(no subject)

[slemslempike]

One of the reasons I was excited about moving to Cairo was having a fridge and an oven and being able to cook. Since I got here I have been far more excited about restaurants and delivery food, and the oven is unused and the fridge is full of water bottles and chocolate. For the past two nights my dinner has been a small bowl of frozen peas (not cooked), a small cucumber, an apple, and a baby twix.

For my wallet and probably stupid things like sodium levels or what have you, I need to make myself cook. When my last laptop died it took with it all my saved up online recipes, and everything I can think of that I liked is either cake or contains pork (sometimes both), and while you can get pork in Egypt it's not all that easy. (Also not easy - tonic water. All I have found so far is a single measly can. The intern put club soda in my Hendricks the other day and acted like that was acceptable. It wasn't.)

I am looking through the Kitchn online recipe list, which is sort of helpful but I wish there was a box I could tick saying "I do not live in Brooklyn and even if I did I wouldn't eat this shit" to rule out the more ridiculous recipes. The recipe repositories where you can tell it what you have and it finds you recipes aren't helpful because I don't have anything. My go to recipes that I would periodically make are maple glazed butternut squash casserole, red wine and chorizo risotto, roast chicken, and a sausage casserole. Maybe I will go to a supermarket and find an item to then base a meal around. If you wanted to suggest some places to find recipes online, or link me to some favourites, that would be kind. I will repay that kindness by being too fussy for words and hating mushrooms, cauliflour, courgette/zucchini, aubergine/eggplant, cheese that isn't cheddar or mozzerella, fish, too much spice, eggs, bananas, avocado, artichokes, but otherwise being quite grateful for suggestions that are easyish and can have leftovers frozen. Oh, I also don't like chickpeas, lentils and most beans that aren't baked beans.

I found a recipe that looked reasonable except it uses cottage cheese. I don't like cottage cheese and am distrustful of its presence. What will it taste like cooked? It was in a pasta bake.

Comments

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

As you know I am useless at cooking and when I lived in Cairo I survived on takeaway / delivery / meals out / very occasional semi-feral meals made of pasta and some of those stir-in sauces. However I would have thought you could easily substitute mozzarella for cottage cheese in that recipe.

NIGELLA OUT.

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

PS - you probably already knew this but you can generally get mozzarella in Metro, the supermarket opposite Flamenco.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I was wodnering if yoghurt would work as a cottage cheese substitute, as then it's still runny? I don't know, people always say substitutions are fun and easy, btu they stress me out. I have since writing this rememebred that in Brussels I used to eat gnocchi fried with onions, tomatos and peppers with a bit of pesto a lot, and that is easy and delicious.

I have so far tried 3 differet kinds of BBQ pringles knock-offs since getting here, and I think I need to stick with Mr Potato or actual Pringles for a true dinner experience.

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I think you probably want something that's going to go a bit melty? I'd definitely substitute yoghurt for cottage cheese in a dish where they were served raw, but less so cooked.

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

I would use yoghurt (the thicker the better) if the cottage cheese is used to produce a sort of white sauce-ish coating around the pasta. If it's intended to be a layer in its own right, mozzarella might be better.

I've found yoghurt works surprisingly well as a cheaty pasta sauce, especially with grated lemon rind and pepper and a few chilli flakes. I've made it with courgette (grated and fried) but I reckon spinach (stir into hot pasta until wilted, then add yoghurt off the heat) would also work.

[medland.livejournal.com]

I love these, although I fear they may be heavy in most of the things you hate.

http://smittenkitchen.com/

http://agirlcalledjack.com/category/recipes-food/

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/series/nigelslaterrecipes

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/series/yotam-ottolenghi-recipes

http://www.closetcooking.com/

http://cookingoncloverlane.blogspot.co.uk/ - those are weirdly American in that 'most things come from a can and there are no vegetables in anything' way but some of them are really really good and you can always chuck in peas and sweetcorn or have a side salad.

[medland.livejournal.com]

Oh, and this, but IGNORE ALL THE NON RECIPE RELATED TEXT. She has the WORST body issues, food issues, women issues ever and I find her writing oftentimes alarming and bothersome. But the food is excellent, easy to make with good clear instructions.

http://reciperifle.blogspot.co.uk/

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the great collection of links! And indeed the warning on the last one.

I'm currently cooking this one:

http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-ginger-butternut-squash-amp-sweet-potato-passover-recipes-from-the-kitchn-217342

[medland.livejournal.com]

That looks fantastic!

[terriem.livejournal.com]

My favourite easy but tasty recipe is to get some kind of meat (either chicken or fish, but would work for anything roastable including veg), cover in pesto, wrap in tinfoil, then roast for 20-25 minutes, served with whichever roasted vegetables take your fancy. (I usually go for courgettes and tomatoes and asparagus, covered in lots of olive oil). Once the prep is done and it's in the oven, you can wander off and do other things, which is my go-to cooking style.

I also like meatballs with tomatoes (canned when too lazy to go to the shop) and spaghetti - just brown them, add the tomatoes, add onions and whichever other herbs you want, stick a load of cheese on top.

