Go to, easy dishes you cook (with basic recipes)

Cafe Society
1

What are yours, along with brief recipes?

Here’s one of mine to start:

PASTA CARBONARA (my own variation, probably not authentic)

Make the dry pasta the normal way.

While it’s cooking, slice bacon into small pieces and fry it (I don’t like it crispy for this dish). I also fry diced onion and garlic, and sometimes mushrooms (one time I added frozen peas for the hell of it) – this is all (except for maybe the garlic) much less authentic, but I like it.

Beat some eggs in a bowl. If you want, add some cream to the eggs (to make the sauce richer). You can mix in parmesean/pecorino/romano into the eggs, or you can add it to everything at the end (I mix it in). Season with salt, pepper, or whatever other seasonings you like.

When the pasta is cooked and drained, but still hot, add the egg mixture and bacon mix and mix thoroughly until the eggs are cooked by the heat of the pasta. I add a bunch of hot sauce (sriracha) – that’s up to you.

Then eat. Very, very tasty, and quite easy.

Approximate amounts (enough for 4 to 6, I think, depending on appetites):

1 pound dry pasta
4 eggs
parmesean/pecorino/romano cheese – up to a half cup (or more if you love it)
up to one pound of bacon/pancetta/equivalent (less if you like), sliced small
some diced garlic
the following are optional: 1 large onion, half pound sliced mushrooms, frozen peas, cream, hot sauce

2

Slow cooker chili:

2 tomatoes, chopped
2 bell peppers, chopped
1 can tomato paste
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 square of baker’s chocolate

1 lb ground beef, browned in 1 tsp of Sturmhawke’s chili spice recipe, here: Mumper's Recipes: sturmhauke's "Goddammit, I need some chili!" recipe

2 onions, chopped, sauteed in the juices left over from browning the meat.

It’s really just a bunch of chopping, a little browning, then all day in the slow cooker. Probably needs more salt to taste; might also want to add a tomato paste can of water, adding more as needed as the day goes by (the tomatoes & peppers have a lot of water in them).

3

Scramble 3-4 large eggs in a bowl. Bring 2 cans of chicken broth to a boil, then add a teaspoon of corn starch (dissolved in some cold water). Pour in the eggs, add about half a teaspoon of sesame oil, a teaspoon of ground ginger, a couple dashes of garlic powder, and sliced green onions. Sometimes I add in some fine egg noodles and a little corn maybe.

4

I make biscuits and sausage gravy almost every weekend. It is super easy, and one of the first things I taught myself to cook, although I never had a recipe. Everyone loves my version, even my Southern in-laws, so I’ll take a stab at writing it down:

at least 1 lb loose sausage roll (Jimmy Dean’s is fine)
~ 1.5 cups milk
~ 1/2 cup heavy cream (sour cream in a pinch)
~1/2 stick of butter (if needed*)
~ 1/4 cup flour
Herbs (optional but good): a handful of fresh parsley and/or minced chives or green onions

Seasonings: Seasoned salt (Cajun style with red pepper) and/or salt, pepper, cayenne or red pepper flakes, maybe some white pepper, and hot sauce (I like Crystal or Cholula)

Preheat your oven and get your biscuits ready and laid on the baking sheet. You are on your own for the recipe, because I have little ones pestering me while I cook and I’m not enough of a morning person for real baking. I use Pillsbury Grands from the cardboard tube. Heck, even Wonder Bread toast is pretty good with sausage gravy, if need be.

Chop your herbs and set aside.

Take your biggest skillet–cast iron if you’ve got it–and fry your sausage over medium heat, mincing it as tiny as you can with your spatula as you go, till it’s just cooked through but not crispy. Now see how much fat came off the sausage. If it looks like more than a few tablespoons, you’re good to go. But sausage seems to be getting leaner these days, so if the pan isn’t too greasy, stir in some butter*.

Put your biscuits in the oven.

Now scatter about 1/2 cup of flour over your sausage. Stir constantly for a couple minutes till the sausage is coated and you can smell the flour cooking. But we aren’t making a dark roux, so don’t wait too long or you’ll have to add more flour. Slowly pour in your milk, still stirring, till it starts to thicken. Now turn your heat to lowest setting.

Time to spice it up! You are just going to have to taste the gravy a lot to get it just right. I start by cracking black pepper into it till my wrist hurts. Then maybe 1.5 tsp of seasoned salt. Chacere’s brand is perfect, if you can get it. If I’m out of that, then a pinch or so of each of the other spices I mentioned. Just don’t overdo the salt or cayenne.

