Quick & easy recipes

Cafe Society
1

Like most single people I limit the time I spend on cooking an evening meal, it being real hard to read up on SDMB while slicing tomatoes and broiling onions. My collection of recipes for simple dishes is, however, rather limited. Lately I’ve been feeling the urge to expand my repertoire.

In couple of recipe threads here (and even in a GQ one, thanks to Athena. Green chile, anyone?) I’ve picked up some excellent tips. Veb has opened my eyes to the wonders of baked potatoes sans foil. And I’m definitely going to try out Huevos Rancheros soon.

Since many of the recipe threads seem to call for well-neigh superhuman culinary powers (or at least much more time and attention than I’m willing to spend on an ordinary work-day), I’m asking you, my fellow-dopers, whether you have some quick & easy recipes to share. My palate will be oh-so grateful.

Some rough rules of thumb:

  • should be ready to eat in 30-45 minutes after entering the kitchen; if it takes more time, the preparation time must be limited to 15, or 30 minutes tops.
  • ideally around 5 ingredients, or up to 10 at most (oil, salt and pepper don’t count),
  • preferably no U.S. specific miracle sauces or other prepared stuff(since I can’t buy them over here);only if it is some general thing like tabasco or pesto I may be able to procure it,
  • possible to make in portions for 1 or 2 persons with healthy appetite,
  • possibility to reheat (after storing it in the fridge, I know),
  • limited number of utensils and dishes needed (since these require cleaning up).
    I’ll be able to recalculate from U.S. to metric system, so you don’t have to bother about that.

I’ll start off with my quick recipe for pasta sauce (which is hardly original, but here goes):

  • 1/2 kilo of fresh tomatoes (or a can, if you must),
  • 1 onion
  • 1 bit of garlic
  • 1 or 2 spoonfuls of flour
  • basil (or oregano), preferable fresh
  • olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • parmesan cheese (grated)
  • other ingredients: capers, (can of) anchovis, (can of) tuna

Chop onions, garlic. Chop tomatoes in quarters. Heat oil. Broil onions and garlic. Add flour, stir quickly. Add tomatoes and stirr well. If necessary add a bit of water and stir well to avoid the flour from carbonating which detracts from the taste. (the flour is for added thickness. You can leave it out if you must).

Add basil, salt and pepper to taste. Add other ingredients (except the cheese). Heat and stir, then lower the flame and let it simmer for 5-10 minutes while regularly stirring. The tomatoes should form a kind of stew. If you want, you can fish out the tomato skins with a fork, but I personally don’t mind them. Meanwhile, cook the pasta. Serve with pasta and parmesan cheese.

It is cheap if you don’t add any special ingredients, but I really like to add capers. You can vary the other ingredients, adding chopped walnuts, raisins or whatever.

2

Advance warning: I tend to cook ‘by eye’, so these will only have very vague measurements. Also, I’m vegetarian, so all of my recipes are veggie-suitable (You won’t catch me using evil things like Tofu 'though).

Here’s a favourite one of mine while at uni.

Cous Cous with roasted vegetables.

  • Cous Cous. About 50-100g (dry) per person.
  • Vegetables, assorted. I tend to use Aubgergine, Courgettes and peppers. Sometimes carrots as well. The recipe is pretty flexible on this 'though.
  • Red Onions (Yes, I know that onions are a vegetable, but these ones aren’t optional)
  • Lemons (About 1 per 3 people is good, if they’re moderately juicy)
  • Olive Oil
  • Cayenne Pepper
  • Ground Cumin (optional)

You will now marvel at the sheer intricacy of preperation. :slight_smile:

Chop up the vegetables and red onions, Cover them in olive oil and put them in a baking tray (you will unfortunately need a fair bit of oil if you use aubergine - it soaks the stuff up like a sponge). Grill or roast until they look ready (I find about half an hour not too close to the grill works well on my oven, but it’s rather dinky).

A little bit before this is ready, squeeze the lemons, mix the juice with the cous cous and add cayenne pepper and cumin to taste. You may also want to add salt and pepper at this point - I don’t, but I prefer to let people season the food themself. Put the cous cous in a serving bowl, add slightly less than enough boiling water to cover it, and cover the bowl with something. Leave for about five minutes, uncover, stir with a fork to seperate the grains. Then cover with the roasted vegetables.

It’s not amazingly cheap, but nor is it prohibitively expensive.

Another good cous cous recipe I have is a spicy (slightly misleading - it’s spicy in the sense of using spices, not hot-spicy) chickpea stew over cous cous, but that slightly stretches the definition of quick and easy so I won’t include it here.

