Thank you for pushing that post off the top of the page.
I was just told that this post was over 2 weeks old and that my comment would be moderated.
I much prefer that to spam.
Also very easy: Fish in foil. (It sounds better in French.) Take a fillet of white fish. Chop up finely a peppers, maybe an onion, maybe some herbs, maybe a bit of tomato. Put the lot onto a sheet of foil, drizzle with olive oil. Fold up tin foil and twirl the ends--this creates the "Papillote" effect for the French. Bake in oven at, oh, say, 350, until done. Which means the fish is flaky, if you're old-fashioned. The prep work might take 10 minutes, baking maybe 20. Serve over rice.
For permanent ingredients, I would also recommend olive tapenade and creme fraiche. If you've got nothing else, you can always make a sauce for pasta of the combination of the two.
If you've got some time on a weekend, you really can't go wrong by preparing a gigantic batch of ratatouille, which is good with everything for as long as the leftovers last. Good luck!
Jeez, my arteries are clogging just reading this list. Oil, butter, mayonnaise, bread, potatoes. Do you own stock in an olive oil importer, godfather?
Um, I just wrote a comment with Recipes! Links! Witticisms! Sex!* and was informed that since the post I was responding to was more than two weeks old, my comment would be held for moderation.
*Some of this may not be true, but if my comment is held indefinitely, I hope the wider public will recognize the reflexive censorship of The Man.
Bob, here's the thing: if the alternative is eating out or defrosting premade food, you'll be much better off with some olive oil, cream, and fresh veggies. At least you'll know what your food is.
moderate amounts of fat are perfectly healthy in a diet which contains lots of fresh vegetables and fish and some meat. you don't need to put a lot of butter on your new potatoes; a little bit of good quality butter will be fine. as for the patty melt, well, I only eat them twice a year or so, but I included them for the sake of completeness, as they are easy and tasty. if you've got steamed salmon, veggie soup with yogurt, salad nicoise and pasta for four of your weekly meals it doesn't really matter if you have pork chops for the next one...
Salade niçoise, as we say 'round here.
canned tomatoes in sauce
Sorry to nitpick, but I was just watching America's Test Kitchen, and they said something I agree with: you want canned tomatoes in their natural juices, not in puree. With just the juice you don't get that "cooked" flavor of the puree, and therefore can use the tomatoes in more applications.
Otherwise, excellent suggestions!
oh, yeah. I guess I was thinking those terms were ineterchangeable. I prefer Muir Glen organic peeled plum tomatoes in puree.
FL needs to eat in the morning, too, and eggs Montreal (biscuit, egg, Canadian bacon, swiss, tomato, and hollandaise) is the best way to start a weekend day. A hollandaise isn't easy to make, but if you're willing to put the effort into it (or buy some at the store), a whole host of egg dishes opens up. Poaching eggs is probably second only in ease to scrambling them.
What? I'd argue that poaching is the hardest egg operation.
I love poached eggs but this is easier and yummier: spray a muffin tin with cooking spray, line one or more cups with sliced deli ham, spoon into each lined cup a few spoonfuls of drained canned diced tomatoes and a tablespoon of goat cheese, and then crack an egg into each cup. Cook at 400 until the white has set and the yolk is still runny (about 10-15 minutes). It’s simple enough to throw together for dinner after work or makes a good breakfast when entertaining guests (it scales well and they think you slaved in the kitchen).
I'd have to agree with tom. They're so hard to get right—but so very, very delicious.
There are microwave poaching things. It's not as good as the real deal, but not bad.
?? Simmering water in a frying pan, a slug of vinegar in the water, and fish the eggs out with a slotted spoon. What could go wrong?
I have one of those. I'm still giving it the benefit of the doubt, blaming the facsimiliciousness of its eggs on my personal ineptitude. Did add enough water? Too little? Did I center the yolk? Eventually I'll get around to blaming the Republicans, and then possibly the contraption itself.
It's actually harder to poach an egg using one of those microwave things. LB's got it right.
I don't think I have a slotted spoon anymore.
Well, see, there's your trouble.
Did add enough water? Too little?
