Making food out of nothing...

Cafe Society
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Today was the first time I’d done it in a long time. See, I have the ability to make food out of nothing. No, I can’t pull it out of the ether but I can turn odd bits of things into a meal.

Today it was chicken and gravy. There was the carcass of a roast chicken my mom picked up at a deli earlier this week. It maybe, maybe had enough meat left on its scrawny bones for one more sandwich. Wrong. I ripped that sucker apart, used my fingers to pull every scrap I could off the pathetic remains of that bird, cut it up in pieces. Then, olive oil and whole wheat flour makes a lovely roux, but any oil, butter or margarine along with any flour or cornstarch will do. I happened to have olive oil and whole wheat flour, so I used that. And a can of chicken broth (I don’t advocate the use of canned broth, but if it’s all you’ve got, it’s all youve got), a bit of soy milk (my gravy was coming out a bit too thick), add my cut up chicken and, voila. Combine with toast, munch some carrots or celery with it, and two more meals each for two people. Rght now the few remaining scraps of meat and skin,along with the bones, are in a pot boiling. Yes, I know how to make stock. You can actually use the bones left over from any bird, beef or pork. After you’ve eaten your steak or roast, save the bones.

I can also do nearly miraculous things with potato flakes. Like make soup. Good soup. Just cook it with milk, and keep adding milk until you’ve reached the desired thickness, add whatever seasonings you want, some butter helps, too, and you have soup. Leftover actual mashed potatoes make for really, really good soup, but if you don’t have those, you can settle for soup that’s just good. Mix them with water until they’re too stiff for mashed potatoes, form patties, fry them up.
Yummy, potato patties. I haven’t tried to make potato pancakes with them, but I may in the future.

So, what kinds of nothing do you make food out of?

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Well, of course not. The Michaelson-Morley experiment pretty well established that an ether doesn’t exist.

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Well, if I have taters around, I can always swing a meal. As you said, potato soup is good. Throw in some leek, let it cool, and suddenly, it’s vichysoisse, which they charge a bundle for at fancy restaurants. A baked potato, and look, some left over cream cheese back in the fridge. Some freshly ground black pepper and there’s a meal around a potato again. You mentioned potato pancakes which is one of my favorites. If there’s an onion around, there always hash browns/rösti. Potato is a very, very versatile veggie.
Usually, there’s always some pasta around, and spaghetti, with some butter melting and black pepper makes for a nice meal. If I have eggs at home, there’s waffles, pancakes. A can of tuna, some tomato paste and an onion makes for great filling for a bonito, sort of a pirogue, Spanish style. Dough to be made out of flour, butter, a pinch of salt and a sprinkle of water.
Eggs are good of course. An omelete takes about two minutes to make, and I always keep some shredded cheese in the freezer.

Which some basic stuff in fridge, freezer and pantry, there are always lots of options to make something out of almost nothing. This is what I alway keep in the house: Eggs, potatoes, onion, garlic, flour, butter, olive oil, pasta (of some sort), some cans of tomatoes, tomato paste, Dijon mustard, mayo, some mixed frozen veggies and seasoning. Saffron is a must, since the most drab thing can be turned into a treat - ever tried saffron pancakes, toped with lime flavored sour cream? I have, a meal made from ‘nothing’. And oh my, was it ever yummy.

:feels hungry and goes to raid the fridge for a late snack:

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Thea, am I having weird flashbacks or did you post a thread like this about a month ago? Or something?

I might be going crazy.

I do cream-of-potato-and-stuff soup. With potato flakes and peas, or cauliflower, or ham. And parmesan or cheddar. Or leftover chicken. In fact, a plate of mashed-potato and peas with some melted cheese is a damn fine dinner. Especially with sauteed onions.

I have vague memories of going through a friend’s kitchen several years ago and doing scrambled eggs in a tomato curry sauce on rice. I think zuchinni was involved, too. It was startlingly good.

Garlic soup is good, if you really like garlic. It’s more of a solitary scrounge than anything else, unless you gussy it up. Boil up a cup of water with four chopped garlic cloves. Throw in some parsley if you have it, and a good dollop of olive oil. Salt and pepper. Toast some bread, and pour the soup over it. You can thicken it gently with eggs, add lemon juice, parmesan, whatever. Any fresh herbs you’ve got around.

I’m going to post a related bit that I was thinking about making into a new thread. It fits.
I don’t really pay attention to recipes. I read them- they’re interesting. If they’re interesting enough I might try to measure things a little bit, but five to one I’ll substitute or use a different kind of filling or cooking pot or not do things in the right order. Most of the time I just throw things together with a heedless disregard for proper steps.

