Recently we (well I kind of assume we, maybe it could be the royal we)... have got bored of eating the same sort of stuff for dinner at night. Kind of run out of ideas of things to eat, so I went on the hunt to find stuff that was sufficiently different from the small subset of food we've been eating for the last year.
On Sunday we decided to cook home made beef burgers, they tasted alright, but some what of just of beef to be honest and a bit boring, which I guess it to be expected, them being made of beef and all.
On Monday we cooked Lemon chicken with vegetable rice, which was rather damn nice.
Tuesday, I had no motivation and we had pork chops.
On Wednesday we had Chicken alla Milanese. This was fun to make (especially with some sort of innuendo involved with Chris bashing the chicken and splitting the bag). However, it turned into a bit of a culinary mess with the breadcrumb mix falling off the chicken and burning :-( It tasted alright though (if you ignored the burnt bits), so it'll probably be made again with the knowledge of where it could go wrong. There's a chance in the future that we'll try some stuff from the F-Word... which could be interesting, having seen the contestants messing up cooking the things - that said when it goes wrong for us although I wouldn't pay for it I'm not going to bin it and start again!
Fancy a few ideas? What kind of stuff do you like, and what kind of stuff are you trying to avoid doing?
Posted by: Joe on August 24, 2006 3:55 PMI'll eat anything but I'm rather fond of meat ;-) Anything that doesn't take over 20 mins to prepare would be funky.
Hmm... try penne carbonara.
- Cook your penne (or spaghetti, or any other pasta).
- While that's happening, fry up some onions & bacon. You want to aim for these to be ready at exactly the same time as the pasta.
- Whisk some eggs. Mix in a bit of milk, or cream if you want something naughty. Soft cheese is even better. Add salt & pepper.
Getting it all together:
Drain the pasta. Pour the egg mixture in, then immediately add the hot bacon and stir the whole lot around. The idea is that the hot oil cooks the egg.
I do this without the bacon :-)
This is one for left over meat bits. It's a Swedish dish called Pytt i Panne, though my spelling might be out. You sometimes see a commercial version in IKEA restaurants, but the idea is that it's made out of leftovers.
- Get whatever meat you have around and cube it.
- Prepare any suitable vegetables (peas are good)
- Cube potatoes, par-boil them, then throw them in a large frying pan or wok with plenty of oil.
- Throw everything else in too.
- Cook until it's cooked.
- Serve with a fried egg on top.
A good idea if you're feeling experimental: get some plain pizza bases from the supermarket.
Any thick pasta sauce serves well as a base, then make up your own toppings. Try roast vegetables, mozzarella & sundried tomatoes, leftover meaty stuff, pepperami & cheese, whatever you like :)
Homemade Beefburgers taste nicer with extra bits in - I think I might have made spicy chilli ones before. I've got quiet a nice recipe...it's not with me at work tho!
Posted by: Sarah on August 25, 2006 9:20 PMSalmon grilled with pesto on top is quite nice - probably nicer with breadcrumbs onto too but I'm lazy so usually just put pesto, maybe lemon juice on top. Doesn't take that long in the prep times either.
Have you tried making rissotos (sp?) - take a while to simmer down, but once you've got a basic recipe you can put almost anything in it?
...I don't know - post recipes and this is me who eats more ready meals than I ever have in my life! All the actual ready meals are when I work nights at work, but home is not that much better at the mo - always having pizza/pasta and sauce from a jar:( and I really actually enjoy cooking too ... hopefully when I stop doing on call I'll remember how to cook!
Posted by: Sarah on August 25, 2006 9:25 PM