Dhal (my version - it’s slightly different from traditional indian Dhal):

Ingredients:

  • Onions - about one medium per 2-3 people.
  • Sugar
  • Lentils - About 100g per person
  • Spices: Mustard Seeds, Turmeric, Crushed chillies, Cumin seeds. Onion seeds are also good but not absolutely essential.
  • Vegetable oil. I tend to use olive oil, but sunflower oil works just as well.

Chop up onions finely - I tend to use a blender. Fry them in the oil, adding a little bit of sugar (a bit less than 1 tbsp per onion) , mustard seeds and crushed (I’m not really sure how much in the way of mustard seeds, but I’d guesstimate about 1 tsp per onion).

When they’re not quite browned, but have started to mush together (the sugar should help them do that) add the lentils and cumin (a little less cumin than mustard seeds).

Fry for a few more minutes. Then cover with boiling water, add sufficient turmeric to make it a nice yellow colour and a little bit of salt. Allow to reduce for about 20 minutes on a medium heat, occasionally topping up with boiling water (you don’t want it to be too liquid, but you need the lentils to soften a lot). When it’s ready you should hardly be able to make out individual lentils. Then, if you want, add some onion seeds.

Note: It’s important to keep tasting it as you cook, as I find it hard to get the exact proportion of spices right. Serve with warm pita or Nan bread.

3

I will refrain from posting my beans and rice recipe, since I do that on every “quick and easy” recipe thread out there.

Here’s what we eat a lot:

Sandwiches

French Dip: really good quality sliced roast beef. Store-bought buns - the long ones, like mini-sub rolls. Canned beef stock (unless you have your own homemade stuff.)

Put beef stock in a saucepan. Heat to a slow simmer. Add roast beef. Cook until hot, but not overcooked (it’ll dry out if you cook it too much.). Meanwhile, toast the buns in the oven. Remove meat from stock, pile onto buns. Cut in half, serve stock on the side for dipping. If you’re feeling fancy, serve with a veggy.

Tuna melt: Mix a can of tuna with a glop or two of mayo, s & p, diced onion, diced celery, glop of mustard. Spread onto a slice of bread. Top with cheese - if you’re using real cheese (as opposed to Kraft Singles, which remind me of my childhood, so therefore are allowed if you’re me but nobody else because they’re more like plastic than real food) grate it before adding it to the sandwich. Grating it will make it toast faster. Add another slice of bread.

Butter each side of bread. Toast in a skillet or on a grill until the cheese melts and it’s warm.

Stir fry:

2-3 veggies of choice. Red bell peppers, onions, bok choy, broccoli, asparagus, carrots, bean sprouts, etc. Anything you want. Cut it up in bitesize pieces.
Meat of choice, cut into bite sized pieces. Chicken, pork, beef, shrimp, etc.
Minced garlic and/or ginger and/or green onions

Sauce - use about half soy sauce, then pick and choose from the others to get the taste you want:

Chili paste
lemon/orange/lime juice
sesame oil
rice wine vinegar
sherry
oyster sauce
hoisin sauce
any other strange condiment you find at the oriental grocery that looks interesting

Marinate the meat in about half the sauce while you cut up the vegetables. Heat a big frying pan until very hot. Add in some oil, and throw in the meat. It’ll stick. If you wait a minute or two, it will unstick. When it unsticks, flip it over to cook all sides. When it’s finished, remove from the skillet. Add a little more oil, and add in the veggies. Put the slower cooking veggies (carrots, etc.) in first so they cook a bit longer. Once veggies are done, clear a small place in the center of the pan, add some more oil, and add garlic/ginger/green onions. Saute for 20 sec or so until done, and mix up with the rest of the veggies. Add the meat. Add the rest of the sauce. Cook until hot. Serve over rice.

Beans and rice… oh, wait, I said I wouldn’t put that here…

4

This recipe is cool because you get to light stuff on fire!

2 filet mignons (NY strip will do)
1/4 C brandy
1/2 pint cream
1-2 T tomato paste
Black Pepper
Oil (preferably peanut)
Rub the steaks all over with freshly ground or cracked black pepper. Really load them up! Get a cast iron skillet super hot and add a small amount of oil. Add the steaks and sear them on all sides. Lower the heat a bit and continue cooking until steaks are almost done to your liking. Add the brandy and ignite. BE CAREFUL! When the alcohol has burned off (the fire goes out), remove the steaks to a warm oven or to a plate tented with foil. Turn the heat to medium low and scrape the pan with a wooden spoon. Add the cream and get it to a slight simmer. Add the tomato paste and stir until well combined. Put the steaks on a plate and cover with sauce. Excellent with french fries or bread for dipping.

Make sure you let whoever you’re cooking for watch as others are always impressed by fire.