Note: If you have never made sausage gravy, you are going to be tempted to tart it up with garlic, or onion powder, or sage, or something like that. STOP! You will end up with something that’s probably tasty, but wrong. You want the contrast between the peppery cream gravy and the sausage bits that have those other seasonings embedded. Recently I added the trinity (sauteed onion, bell pepper, celery) and some garlic to my gravy just for fun–the result was delicious and I think I will put it over baked merlitons or maybe pork schnitzel sometime–but it just wasn’t RIGHT for biscuits and gravy.

Check the biscuits.

Keep stirring your gravy (which is on low heat, right?) every couple minutes till the biscuits are done. Pull them out and put in a bowl, covered with a clean towel. Now stir in your cream. Taste it again…you might want just a little more salt at this point. Fold your herbs into the gravy or just garnish the top, and serve it forth. :slight_smile: Set out the hot sauce because sometimes it’s good to shake a tiny bit more on top.

If you’re feeling more ambitious, or hungry, eggs over easy or boiled goes very well. If you want to get really decadent, make some chicken-fried steak too.

5

1 chicken breast
1 cup rice
frozen veggies of your choice (I use the mix with green beans, yellow beans, and carrots)

Dice and cook chicken
cook rice as per package directions
cook frozen veggies
combine

Feeds 3

If you want to get fancy you can cook the rice with chicken broth. Quick and easy and my picky 9 yo daughter will eat it.

6

This is a recipe I invented. The amounts are approximate.

A basket of mushrooms - I prefer the fancy ones for this recipe but any will do
A small jar of sun dried tomatoes in oil
A small jar of pine nuts
Some red wine - about half a cup
A little bit of garlic - about a clove’s worth (I use these little frozen cubes)
Pasta - fettuccine’s good but whatever you have on hand

Cook up the pasta.
Drain the oil from the tomatoes into a frying pan.
Soak the tomatoes in the wine.
Add the pine nuts and garlic to the frying pan and cook until slightly toasted.
Add the tomatoes and the wine and cook until hot and the wine is a little reduced.
Add the mushrooms. Cook long enough so the mushrooms are heated through but not cooked. You want them to be warm but still have the raw taste.
Mix the sauce with the pasta.

7

It sounds time consuming but really isn’t.

Smash apart 3 good sized heads of garlic, to get about 40 or so cloves. Put the cloves in a metal bowl, and put another metal bowl over top that, and shake the crap out of it. It’s noisy, but it takes off the peel plus most of the silver skin. Believe me, it’s way faster than peeling each and every clove separately.

In a cast iron Dutch oven, or a good pan, sear 8 chicken thighs, or legs, or combination (a fryer also works well), in olive oil till nicely browned. Be sure to season the chicken well. Take all the chicken out and sauté about 6 scallions, chopped, and some fresh thyme, about 3 sprigs or a half tsp of dried thyme, then deglaze the pan with white wine or chicken stock. Add about half the peeled garlic, then half the chicken, then layer again with the rest of the garlic and the remaining chicken. Pour over this 1 1/2 cups chicken stock, or a mixture of white wine and stock. Bake in oven at 350 degrees for 1 1/2 hours or till chicken is tender.

Remove the chicken from the oven and whisk the sauce till the garlic cloves break apart and blend into the liquid. An immersion blender is good to use here too. Add some flour if you want a thicker sauce, but it is very flavourful on its own. Serve the chicken with mashed potatoes. The sauce is awesome over mashed potatoes and honestly, the garlic is very mellow and tasty after being cooked in liquid for 90 mins.

8 chicken thighs or legs
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
3 heads of garlic
6 scallions
Fresh thyme, about 3 sprigs, or half tsp dried thyme, or to taste
1 1/2 c. Chicken stock or mixture of white wine and stock

8

I have a variety of easy favourites.

The one my wife likes the most is gnocchi with eggs (sauce, not scrambled or baked into a fritrata, etc.)

Start by adding a package of gnocchi de cecco to a large saute pan where you’ve already softened some chopped shallots and garlic in olive oil and a bit of butter. Pan must be big enough for the gnocchi to fit in one single layer on the bottom. Add enough water to cover and bring to simmer. As it begins to simmer and reduce, the liquid will get all starchy and velvety. While doing so, beat 4-5 eggs with a half cup of half/half or whole milk. Season with salt and pepper. REDUCE gnocchi to LOW, slowly adding the beaten eggs and keep stirring so eggs don’t scramble. Hopefully you’ve thought ahead and grated a cup or two of parm (or pecorino, or both) and chopped some scallions. Add those once eggs are heated through but still thick and saucy. Remove from heat and stir in some sour cream.

Top with some cooked bacon or pancetta and enjoy.

Variations include some truffle butter or reconstituted wild mushrooms that have been finely chopped and cooked with the shallots. Really, your imagination is the limit.

