posted
I'm in need of some recipes. I'm a single girl, who definitely does NOT eat like she should. I was wondering what recipes and secrets you hatrackers have that I could borrow.
I'm looking for simple favorite. For example, I used to live on macaroni and cheese with tuna and peas in it. Right now, a favorite of mine is a plain bagel, with some pizza sauce and cheese on it, baked.
Do you have any suggestions for me?
Posts: 22 | Registered: Oct 2005
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Jar of salsa, can of pineapples, some ginger and some chicken. Put it over rice.
Or bread a chicken breast, shred some mozzarella cheese, mix in oregano and basil with the cheese, slice some tomatoes. Then bake the chicken breast for a bit, add the tomato slices, bake it a little longer, then put on the cheese n spices till it melts.
Or brown some ground beef, drain it. Cook up some pasta like rotelle about 3/4ths of the way. Then mix the pasta and meet together and stir in a can of stewed tomatoes. Cover and simmer.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
I like to add a can of diced tomatoes to mac & cheese. If you're ever on a budget and need to buy the generic brands of mac & cheese, the tomatoes really make them taste good. (While Kraft is good on its own.) Just don't add the milk.
Along the same lines, I'll add diced tomatoes and/or Hunt's tomato sauce and season it myself and put it over any sort of pasta. (Rather than jars of Ragu, etc.)
Taco Salad, Burritos and other Tex-Mex dishes are pretty easy to prepare, and being a single person, you could prepare once and have a different meal for several meals. Just prepare the taco meat (or just open a can of refried beans if you're vegetarian or just like them better). You can prepare the veggies (lettuce, tomato, onion, peppers, etc.) and refrigerate what you don't use. Throwing that together is simple and tasty.
Easy LaZiti--get some sauce (your favorite or make your own), ziti noodles, and cheese (mozzerella definitely, and ricotta if you can afford it). Cook the ziti noodles, and mix with the sauce--don't skimp on the sauce. If you bought ricotta, put a layer of that in between two layers of noodles and sauce. Top with leftover ricotta and mozzerella. Cover with foil, and bake in the oven, oh about 350 degrees, for 30-40 minutes. (Basically, until it's hot and melty.) If you have several small casserole dishes, make up several pans at once and freeze the extras before baking. Then, when you want an ooey gooey pasta treat without the effort, throw it in the oven for a long time until thawed, baked, and piping hot. Depending on how frozen mine is, it usually takes over an hour at 350. (Might want to try 400.)
Basically, you can take any sort of casserole dish recipe and prepare it according to the directions. Obviously, it will be too much for you to eat at once, but if you invest in some small casserole dishes (I have lots of glass ones in all sorts of sizes--and they're not expensive.) you can freeze portions to bake whenever.
There's no reason you can't eat good. Obviously, I'm a pasta fiend, as evidenced above, but it will work with all sorts of dishes.
Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Katarain, your pasta dishes sound great! I LOVE pasta. And squicky, your rotelle dish, I'm making that for dinner tonight!
I just bought a slow cooker (crock-pot) today at Target, so if anyone has some advice on what to make using that, it'd be great. I work 12 hour shifts, so if I could put something in there, set it in low, and have it be done when I walk in the door from work, I think that would be a little piece of heaven. I bought a cookbook, but most of the recipes in there that I've found are very complex, and are directed towards a family of four or five.
Posts: 22 | Registered: Oct 2005
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I made some very good sweet and sour chicken Sunday night. It was a basic recipe in the Betty Crocker cookbook for the sauce, but I left out the pineapple and it tasted great. Then I just cooked some chicken in the frying pan with oil and lots of soy sauce. Once it was cooked I stirred it into the sauce along with some green pepper and tomato slices and let it bubble for a while.
As far as the rice, just remember: 1 cup of rice, 2 cups of water. You can cook your rice in a covered saucepan. Just let it boil for a while and take it off the heat before the water's completely gone.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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My mom gave me some GREAT recipes for chicken breast in a crockpot. Something about cream of mushroom soup, I think. I'll call her and ask.
Actually, I personally think cream of mushroom soup goes great with ANYTHING and rice.
Also, those frozen just-add-water crockpot meals are actually sometimes very good, but they're made to feed many people, I think. My roommate and I bought some of those Gladwares and saved the food in the fridge for a few days.
posted
Most slowcooker recipes are 8 to 10 hours...does your new crockpot have a timer on it? If not, it may be well worth taking it back and getting one that does. My crockpot can be set for Low-8hrs or Low-10hrs. At the end of the time, it switches automatically to Warm mode. With chicken, overcooking, even in a slowcooker, makes it tough and tasteless. I'd be wary of leaving the slowcooker to go for more than 10 hours. THe food will probably be way, way overcooked.
