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i am such a dork

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It is possible -- nay, probable -- that I have been heard many a time to proclaim that I have neither interest nor aptitude when it comes to all things domestic.

Seriously, people, I have set off the fire alarm while boiling water. I wish that was hyperbole, but, alas.

With my fancy new apartment, however, and this "taking lunch/supper" places kick I'm on, I am reaching out for help. I have decided that I am going to try to cook at least once a week.

What are your favourite recipes? Where do you find said things? What would you recommend to someone starting out?

Really, I'm very open. I don't eat red meat or bananas, but other than that ...

I adore vegetables and fruit and trying new things, but I appreciate classics. I enjoy both vegetarian and non-vegetarian options. I am partial to fast and easy, but am stoked to try things that are a little more involved. I am especially willing to put in the effort for things that are a little different (read: non-North American fare).

I often take lunch and supper to my full time and part time jobs, so reheatable/cold foods are good, and I am also interested in your favourite sandwiches and any awesomely interesting sandwich/salad combos you've tried.

Please: Educate me, mock my ineptitude, it's all good.

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Okay, I'm like cooking retarded, so here are my totally easy beyond easy "recipes", if you can even call them that.

For salad I like to just make a huge bowl with (obviously) lettuce, tomato, cucumber, red pepper and cheese, but you can put whatever you like in it. Then add a can of tuna (drain it first or the salad is soggy) and that's my whole meal. I usually use Italian dressing, but again, whatever. Any oil and vinegar type one is good.

If you want a salad that's so good it practically tastes like dessert, I use the spring lettuce mix with a small can of fruit cocktail of some sort (the tropical mix is good, with pineapple and passionfruit ... again, drain it first), some dried cranberries (Craisons!), almond slivers, and then instead of dressing use vanilla yogurt. Mmmm.

But my absolute dummy-proof supper recipe is to take a chicken breast, put it in a pottery-type oven safe dish and spoon salsa over it. Whatever kind of salsa you like, cooking makes it a little less spicy. Cover it with tin foil and bake for about 30 minutes at 375 degrees, then uncover it and bake for 10 more to brown it up a little. I like my chicken pretty dry so you can adjust the baking time however you like. It's pretty much impossible to mess up, and it tastes GOOD. I think so, anyway.

Okay, I'm like cooking retarded, so here are my totally easy beyond easy "recipes", if you can even call them that.

Hee! I operate the same way.

The salsa chicken and salads both look amazing.

Here's a few that are all quite simple. Use an oven timer to remind you to stir them and as a reminder to check on them. They're all in the put them in a pot and check back every ten minutes if it's on the stove, every half hour in the oven category. :) They all make at least four serves, so you've got a few meals out of them and they're all freezable and microwavable. :) They're not that fast but they are very much low effort once you've got them in the pot.

(If it's all okay with you, I'm probably going to be hanging out for a chance to cook something, anything, oh, god, please after four and a half weeks of travelling.)

psuedo chilli - I think I learnt to make this one when I was eleven. It's the simplest meal I know.
1 tsp garlic
1 tsp ginger
1 onion, finely chopped
1 can kidney beans, drained
1 can of equal size, diced tomatoes
three bay leaves

Fry onion, garlic and ginger in a small amount of oil till onion is soft. Add everything else and bring it to the boil. Put a lid on and bring the temperature down to low, simmer it with lid on for half an hour, stirring every ten minutes.
Serve with rice, corn chips, grated cheese and shredded lettuce.

THINGS in the rice cooker used to save my life when I first moved out. And then my family caused my rice cooker to die and I was very upset. It's just rice, some pre-cooked garlic, onion, ginger, mince, spices or whatever and with stock used instead of water. Possibly with soy sauce or tomato. Add chopped vegies about five minutes before it stops cooking or just stir through microwaved chopped veg at the end.

