Food help

[anenko]

I am neither enthusiastic or creative in the kitchen. I am, however, tired of eating the same things all the time.

Flist/circle, what are your favourite simple meals? Links to recipes would be highly appreciated.

This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth |

Comments

Easy food.

[tucuxi]

Okay, here are two I can do off the top of my head:

Potato Leek Soup
About four big leeks.
About two medium-large potatoes
Two sprigs of thyme (or some shakes of it from a jar)
One bay leaf
Salt
Pepper
Butter

Get out a big soup pot with a wide base. (Failing that, get out a frying pan and be prepared to dump stuff from the frying pan into a soup pot with a smaller base.)

Trim the leeks (cut off the roots, cut off the really tough green bits, but not all the green: there's lots of flavor there!). Cut them in half length-wise and rinse them: really do rinse them, since leeks grow in sand, and sand soup is not tasty.

Cut the leeks into pieces about the length of your finger. Put about two tablespoons of butter in the pan. Get it melted, and then brown the leeks in it. (Put them over medium-low heat and push them around until they're all floppy and the kitchen smells really good.) If you're using a frying pan, dump the leeks into the soup pot.

Add your potatoes, chopped up into cubes. Size is up to you: how lumpy do you want the soup to be? Also, the smaller the chunks, the faster they'll cook. Stir around the leeks and potatoes with the bay and thyme and maybe a little more butter: decide how much butter you can handle. ;)

Add about six cups of water. Bring the whole thing to a boil. Then let it simmer for a half hour.

Before serving, you can puree it, or not. But drop a tablespoon of cream into it and stir it up in the bowl --- Mmmmm, soup.

Black beans and rice
You know how to make rice. Add some saffron if you have fancy herbs; add some salt and pepper too. Rice instructions are done.

Get two small cans of black beans and two small cans of tomatoes: I use diced or fine diced, but you can use one can of pureed tomatoes or one of tomato sauce.

Stick the beans and tomatoes in a frying pan. Add some oregano, basil, parsley, and whatever else sounds good. (Those Goya spice packets you can get in mexican grocery stores that have saffron and all kinds of other stuff in? Those are great.) Salt and pepper to taste. Stir around until the juice from the tomatoes has evaporated and you've got something fairly solid, but don't let it burn. Spoon some out over your rice, and ta-da! Dinner! For bonus points, serve veggies too.

Both of these feed at least four: feel free to scale down to suit.