As much as I enjoy cooking something wonderful from great ingredients, we all know that sometimes you just don’t have any taleggio cheese or fresh salmon fillets on hand. Luckily, one of the things I like best about cooking is the challenge of coming home to a fridge or cupboard full of odds-and-ends and throwing them together with a bit of imagination to turn them into something fast and tasty for dinner. So in the spirit of culinary creativity, I give you…(drumroll please)…The Harried Chef Challenge! Your task is to take the list of common household ingredients I provide you with and come up with a yummy dinner for two. As the inventor of this game I reserve the right to steal your recipes for my own use at home when I’m in a hurry and don’t want to order take-out. You don’t have to use all the ingredients, but the more, the better.
Here’s your first list:
Spaghetti
eggs
Garlic
Milk
Generic, store-brand sliced white bread
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil
Canned red kidney beans
Lentils
And that’s it! If this goes well I’m going to try and make it a weekly challenge. Bon Appetit!
This is student cuisine, but you could make some spiffy scrambled eggs on toast with that list.
Ingredients:
Four slices white bread
Garlic
Egg - three or four or so depending on size
Milk
Pepper
Salt, maybe
Olive oil
Utensil/Equipment:
A grill - is this called a broiler over there?
A saucepan
A bowl - of sufficient size
A fork
A big flat Knife, or alternatively a hefty textbook wrapped in kitchen paper
Method:
Crush a clove or two of garlic using big flat knife or textbook
Crack eggs into bowl, add pepper and salt to taste, and beat with fork until uniform mix
Olive oil (smidge) into saucepan and heat
Add crushed garlic to saucepan and let it fry gently
At some point you need to grill (toast) one side of the bread to a fairly well done crunchy texture, and flip it so that the other side is also toasted, but not quite so much - you want it to be absorbent
Turn up heat on saucepan, and drop eggy goodness in. Stir as seems appropriate.
Once done, drop eggs on top of lesser cooked side of toast and share with your loved one.
A properly prepared student would have Tabasco sauce handy, and a finely chopped onion, and likely some grated cheese.
Wow, this is an incredibly hard one! Really, no other spices, no cheese, no veggies? Oy. Struan’s got a good idea - that’s about where I was initially going. The only other thing I can come up with is a sort of spaghetti frittata, but with no cheese it’s going to be a bit dull. Still, lemme give it a shot:
Boil spaghetti per package directions, breaking the noodles in half before putting them into the water. Drain.
Heat smashed garlic cloves (3-4) in some olive oil. Careful, don’t let them burn.
Mix in cooked spaghetti noodles, salt and pepper. Place in a greased pie tin or casserole, smooshing down slightly (you’re essentially making a “crust” with the noodles.)
Open and drain can of beans. Smash beans with a potato masher until they’re pastey.
Add 5-6 eggs, 1 cup(ish) of milk, salt and pepper and mix well. Pour this mixture on top of spaghetti.
Put into 350 oven and bake until egg is set.
Meanwhile, put the lentils in a blender (uh, cook 'em first) with some more garlic and salt. Puree, and use as a spread for the bread.
OK, this one might end up a bit bland, but what the hell…
Lentil Soup with croutons
Uses:
Lentils
Kidney Beans
Garlic
Salt
eggs
bread
Olive oil
Fry up about 4-5 cloves of garlic in a little oil in a saucepan. Add about a cup of lentils, 2-3 cups of water and the can of beans. Simmer for a long time (about an hour is probably good), adding some salt to taste. Mush the kidney beans a little if they’re not mushed enough at the end of this process (they probably would be…)
Meanwhile, boil one egg and set aside to cool.
Cut 4 slices of bread into squares about 1/2 inch a side. Pour oil into a deepish fryingpan to a depth of about an inch. Heat until it’s (handwaving…) fairly hot (hot enough that the bread starts to sizzle at once when you drop a piece in). Deep fry the bread cubes in batches, setting them aside on some kitchen paper (are we allowed kitchen paper? - failing that, any old paper. Yesterday’s unopened junk mail,perhaps? ) to drain.
Peel the boiled egg and slice thinly. Serve the soup using slices of egg and the croutons as a garnish
