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#2 Simple and Varied Cooking Recipes

Introduction

I love eating good things and I really enjoy making myself food that I like. But sometimes I don't have the energy to spend 1 hour cooking something for myself. A couple of weeks ago I was thinking about this and I want to share it.

My problem with most cooking recipes is that most of them:

  1. Have too many ingredients
  2. Take a long time to make (yes 1 hour is a long time)
  3. Require you to use a lot of dishware (related to the ingredients thing)

My mom said once to me that a typical dish has 1 carbohydrate (rice, potatos, pasta) and 1 protein. I want to modify this "typical dish recipe" to add more variety (and also the human body doesn't need that much protein). So I propose MY "typical dish": 1 carbohydrate, 1 non carbohydrate and a sauce.

The idea of adding the sauce is that some dishes are too dry without it (chicken nuggets and rice for example). I've also tried a carbohydrate with a sauce in the form of pasta with tomato sauce, and its pretty boring. BUT if you add one (1) sliced veggie to the sauce then it tastes awesome.

Ok now lets talk about how to make each of these things.

Carbohydrates

Rice

If you don't have a rice cooker that does everything for you don't worry, making rice is pretty easy. Just put rice and boiled water in a pot, some salt, mix and then cover the pot on low heat for like 10 minutes. The ratio is 1.5 cups of water for every cup of rice, also 1 cup of rice is 4 servings, so have that in mind.

If your rice starts bubbling to the point where the liquid goes out of the pot its because the fire is too high. If your burner is already at its minimum then don't leave the pot fully covered; leave a small space where some of the steam can escape, but you want to keep as much of the steam inside.

Pasta

Pasta is easier than rice, just put the pasta in a pot, add boiled water and wait 10 minutes. Then drain the water and serve. I like to use a serving spoon with holes so I don't have to drain the water and its easier to wash.

Fresh pasta is different from dry pasta (the ones from the store), fresh pasta only takes 1 to 2 minutes to fully cook.

Other

Non Carbohydrates

I'm too lazy to write this section, so here are some examples.

You can also cook these things in the oven!

Sauces

Storebought Sauces

These include tomato sauce, cheese sauce, BBQ sauce, Whipped Cream or whatever your usual convinience store has. You can add these to the non carbohydrate of the recipe after cooking it. These usually just need to be warmed up to be ready to eat.

Tomimi Tip: Technically an egg yolk is a sauce too.

Make your own Sauce

Making your own sauce is a lot easier than you think. Here's a list of ingredients you may find useful when making new sauces:

In chinese gastronomy people use water and cornstarch to increase the density of their sauces. Add two spoons of cornstarch in a cup of water and then mix. If you add that mixture to a sauce, it will make it denser once some of the water evaporates.

Now that we have our basic ingredients, what can we make some sauces of? Fried Veggies! Onions, garlic, carrot, peppers. The other day I bought some frozen mushrooms, fried them, added some soy sauce and bam! Sauce!

Cheese Sauce

A very simple sauce I use for pasta, but also is pretty good in general. I usually eat it with chicken, shrimp, ham or green onions.

Ingredients

Recipe

  1. Melt the butter or margarine in a pot on low heat.
  2. Add a little of milk.
  3. Add the Cream, salt and pepper and mix
  4. Wait until the mix is boiling and ONLY THEN ADD THE CHEESE.
  5. Mix for one or two minutes or until the cheese melts.
  6. After those minutes STOP THE HEAT.
  7. And you're done

I usually add the non carbohydrate to the sauce on step 3, so its flavour coats the sauce. Also, as you might have figured out from me SCREAMING, its very important that you don't melt your cheese for more than two minutes. If you do it starts to get gross, two minutes is more or less the limit where the sauce is creamy without turning into the unholy mess which is overcooked cheese sauce.

My english is not good enough to explain the characteristics of that cursed substance, but trust me, you don't want to taste it.

IF YOU MUST TASTE THE OVERCOOKED SAUCE ONLY OVERCOOK A LITTLE OF IT, PLEASE DON'T WASTE ALL OF YOUR HOLY CHEESE SAUCE IM BEGGING

Sweet & Sour Sauce (3 servings)

I haven't tested this recipe enough, I'll try to update it soon to reduce the amount of ingredients maybe.

Ingredients

Recipe

  1. Drain the pineapple and put the juice in a cup, put the pineapple in a plate (may be the same plate where you serve the full meal to avoid washing extra stuff.)
  2. Add the Ketchup, white vinegar and soy sauce and mix over medium heat. Wait until the mix is boiling.
  3. While that's happening add the cornstarch to the cup of pineapple juice and mix with a spoon. This step gives us the sauce's texture.
  4. When the mix is boiling, add the pineapple juice and pineapple chunks.
  5. Mix until the pineapple jouce mix is fully incorporated and you're done!

Mongolian Meat Sauce (2 servings)

This is a simple sauce that tries to replicate the sauce in the mongolian meat recipe.

Ingredients

Recipe

  1. Slice the onion, garlic and green onions. Remember we are making a sauce so don't cut them too big.
  2. Fry the onion and garlic in a pan until they are cooked.
  3. In a cup add the cornstach and soy sauce, then add half of the water and mix. When it's more or less mixed add the rest of the water and mix until its incorporated.
  4. Add the green onions to the veggies and mix for 30 seconds, then add the water-cornstarch-soysauce mix. (Add the ginger slice if you want to.)
  5. Wait until the sauce starts boiling and you're ready.

Conclusion

And that's how I eat. I'm tired now, I may revisit this blogpost another time in the future.

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