I could see too little water being a problem -- if the egg sits on the bottom of the pan, it's going to stick. You want a couple of inches deep.
I totally blame Republicans, but Lizard has a point about the vinegar and the spoon. gently, gently boil the water, is my advice. barely burbling: let it be your watchword.
I meant the water added to the microwave podules to get them steaming, and, I guess, to prevent the yolk from hardening. Which seems to happen irrespective of how much water there is. I'm definitely going to try this exotic stove-top hocus-pocus.
The ingredients are much more tricky than the poached eggâ€"you have to match the dish to a city. Throw a 16-oz porterhouse under the egg? Eggs Dallas.
This whole discussion, from my point of view, misses the point that shopping can be a real pain, especially if you live alone and don't consume fresh produce quickly enough to make it worthwhile to buy sizable quantities at once. Has anyone ever used up a whole bunch of parsley before it goes bad? I quote from the review of the 20-minute cookbook Ala linked: "The problem is that the pantry list gets much too long and includes produce that will not keep indefinitely." (Though the thing about garam masala is madness--I can get that in Lubbock.) And don't even get me started on defrosting.
I'm tempted to get revenge by posting the recipe I made last night, which begins, "Come home exhausted from your class that ends at 8:20, start boiling some water, realize you don't have any Kraft mac & cheese, panic."
Well, the 'freezing stew in serving sizes' plan doesn't involve a lot of shopping per meal; you shop once and freeze a dozen meals. You can do a lot with eggs and cheese, which keep forever.... the thing to do is to stock up on the stuff that keeps, and then shop for perishables quickly and frequently, running in and out of the store for veggies. Also, frozen vegetables are your friends.
If you have to unfreeze n vegetables, don't you run out of burners or pots? I'll think about that, though, I always thought frozen vegetables were verboten. (I don't have a pot big enough to cook a dozen meals at once though. I suppose I could buy a new pot.)
Re 31 and 32. I've often wondered why you can't buy refrigerators where the freezer and the fridge are reversed. I'm not talking about those perfectly normal refrigerators where the freezer is at the bottom. What I mean is this: why isn't the freezer twice as big as the section for the fresh ingredients?
I'm telling you: stir fry is your friend. You take all those vegetables you haven't used by the end of the week (or appropriate interval), throw in a little of each of the various Asian sauces from your fridge, and kind of stir it around in your new big pot. That's student stir fry, anyhow.
If you have to unfreeze n vegetables, don't you run out of burners or pots?
Frozen veggies + bowl + microwave + a little butter = no need for another burner. And yes, you need one big pot.
Coat lamb with olive tapenade, roast. Die a happy [whatever]. Seriously the best, simplest, thing ever.
33: Frozen veggies are absolutely not verboten, especially if you're adding said veggie to a dish that's going to get cooked. I'll add frozen peas to, say, risotto or pasta without even defrosting them. Frozen corn? Delicious in many a Tex-Mex application (e.g., toss into a skillet of ground beef, spices, chiles, etc., right at the end to warm them through).
34: That's why we just shelled out for a chest-style freezer in our basement. It was an investment, but now we have someplace to put 6 quarts of lobster stock.
Armsmasher's right about the stir-fry. It's not hard to make your own curry sauce either, but Trader Joe's makes good ones (thai red curry mmmm.)
Weiner, depending on how close you live to a good market, and how close that market is to a good farm, frozen veggies may actually have more nutrients and vitamins than fresh.
Fat is good for you in moderate amounts, and certainly better than over-processed shite with fake fat (and more calories.) Vive le beurre!
Frozen peas are generally better than fresh ones (unless they're coming straight from the garden), and they microwave really well.
Sausage, of whatevr sort you favor, also freezes well and can be cooked from frozen. JackMormon's ratatouille recipe up above, made on the weekend (and frozen in serving sizes!), and served with some good Italian sausages fried up in a pan? Can't do better than that.
The secret to badass stir fry is to get the pan really, really hot. If you don't have to open a window and turn on a fan because of your oil smokin', it's not hot enough. It does affect the flavor.
