#add to hot pasta put on lid and shake vigorously

[pride-of-storm]

i'm? way happier with this attempt at dressing up leftover pasta than i expected to be?

[motherhenna]

Some recipe suggestions/tips from someone who hates cooking, doing dishes, and dealing with produce:

Ingredients I get in bulk/always have on hand:

corn tortillas (get the giant bag of them and stick it in the freezer, they make great snacks on their own, and you can put mish mash in there and call it a taco!)

Pasta/Lentils/Rice

Tomato sauce and paste

Canned/frozen veggies (I like beans, corn, potatos, and peas especially but to each their own. Chickpeas are usually pretty good too.)

canned refried beans

Ground meat (I buy in 1lb increments and stick in freezer for easy protein)

frozen chopped onions

diced garlic in water

spices (Garlic and onion powder, cumin, curry powder, paprika, cayenne, oregano, basil, rosemary, bouillon, etc)

condiments (soy sauce, sweet n sour sauce, mustard/ketchup, honey, peanut butter, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, etc)

Recipes:

Samosa filling

Boil potatos or heat up canned ones until hot and soft. Microwave frozen peas, corn, carrots (or whatever veggies u like) until not frozen, or used canned. Put some fennel seeds into a pan for a little while until toasty, then add some oil/ghee and dump in your veggies/taters, plus some onions and garlic. Mush with a spatula and add curry powder/cumin/paprika or other savory spice mix to taste and cook until it smells/tastes good. Put in a tortilla/pita with some sweet n sour sauce if u want.

Lentil/Chickpea mishmash

Boil lentils until soft and the skins are kinda peeling, drain. Add to pan w canned chickpeas. Add some broth or water, just enough not to burn. Add savory spices, stir until chickpeas are softened. Optional: Cook garlic/diced onions in pan before adding lentils and chickpeas.

Soup

In a pot, cook some ground meat until browned, add some italian/savory spices. Dump in canned veggies, if using frozen then microwave first so it doesnt mess w cooking time too much. Season to taste. Add broth or water and buillon until desired soup consistency. Bring to a boil, then add short pasta noodles (like bowtie or fusili). Cook until pasta is almost done, then turn heat down and simmer and add spices until it tastes/smells good. You can freeze portions for later too.

Homemade pasta sauce

Storebought is expensive so: diced onions in a pan until soft. Add garlic, then tomato sauce (enough to coat amount of pasta u want). Add some tomato paste and italian seasonings (oregano, basil), then cook until it doesn't taste like raw tomato. Salt to taste. (Optional: cook ground meat until browned with the onions. if cooking from frozen wait to add the onions until meat is halfway cooked.) Boil ur pasta, then drain mostly (leave a little water) and pour pasta into the pan ur cooking the sauce in. stir to coat pasta.

Smashed cucumber salad

look up a recipe, there's a thousand out there, but usually i just cut up persian cucumbers, pour some vinegar/soy sauce/sesame seeds/chili flakes on there and boom

Peanut cucumber salad

Peel and slice american cucumbers, put in bowl with a lid. Add halved cherry tomatoes and peanuts. Add balsamic vinegar, olive oil, peanut butter/peanut sauce. put lid on, shake vigorously. If u dont have lid, then combine sauce ingredients separately and whisk to emulsify before adding to salad.

Also quick and great: Bean and cheese burritos, peanut butter sandwiches, eggs, caprese salad.

Thanks so much! There's definitely a couple in here I could fuck with, and yeah having more canned stuff sounds like a good idea. Not as good as fresh obviously but better than fast food right? Also, truly wish I could eat refried beans without shitting myself to death afterwards lmao that and chalula or tapatillo is why almost every mexican dish makes my intestines radioactive

[theforumcat]

You said you had home made macaroni! Did you make it yourself? If so, can you share the recipe? Thank you!

oooooooooh. Uhhh.

No? Yes, but no?

A lot of things I know how to make I just Know How To Make. I have a lot of extremely varied cooking heritage (from a dad who loved to cook, to a couple of chef apprenticeships, to devoted study of my family’s sort of folk-hero matriarch) that has resulted in a great deal of foods that I can just… make.

So I know how to make macaroni and cheese, which is actually very easy, but unfortunately the closest thing to a recipe for the macaroni I made the other day would be:

Pasta (it was a kale and spinach spiral, because that’s the pasta I use for everything) - about 3/4 box

Milk (I used goat milk because I tend to use goat milk, but any milk is fine. Thicker is better, so ideally cream or super creamy non dairy. Buttermilk is also yummy) - how much? Idk. The right amount. I think a cup?

Buttermilk powder - a tablespoon. Ish. I just use a regular spoon and eyeball it. It goes in a lidded cup with the milk (I use a jam jar)

Flour - like two tablespoons. Also goes into the milk

Flour - like two tablespoons. Does NOT go in the milk

Butter - probably half a stick but I really wasn’t paying that much attention

Pasta water - one cup, set off the the side. This is like the only thing I used a measuring cup for, and of course it’s just as a reservoir container for something used as needed

Lemon juice - a whole lemon’s worth. I left the pulp in; it wasn’t hurting anyone.