I'm a fan of the Fix-It-And-Forget-It books. I've got both of them, and use them frequently. When they say it's for 4 or 5, it's really for 4 or 5 adults, so I always have leftovers. The soups should freeze well. My favorite slowcooker soup:
Chicken Tortilla Soup 3-4 chicken breasts (less if you want it really soupy, more if you want it more like stew) 1 can of black beans (I don't love black beans so I only put in 1 can, but the recipe calls for 2) 1 can of Mexicorn 2 cans of Rotel mexican tomatoes (I get the ones with chilis in them, at mild temp, but with medium, it has a nice kick) 1 can of tomato sauce 1 cup of salsa 1 small can of diced chilis Cumin to taste (I put in about a teaspoon -- and this isn't really necessary. It's not in the official recipe. I just really like what cumin does to this recipe. It gives it a really nice extra flavor.)
Tortilla chips Grated cheese
Dump everything except the cheese and chips in the crockpot. Cook on low for 8 hours. Fish out the chicken breasts and shred them with a couple of forks. They should just fall apart. Dump them back in the soup and let it cook another hour if you can stand it. If you can't stand to wait, fill the bottom of your bowl with chips, pour soup over the chips, add cheese to the top and eat.
This should freeze well. When I make it, it usually lasts us for three days of meals. For a single, I'd freeze half and keep the rest for meals for the week. I hate leftovers, but this makes tastes as good, if not better, two or three days later.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Kat, with 4 good sized chicken breasts, it's not very soupy at all. Much more stewish. Especially as leftovers. With 3 breasts, it's more soupy.
I haven't tried putting a bay leaf in it, but as I'm thinking about it now, I'm betting that would be a good addition to it too. I've made this soup a bazillion times...it's one of my favorites becasue it's so good yet so SO easy. I usually buy chicken breasts in bulk and freeze them. WIth this recipe, if I don't remember to thaw them first, it doesn't make any difference. I just throw them in frozen.
Oh, I didn't mention it but don't drain the cans. Dump the whole contents in.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_raven: Take 1/2 Cup Sour Cream, 1/2 Cup Mayo (I prefer Miracle Whip), 1 Packet Lipton Soup Mix. Stir. Put in Fridge. You have yummy French Onion Dip.
Ah, the incomparable French cuisine!
(But Dan, doesn't that "French" recipe seem just a bit, oh, I don't know, trailer park?)
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Seasonings. Everything revolves around the seasoning. Some people say it all revolves around the meat, but they are wrong! Ok, so maybe they aren't, but I just have so much fun seasoning things. Invest in some good seasonings and you'll never regret it. You can season anything! Macaroni, soup, hamburgers, chicken, beef, the list goes on ... I recommend being very experimental and inventive. On the last steak I seasoned I noticed it was a bit salty ... So I dabbed on some chocolate syrup, and viola! Delectable. But seasoning things really does make eating much more enjoyable, in my humble opinion.
Posts: 2827 | Registered: Jul 2005
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1 cup milk (Fat Free) 1 small box of Chocolate, White Chocolate, or French Vanilla instant pudding (or whatever you like) 1 small tub of whipped topping (Fat Free)
Mix milk and pudding, then fold in the topping. Pour in to smaller containers or just leave it in the mixing bowl.
Place in fridge for 20 minutes.
No one ever suspects that it is fat free. It is rich enough that you won't be able to eat more than a small serving so it should last you.
If you want to use skim or 2% milk... or even whipped topping with fat, go for it.
Posts: 80 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
If you look or ask around, you'll find a lot of the stuff you love to eat can be made at home, probably pretty cheaply.
Imagine my delight when, a few months ago, I discovered how easy it was to make homemade pizza, including dough and sauce, from scratch.
Homemade hamburger helper is another favorite of mine, and knockoffs of the various pasta/soup combos people have mentioned.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Do you know how to make cookies? Just take the dough and cook in oven. To do it from scratch try a cook book. I know there's a lot of good cook books out there.. But if you don't want to buy a cook book click here.
posted
But if you're looking to eat cheap, don't get into saffron rice and such. Oh saffron, I love you so. You're so yellow, but so expensive.
I'm trying to think of some of the other things I make that are cheap and easy. Part of my problem is that I rarely cook using any quantity constraints besides "This looks/smells like it'll work." Consequently, I'm a horrible baker.
Chop green peppers, onions, and celery. Saute it in butter or oil. You've got the holy trinity of cajun cooking. Throw just about anything in that and it'll taste great. Add some garlic. Sprinkle it with salt, paprika, cayenne pepper, maybe some chili powder. Oh, it's so darn good. Maybe dice some chicken in there. You could add chicken broth and some hot sausage. And/or throw in a can of diced tomatoes. If you've got the patience of a saint, make yourself a roux.
You can play with sauces for pasta. Brown some ground meat or chicken before with diced garlic. Drain it and then mix the sauce in. Very different meal from the usual. You can also chop up stuff and throw it in, like peppers and onion, or mushrooms (my favoritve).
Or get yourself some Cubanelles or a mix of red, yellow, and green peppers. Saute them in oil with rosemary. Dice up either chicken and pork, brown it and add it.