So I need a microwave, eh?
depending on how close you live to a good market
I was thinking, in re the "pop in for fresh produce," of saying "and did I mention that the supermarket two blocks from my house doesn't have chickpeas! Chickpeas! But am within driving distance of a market people seem to like (though I think local ag runs to cotton'n'cows. And wine.)
You don't need one -- I just figured that most people have them. Small pot, stovetop works just as well, as does M3tt's tip re: throwing frozen veggies into recipes without defrosting them.
Though that doesn't work so well when the veggies are frozen in a block. The close quote in 43 should be after the second "Chickpeas!" btw. What worries me is using several types of frozen vegetables--that would run me out of burners and pots pretty quick.
All right, now you're just borrowing trouble. How many types of frozen vegetables do you plan to eat at the same meal without incorporating them into one dish? Is the plan some kind of crazed peas and corn and broccoli and spinach and peas&carrots all served in seperate compartments of a cafeteria tray madness?
Oh, I won't burn in hell if I cook the different frozen veggies together? Good to know. And no, I never plan to have more than one dish at a time. (but as you may have noticed, my participation in this thread is more about complaining than doing anything constructive.)
cafeteria tray madness
Is that some new teen movie?
It's okay to let different vegetables touch. This is called heterobotanism and it's perfectly normal.
46â€"47, I don't like my vegetables to touch. Really. Luckily, the pots and pans I use are washable, so I don't have to worry about using them up.
I won't burn in hell if I cook the different frozen veggies together?
No, but some none-hellish and otherwise unspecified bad will result from mixing fabrics (Leviticus 19:19).
Not you, too, Becks! Oh dear.
Three, and we'll have a trendâ€"a demographic, even!
AND I eat things on my plate one food at a time. Don't even bother trying to persuade me with that "it all gets mixed together in your stomach" BS. I've withstood an Italian grandmother all of these years -- I can take your ass down.
What you do with your food is your own business. I'm just sad to see this tragedy unfolding again.
I can take your ass down.
Unless your ass is touching another ass.
When I was growing up, I was just like you, Becks. But when I went off to college, I found myself immersed in heterobotanistic environment, and I experimented, and it just felt right. Now I can't imagine going back to my previous lifestyle.
Mix! Also, fish, contrary to myth, is easy to cook and doesn't take any time.
Spoiling nice fish! Give it to us raw, and wrigglingâ€" you keep nasty chips, Wehttam Saiselgy!
What do you homobotanists think of casseroles?
(I know we're talking about food elements not strictly limited to vegetables now, but I don't know the Greek for "food element".)
Since I’ve seen Armsmasher advocate stir-fry many times on this thread, I presume that he shares my thoughts on this: food that are meant to be heterogeneous are acceptable but independent food items should not intersect.
You do realize that you're on the slippery slope towards advocating botanic cleansing? (See also Armsmasher's 50: "washable")
64, right. If it's casseroles, I don't like my casseroles touching. That's disgusting.
botanic cleansing
That's how Kenny Loggins met his wife, y'know. And of course, you can't have a casserole without ass.
In addition to the homo/heterobotany question there's the Runny Egg Question. Some people, like myself, simply can't abide a runny egg. Poaching--ick.
Mmmm, I loves me some runny eggs. I'll happily eat all the eggs benedict your clenched throat refuses.
Also, I'd like to propose Walgreen's as the Official Drugstore of The Mineshaft®.
When making a tomato based pasta sauce, I found that adding a diced carrot adds the appropriate amount of sweet to balance out the tart tomatoes. And its a reasonably healthy alternative to sugar, which is often included in traditiional italian recipes.
From the link in 69: I did a little research and it turns out that Walgreen's has never sponsored a golf tournament, nor the World Series, not even the Superbowl... [ellipsis in original] the Gay Games is apparently the first sporting event the retail giant has seen fit to support. So why this disgusting festival?
Oh I don't know, maybe because the others aren't charitable events? Either that, or Satan.
Also, if I was a Gay Games participant, I would now make a point of bringing a golden calf. I also find the reference to the gay mafia to be hysterical, but since I might be slightly offended if every reference to homosexuals in that piece was instead reference to Jews, perhaps I shouldn't find it so funny.
Of course, the Jew Games would be uproarious as well.