Garlic - a whole head, crushed

White onion - somewhere between a quarter and half cup, minced. Probably closer to half. Big handful.

Cayenne pepper - a little sprinkle

Chicken bouillon concentrate - a bit

Cheese - two cups ish of extra sharp white cheddar, grated

1. Butter in pan. Hot. Melting.

2. Garlic, onion, stock concentrate. Let the onion kinda disappear and the onion and garlic start to smell good. Splash in some lemon juice but not all

3. Put flour over it and whisk in. Let this brown up and brown up and brown up, and do not let it stop moving at any point ever (okay, it’s not actually that fussy, but until you get the hang of making roux start with those instructions)

4. once you have decided that letting it brown up any more is going to scorch, add the rest of the lemon juice and turn the heat down

5. Shake the milk and company container vigorously for a while. If you think you have finished, shake it that much again. Do not accidentally churn the milk into butter, but do get it really good and mixed and frothy

6. Add some cheese to the pan and let it start getting melty, whisking into the butter and lemon

7. Add the milk jar

8. Get it hot enough to maybe simmer but not boil and keep adding cheese a bit at a time until you’re out of cheese. If the sauce gets too thick (flour-gloopy or cheese-stringy) add splashes of pasta water to smooth it back out

9. Cayenne pepper to taste

10. Mix in pasta

I tried to make this as helpful as possible, but I do a lot of cooking wherein “cup” means literally just whatever cup was at the front of the cupboard, or sometimes a really full handful, or just however much I decided to put in and call a cup. A lot of my steps are just “cook it” or “make sauce” or whatever, and while this is a little more specific, because it’s in particular the white cheddar and lemon macaroni variant I made the other day and quite a simple thing, anything with a bigger list of ingredients will vary wildly on what’s actually in there (what’s in Cheeseburger soup? Cheese, beef, tomato paste, vegetables. what vegetables? Vegetables!) or anything that isn’t a specific variant (like if I just gave you a “Mac n cheese recipe”) will often include illuminating entries such as “spices.” Somewhere I have a recipe card that just lists “the spices,” and you just have to know/intuit/decide/guess what that means. There are also a lot of things measured in “assloads,” “some,” and “splooshes” and “splashes” (and the precise amount that qualifies as some or an assload, of course, varies by ingredient). Sometimes I’ll also work in helpful measurements like “bowl full” and it will be several different bowls.

Anyway, I am a disaster cook but the things I make are very good. I’ve got that sweet, sweet ancestral guidance and blessing~

[alorconsulting]

Many a night, I turn to eggs to make meals more hearty and complete. It’s usually unplanned and last minute, but when the veggies are down and my Husband is hungry, it’s my crutch. Over the long run, it’s been a tremendous trick to help me cut down on meal budgets. Eggs, even the fancy organic, free range, fancy boxes or farmers market finds are far less expensive per serving than many meat options.

It maybe #memeish of me, but the always on hand super versatile egg is the perfect for topping. It works on anything from veggies to grains to pastas and yes soups.

How to Make The Perfect Boiled Egg

7 Minute Egg

My eggdiction didn’t get started until I mastered the 7 minute egg. Now pimping out a plate with a golden, gushing yolk is quick and easy. Do you need a recipe for this… probably not. But there is one strict rule to making the perfect 7 Minute egg that must be followed. Start the timer when the egg hits water that is already boiling. From here experimenting between a jammy 7 minute egg or a more solid 8 minutes yolk is simple.

7 Minute Egg

Servings: 2-4

Time: 13 Minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Print

Ingredients:

1 Egg Per Person

Directions:

Bring 6 cups of water to a rapid boil over high heat. With a spoon, lower eggs into the water.

Turn the heat down slightly to prevent the eggs from bouncing too rapidly and cracking open in the water. What you’re looking for is a simmer with surface bubbles that circulates the water.

Start the clock! You’ll want to be patient for exactly 7 minutes.

To keep yourself busy for 7 minutes, prep a medium bowl of cold water and a few ice cubes. This will be your ice bath to stop the cooking once you hit 7 minutes.

When the 7 Minutes is up quickly drain the pot and get the eggs as quickly as possible into the ice bath. Let sit for about 10 minutes or as long as it takes to comfortably handle the eggs.

Peel and eat immediately.

Find Your Perfect Boiled Egg

What’s the perfect time to boil and egg, is a very personal question! While I go for a 7 minute egg, Paolo likes a 6 minute egg. If you have picky eaters, simply take a sharpie and write 6, 7, 8 or whatever minute your family prefers on the outside of the egg shell. Then watch the timer and pluck the egg you need out at the appropriate time and again, quickly plunge it into the ice bath to wait for the rest!