Vegie Stew
1.5 cups chopped, peeled sweet potatoes
1 cup green beans
1 diced eggplant
1 cup diced carrots
1 cup diced, peeled mushrooms
1 tin canellini beans
1 tin kidney beans
750 ml pureed tomatoes
2 cups stock

Put everything in a pot, bring it to a boil, reduce to low and simmer with a lid on until the larger pieces of sweet potatoe are soft - this should take between 45 minutes and an hour. Serve with couscous. Makes enough to feed a small army.

Vegie Lasagna

FINELY sliced vegies - eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms, tomatoes, baby spinach leaves.
Lasagna sheets
1 - 2 large bottles of premade pasta sauce. Add garlic and onions to it.

Layer sauce, lasagna sheets and vegies - sauce, lasagna, vegies, sauce, lasagna ect. The final layer should be sauce. Top with grated cheese, bake, covered for 45 minutes to an hour at 180C/350F

Tomato bake

fry onion with cardamon, cumin, corriander, chilli and tumeric. Add 600 ml tinned tomatoes, simmer for ten minutes while preparing vegies.

Slice tomatoes, mushrooms, zucchini, eggplant.

Layer vegies and sauce in baking dish. Cover, bake 45 minutes at 180C/350F. Serve with rice. :)

Oh, goodness, you just made me so very hungry. I don't have a lot of experience with eggplant, but I am very willing to try.

(Cannellini beans are like kidney beans? y/n?)

Eggplant is LOVELY stuff. It's also great if you grill it for half an hour and then mash it and mix it with about half a cup of tahini, lemon juice, garlic and salt.

Cannellini beans are like white kidney beans but borlotti beans would work just as well. Actually, as long as it's two kinds of canned beans, it'd be fine.

The only way I can remember to stir things is to use the alarm on my phone - I put it on for ten minutes after I start things and then use the snooze function to remind me to check on things till they're done.

Finally, yo. I need to speak to you at some point about coming to visit? It's getting to the point where I need to book the flights and well, whether you'd like me to or not and when you'd want me to bugger off. :)

What's tahini?

Dude, of course I want you to visit. Shoot me an email when you know about what your time frame is, and we'll work something out. How much time I can get off work is going to be directly related to who we have in for users, so I won't know that until much closer to the date.

Tahini is a sort of sauce made out of sesame seeds. You might have trouble finding it outside of Middle Eastern stores. I can get it at the supermarket in the health food section but that might be because I've always lived in areas with lot of Middle Eastern and North African people.

Thank you! I was planning to be there over a weekend. I'll resend the email, shall I?

... I can't believe I forgot these two.

Leftover rice, 1 tin drained tuna, microwaved vegies. Stir through 1 spoon mayonaise or soy sauce. :)

Long life noodes, tuna, veggies, with fish sauce and sweet chilli sauce OR chilli sauce and kechap manis. Cook the noodles with a little bit of stock instead of pure water.

I think I am going to have to invest in some sauces. This might make life more interesting.

*grins* You need sweet chilli, chilli, kechap manis, regular soy sauce, sambol oelek (even if it isn't really a sauce), oyster sauce and plum sauce. And apple sauce and tomato sauce/ketchup.

They make sauce out of oysters?

I just checked wikipedia and it does actually have oysters in it. Huh.

I don't cook from recipes very often, mostly because I am lazy. (And I like simple stuff, anyway.) So I don't know if I can be much help in that department. However, here are some Things I Make Often:

* chicken breast! I like it fried in a little bit of oil with salt and pepper, or marinated in balsamic vinegar, oil, salt and pepper and garlic and then broiled (basically, you put some foil on your oven rack, stick it in the top spot with the chicken breast on it and turn the oven on to broil -- it's important to keep a close eye on it, though, because this will cook it pretty quickly). You can do chicken breast a bazillion other ways, though, and it's good for you, and if you're only cooking for one, it's not too pricey.

* Yves veggie Burgerburgers, with all the fixings and some kinda fancy cheese from Sobey's deli section. Fat free, tasty, full of soy and stuff, and if you get the ginormapack at Superstore, cheap, too.

* Microwaved whole red potatoes. Shut up, they're really easy! You just wash the potato, poke some holes in it and stick in in the microwave for about 3 minutes. And you can put plain yogurt on them and it tastes like sour cream, only it's nutritious! Sort of.

