I’m aware that plenty of carbonara recipes do not contain cream. My normal Marsala recipe does not contain cream either. The alfredo trick is something I’ve shown people who aren’t terribly experienced in the kitchen, so they have a simple base to start with. It allows otherwise timid cooks to venture out from there. After 20 years in the restaurant business, I’ve learned that it’s easier to get people to branch out when they are comfortable with simple starting off point.
Here’s another simple favorite.
Mashed Potato and Portobello Pancakes.
Use your favorite mashed recipe. Add some grated sharp cheddar, fresh basil and garlic. Form into small pancakes and fry in pan with a small amount of olive oil and butter. Clean and fry large portobellos in a separate pan. Put pancakes on top of mushrooms and top with finely crumbled cheddar goldfish crackers and a few flakes of parsley. Takes very little time and it’s the only way I can get the kids to eat mushrooms.
Take a package of chicken breasts. Put in a crock pot. Pour in a bunch of salsa. Cook on low all day. Then when you get home, it will smell amazing all over the house. Now pull out some tortillas and put the chicken mix in, add some cheese on top and… yum!
These recipes are going to get a workout quite quickly - thanks a bunch!
My sister turned me on to Peg Bracken’s “I Hate To Cook Book” YEARS ago. The to-go
potluck recipe is ‘Rosy Meatballs’.
Procure meatballs. You can buy them, or make them yourself. If you nukecook them ahead of time, you can eliminate some of the grease - your choice.
You know how you buy a tin of cranberry sauce to go with turkey, and you end up with most of the tin ‘left over’? Pour the jelly or sauce into a bowl and add 1 tin of (cheap)
tomato soup. Mix them up so they get acquainted.
You can put the meatballs in a casserole dish, add the sauce, and put it into the oven at about 350 for 45 minutes or so OR sling them into the crock pot. If you cook them too long, mind, the meat balls fall apart and you have meaty sauce.
I usually serve this over rice, with some sort of vegetable, and maybe a salad, on the side.
If you take this to a potluck, people go nuts trying to figure out how to make the sauce. Usually they can identify the cranberry taste …
I call that a “Monique Special” after my wife. Whenever we’re pressed for time and/or money, that’s what supper is. Although sometimes we use spaghetti sauce instead of mushroom soup. Oh, and some old cheddar cheese. But yeah, you can’t ruin it even if you try.
You really can’t. You can add anything savory you want (I made some for lunch today!), and if it’s not “beefy” enough with just the ground beef and cream of mushroom, you can add some canned or leftover beef gravy, too! And shredded cheddar on top never really has hurt anything I’ve added it to.
spoke- this was really good. I ended up cooking it for 10 more minutes and then letting it stand for another 10 to get most of the liquid absorbed. The water chestnuts add a wonderfully unexpected crunch.
One of my home alone fallback dinners is sausage sandwiches with roast bell peppers. I love bell peppers, so I always have one or two in the fridge. I’ll slice them, stick them on a baking tray, drizzle with olive oil and roast for about twenty minutes. Then I get some good quality sausages of any sort, fry them with a roughly-chopped onion. Stick that on crusty bread, then top with the roast peppers and maybe some mustard. Magic.
I have a slightly more complicated one, which we’ve always just called Taco Dip, but I suppose could be renamed Slightly Tipsy Dip because it has a few more ingredients.
Get out a microwave-safe dish and layer the following, from the bottom up:
1 8 oz. package cream cheese, softened
1 can Hormel Chili, No Beans (I like the turkey kind)
1 can chopped green chiles
1 pack (2 cups) mixed taco cheese or shredded cheddar/jack blend.
Nuke for five minutes, then get a fork to beat off all the hungry SCA fighters after practice.
This is a big hit at my house: Green Chili Pork
5lb pork shoulder roast
2 bottles of green chili salsa
2 small cans of green chilies
1 small can of jalapenos or other pepper if you want it spicier
Put all ingredients in crock pot on low heat for 8 - 10 hours. Pull meat apart with fork (try not to eat it all while doing this). Serve on tortillas with shredded cheese (or not), guacamole (or not), sour cream (or not) and more green chili salsa. Freezes great. I took a frozen chunk camping last weekend, reheated it and my friends and family scarfed it all.
1 bag of Oreos (not double stuff!)
1 brick of cream cheese
1 bag of white chocolate chips or confectioners candy
food processor
take 3 cookies. Remove the filling (eat now!)
grind them up and set aside for garnish
Put the rest of the bag in the processor. Grind.
Add the cream cheese. Grind.
Scoop mixture into balls. I place on plastic wrap and freeze. They will be easier to work with.
After this, dunk them in the melted chocolate and garnish immediately. Because the balls are cold the chocolate sets fast.
These are so good they disapear in seconds. I am going to try other cookies next time (nutterbutters?)
Dice chicken breast or Ground beef
1 cup Chicken broth or Beef broth
1/2 an onion diced
1/2 red pepper sliced
1/2 green pepper sliced
1/2 cup hot peppers
2 cloves of garlic
1 table spoon of curry
1 table spoon of pepper
1 ladel of jerk sauce
2 table spoons corn starch or flour
1 table spoon of olive oil
1)heat pan to medium high heat throw in oil, meat, add spices except jerk sauce cook chicken until no longer pink couple of minutes or cook beef until brown. Remove from pan.
lower heat to medium add vegetables cook for 5-10 minutes stirring.
add meat and matching broth and jerk sauce add corn starch stir until sauce thickens 10 minutes