Bon Appétit has a guide better than any others I’ve seen to helping you determine your perfect egg boiling time. I actually took this page out of their magazine and have it in my recipe binder as a quick guide! Since I’m not giving up my copy, ever I found a link to their online guide for you.

Bonappetit Egg Doneness Chart

How to Quickly Peel Boiled Eggs

As you can tell, soft jammy boiled eggs are an eggsession of mine. Peeling them, however is not. I used to hate it! Every method from the tap and peel to the spoon under the shell trick, I’ve tried. It wasn’t until working at Food Network and seeing a more profession approach, that I finally went from loathing to loving peeling eggs.

The quickest and easiest method for peeling boiled eggs is the pot shake.

Step 1: Add an inch of water to the pot the eggs were boiled in.

Step 2: Add all the eggs you want to peel immediately back into the pot and put the lid back on.

Step 3: If your pot is still hot, grab a towel to wrap the handles and lid of the pot together and you got it, shake it! For 30 seconds.

It’s going to take a few rounds of practice to nail the perfect level of vigorous shaking. Start light and as you get braver, shake a bit harder. Nailing the right shaking technique might mean sacrificing a few eggs the first few times you try but in the long run it’s worth it. After a few good practice rounds, I can shake the pot and open it to find each egg completely peeled. I swear it’s like magic! It probably goes without saying but with a six minute egg, shake less vigorously than an eight minute egg.

Water Pressure Peels Boiled Eggs

If you don’t want to sacrifice any eggs, you can shake the pot just vigorously enough to dislodge the shells. Peeling eggs by hand is still far easier after a decent shake.

Another trick is leveraging good old fashion water pressure. Once the shells are dislodged, turn the tap on and peel the egg under running water. Once that first good bit of shell peels away, a bit of water pressure quickly dislodges the rest.

How Long Are Boiled Eggs Good For?

Marking eggs with a sharpie is a trick I learned from my Mother. She used to boil half a dozen eggs at a time and keep them in the same egg crate. To avoid the frustrating experience of cracking open a boiled egg while baking cookies, she would put a big X on the eggs she boiled.

Which begs the question, how long are eggs good for once they are boiled? For this fact, I turn to the folks who have a vested interested in making sure you buy and use eggs! The American Egg Board puts a shelf life of 1 week on boiled eggs (in shell).

EggsRefrigerator (35°F to 40°F)Raw whole eggs (in shell)4 to 5 weeks beyond the pack date or about 3 weeks after purchaseRaw whole eggs (slightly beaten)Up to 2 daysRaw egg whitesUp to 4 daysRaw egg yolksUp to 2 daysHard-boiled eggs (in shell)Up to 1 weekHard-boiled eggs (peeled)Use the same day for best quality

So next time you need a little more than what the pantry has to give, crack an egg on it, fry it up or go for the perfect 7 minute egg. You’re bound to be glad you #putaneggonit.

Fried Eggs On Ham

Fried Egg and Cheese Soup Float

Mixed Veggie and Quinoa Hash with 7 Minute Egg

Eggs Are Not Refrigerated in Europe

PS: The first time I went to buy eggs in an Italian super market, I couldn’t find them. Now, at the time, I could also barely speak Italian. After walking around for half an hour, I summoned the courage to ask.

“Dove sono le uve.”

Yeah, it turns out I asked where the grapes were. Facepalm moment. Uve is grapes, Uova is egg.

So on my way to the grapes, I passed right by the eggs on the dry goods shelf. Twice. Thankfully the clerk, who could clearly tell I was out of my element, was watching me wander around for far too long. Eventually, she took pity on me are walked me squarely in front of the eggs. On the un-refrigerated shelf.

So when I finally move to Italy and you come visit, you’ll know where to find the eggs!

PSS: This applies all throughout Europe. In the US supermarket eggs that are not refrigerated could cause salmonella poisoning while in Europe it’s the exact opposite. Why? In the US eggs are washed to strip the outer protective layer called the cuticle to prevent contamination of the shell. Which means they have to be refrigerated because we stripe the natural protective barrier off. While in Europe, it’s illegal to wash the eggs. In Europe farms have to vaccinate chickens against salmonella. That means the cuticle is still intact when eggs are sold. Refrigerating eggs with the cuticle in tact could actually cause mildew to grow. Which could cause… you guessed it salmonella contamination.

In my humble opinion I prefer eggs that are not refrigerated. To me they taste fresher. Simply because those permeable shells haven’t been sitting right next to the Camembert in the fridge. Don’t take my word for it though! Check with local farms market egg sellers. See if they have unwashed eggs for sale and always ask their recommendations for storage.

Put an Egg On It Many a night, I turn to eggs to make meals more hearty and complete. It's usually unplanned and last minute, but when the veggies are down and my Husband is hungry, it's my crutch.