Jew Games would be like what, Sims World?
the Jew Games
I think those are called the Emmys.
One easter I gathered feral (volunteer) rosemary from the empty lot next door (City life!), rubbed a leg of lamb with olive oil, pepper, salt and the feral rosemary, let it sit in the fridge for twelve hours, then roasted.
Was the best easter I ever spent by myself......
I really like the idea of a gay mafia.
Is youse gonna cover the vig what you owe, or am I going to have to scratch yer eyes out?
Some people, like myself, simply can't abide a runny egg. Poaching--ick.
For reasons unclear to me, I put poached eggs in a category apart from other kinds of runny eggs, which are abominations before God. Wet scrambled eggs, especially. Barf.
Also, at no time should you ever while eating eggs contemplate the unfertilized pre-chicken sliding down your throat, because it will be days or weeks before your next omelet.
Crap.
Scrambled eggs should never be wet, but should equally never be dry. The moist creaminess achieved by stirring constantly over low heat until there is no liquid egg left is the only true scrambled egg.
LB's way is one I've been experimenting with off and on for years, since Julia Child seems to feel the same way as LB. It's just not as good as breaking the yolk onm an over-easy egg and scrambling everything that way--then you get two different kinds of egg in the same dish. I can't abide runny eggs in any form, unless they're made into an -aise sauce--then they're delicious.
runny eggs, which are abominations before God
You people are all completely insane. Also, steaks should ooze red cowjuice when pressed with a fork.
70- Some day I must go into therapy to confront the Goopy Liquid Woodshed Incident from my childhood, the cause of all my issues in this area.
Jesus, you make even scrambling eggs difficult. So I just don't get this about tomato sauces and sweetness. Isn't tomato paste sweet in and of itself?
It's sweet and acid at the same time. While I don't do this myself, the story is that a little more sugar mutes the acid in the tomatoes.
Well, I'm such a natural gourmet that I put carrot in my tomato sauce anyway (aka, what the hell am I going to do with all these carrots?)
Cut them up in chunks, toss them with butter, oil, and salt, and roast them in a hot oven until they're browning and luscious? cook them in chicken broth with lots of ginger and puree (blender or food mil) the whole mess for soup? Crudites?
Or, of course, use them as props in a Bugs Bunny impression.
scrambling eggs is an art. wateriness can also be caused by overcooking (the proteins overcoagulate and squeeze the water out.). I stand contrary to what was said above, because if your eggs are all the way done in the pan, they'll be overdone on the plate. French chefs, I hear, are known to scramble in a double boiler to prevent over-cooking.
eb does win. (Tonight's answer was: chop one up into the spinach-and-blackeyed-peas thing, made tonight with frozen spinach, and a little watery, alas. Maybe sometime soon I'll test your theories w/frozen spinach and frozen blackeyed peas.)
Do I get a delicious not too watery, not too cooked prize?
w-lfs-n's deepfrying some whisky for you in the other thread.
Slice your carrots, saute them in a little butter, salt, and pepper, then pour in about half a bottle of Reed's ginger beer, and reduce down to a glaze.
You're welcome.
Um, 93 reminds me of the "Blue Soup" episode in Bridget Jones....
Slice your carrots, cook in a small amount of water until mostly soft and water has largely evaporated. Add butter, brown sugar, and cognac (minced shallots optional). Turn heat to high, tip pan to light cognac. Cook on high heat until caramelization of the brown sugar starts. Salt and pepper to taste.
Ginger is good in the above, as well.
That sounds eminently worth trying. Calvados for the cognac, maybe?
Or: cook a couple pounds carrots in chicken stock with some shallots. Puree, return to pot. Add grated ginger, a very little brown sugar, and some cardamom, salt and black pepper to taste. Let simmer for a little while. Add a big glob of creme fraiche. Stir to incorporate, take off heat, serve.
97: Sure. Or bourbon. Or, if you're feeling adventurous, rum.
Re: 98
Dinner at Chopper's place!
Let history record that I just printed out the front page of Unfogged instead of my paper topic assignment sheet. This seems like the right thread to put it on right now.
History should also record that my mental first response to the question in the post title was "a bowlful of dicks."