I'm very much a "let's just shove stuff I like in a pan/oven and see what happens" kind of person. :)

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I am very bad at buying meat when it involves talking to a human instead of picking it off the shelf, so I may well try that with vegetables. I like things where you can just shove off and do something else.

[listersgirl]

We could never cook together - you listed all my favourite things! (Mushrooms, chick peas, eggplant, fancy cheeses, avocado, lentils...)

Given that, I don't have any recipes for you. :) Maybe look at what is easy to get in the stores and you like, and then search around that?

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I know - I'm an annoying eating companion! I found some sweet potato last night and have roasted that, and I'll see what else comes along.

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

I find burgers quite a simple thing to make, so long as you have a grater, and it does need to be a grater, not a food processor.

You need mince (beef, lamb, pork - you can use turkey but that makes a dry burger, IMO), onion (half a med-large onion to 250g mince seems to work), salt, pepper and herbs depending on your preference and type of mince. Sage is good with pork and beef, rosemary and thyme with lamb and so on. Parsley goes with most things. Chives ditto. Tarragon, if you use turkey mince. Whatever herbs you like.

1. Dump mince in bowl. Add salt and pepper.

2. Peel and grate the onion. You should end up with a pile of onion mush sitting in onion juice.

(I always wear goggles when grating onions because onions make me cry lots.)

3. (Optional) If using pork mince, you can peel and grate an apple too.

4. Add onion mush and juice to mince. Add herbs.

5. Mix using your hands. Divide mix into however many burgers you want. Shape into burger shapes.

6. Grill or fry.

You can freeze any remaining burgers before you cook them, so long as the mince wasn't pre-frozen, but make sure you have a layer of greaseproof paper between each burger or else freeze each burger in a separate freezer bag. You can eat the burger in a bun with tomato etc. or else do any other accompaniments. I often have them with baked spud.

I like cottage cheese, but it does have an odd texture to me in cooking. YMMV, of couse. As yiskah says, mozzarella would probably be fine, except the sauce might be stringy.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I do have a grater! I am not sure I have the patience to grate things, but these sound quite delicious.

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid my brain saw the list of things you don't like and immediately started trying to combine them into a single dish (slightly short-circuited by the bananas), so I'm a bit stuck at the moment.

Here's a sweet potato soup thing I made this week (more or less, since I made it in a slow cooker and what goes in depends on what's available):
Chop 1 onion finely, and start frying it in a largeish saucepan.
While that's going on, chop a sweet potato into centimetreish cubes, and crush/grate/shred a couple of cloves of garlic and a couple of slices of root ginger (or add dried ginger later). Add all that stuff to the onion and keep frying until the onion is translucent.
Add spices to taste - I'd use 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ground cumin and some ginger if I didn't have root ginger, but use less if you don't like too much spice or you haven't got them. Stir.
Add some liquid - ideally chopped tomatoes and vegetable/chicken stock - until it looks like soup instead of stew. I used 1/2 tin of chopped tomatoes, 1/2 tsp of stock powder and, er, some water (I'm such an accurate cook).
Bring to boil then simmer until sweet potato is soft when prodded (20 minutes?)

Optional: Stir in a large spoonful of crunchy peanut butter, sprinkle with chopped spring onions and peanuts, and squeeze half a lime over it. (The lime does make quite a difference, though). Spinach is good stirred in at the end, too, and if it's stewy rather than soupy you can serve it over rice.

I made 3x quantities of this and so far it has fed two people for dinner twice (with rice or bread) and one person for lunch once, and there's still a bit left.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've ever made soup! This looks quite simple.

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

It's quite forgiving, too, as long as you like sweet potato. If you put too much water in, add peanut butter or tomato puree to thicken it up. If you don't put enough liquid in, it's stew. It works well with other veg added in for variety. I find it does need something sharp (lime is best but lemon is also good) to counteract the sweetness, but that might just be my preference.

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

I'm not even going to attempt to make a suggestion, but I am impressed with the frozen peas idea, which probably is an indication of my own enthusiasm for cooking.

Salt on the cucumber though, for sure!

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

My mum, sister and I always sneak handfuls of frozen peas when we're cooking them for dinner, so I thought why bother cooking them? A cooling, healthy treat. Probably including all sorts of harmful chemicals that might otherwise be wasted in the cooking process.

[whatho.livejournal.com]

You have lots of good links. I was going to say I've been enjoying reading my way through Felicity Cloake's 'How to make/cook the perfect' series on the Guardian's food pages, though I don't know if they make sensible recipe suggestions ... I've been using them as food porn in the absence of so many delicious ingredients here. The latest one was custard tarts, and the one before that was egg mayonnaise sandwiches. They're quite varied anyway. The Guardian food page can be quite hit and miss but does come up with some interesting stuff from time to time, especially quick lunches from cupboard staples and Nigel Slater doing clever things with summer fruit. Though you have to contend with Yotam Ottolenghi and his 97 ingredient heaps of nonsense.

I find rubbing things with olive oil and herbs of choice and paprika and bunging them in an oven works for a vast collection of foodstuffs.

Last time I had access to a kitchen I spent most of my time turning oats into flour with the aid of a coffee grinder, and then into pancakes.

I am disturbed by the idea of baked cottage cheese.

I like food.