I like to eat rice and spaghetti, I usually eat it a few days a week since it is cheap and easy.
So what can be done that is easy (to do and easy to clean) to make them taste better?
With rice I either add A1 or barbecue sauce (don’t knock it until you try, its better than soy sauce). Another thing I’ve been doing is after the rice is done adding a packet of Kikkoman’s fried rice mix and a few tablespoons of vegetable oil, then mixing it together. Thats fairly decent.
With spaghetti I can add butter to the noodles when they are done, mix velvetta in with the sauce and mince garlic to add after everything is done. Of course to do that you need velvetta sitting around, and due to its short half life in the fridge when opened I don’t always have that.
Is there some other kind of cheese I can use instead of those velvetta blocks?
Butter and Parmesan cheese on both the rice and the pasta. Parmesan is a hard cheese and keeps forever. I’d suggest buying the type you grate yourself, but if that’s too expensive there are things like Kraft that come already grated and are much cheaper. When the pasta is boiling, heat the butter in a pan and add some chopped garlic to it for maybe 30 seconds. Remove it from the heat, and toss with the pasta when it’s done and drained. Then mix in the cheese.
Heat a half cup of olive oil (for a pound of spaghetti) and add garlic and red pepper flakes (maybe two tablespoons of the former and one of the latter). Saute the garlic/oil mix until the garlic is lightly browned. Toss with the pasta and voila!, you have Spaghetti Aglio e Olio.
Try cooking your rice in chicken broth instead of water. Add cooked veggies after it’s done.
Butter, chicken broth, cheese, onions, garlic… most of those have been mentioned and could serve you for years in varied combinations. I love buttered rice with good beef of some kind.
Both rice and pasta are quite good with Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup. With pasta in particular, just spoon the soup directly onto the noodles after you drain them. You only need enough to coat the noodles. I’ve never added the soup directly to rice, though I’m sure it would be tasty. What I do is, I braise a half chicken coated with the mushroom soup (again, right out of the can without any extra water or milk). Drain off a little of the chicken fat (it settles on top of the soup) and then pour chicken and soup together over the rice.
Beef bouillon is a good flavoring for both. Also, French’s Onion Soup Mix.
PS: Velveeta has a short life in your fridge? I’ve had a block of Velveeta still be good three months after opening, and I just keep it in the fridge with plastic wrap around it. The stuff will dry out before it goes bad, in my experience.
Do you have Ro-Tel tomatoes? It’s canned chopped tomato with some onion and green chile cooked in (there’s a mild version if you’re not into spicy). I think its a regional brand but there’s a competing Del-Monte product called “chopped tomatoes with green chiles.”
Also, DelMonte Spaghetti Sauce is cheap, and actually tastier than many more expensive products, and costs about $1.50 for 26 oz, and often on sale for a dollar. Its usually shelved above or below average line-of-sight, so you may never have noticed it. But is generally available.
However, since spaghetti sauce is usually what one thinks of putting on spaghetti, I’m wondering if you don’t like tomatoes? In which case my suggestions suck.
I like pasta with a little olive oil, a little butter, grated parmesan, and some garlic. (If you don’t want to deal with “real” garlic, get some garlic paste or granulated garlic.) It doesn’t take much of any of those. If you’re feeling adventurous, add in some sliced or chopped olives and/or toasted pine nuts or almonds for texture and protein.
Are you eating brown rice or white? Brown rice is delicious cooked in chicken broth and with a little bit of butter or olive oil in it. You can add canned chicken to it and then just heat it through. If you’re eating white rice, I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe put in butter, milk, and cinnamon? I can’t stomach white rice at all, but I know some people like it this way.
One quarter cup olive oil or clarified butter, four cloves of garlic. Cook garlic over low heat till straw colored. Mash in four anchovy filets, 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley, salt and red pepper flakes to taste. Toss with one pound of cooked pasta and 1/2 cup of reserved pasta water.
Get some spice into it. I keep a bottle of chili oil by the stove so boring stuff can be livened up by tossing in a few drops. Heaps of pepper on buttered pasta is always great. Ginger and lemon/lime add some zing to rice dishes. Depending on what I’m having with the rice a squirt of wasabi can be great tossed through it. I find many boring starches - root vegetables, pasta or rice are greatly improved by stirring through chopped salad greens or slaw immediately before serving. Sometimes I stir through a spoonful of chili lime mayo too.
If you use just a bit of butter and generous amounts of pecorino (or parmesan) and freshly ground black pepper you have a very traditional Italian dish of Cacio e Pepe.
Thai [anything] Surprise. Take one tube of minced chilli, one tube of minced cilantro - squirt both generously on starchy food base of choice, stir through, feeds dozens.
Tuna pasta. Works much better with a spiralle or penne than spaghetti. After pasta drained throw in tin of tuna chunks in oil [drain most of oil], add any cooked vegetables [or throw a handful of frozen peas/corn in the pasta water when you put it on]. Stir through. Only thing better is Thai Tuna Pasta. See Recipe 1 above.
These simple foods have allowed puny nerds to transform into big fat jerks in less than a year.
Put the rice Ina frying pan with a little oil, add one egg per say 2 servings of rice, mix well. When the eggs have mostly been absorbed into the rice, add a teaspoon of sesame oil. It is done when the rice doesn’t stick together. I usually add bacon bits for flavor.
Before you cook the rice, fry some chopped onion in the pan in either olive oil or butter. Then add your rice and water. A little chicken stock or something is also good, either with or instead of your water.
Also, minced fresh herbs compatible with whatever you are eating (cilantro, dill, parsley, basil…)
Dump a handfull of raisins and a chunk of butter and some salt into the pot with the rice. When the rice is done, saute some sliced almonds in a bit of butter just until they start to turn color. Quickly mix them in with the rice. nomnom
An old Chinese staple: white rice, topped with a fried egg (I cook them over easy), with a spoonful of oyster sauce. I know, it probably sounds bizarre (it does to all my white friends), but it’s delicious.