Right now I have a panful of something that’s made of cornflakes, chocolate chips, butter, almonds and brown sugar cooling on the counter. It got baked for a while, and it’s all caramely and syrupy, but it’s not cohering as well as I’d like, so I may skoosh it into balls and eat them that way- or convince Mr. Lissar to eat them. Or both. And a large pan of something like a muffin-textured chocolate chip peanut butter snack cake. I’m working on things that Mr. Lissar will eat for breakfast or before I get home from work, and he likes chocolate and peanut butter, so it seemed like a good idea. I didn’t measure anything, but I can probably do it again.

It’s not that I’m incapable of following recipes, or that I think there’s something wrong with them or whatever, it’s just like I can’t pay attention when people tell me what to do in the kitchen. I enjoy food writing- Nigella Lawson, John Thorne, Jeffrey Steingarten- because they usually talk about the creative process, or about the food, instead of just about the recipe itself.

I think it’s mostly because I’m a very kinetic-or-whatever learner. I have to do things to really understand them, and I usually like the creative process almost more than the finished product. I like things that I can poke at and fool around with- bread, especially.

I suppose, at base, I don’t feel I really understand a particular type of food unless I can make it without a recipe, simply because I understand the mechanics anyone else thoroughly

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Lissa, I did reply to a thread soliciting recipies for folks who were living in extreme poverty, and gave my potato flake soup recipie, so you’re not going crazy.

BTW, I forgot about my stockpot on the stove the water all boiled away, and what was left got all burned.

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Two pieces of bacon

Half a box of Vermicelli

One egg

Slightly shriveled garlic clove.

Spice rack full of herbs.

Dice the bacon, crush and mince the garlic. Fry them up with some basil, and ground black pepper, while you cook the vermicelli. Beat the egg well. Drain the pasta, but not the bacon. Dump the egg and bacon over the pasta, and toss. Then cover for a minute.

Now that I make it on purpose, I add grated Parmesan. A salad makes it a meal.

Tris

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Not exactly made of nothing, but still one of my finer moments of improvisation:

I started out with some vermicelli and a can of Tabasco-flavored Spam. I wanted a mayonnaise-ish sauce to go with this. I consult my handy copy of Cooking For Dummies(1) and see the recipe for mayonnaise is basically egg, oil and lemon juice. Hm. Got the egg, got the oil… no lemon juice. Vinegar’s about the same ph… no vinegar. Hey, this hot sauce is vinegar-based. whipwhipwhipwhipwhip Hey, this stuff ain’t half bad. I boil up the vermicelli and fry up the Spam, then drain the pasta and throw it all together.

Much to my surprise, it was delicious.

(1)Gift from Mom. I love ya, Ma, but real subtle there. At least it’s a pretty good cookbook.

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I remember the thread Thea Logica mentions, and I think I posted this link.

Just to continue Lissla Lissar’s semi-highjack about recipes being merely suggestions, I recall some oatmeal cookies I made for a contest we had at work. The recipe is packed away right now, but I think I recall the ingredients:

Flour - OK
Rolled oats - OK
Sugar - Brown sugar tastes good!
Shortening - None here, I’ll use butter (It makes a softer cookie, which I prefer anyway.)
Walnuts - Slivered almonds, toasted a little in a dry frying pan.
Raisins or currants - Don’t have those, so I’ll use this candied peel and crystallized ginger.

They were great!

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When the big one drops and we’re living on rats and dandelions I want you in my mutant army!

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Once upon a time I was really poor living up in the mountains and the whole neighborhood was broke and on welfare. I had a couple chicken breasts, someone else had an onion, someone else contributed some tomatos, and so on. It turned out to be enough food to feed like six people, and it was pretty damn good, I must say.

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OK, but you have to kill the rats.

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I can cause air molecules to rearrange themselves in such a way as to make a delicious hand sandwich.

I can also use the minute energy fluctuations in a vaccum to make some barbequed potato chips. But they don’t taste very good.

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That should be ham sandwich.

Although, depending on what species of hand, a hand sandwich could be pretty tasty…

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One thing I learned from my student days was to always have dried soup greens around. With them, and a little imagination, anything can be a meal. I have fond memories of a soup I made from dried greens, some chopped pepperoni, and some bacon. You can buy dried soup makings at just about any grocery store. try to get the ones with lentils…then just add water and whatever you can scrounge. :smiley:

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Am I the only one who got Air Supply on the brain when reading this thread title?
*I can make you food with credit,
Or I can make it with some cash;
And I can make you every dish that has ever been made,
As long as I have an ingredient stash.

But I’m never gonna cook from pantry fuzz
Food you’d really want to taste at all…
And I’m never gonna make it like Thea does,

Making food out of nothing at all…*

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Egg noodles, a can o’ peas, some butter and some parmesan (and mozzarella if you have it). Cook. Mix. Great poor bachelor food, the noodles and peas cost less than $2 and the rest is usually in the fridge. I loved this stuff in college.

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Ever fried cooked spaghetti in bacon grease? It’s great! Especially topped with fried eggs.

As long as you’ve got some kind of starch, and some kind of protein, you can make a meal.

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Well, I actually intended for that green tea to go down my throat, not spraying across the room…