T grated parm, 1 finger of garlic minced, 2 T Ital. Seasoning, salt and pepper.

Mix all together, mold into pan.

Nominally this is a meat stuffing for chicken or turkey (that's right, my grandfather was stuffing meat in meat before it was cool), so the recipe I found doesn't have baking times or temps, but figure half an hour @ ~400 degrees, and just keep an eye on it. Reheats pretty well, so if you want to make it ahead of time the first time to get time and temp dialed in, no worries, just get it fully cooked, and throw it in for about 20 minutes at a lower heat covered in foil to get it heated up.


One tip I've found recently for meat loaf, to make sure it doesn't dry out, is to put a strip of bacon at the bottom of the pan. Haven't tried it myself, but as we all know, bacon makes everything better.

[tzor]

We tend to wrap the meatloaf (except the bottom) in bacon.