9

Another pasta dish:

Pasta

1 large can of roma tomatoes
4-5 strips of bacon, sliced across the width about 1/4"
1 onion, halved, then sliced thin

Pepper
Fresh basil

Brown the bacon, sweat the onions, add them to the tomatoes in a pan. Cover and simmer for about an hour. Cook the pasta in salted water and drain. Spoon sauce over pasta and top with ground pepper and julienned basil. It’s like a BLT in a bowl.

10

Beef Stew:

Go to the store and get a 1#+ package of Beef Stew meat (already cleaned and cut up).
1-2# of carrots
Some B Red potatoes (the small ones), I probably use about a pound and half.
1 large Spanish onion
some peeled garlic
1 can of peeled/diced tomatoes (I use Rotel for some extra kick)
a can of Guinness Beer

In a dutch oven, heavy pot or crock put put in the meat, then peeled and sliced (thick) carrots and quartered potatoes. Gut the onion to big chunks/wedges and toss it in, put in 4 or 5 or 10 or whatever pieces of garlic. Dump the can of tomatoes over the top. Add some sage and thyme and salt and pour the Guinness over the whole thing.

If it’s a crock pot turn it on low and go to work. If it’s a dutch oven or heavy pot, get it up to simmering and put the lid on and leave it alone (more or less) for about 4 hours.

After the meat is tender add something to thicken it up, I use Wondra because I can just pour it right in and it’s absorbed about 15 seconds later, adjust the seasonings to your taste and you’re done.

The whole prep process takes me about 15 minutes, then I can clean up while it’s cooking and when it’s done all that’s dirty is a ladle and the pot that it’s in.

Further more I got a WonderBag and if I use that, it requires no supervision at all.

If you can’t tell, I don’t have any recipe for stew, I just grab stuff as I walk through the store and toss it in the pot. I use pretty much the same ingredients each time and just add more or less of things depending on how I feel.

11

This one is a no-cook.

Before retiring, mix one part oatmeal, one part milk, some chia seeds, vanilla, honey or other sweetener. Stir, cover and place in the refer.

In the morning, add some fruit and enjoy!

I am diabetic, and don’t do too many carbs. I checked my glucose and hour after eating, and for me, it was a carb bargain. I am sure the fiber of the oats helped lower it.

12

Can this be eaten after one retires, or does one have to still be working to enjoy it? :slight_smile:

13

Easy breakfast for a medium sized group:

Shredded potatoes (I used Simply Potatoes brand)
Precooked meat (I used Jimmy Dean sausage crumbles)
Shredded cheese

Mix in a 9x13 pan, pour in 1 quart of Egg Beaters and stir lightly

Bake at 350 until a knife comes out clean.

The neat thing is that you can switch it up using ham, bacon or sausage. You can add onions or peppers (or buy southwestern potatoes or eggbeaters). If the convenience is not a factor, you can use eggs instead of egg beaters, cook the bacon or sausage instead of buying pre-cooked.

14

You’re killing meJM. I thought it was obvious.

You retire when you get new tires. So, before you get new tires, you make this recipe. And your tires will be safe for many years.

15

Sometimes you want a deluxe, gourmet meal, and the little ones can eat their damn Cheerios. Sometimes you want vegetables, and the little ones better eat the damn stir fry. And sometimes you want to stuff your children with as many calories as humanly possible, because they’re fussy eaters and alarmingly skinny.

That’s when Alton Brown’s stovetop mac and cheese comes in handy: it’s only slightly more difficult than Kraft mac, tastes like real food, and children will eat prodigious quantities of it.

16

Chicken Sausage Chili

One 1lb package of chicken sausage
1 large onion, diced
1 can tomato paste
1 large can of diced tomatoes with chiles
2 cans kidney beans
1 can black beans
Salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin and chili powder

Dice the onions, put in a pot with sausage with salt pepper and garlic powder
When the sausage is browned, put in the paste and stir
After a couple minutes, add the tomatoes and stir
Add the beans. You can drain them, but I don’t like to.
Add cumin and chili powder, let it start to boil.
Then simmer on low for an hour.
Then let it sit for an hour.

17

I do something similar to this, with some hot pepper flakes in the mix for an arrabiata kind of thing. Onions or garlic, depending on my mood. Finished with basil or parsley. (And parmesan if I happen to have it around, but not necessary.) Delicious simplicity.

Another quick dish I do in the summer when I have plenty of basil and red chile peppers around: Stir fry a few cloves of garlic in oil with as many chopped red chile peppers as you like. Careful not to burn the garlic. About a minute is fine. Add finely chopped/diced (or ground) chicken or pork or whatever protein you prefer (shrimp is fine, too), cook through, add a few tablespoons of fish sauce and/or oyster sauce, add a generous amount of basil leaves (a cup of loosely packed leaves), stir until wilted (about 30-60 seconds), serve over rice.