* Plain rice, a can of tuna and cooked veggies. You drain the tuna, because otherwise it's yucky, and for the veggies, I like to steam or boil some broccoli, carrots, mushrooms and sprouts, but you can use whatever. I put soya sauce all over it once it's cooked. It's cheap, you only use the one bowl, and it's surprisingly yummy.

* Blackened tofu and mixed green salad. It's really important to use pressed firm tofu for this, because it just doesn't work otherwise -- the green Mandarin tofu fourpack is best. What you do is: get some oil nice and hot in a frying pan, then stir in some spices (I like cumin, curry powder and powdered ginger). While that's sizzling, chop the tofu into tiny cubes. Throw the tofu into the pan and coat it in the oil/spice mix. Let it get a little bit brown and then mix in about a tablespoon of soya sauce, letting that coat the tofu too. Cook it until it gets kinda smoky -- it should be dry and chewy by this point -- then pull it off the heat. Make a salad of mixed greens (a la the spring mix stuff, or just baby spinch if you want) and whatever else you like in salad (I'm partial to roma tomatoes, english cucumbers, raw broccoli, baby carrots, avacado and chopped pecans) and pour the warm tofu on top. Eat with some kind of vinagrette dressing for best result. *g*

My favourite weird sandwich combo is avacado and smashed ketchup chips on toasted whole wheat bread. This is what I lived on as a teenaged vegan. Not very nutritious, but waaay yummier than they sound.

Hmm. I have more ideas but this is getting epic. If you want them, ask -- I will email them to you. In the mean time, I can recommend

food_porn for recipe-type recipes and general cooking inspiration. They post pictures! It's awesome!

Dude, totally email me more suggestions.

Also, re: veggie burgers: Have you ever tried the Superstore ones? They have a seven veggie variety and a lentil/rice/bean (with veggies) and curry one. It is pretty much the best thing ever, OMG.

How, exactly, does one steam veggies?

There's two ways, once you've cut everything into bite sized pieces. Either put them in a steamer over boiling water with the lid on for a few minutes or in microwave on high in a bowl half full of water, covered in cling wrap for three minutes. :)

You get a metal colander (like this), or a bamboo steaming basket if you're feeling extra crunchy, and also a pot that's the right size for the colander to rest on the rim without actually fitting inside -- like this. Put some water in the pot (not enough to touch the bottom of the colander, though) and put your veggies in the colander. Cover the veggies with a lid. Voila!

Dollarama has colanders that are perfect for steaming right now. Alternatively, you can also pick up a steamer for not too much at Walmart or Superstore - it works on the same principal, but sets it all up for you. My brother has one that's tri-level, so he can steam his veggies, rice and fish all at once. Fancy! *g*

Oh, tri-level steamer. That sounds fantastically indulgent. Thanks for the info.

I still have not been to Dollarama, can you believe that?

Vaguely Asian noodle soup! It's amazingly simple and versatile.

Start with 500ml chicken stock/bouillion. Add some finely chopped garlic and ginger, and bring it to the boil. Turn down the heat so the surface is bubbling slowly, and leave like that for 5-10 minutes. While that's happening, put a single serve of rice noodles in boiling water to soften.

Now is also a good time to get the rest of your ingredients ready. I like any of: tofu or chicken (fresh or pre-cooked), gow gee dumplings, grated carrots, spinach, corn, baby bok choi, coriander, basil, scallions, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, coconut milk, curry paste, sesame oil, mushrooms, broccoli, asparagus, shrimp,... You get the idea. Cut them into bit-size pieces, or what you can manage with chopsticks. With fresh/frozen poultry and fish, heat the soup to boiling point again before adding them, and then simmer again until cooked through. Vegetables really only need a minute or two, and the herbs you can add just before serving.

To serve, drain the noodles and place as much as you want in a bowl. Top up with soup, and there you go. The only limit is your imagination!

Apart from being simple, the thing I love best about this is that I usually have enough in the pantry and freezer to make even if I haven't been shopping in a while. Noodles and coconut milk from the pantry, and corn and scallions from the freezer, for instance. Enjoy!

