Before you get too impressed, I have a lot of old-school cookbooks, and I spent some time figuring out how to save the oatmeal brick. “The Settlement Cookbook” offered a recipe for bread pudding made with dry cake. I was quite surprised at the results. I thought I’d get it from “inedible” to “edible” but I actually bumped it all the way up to “delicious.”
Yep, just a few weeks ago I had a major success! I took some sweet Italian sausages (poked with a fork, sauteed with onion & garlic till brown, sliced, then thrown back into the pot), added a couple of cans of white beans (drained and rinsed), some crushed tomatoes, a slosh or two of red wine, a can of chicken stock, some dried herbs, and some salt & pepper. I cooked it all down until it became more casserole-y than stew-y. I expected it to be, y’know, fine, but it was SO GOOD.
I’m a big cassoulet fan, and will make it the traditional way someday, but have tried a number of “faux cassoulet” recipes in the meantime. I’ve been disappointed every time, but this dish - this made up, thrown together dish - tasted a LOT like cassoulet. It’s definitely more than the sum of its parts, and it only took about 45 minutes! We’ll probably have it again tomorrow. YUM.
My grandmother showed me the exact same recipe 20 years ago except she used canned peaches and yellow cake. Mrs. Cad calls blueberry and white cake the “blueberry poptart cake”.
I just made some oatmeal cookies but no brown sugar so it was white sugar and some molasses. A little (real) maple syrup and honey to keep them from going stale quickly. I got a butter oatmeal cookie with a complex undertone. Delicious!
I’m the breakfast maker around the house. In the mornings my brain isn’t always working properly and so I’ll end up throwing random ingredients together to see if they work. Sometimes…no, no they do not. But others…
Some highlights:
BBQ sauce and eggs. Scrambled together as the base for an omelet. Just a hint of spice and works really nicely.
Butternut squash soup and pancake mix. Replace anywhere from a third to half the milk in the recipe and sub in this. Seriously awesome butternut pancakes.
Mix mayo and tiny bit of pickle juice together for a sour but tangy tartarlike sauce.
I had one where it was pumpkin pie filling and vanilla cake mix. Mmmm.
As for mine, we were camping and I had some potatoes and was considering chopping, foiling them with a little butter and toss in the coals but I ended up not having time. Instead I sliced them up and put them in the cast iron pan with butter, onions, peppers and a little salt. Wasn’t expecting a whole lot, I just had lots of leftovers and wanted to use them up, but they were pretty darn tasty…
Those pancakes sound really really good; I bet I could even get the kids to eat those. The mayo/pickle sauce is what I dress my potato salad with. Just some red potatoes and celery, stir, chill. Easy.
I made the fishcakes from the OP for dinner again tonight as my husband was working late and hadn’t tried them before. Everyone demanded I double the recipe next time. The baby was upset when he ran out. I feel like a winner! Yay me!
Yea, my turkey vegetable soup, today. Hust as good as an institutional Beef and Veg…It is pretty tasty with some Ritz.
1/2 cup of frozen Thanksgiving Turkey (cooked white and dark meat chopped)
1/2 large onion coarsely chopped
3 small cloves of garlic crushed
2 carrots sliced
1 peeled and diced potato
The coarsely chopped inner heart and leaves of a wilting celery
1 tbs. veg oil, and 1 tbsp. butter
1/2 a cup of frozen corn
1/4 cup of frozen peas
3/4 of a large bottle of V-8 or similar vegetable juice
1 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp Hungarian Hot Paprika
2 tsp Rooster Sauce
Sauteee the the first 6 ingredients in the butter and oil til the onions and celery are translucent and tender… add the corn and peas, chuck in the remaining ingredients, bring to a boil and turn to a simmer… let simmer for around an hour and a half.
Actually just poured it over rice. Was BRUTAL, the mustard clead my sinuses. Added butter, hopefully that will mellow it out.
I put cinnamon and sugar on baked chicken once, and it was quite delicious.
(Note: I cooked the cinnamon and sugar on the chicken, I didn’t put it on after it was cooked).
A number of years ago, on a winter evening, some friends were hanging out at the house for most of one Saturday. We wanted a bite to eat before going out to play music that night, so I checked the freezer and pantry for something to feed a half dozen hungry, but poor musicians.
I found some roasted beef bones in the freezer, a couple of cans of diced tomatoes, some rigatoni and a carton of beef broth in the pantry, some spinach that had seen better days, but was still edible, a handful of baby portabella mushrooms, an onion, a small zucchini, half a yellow bell pepper, a small hunk of parmesan cheese and about half a bottle of merlot in the fridge.
I simmered the bones in the beef broth, removed them, sauteed the veggies until tender in some butter before adding them to the pot, added the rigatoni, tomatoes, some parsley, sweet basil, garlic, thyme and a couple of glugs of wine and let simmer. I served it topped with parmesan and some crusty bread from the freezer that I had warmed on the side.
It was a pot full of awsome! I’ve made this on a pretty regular basis ever since, with rave reviews from everyone who’s eaten it.