Chicken breasts with sauteed mushrooms (I prefer using red wine for this, but butter works too) and swiss cheese is always nice.
posted
And here I thought this was going to be a thread about single girls needing dates... *shrugs* Not really sure why I thought that.
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I do believe that you need to check out the Jatraquero Cookbook. And also Recipezaar-- where you can even search for meals for one or two that take less than fifteen minutes to make and use what you've got. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Chicken thighs (skinless, on bone or not depending on your preference) make great casseroles:
Throw them in a pot with some canned diced tomatoes, white wine (if you have any), and chopped bell peppers, onions and garlic. Add other vegies like leek, mushrooms, celery or carrots if you want.
Cook slowly for a few hours - yum.
You might even be able to do that in a crock pot.
Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
I am a big fan also of various forms of quesadilla. Tuna being my favorite right now.
All you have to do is take a tortilla, put some kind of meat on it, sprinkle on some cheese and spices, put another tortilla on top of it, and stick it in the microwave for 1.5 minutes. It's great with salsa and sour cream.
quote:originally posted by Dr. Strangelove: I recommend being very experimental and inventive. On the last steak I seasoned I noticed it was a bit salty ... So I dabbed on some chocolate syrup, and viola! Delectable.
Preheat oven to 350. Salt and pepper to taste. Bread crumb the top. Bake for twenty-five minutes. Serve with soy sauce.
Posts: 866 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Ttthhhpt. Spread top of salmon with mayo. Sprinkle with seasoned salt and top with breadcrumbs and then parmesan cheese. Bake in a 350 degree oven 25 to 30 mins., uncovered.
That, or mix lime juice, dill, and mayo, thwop salmon in it, and then pan-grill in a non-stick skillet sprayed with cooking spray over medium heat until half done, flip, and cook until fully done, "basting" with the mayo mix as needed.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Lessee, mayo, added salt, breadcrumbs, and cheese. Mine sounds quite a bit healthier, you know? And it really is remarkably good.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Don't forget your fresh vegies and fresh fruit.
Make a big 'ole green salad and eat off of that all week long.
Keep apples and bananas handy for a quick snack when you come in the door - it'll help you make it to the actual meal.
And just remember, a nutritious meal doesn't have to be cooked:
whole wheat roll (butter optional) slice of cheese carrot sticks and celery sticks apple slices hard boiled egg
VOILA! A meal fit for a Queen. Add a glass of water with a slice of lemon (or for those that desire, a glass of wine) while listening to some soothing music.
posted
Does anyone have a good recipe for pizza sauce without tomatoes? I hate tomatoes. But I like pizza. I'd love to be able to use my mother's recipe for home-made pizza, only without the yucky tomato sauce.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
(Or, you could go traditional and just put on cheese and a veggie of your choice, or onions and garlic and oil.)
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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KoM, I have found a caramelized onion base works beautifully on home-made pizzas.
I usually do the base with asparagus, blue cheese and fresh mozzarella or roasted pumpkin (pre-roasted with a splash of good balsamic vinegar) and goats cheese. Both are delicious.
quote:I'm not sure a crock pot can do anything else
I know. I don't have a crock pot, that's all. So I do mine in the oven.
I'm tired. Leave me alone. Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Personally, I love my crock pot...I make soups, casseroles, the meat options (roasts, turkey, pork...whatever always come out moist and delicious) but I have 5 people to feed...so unless you have a large freezer that you don't have to share with roommates, a crock pot might not be the answer (unless you are cooking for neighbors). Smaller ammounts tend to dry out and obviously cook more quickly.
My favorite is chicken noodle soup:
2 chicken breasts (I throw them in frozen) chicken broth cut up carrots, celery and onion bay leaf and red pepper flakes
Let that cook for 4-5 hours, take the chicken out and shred/cut up, put back in. Add dry package of noodles (or break up spaghetti), cover and let it go for another hour. Remove bay leaf and wah-lah homemade chicken noodle soup.
Posts: 697 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Hmm. Maybe I should ask for a crockpot for the next gift giving event? I had one in Canada, but that was a long time ago...
You could also check out my recipes. I'm working on adding more at the moment, and I've got a frikkin' huge database, so I'm also open to requests for adding to my website. And I've got a GREAT brownie recipe - Fahim approved.
I'll second kq's recipezaar recommendation. I go there frequently and am usually happy with what I get. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
oops failed to mention, the recipe for Chicken Noodle Soup is for the crock pot but you can do it on the stove top too, the cooking time will be a lot less.
Posts: 697 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
KOM - pesto makes a good substitute for tomatoey sauces on pizza. Another good "sauceless" pizza is to spread the crust with olive oil, and top with mushrooms, jalapenos, artichoke hearts, pineapple, sliced tomatoes and mozzerella cheese. It sounds weird, but it's delicious.
And putting mayonaisse on salmon is absolute blasphemy! <vomiting smiley>
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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quote:And putting mayonaisse on salmon is absolute blasphemy!
No. Using mayo other than Hellman's/Best Foods is blasphemy. Miracle Whip is blasphemy. Mayo on salmon is deliciousness.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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