5

Really Easy Ground Beef and Rice:

3/4 lb. ground chuck (or you can use ground round and add 1 T olive oil to the first step)
4 green onions, chopped
3 large ribs celery, chopped
1 cup long-grain rice
1 can chicken broth (or 2 cups frozen or fresh)
2 T Worchestershire sauce (soy sauce will also work, although the flavor will obviously be different)
salt and pepper to taste

Brown the ground beef over medium-high heat in a 12" pan with a good lid. Add the green onion and the celery about halfway through. Stir around until the green bits of the onion are thoroughly wilted and the edges of the celery start to look cooked through. Add the rice and stir until it’s completely mixed in. Sprinkle the Worchestershire sauce or soy sauce evenly over the top and stir briefly. Pour in the chicken broth and stir; if the beef/rice mix isn’t completely covered, add up to 1/2 cup of water until it is. Pepper the whole mess and add salt if necessary (if you’re using salted broth, it probably won’t be). Let the broth come to a boil, then cover the pan and reduce the heat to low. Let simmer for 30 minutes; stir once about 20 minutes in. Serves 2 hungry people or 3 not-so-hungry people.

The amount of meat in this recipe is extremely variable; you can use as little as 1/2 lb or as much as a pound and a half and it will turn out pretty much the same. I’ve been told you can use crumbled breakfast sausage instead of the beef, but I’ve never tried this (I don’t like that sort of sausage very much). If you like green bell pepper, you can substitute half of one for one of the celery ribs (again, I don’t like bell pepper, so I don’t do this).

I have several more like this if this is the sort of thing you’re looking for.

6

Italian Meat Loaf
From Cooking Light Magazine, but don’t let that stop you, really.

This is ridiculously easy, but you do need to do a little chopping. You also can’t whip this up in a jiffy - it needs time to roast. It’s a good weekend supper, though, especially since it makes outstanding sandwiches for lunch the following week.

1 pound lean ground beef
1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes (about a jar), rinsed and coarsely chopped
1/2 cup ketchup
1 cup seasoned breadcrumbs
3/4 cup finely chopped onion
3/4 cup chopped fresh basil
2 egg whites
2 minced cloves garlic (or 2 tsp. bottled minced garlic - do not use dried minced garlic, ever)

Preheat oven to 350.

In a big bowl, mix all ingredients (use your hands) until combined. On a broiler pan coated with cooking spray, shape meat mixture into a loafish glob. If desired, squirt some more ketchup on top.

Bake one hour (internal temp 160). Let stand ten minutes before slicing.

7

Sour Cream Potato Casserole

This is longish on the prep time due to the boiling and cooling of the potatoes but if you do that the night before you can whip it up very quickly. Or just make the whole thing on the weekend and you’ll have plenty for a couple more meals during the week. I don’t recommend freezing it because of the sour cream.

7 or so medium sized russet potatoes
3/4 to 1 cup sour cream
a handful of grated cheese (I use cheddar if I have it, colby if I don’t)
up to 1/4 cup milk (more if you’re baking it, less if using the microwave)
chives
salt
pepper
butter

Cut a strip of skin from each potato to make them easier to peel after they’ve been cooked. Put in a pot, cover with water, bring to a boil and boil for 40 minutes or so, depending on the size of the potatoes. When they’re cool enough to handle, peel them and crumble them into a bowl using your hands.

Add sour cream, milk, cheese and spices. I guess I use about a tablespoon of chives and a teaspoon each of salt and pepper. Sometimes I mix the salt, pepper & chives into the sour cream before I add it but it’s not necessary. Mix it up.

Put as much as you want to use in some kind of baking dish and, if baking in the oven, dot the top with cold butter and cover it with a lid or foil. If you nuke it add the butter after it’s heated through. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or so. I don’t usually bake it so that time might be +/-. If you nuke it, you’ll need to stir it a couple of times.

This is a great side-dish for ham. A friend I gave the recipe to just puts chunks of ham right in with it.

8

This is easy, cheap and so good!

Cabbage and Potatoes

1 pack of smoked sausage (Your choice. Use whole pack)
4 or 5 potatoes peeled and thinly sliced
1 med. head of cabbage chopped

Slice up sausage and place in the bottom of a large pot
Layer sliced potatoes on top of the sausage
Cabbage goes on top of potatoes
Add 1 cup of water and salt and pepper to taste (I like lots of pepper with this)
Cover and cook for about 20 minutes until potatoes and cabbage are done.

I hate to cook, but this has to be one of my favorite dishes because it’s so easy

9

Thanks for all these great recipes. I wanted to go shopping for ingredients on saturday, but unfortunately the SDMB took the day off. I’ll start my culinary explorations next weekend.