I bought beef shanks at the farmer’s market a few weeks ago - little steakish things with the bone in the middle. I browned them in a cast iron dutch oven, then removed them from the pan. I cooked up chopped onion, celery, carrots & garlic until soft and a little browned on the edges. Splash of wine, splash of beef stock, return shanks to pan. Bake for hours at 300 while I did other stuff. Hours pass. Pull out the beef, and gently poke into stew sizes chunks. Pour mushy veg mixture into blender, Wiizzzzzzzz!
Return mushy veg (now a shockingly flavourful thick liquid) back into pan. Add nicely sliced/chopped carrots & potatoes to pan along with the beef. Bake again until veggies are tender. Delicious, and I only started because I got to the market late and it was either the $3 chunks of shank or a $75 veal roast to choose from.
I also went on a “use it while it’s still good” binge the other day after finally getting fed up with the expensive and crappy food at the lunch place in my office building. I’m a fan of the Superstore’s “grilled chicken and barley risotto” frozen lunch. It’s pretty tasty, but I figured I could do better, and definitely cheaper than $3 each. I searched the freezer and found frozen stock and chicken thighs. Pantry yielded olive oil, barley, onions and garlic. Fridge? Zucchini, red bell pepper (which I bought in early DECEMBER and was still crunchy and fresh and perfect. HOW???) and parsley.
I sauteed the onions & garlic, added the barley and and gave it a little toasting. Added finely chopped pepper and zucchini, and proceeded as though making risotto. Meanwhile, the chicken was brushed with olive oil, sprinkled with herbs and broiled. I chopped the chicken over the cooked risotto, and it was fantastic!I got 4 servings out of the whole pot, and it easily cost less than $5 for the whole thing. Delicious, healthy and frugal - perfect for the first week of January.
One night last week, not really in the mood to cook…
Grab a pound of ground beef from the freezer, throw it in pot with a little water, get it cooking. Scrape at it occasionally with spatula to remove browned beef from still frozen beef. Chop an onion, throw it into pot. Continue to scrape beef and stir until beef is pretty much cooked through and crumbled well. Sprinkle in a bit of garlic powder. Throw a pot of water on, cook 1/2 box of elbow macaroni. Fumble through cabinets looking for something with, um…some flavor. Two cans of condensed tomato soup…into the pot. One soupcan full of water. One can petite-diced tomatoes. Before that mixture gets hot, about 1/2 cup sour cream (because it’s cold outside and I want something rich). Drain macaroni, dump into pot.
I sprinked my bowl with some shredded cheese, probably cheddar, not 100% certain on that.
Talk about low expectations…but it was DELIGHTFUL. We ate the leftovers the next day, and I’ve been asked to put it in regular rotation.
Add some cheap McCormick Paprika for real, old fashioned, American Goulash. That’s the key with the tomato soup. Addd some cayenne or Szeged Regular or Hot Hungarian Paprika and some Green Mangoes (Bell Peppers) to take it to authenticity.
…also celery… my Grandma’s gulash had the palpable and texturous taste and feel of celery. We baked it, too. Crumb crust.
Not really – cooked a bunch of strange seafood pizze (homemade everything, of course!), and a bunch of vaguely North Indian/Punjabi curries, but everything tasted the way I thought it would.
Not saying it was always good, but, nothing was unexpectedly bad, either.
My chicken soup.
I’m lazy, so what I do is:
brought stock (has to be gravox. nothing else compares)
brought bbq chook
onion and garlic
fresh carrot, celery, brocolli and herbs out of the garden
cut everything up, including the leaves of the celery, and put it in. then grate the brocolli stalk (VERY GOOD for you. that’s where the nutrients are.)
You put in the onion garlic, carrot celery and grated stalk, wait for it to cook down a bit. pull apart the chicken, get rid of the skin and put the chicken and stock in. then a bit later, you put the rest of the brocolli in with the pea’s and corn. it’s amazing!
Oh, and spaghetti sauce.
tomato soup, tomato paste, tinned tomatos, chicken stock and herbs. perfect.
You guys should all come accidentally cook for me.
My homemade pasta sauce turned out quite well. Take about a pound of ground beef, brown it. Chop an onion and cook it, dice a clove or two of garlic and throw that in, too. Add a can of tomato sauce (can’t remember what size can I used, think it was about a 6 oz can). Add a can of Amy’s Tomato Bisque soup, then add your spices. I put in basil, parsley, sage, and thyme (just remember the song Scarborough Fair, though I didn’t add rosemary because I’m not a huge fan of it). I think I also added oregano, but I don’t remember.
Anyway, it was pretty awesome. My parents still request that I make it for them.
Okay, so I’m rummaging around today, got some ground meat thawed, what should I make? and I’m trying to think of something that’s not just Ragu and spaghetti and I think to myself…where did I see a recipe with tomato soup and ground meat and sour cream and…??? So, of course I come straight to the dope and do a little search - and here it is!
I totally made this tonight - and it was delicious! This is now in my rotation, too!