I’m putting this here rather than IMHO, since Uke’s been encouraging cookery here.
My wife used to be vegetarian of the fish eating variety, so when she was out and I felt like cooking, cooking something for me that she wouldn’t eat was simple: steak or lamb.
Now she’s weakened and will eat most things I like to cook anyway. This is cool and she’s a good customer. But as a consequence cooking for one has become more debauched: game and offal. My latest “boy food” dish is an odd one to buy for: Pappadelle con i Fegatine (wide ribbons of pasta with chicken livers). The meat is the cheapest ingredient at about 70c. I spend more on the herbs.
Quick approximate recipe for those who are interested:
[li]In a heavy based pan soften a finely-sliced medium onion in good olive oil. Add 2-3 smashed cloves of garlic.[/li][li]Put pappardelle in boiling salted water.[/li][li]Add small knob of butter.[/li][li]Turn up heat, add 3-4 cleaned chicken livers. Cook for about 5 minutes until the livers have a little colour on both sides. The aim is to have them pink on the insides and approximately the same texture of a soft-boiled egg.[/li][li]Splash of white wine. Reduce.[/li][li]Turn down heat, add 2 tablespoons of cream. Very little cream - you’re looking for just enough sauce to adhere to the pasta.[/li][li]Add salt, black pepper, plenty of coursely chopped flat-leaf parsely. Sage if you’ve got it.[/li][li]Add drained pasta, top with plenty of the best pecorino you can afford.[/li][li]Wine: dry red.[/li]
What do you cook when your SO (and offspring if applicable) are out? Must be proper cooking for one, not pre-prepared junk, and shouldn’t take more than an hour from walking in the door.
Whenever I want to see my cholesterol numbers whirl around like the reels on an old time slot machine, I make my patented Brobdignagian Breakfast Burrito™:
[li] One very large flour tortilla (~18" in diameter)[/li]
[li] Three Swift’s Premium beef sausage links[/li]
[li] One slice of lightly fried ham[/li]
[li] Three slices of crisp fried bacon[/li]
[li] Two runny sunny-side-up fried eggs[/li]
[li] Two slices of processed American cheese (for that lunch truck flavor)[/li]
[li] Dash of salt[/li]
[li] Dash of hot sauce[/li]
If you make this right you should be able to hear your arteries audibly hardening after finishing one.
This looks like a scrumptious meal because I love chicken livers!! No recipe to offer. I sautee some shrimp with spices and onions, microwave veggies, and use my rice cooker for just moi. Of course, there’s leftover rice, but you can make fried rice another day. Thanks for the new recipe!
Another chicken liver lover!. Rich, cheap, versatile and no one else will eat’em so all the more for me!
Devils on Horseback-wrap liver with half a strip of bacon, impale with toothpick, repeat, bake at 350 deg for 20 minutes or 'till the bacon gets crisp. Serve with tzatziki.
Pate- fry up a pound of the beauties and cool. Fry up some finely chopped onion, mushroom and garlic. Toss all into Cuisinart with a few drips/glugs of red wine or brandy. Scrape on toast-perfect drinking food-fills the belly and sops up the booze.
French Onion Livers: fry livers in a bit of butter and garlic. Let 'em get good and crunchy. Remove from pan, let pan heat up a bit before adding a glop of red wine and deglazing the pan(that being where the wine gets all bubbly and you scrape the crunchy bits off the bottom of the pan). Add two heaping soup spoons of french onion chip dip to the wine, let simmer a couple of minutes until the sauce thickens and pour on the livers.
To accompany, roast some potatoes and/or carrots. Dead easy-scrub a spud (don’t have to peel it even!) and cut into 3/4 inch cubes. Pour a tablespoon or so of olive oil over the tater, and add a crushed garlic clove and toss-make sure that spud is covered with the oil. For total yumminess, add a teaspoon of chopped fresh rosemary (dried r’mary just won’t soften enough). Spread out on a pie plate-single layer please-and bake at 350 deg for 90 minutes. Stir 'em halfway through.