Oh my goodness, that sounds amazing.

Sadly enough, though I went shopping yesterday, I have only two items on your list. I have asparagus and carrots, which could be grated.

I am thinking some work needs to be done before I embark on this project.

Uh, I'm hopeless with cooking right now, but my solid no-fail recipe is fried rice. You just need some leftover rice out of the cooker from last night (or fresh will do too, I guess :), some veg (any veg, really), meat, soy sauce and garlic. Onions, too, if you like 'em. Cook garlic, optional onions and meat all through (turkey works, and adding something like turkey sausage is a good way to bring the flavour), drain and set aside. Cook veg with more garlic and not much oil; you can steam these, too. I like eggplant, or broccoli and snap peas, but adding whatever's in the fridge is part of the fun, here. Set those aside when they're tender. Then coat a big pan with some oil and put your leftover rice in, stirring to keep things as nonstick as possible. Add soy sauce to taste; if you want to add chili oil or any other sauces (teriyaki is popular), now's a good time. Then add back the meat and veg to heat them all up and give the rice more flavour. Then just serve and eat! If you have them, sprinkle some sesame seeds on, too. They are yum.

I try to make enough for dinner and lunch, with possible snack in between. I like this dish because it's not difficult, it uses the crazy stuff in the fridge, and it's never boring.

If you are comfortable in a lab, try looking through cooking for engineers -- they have a great shepherd's pie recipe I adapted for turkey-lurkey by adding cumin and coriander curry, and changing the potatos out for sweet potatos. MMM GOOD.

That sounds v. v. tasty, and boredom relieving.

Also, oh my goodness, that site has flow charts!

You know it's never made sense to me that I find chemistry easier than cooking, but these things happen.

The flow charts made me laugh and laugh, partly because GEEKALICIOUS (mmm, punes or plays on words!) and partly because I knew the site creators had genuinely understood what I needed from them. And there are many, many excellent cooking sites out there, but cooking for engineers is the one I go to when I need to actually make food instead of drool into my keyboard.

Ok, non-North American (Lebanese, to be specific), and a salad/sandwich combo:

This is a little time-intensive, as in lots of chopping, but not really difficult. It gets better after sitting in the fridge (up to a point - a week is about the limit, if it lasts that long) so, it's good to make on the weekend to take to work. Measurements are all approximate, so you can adjust the veggies.

Tabbouleh

1 pkg (around 12 - 16 oz) bulgur wheat (can be found in Middle Eastern groceries, if not in the regular ones)
1 large can diced tomatoes, drained, OR 2-3 large tomatoes, diced and seeded
1-2 cucumbers, peeled and diced
2-3 bunches parsley, washed and diced (this is the hard part - I suggest a big cutting board and a cleaver or very large, very sharp knife)
2-3 bunches green onions, diced
2-3 bunches fresh mint leaves, diced (optional - only if you can find them easily)
1 bottle Italian or Greek salad dressing
lemon juice (from a plastic lemon is fine)
salt
pepper

Soak the bulgur using a little less water than the package calls for, with a squirt or two of lemon juice and a little salt. Chop the veggies, salting the tomatoes and the cucumber lightly. Combine veggies and bulgur in a large glass bowl (glass works best because the mixture is acidic), pour the salad dressing over it (around 3/4 of the bottle, depending on size), add black pepper to taste, stir well to coat, cover with plastic wrap and leave in refrigerator overnight for flavors to mix.

This goes really well with pita bread sandwiches. Take falafel, and/or the meat of your choice, and/or feta cheese, and/or sliced cucumbers, and/or tomatoes, and/or hummus, and/or sliced black olives, sprinkle with Greek seasoning mix (from the spice aisle), drizzle with olive oil, and stuff into half a pita bread.

For desert, get some canteloupe, honeydew, or other melon (apples and/or pears would work, too), cube 'em up, drizzle with honey (sprinkle with lemon juice first if using apples or pears), sprinkle with cinnamon, and chill in the fridge for a few hours. You could also add chopped walnuts or almonds, or make a dressing out of vanilla yogurt, honey, and cinnamon.

Any kind of pasta salad is also great for making ahead of time, and taking to work. My personal favorite uses that tri-color "garden" rotini, diced canned tomatoes, feta cheese, black olives, cucumbers (if I feel like it) and that Greek or Italian salad dressing again.

Oh, awesome. I don't have a tabbouleh recipe, so this is great. Would I be able to get away with subbing couscous for bulgar? I can get it easily and there's always some in my cupboard.

The pasta salad sounds easy and tasty, too; and I really enjoy fruit but would never have thought of doing that to it on my own.

You could always try using couscous. The texture would be different, and you might have to change the amount of dressing. You could probably also substitute brown rice.

I have many, many quick-n-easy recipes I could share, so let me know if you want to take a look. I only have a few in memories, here (http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=laurashapiro&keyword=Recipes&filter=all).

My rule of thumb for cooking dinner is: if it takes longer than 45 minutes, forget it. I amend that for stews, because you can just walk away and let them do their thing for a few hours. I prefer one-pot or two-pot meals for their simplicity and heartiness, and rarely do anything with more than two courses.

My best advice is to start simple, and with things that are rewarding to eat and forgiving to cook. Thick soups -- chicken, vegetable, or bean-based -- are delicious, healthy, and easy. You chop, you toss in the pot, you simmer until veggies are tender. The end. Stews require a little more prep work but they're basically the same thing. And pasta dishes are great, too. I particularly like sauces that will cook in the time it takes the pasta to boil. All of the above make great leftovers.

Holler if you want specifics. I will provide. (:

Hee! Yes, I don't think 45+ minutes would get along too terribly well with my attention span.

I think it's probable that home made soups and stews would be both healthier and tastier than the canned stuff I regularly eat. Also, that actual pasta would, ditto, be tastier and healthier than Lipton Sidekicks.

If you wouldn't mind providing some specifics, that would be amazing.

Excellent pesto depends on excellent ingredients. It is worth the money and effort to acquire the freshest basil, the smoothest and most flavorful olive oil, and real parmigiano reggiano. Do NOT use the "parmesan" that comes in a green can -- better to omit the cheese altogether!

You will need a blender or a food processor. I usually serve pesto as a sauce for pasta, but it's also excellent on polenta or as a spread for sandwiches.

I never measure, so the amounts here are approximate:

1 bunch fresh basil (perky leaves, spicy scent, no black spots)
1/2 cup pine nuts
1-2 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup grated parmigiano reggiano
Olive oil to taste
Pinch salt (optional)

Put a big pot of water on the stove over high heat and have your pasta ready at hand.

Pick the basil leaves off the stems. Peel the garlic. Toss the garlic and pine nuts into the food processor together and grind for a few seconds. Don't over-process: you want the result to look like coarse breadcrumbs. Add the basil and 3-4 tablespoons of olive oil, and grind a little longer. You want the paste to be smooth but not too thin; add more olive oil until it looks creamy.

By now your water should be boiling. Add the pasta (I like shaped pasta because the little divots hold the sauce better) and stir.

Grate the cheese and add gradually to the sauce. Taste. Add more cheese or salt if you like, to bring the flavors up.

When the pasta is done, drain and return to the hot pot. Pour the sauce over the pasta, toss well, and serve with a little grated parmigiano reggiano on top.

I have an excellent recipe for borscht. :)

Ooh -- potato or beet?

Beet.

Share, please? *G*

If you like vegetables, I suggest ratatouille. It's totally easy, the only effort involved is chopping the eggplant and zucchini, and sauteeing them a little before you dump everything in a pot and let it cook for a bit. Then you have a delicious dish you can have as a side or a main meal, and it keeps for a few days. My two cookbook staples are Fanny Farmer and Joy of Cooking. Both are great all-purpose books, with a recipe for practically everything. I don't recommend How to Cook Everything, simply bc I find some of the recipes rather bland. It's a good starter, but once you've figured out your way around, stick with the better books.

I have a few random books that I picked up in sale bins. They are titled things like "Four Ingredient Cooking" and "The Cookless Cookbook," and the last time I tried to follow their suggestions, it turned out rather unwell. This is more likely a fault in myself than in the books.

1 whole chicken, cut up (have the butcher do it for you)
3 ribs celery w/leaves
3 carrots
1 onion and/or 3 leeks
1 bay leaf
1/4 tsp dried thyme or 2 sprigs fresh
1 tsp dried dill weed
a handful of fresh parsley
water
salt and pepper to taste

Cut up the onion into rough dice. Peel and chop the carrots into 1-2 inch pieces, and chop the celery roughly. If you're using leeks, just use the white parts, cut into 1-inch rounds (you can use the green parts for stock for a different soup). Trim and discard the long stems from the parsley. Trim excess fat from chicken pieces if you want (I usually don't bother). Feed the chicken innards to your cat.

Place the chicken and chopped veggies into a large soup pot. Add the herbs and pour in water to just barely cover. Turn the heat up to high until the soup starts to boil, then turn it down so that the soup simmers. Add salt and pepper, partially cover the pot (leaving a vent for steam) and simmer gently for about 30 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through and veggies are fork-tender. Taste, adjust seasonings, and serve.

If you want to get exciting, you can make matzoh balls. Just pick up a package of matzoh meal and some eggs, and follow the package instructions.

This soup is also good with some cooked rice or noodles thrown in near the end of the cooking time.

This sounds very tasty, but I have another silly question: Would this work with pre-cooked chicken? If you added it later? Or would using a rotisserie chicken create a battle of flavours the like of which soup have never seen before, with taste buds the biggest loser of all?

This soup relies on the chicken, bones and all, to add its flavor to the broth, so I'm thinking pre-cooked chicken wouldn't work so well. If you have pre-cooked chicken you're looking to dispose of, you can use many of these ingredients in the same manner to make soup. Here's how I'd modify the recipe:

1) I'd substitute chicken or vegetable stock for water.
2) I'd cook all the vegetables in the stock until tender, and add the chicken only in the last 5 or 10 minutes of cooking
3) I'd adjust the herbs to match whatever the pre-cooked chicken was cooked in. For instance, rotisserie chicken is often cooked with garlic and rosemary, so you might substitute a pinch of rosemary for the tablespoons of dill.

1 bunch fresh broccoli
1/2 head fresh cauliflower
1-2 tbsps butter
4-6 cups chicken or vegetable stock (canned is fine)
salt and pepper to taste
3/4 cup milk or cream (optional)

You need a blender or food processor for this one.

Roughly chop the vegetables and sauté them in butter in the bottom of a soup pot. Keep the heat low/medium; do not allow the butter to brown. Sauté for about 5-10 minutes, then add the stock and turn the heat up to high. When the soup boils, turn the heat to medium and simmer for 10-15 minutes until the vegetables are very tender. Add a pinch of salt.

Turn the heat off and pour the soup into your blender or food processor. Purée for a few minutes until the soup is smooth, then pour it back into the pot and heat it up again. If you want to add milk or cream, do it now, stirring for a few minutes over medium-high heat until the soup thickens again. Taste and adjust seasonings. Serve.

This is a great with grilled cheese sandwiches.

So I did warn you I was going to ask some dumb questions, right?

Google tells me that saute-ing requires a saute pan. Would I be able to do it stir-fry like in a frying pan? I guess you're actually supposed to have a wok for stir fry, aren't you?

In general I find you can ignore most advice about only using specific items of cookware for specific tasks, unless you take up baking, which is more finicky. I cook well and often, and I own a total of one knife and four assorted pots and pans.

When I make this soup, I do the sauteing right in the soup pot. And while I do own a wok, I frequently stir-fry in a frying pan. The wok does work a bit better because it gets hotter, and very high temperatures are desirable for stir fries, but a frying pan works just fine most of the time.

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in which I wax enthusiastic

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Pasta with pesto sauce

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Jewish chicken soup

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Amazingly easy broccoli soup

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