18

Here are two (of many):

Garlic Rosemary Roasted Chicken with Lemon and Roasted Potatoes

1 whole chicken, giblets removed
olive oil
1 head garlic
1 1/2 tsp dried rosemary or to taste
2 bay leaves
1 lemon
4-5 red potatoes, cubed with skins on

Preheat oven to 375F.

Smash or break head of garlic into individual cloves. No need to peel.

Cut 2 garlic cloves in half and throw into chicken interior. Sprinkle interior with 1/2 tsp rosemary and crumble one bay leaf inside. Salt and pepper inside of chicken.

Heat olive oil in large, oven-proof skillet. Throw remaining garlic cloves into oil and give them a quick stir. Then place chicken breast side down over high heat and brown until the skin releases. While browning the breast, sprinkle the back of the chicken with salt, pepper and another half tsp of rosemary. Flip chicken onto its back, add potatoes and stir to coat them with oil. Add remaining 1/2 tsp rosemary, salt and pepper; crumble second bay leaf over all.

Turn off heat. Cut lemon in half and squeeze juice over all. Stuff juiced halves into chicken interior and roast uncovered for an hour and 15 minutes or until juices run clear when chicken is pierced.

Serve with a salad and a nice French bread. Squeeze those gorgeous garlic cloves onto the bread. Soooooo good!
20-Minute Tomato Sauce with Pasta and Italian Sausage

1 28-oz can whole tomatoes with juices (I use home canned, but any will do).
3 TB olive oil
2 garlic cloves, pressed or minced
red pepper flakes to taste
salt to taste
1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped or dried to taste
2-4 Italian sausages
1/2 lb. dried pasta (I prefer linguine)

Place minced garlic in a cold saucepan with olive oil and red pepper flakes. Heat oil and stir garlic until it is fragrant. Add canned tomatoes with juice and simmer to reduce sauce. Add salt to taste.

While sauce is simmering, saute sausages in a separate pan and cook pasta according to instructions.

When sauce is reduced to saucy consistency, stir in fresh or dried basil. Toss pasta with sauce and serve with sausage on the side.

19

I make an easy knock-off of Olive Gardens Zuppa Toscana soup that can be made with just 4 ingredients, or seven ingredients if ya wanna get fancy about it.

Your favorite sausage, coined, then halved, or vice versa, about a pound (any kind, deer, pork, pork and beef, even Italian)
your favorite potatoes, about a pound, cubed or thinly sliced
chopped kale, one bunch fresh, washed and chopped
chicken broth, 6-8 cups

For the fancy version, also use some
chopped onion,
garlic,
and a bit of cream (or milk or half-and-half- about half a cup more or less depending on which one you have)

Brown the onions, garlic, and sausage (or just the sausage). A lot of flavor comes from the browning so don’t be afraid to get the sausage nicely browned or/or the onions carmelized)

Add the chicken broth

Add the potatoes (they cook faster if cut to about the size of the sausage, so cube or cut in 1/4 inch slices) and simmer until the potatoes are done.

If you are going to add the milk product to make this richer, add that now. If using cream, take a bit of the broth out and mix the cream to that, then add that mixture back into the pot to avoid hot/cold curdling)

When the potatoes are done, add your chopped kale, smush it down into the broth, and turn off the heat.

Let it cool a bit and eat.
This recipe is flavorful, hard to mess up, and can easily be made larger or smaller depending on how much potato and broth one uses. If I have a bunch of teens show up on the weekend, I just add more broth and potato and suddenly there is plenty to go around. I also find that teenagers will eat kale when it is prepared this way.

20

Here’s something that I never make the same way twice.

Sausage, beans, and greens

This dish can be made into a soup by adding more liquid, a gratin by adding more cheese, or a variant of cassoulet by adding a can of plum tomatoes.

Ingredients:
Sausage (most any kind works, except bratwurst for some reason)
2 cans of Cannellini beans
Green leafy things. ( I prefer spinach and/or chard, some weirdos like kale)
Chicken stock
Garlic

Optional:
Parmegiano or Asiago cheese
Canned plum tomatoes
Onion
Fennel
Carrots

Directions
The way I normally make it is as follows. Heat oven to 350°F.
Saute sliced sausage, add fennel/onions/diced carrots until softened.
Add garlic and greens, saute until wilted.
Stir in broth, cheese and beans and season.
Pour into an oven-safe dish. Top with panko that has been tossed with olive oil.
Bake until panko is browned and food is hot, probably 20-25 minutes.