I usually make some sort of greasy comfort food. My latest craze when cooking for myself is very simple.
1 Johnsonville smoked beef sausage bias-cut
3 large peeled and sliced potatoes
1 small onion, chopped
1 teaspoon coarse brown mustard
1 can cheddar cheese soup
Mix everything but the sausage together in a dish and bake it at 350. While you’re waiting, fry up the sausage. After 30 minutes put the sausage in the cheesy potatoes, add lots of cracked black pepper and eat.
This is turning into the liver/ deathwish thread. August West’s recipe sounds like an American version of that terrfying dish Toad in the Hole. Sounds good.
I have the same problem with a “I don’t eat much red meat…ANY amount of fat is OUT” sort of wife. (This was a woman who smoked a pack a day and drank bourbon from the bottle when I met her. She shoulda hung a big sign around her neck reading I WILL BE HEALTHY AT 30, to warn me off)
For a long time my at-home dinner for one was what I called “Popeye’s Supper:” a grilled or pan-broiled filet or ribeye steak, along with a skilletful of panfried potatoes and a package of frozen spinach, cooked according to package directions and served with sliced hardboiled egg and lots of salt and pepper.
Lately I’ve been panfrying a chicken and serving it up to myself with butter beans (cooked in chicken stock with onions and red pepper) and a skillet of cornbread. This is nice because the kids appreciate the leftovers, but it DOES take over an hour to prep and prepare.
The other cool thing about it is the last time I did it my wife came home unexpectedly early, along with a co-worker, who couldn’t BELIEVE I’d gone to all that trouble just for myself. I invited her to sit down with me and we had a very pleasant high-cholesterol meal, while the Old Lady glared at us.
Just for the record, I am NOT that sort of person, myself.
Anyway, when Mr. Athena is out, I tend to go for either junk food or comfort food. Big bowl of popcorn followed by cheese & crackers, or something like fettucine alfredo. Easy to do for one, there’s usually cream, fettucine, and parmesan in the house, and he always bitches at me when I suggest it for dinner because it’s “too heavy.” This comes from the man who will regularly consume 6-8 donuts in a day if he can get 'em. Go figure.
Last time he was gone, I dug a ribeye out of the freezer and pan-fried it. Made a sauce out of the pan juices, some Madeira, and butter. I ate it in my pajamas in front of my computer, along with a nice bottle of Vino Verde. Sometimes I wish he’d go away more often.
My favorite one-person dish doesn’t have a name. I stumbled upon a similar recipe in one of my multitudes of cookbooks and adjusted it to suit my taste.
Boil some water (with a dash each of salt and olive oil) for your favorite spaghetti/linguine/fettucini.
While waiting for the water to boil, slice up some leftover chicken or turkey – white meat or dark, but I happen to use white.
Add pasta to boiling water, cover, and turn off the heat. The water is hot enough so the pasta will cook in 5-7 minutes, depending on the kind and thickness.
A minute or so before you’re ready to drain the pasta, add your sliced poultry. You don’t want to cook it – you just want to heat it enough so it isn’t dry and stringy.
Drain the pasta/poultry mix into a large bowl and add:
a splash of extra virgin olive oil
a splash of basalmic vinegar
1-2 tsp. minced garlic (or to your taste)
a dash of crushed hot pepper
some freshly-grated Parmesean or Romano
Toss it altogether and enjoy!
I know, the basalmic vinegar may sound strange to some, but it adds a little kick. You can also add veggies (steam or saute them separately before adding to the drained pasta, or nuke some frozen veggies and add them), chopped parsley, or anything else you think of. I’ve also eaten this plain, with neither meat nor veggies, and it’s still wonderful!
I’ve also made this using ziti and other tubular pastas, but I found that they absorb the “dressing” too much…
The measurements are arbitrary – I add everything to taste, but be forewarned: Add less EVOO than you think you need – too much and the pasta turns to slime! :eek:
