Monday, January 31, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
The many uses of broth
The last time I cooked my pasta I kept the water I used to cook it. For my late lunch I made it into a thick soup. What was in it? When I boiled pasta I put some seasoning and spices to the water aside from the usual salt and oil. So I recycle it for broth.
So my lunch was just soup (I had a fantastic dinner from South Asia - Bhutan, Nepal and Pakistan) and again a dinner out tonite with friends so I just had soup for brunch. The consistency of the broth was quite thick so from the other broth stock of mushroom, chicken and shrimp I added it to my pasta broth. Added some boiled potatoes, a fist-full of some frozen mixed rice-beans, spaghetti strands cut in smaller size, a piece of egg some seasoning - there I had a filling thick soup.
If you are too lazy to make new soup - boiled veggies and some food stuff to create a broth. It will always be handy to make soup anytime. Just freeze it or stock in the ref and make use of it whenever you want a soup - keeping in mind creativity and experimentation so you come up with a new variety for your original broth.
So what wikipedia says about broth:
So my lunch was just soup (I had a fantastic dinner from South Asia - Bhutan, Nepal and Pakistan) and again a dinner out tonite with friends so I just had soup for brunch. The consistency of the broth was quite thick so from the other broth stock of mushroom, chicken and shrimp I added it to my pasta broth. Added some boiled potatoes, a fist-full of some frozen mixed rice-beans, spaghetti strands cut in smaller size, a piece of egg some seasoning - there I had a filling thick soup.
If you are too lazy to make new soup - boiled veggies and some food stuff to create a broth. It will always be handy to make soup anytime. Just freeze it or stock in the ref and make use of it whenever you want a soup - keeping in mind creativity and experimentation so you come up with a new variety for your original broth.
So what wikipedia says about broth:
Broth [brɒθ] is a liquid food preparation, typically consisting of either water or an already flavored stock, in which bones, meat, fish, cereal grains, or vegetables have beensimmered.[1] Broth is used as a basis for other edible liquids such as soup, gravy, orsauce. It can be eaten alone or with garnish. If other ingredients are used, such as rice,pearl barley or oats, it is then generally called soup.
In Britain, a broth is defined[by whom?] as a soup in which there are solid pieces of meat or fish, along with some vegetables. A broth is usually made with a stock or plain water as its base, with meat or fish added while being brought to a boil, and vegetables added later. Being a thin and watery soup, broth is frequently made more substantial by adding rice, barley or pulses.[2][3] Broth is distinct from stock, which is a thin liquid made by simmering raw ingredients until all the taste has been retrieved from them, then sieving the resulting liquid.
United States cooking schools often differentiate between broth, usually made from portions of animal meat, and stock often made from vegetable scraps and bones.
Broth has been made for many years using the animal bones which, traditionally, are boiled in a cooking pot for long periods to extract the flavour and nutrients. The bones may or may not have meat still on them.
When it is necessary to clarify a broth (i.e. for a cleaner presentation), egg whites may be added during simmering – the egg whites willcoagulate, trapping sediment and turbidity into a readily strainable mass.
In East Asia (particularly Japan), a form of kelp called kombu is often used as the basis for broths (called dashi in Japanese).
Monday, January 24, 2011
Keep those Leftovers
Leftover food - is not only economical or practical but it stirs up creativity in me. I like to keep them since it is useful for me to discover new dishes and recipes. Even the water where I boiled my pasta I would keep it for broth for my soup. It is starchy so it is good for a thick soup.
But most of the time, I use tidbits and pieces of leftovers for my fried rice. So I would always come up with unique tasting, fantastic colored and textured fried rice. I also make use of them for my soup and also to come up with other dishes. Also, toppings for bread and make your own canape or pizza, so make that mozarella and other cheese handy to cover and melt on the toppings..
Well since I do experiment I do not necessary get the best result most of the time. Sometimes the taste is too contrasting and not blending, but still edible. And every time I come up with a nice concoction, then I would be so happy to eat and feast on it.
For lazy cooks - leftovers are valuable ingredients to come up with easy to prepare and fast meals...
Wikipedia says:
But most of the time, I use tidbits and pieces of leftovers for my fried rice. So I would always come up with unique tasting, fantastic colored and textured fried rice. I also make use of them for my soup and also to come up with other dishes. Also, toppings for bread and make your own canape or pizza, so make that mozarella and other cheese handy to cover and melt on the toppings..
Well since I do experiment I do not necessary get the best result most of the time. Sometimes the taste is too contrasting and not blending, but still edible. And every time I come up with a nice concoction, then I would be so happy to eat and feast on it.
For lazy cooks - leftovers are valuable ingredients to come up with easy to prepare and fast meals...
Wikipedia says:
Leftovers are the uneaten edible remains of a meal after the dinner is over, and everyone has finished eating. Food scraps that are not considered edible (such asbones or the skins of some vegetables and fruits) are not regarded as leftovers, but rather as waste material; any remaining edible portions constitute the leftovers.
The ultimate fate of leftovers depends on where the meal was eaten, the preferences of the diner, and the prevailing social culture. Home cooking leftovers are often saved to be eaten later. This is facilitated by being in a private environment, with food preserving facilities such as airtight containers and refrigeration close at hand. Some leftover food can be eaten cold from the refrigerator, while others may be reheated in a microwave or a conventional oven, or mixed with additional ingredients and recooked to make a new dish such as bubble and squeak.
New dishes made from leftovers are quite common in world cuisine, and many were created in the days before refrigeration and reliable airtight containers existed. Besides capturing nutrition from otherwise inedible bones, stocks and broths make an excellent base for adding leftover morsels too small to be a meal themselves. Casseroles,[1] paella, fried rice,[2] and pizza can also be used for this purpose, and may even have been invented as a means of reusing leftovers. Among American university students, leftover pizza itself has acquired particular in-group significance, to the extent that the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service offers, as its first tip under "Food Safety Tips for College Students",[3] a discussion of the risks of eating unrefrigerated pizza, which are considerable.[4]
Leftovers from a restaurant meal may either be left behind to be discarded by the restaurant, or taken away by the diner for later consumption. In order to take the food away, the diner may make a request for it to be packaged. The container used for such leftovers is commonly called a doggy bag or doggie bag; the name comes from the euphemistic pretense that the food will be given to the diner'spet, rather than eaten by a person.[5] The term doggy bag is preferred over take away or take home bag as it was popularized in the 1970's etiquette columns of many newspapers.[6] Doggy bags are most common in restaurants that offer a take-out food service as well as sit-down meals, and their prevalence as an accepted social custom varies widely by location. In some countries, like France, people would frown upon a diner asking for a doggy bag.
At some holiday meals, such as Christmas in Western countries and Thanksgiving in the USA, it is customary for the host to prepare much more food than can be eaten, specifically in order to send leftovers home with the guests. Cold turkey is archetypal in the United States as a Thanksgiving leftover, with turkey meat often reappearing in sandwiches, soups, and casseroles for several days after the feast.
The word "ort", meaning a small scrap of food left after a meal is completed, is not commonly heard in conversation, but is frequently encountered in crossword puzzles.
[edit]
Friday, January 21, 2011
When Lazy Cook goes High -Tech
Before going to the title of the blog I need to share this info first. I've been using paper.li for other interests (photogarphy) and that's where I found out about this new blog entry. So from their own blog:
So I created my own newspaper with the tag - food and cooking :
An important development that is sure thing to happen soon... Lazy cook goes high tech. Well perhaps the kitchen will soon be run by a robochef. Imagine your robochef is programmed to be an international chef that can cook all the best Italian, French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, European-Asian, Pinoy dishes and cuisines, well that's for a software cost and upgrade...
So what's the topic all about for now it is a mobile phone or a smartphone:
So more reason to be lazy cook? So keep it to your robochef to do the cooking, leave it to the androids and smartphones to help you decide what meal is best for your health (by checking and pushing the health/mood button to verify on your blood pressure/sugar, mood swing, temperament, psychological/emotional make-up for the day). Then you get prompted what is available on the ref and how the cooking/non-cooking - re-heating should be done. That's high tech cooking, lazy cook days are soon to come...
What interesting links, blog posts, videos and photos are being shared on Twitter by Bill Gates, TechCrunch, the WWF, Stowe Boyd, Fred Wilson, the New-York Times AND the people they find of interest? This is what SmallRivers' Paper.li project is all about: turning a Twitter stream into an easy to read daily newspaper.Twitter is currently a simple and fast way to point others to content of interest on the web. Twitter users do so millions of times a day, effectively giving their followers a glimpse of what they think others should see or read. Next to having followers, any Twitter thus follows others, generally a group of people they deem of interest and want to keep track of what they have to share. Any Twitter user is thus a kind of editor in chief, with the people they follow being trusted journalists. The sum of what is shared by them is thus a unique perspective of what is deemed of interest on the web on any given day. A bit like a newspaper.
So I created my own newspaper with the tag - food and cooking :
An important development that is sure thing to happen soon... Lazy cook goes high tech. Well perhaps the kitchen will soon be run by a robochef. Imagine your robochef is programmed to be an international chef that can cook all the best Italian, French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, European-Asian, Pinoy dishes and cuisines, well that's for a software cost and upgrade...
So what's the topic all about for now it is a mobile phone or a smartphone:
LG has detailed a future where you’ll be able to download a recipe on your smartphone and then send it to one of the company’s microwave ovens to set the cooking instructions.
“A simple user scenario is that you have a smartphone, download a recipe and instantly the microwave oven recognises the temperature and cooking time and all you have to do is put in your food and press start”, explains James Choi, marketing strategy and planning team director at LG Electronics global, to Pocket-lint in a one-to-one interview.
So more reason to be lazy cook? So keep it to your robochef to do the cooking, leave it to the androids and smartphones to help you decide what meal is best for your health (by checking and pushing the health/mood button to verify on your blood pressure/sugar, mood swing, temperament, psychological/emotional make-up for the day). Then you get prompted what is available on the ref and how the cooking/non-cooking - re-heating should be done. That's high tech cooking, lazy cook days are soon to come...
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Babette's Feast
Babette's Feast (Danish: Babettes gæstebud) is a 1987 Danish film directed by Gabriel Axel. The film's screenplay was written by Gabriel Axel based on the story by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen), who also wrote the story which inspired the 1985 Academy Award winning film Out of Africa. Produced by Just Betzer, Bo Christensen, and Benni Korzen with funding from the Danish Film Institute, Babette's Feast was the first Danish cinema film of a Blixen story. It was also the first Danish film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.[1] The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.[2]
I could say that this was the movie that moved me, hehehe... and made me start this blog. But then I realized that I always enjoy this kind of movies. Well aside from watching those cooking demo shows on cable TV, watching this kind of feature film really inspire and excites me to eat and watch some more movies...
The highlight of all the story after all was the preparation of a nice dinner that happened towards the end of the film. The plot of the story itself was interesting and unusual. Aside from being entertained I end up salivating with all the food that were prepared and served. Especially the remarks on the vintage wine and champagne was intoxicating hahahah...
For those of you who enjoy eating and watching movie this is a movie to enjoy. You should not miss it. Well should you want to read a review of the film check it here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babette's_Feast
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Kitchen Utensil - Colander
Wikepedia says:
It is an important utensil for lazy cook - for reheating, steaming and draining. I use the folded one so it can be contained by a wide brim pot. I like these bun sold at the supermarket that have red bean paste filling and the bun is in different color and texture - I like the rough it seems made of wheat bun but violet in color. So stored in the ref and I would steam at least 2 pieces for light snacks and even desert too. So for my frozen/cold dishes it is easy to defrost/thaw them by steaming it and then after if it needs baking then I would use the oven toaster. Fast and easy for the lazy cook - steam and bake, reheat and eat.
A colander is a bowl-shaped kitchen utensil with holes in it used for draining food such as pasta and rice. Conventionally, colanders are made of a light metal, such as aluminium or thinly rolled stainless steel, but some colanders are made of plastic or silicon. A colander is pierced with a pattern of small holes (or slots in plastic colanders) that let the liquid drain through, but retain the solids inside. It is sometimes also called a strainer or kitchen sieve.
It is an important utensil for lazy cook - for reheating, steaming and draining. I use the folded one so it can be contained by a wide brim pot. I like these bun sold at the supermarket that have red bean paste filling and the bun is in different color and texture - I like the rough it seems made of wheat bun but violet in color. So stored in the ref and I would steam at least 2 pieces for light snacks and even desert too. So for my frozen/cold dishes it is easy to defrost/thaw them by steaming it and then after if it needs baking then I would use the oven toaster. Fast and easy for the lazy cook - steam and bake, reheat and eat.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Google Alert - lazy cook, recipes,
Lazy blogging - not really but I am trying out this google service called Google Alerts. So from my email I can forward to my blog an email that get saved as a draft post. So it will be easy blogging as well - just by emailing. Google says:
So below is the result for my google alert using the keyword - lazy cook and recipe.
Monitor the Web for interesting new content
Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.
Enter the topic you wish to monitor, then click preview to see the type of results you'll receive. Some handy uses of Google Alerts include:
- monitoring a developing news story
- keeping current on a competitor or industry
- getting the latest on a celebrity or event
- keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams
So below is the result for my google alert using the keyword - lazy cook and recipe.
| Wanted: Healthy Lazy Protein recipes - Healthy Food for Lazy ... The way I work lazy into healthy cooking and cleanup for 1 is to prep a few ... The recipes don't have to be uber-simple as I will cook once on Sunday for ... healthylazy.tribe.net/.../ac30fe6d-9abc-4e5b-82a3-5827e6166... | |||||
| The Lazy Stay-at-Home Mommy » chicken noodle soup recipe The Lazy Stay-at-Home Mommy. Living and Learning with kids. Posts Tagged ' chicken noodle soup recipe' ... Posted in cooking/recipes | No Comments » ... crazymommy.weblogs.us/tag/chicken-noodle-soup-recipe/ | |||||
| Green Onion Chicken with Linguine Recipe | Reluctant Gourmet Mmmmm. Thank you for your sharing this great recipe, along with your tips and photos. I'm a pretty boring (and lazy) cook - I grew up on a ranch where we ... www.reluctantgourmet.com/blog/.../green-onion-chicken-reci... |
Monday, January 17, 2011
Spaghetti and Sauces
Wikipedia says:
One of the easiest and fastest dish to prepare is spaghetti. Especially that there are now available sauces just re-heat, with boiled pasta - ready to eat. Well there are micro-wave spaghetti but with my spaghetti, I've some sort of reverence to it when cooking. Well, I just do not use the sauce available in a bottle but I try to add up and make it my own style of sauce. Yes indeed, I am not lazy but creative in cooking spag sauce. Left-over sauce I just stock it and become lazy, I just get some when I feel like eating pasta. So I end up also cooking a pack of pasta and then store it in the ref and I just steam it whenever I use the pasta and re-heat the sauce.
Creativity with spag sauce means adding additional ingredients to it. I like mushroom - varieties of them not just the canned button I normally used fresh ones to give more flavor to the sauce and chunkiness in it. If fresh basil, rosemary, thyme is available that would be perfect otherwise the bottled one is fine. Whatever comes or ingredients available I add them up, canned tuna, canned mixed vege (cubed carrots, corn and peas), but, olives yes definitely I would want my spag with olives - the black and the green pitted olives. So with a base of a bottle of cooked spag sauce I create it as my own by re-cooking it and adding the ingredients that is available in my cupboard or ref.
What if there's no available bottled sauce then that's when I work out my creativity. Also, I am not really fond of the usual and regular sauce I want discover and be experimental about it as well.
So have you tried baked beans as your spag sauce? I did and liked it. I think I have tried countless other sauces why I need to recall - they are not shocking sauce at all but interesting ones. You should not be limited with the creative imagination you have for as long as edible - why not try it out.
My spaghetti sauce is also used to eat with rice or bread - thick spag sauce can be used as toppings for bread. Just put a quickmelt/cheese on top of it, bake/toast it - you have an oven fresh pizza. I also used it as sauce to paratha.
Wikipedia says on paratha:
Spaghetti is a food you can stock. So for lazy cooks it is just a matter of re-heating sauce and steaming the pasta.
Buon appetito!
Spaghetti is the plural form of the Italian word spaghetto, which is a diminutive of spago, meaning "thin string" or "twine".[1]
Spaghetti is a long, thin, cylindrical pasta of Italian origin.[1] Spaghetti is made of semolina or flour and water. Italian dried spaghetti is made from durum wheat semolina, but outside of Italy it may be made with other kinds of flour. Traditionally most spaghetti was 50 cm (20ins) long, but shorter lengths gained in popularity during the latter half of the 20th century and now spaghetti is most commonly available in 25–30 cm (10–12 in) lengths. A variety of pasta dishes are based on it, from spaghetti with cheese and pepper or garlic and oil to a spaghetti with tomato, meat, and other sauces.
One of the easiest and fastest dish to prepare is spaghetti. Especially that there are now available sauces just re-heat, with boiled pasta - ready to eat. Well there are micro-wave spaghetti but with my spaghetti, I've some sort of reverence to it when cooking. Well, I just do not use the sauce available in a bottle but I try to add up and make it my own style of sauce. Yes indeed, I am not lazy but creative in cooking spag sauce. Left-over sauce I just stock it and become lazy, I just get some when I feel like eating pasta. So I end up also cooking a pack of pasta and then store it in the ref and I just steam it whenever I use the pasta and re-heat the sauce.
Creativity with spag sauce means adding additional ingredients to it. I like mushroom - varieties of them not just the canned button I normally used fresh ones to give more flavor to the sauce and chunkiness in it. If fresh basil, rosemary, thyme is available that would be perfect otherwise the bottled one is fine. Whatever comes or ingredients available I add them up, canned tuna, canned mixed vege (cubed carrots, corn and peas), but, olives yes definitely I would want my spag with olives - the black and the green pitted olives. So with a base of a bottle of cooked spag sauce I create it as my own by re-cooking it and adding the ingredients that is available in my cupboard or ref.
What if there's no available bottled sauce then that's when I work out my creativity. Also, I am not really fond of the usual and regular sauce I want discover and be experimental about it as well.
So have you tried baked beans as your spag sauce? I did and liked it. I think I have tried countless other sauces why I need to recall - they are not shocking sauce at all but interesting ones. You should not be limited with the creative imagination you have for as long as edible - why not try it out.
My spaghetti sauce is also used to eat with rice or bread - thick spag sauce can be used as toppings for bread. Just put a quickmelt/cheese on top of it, bake/toast it - you have an oven fresh pizza. I also used it as sauce to paratha.
Wikipedia says on paratha:
A paratha (Hindi: पराठा, Urdu: پراٹھا, Bengali: পরোটা ) is an Indian flat-bread that originated in the Indian subcontinent, specifically in the Punjab. Paratha is an amalgamation of the words parat (Hindi: परत, Bengali: পরত, Urdu:پرت ) and atta (Hindi: आटा, Punjabi: ਆਟਾ, Bengali: আটা, Urdu: آٹا) which literally means layers of cooked flour.[1] In Burma, it is known as palata (ပလာတာ; pronounced [pəlàtà]), while it is known as farata in the Maldives.
It is one of the most popular unleavened flat-breads in Indian cuisine, Pakistani cuisine and Bengali cuisine and is made by pan frying whole-wheat flour on a tava.[2] The paratha dough usually contains ghee or cooking oil which is also layered on the freshly prepared paratha.[3] Parathas are usually stuffed with vegetables such as boiled potatoes, leaf vegetables, radishes or cauliflower and/or paneer (South Asian cheese). A paratha (especially a stuffed one) can be eaten simply with a blob of butter spread on top or chutney, a spicy sauce made from yogurt and fresh herbs, but it is best served with pickles and yogurt, or thick spicy curries of meat and vegetables. Some people prefer to roll up the paratha into a tube and eat it with tea, often dipping the paratha into the tea.
The paratha can be round, heptagonal, square or triangular. In the former, the stuffing is mixed with the kneaded flour and the paratha is prepared as roti is, but in the latter two, the peda (ball of kneaded flour) is flattened into a circle, the stuffing is kept in the middle and the flatbread is closed around the stuffing like an envelope. The latter two also vary from the first in that, while the former is like a thick (in terms of width) version of the roti with filling inside, the latter two have discernible soft layers if one "opens" the crispier shell layers.
Spaghetti is a food you can stock. So for lazy cooks it is just a matter of re-heating sauce and steaming the pasta.
Buon appetito!
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Lazy Cook Kitchen Gadget - Ricecooker
Well I have been writing about kitchen devices and this time a gadget. It is important to have these stuff around to use in lazy cooking. So we need some familiarization with them and next time what recipes I have to make use of all these utensils and gadgets. So Wikipedia says:
Definitely the use of rice cooker is not only to cook rice. It can be a steamer as well and a good device to reheat or keep food warm. No worries of food getting burnt. What I do is to put inside it water and a ceramic bowl that contains the food I am reheating. Well there's a challenge do of bringing out the bowl tendency you get to have to feel some burning sensation in your fingertips.
With the help of a rice cooker, I consider a fantastic device to cook those lazy one-meal dish (e.g. my own version of risotto or paella). Where you I have kanin and ulam at the same time (rice and dish viands all-in- one). And most of the time I would just make use of canned goods to add to the rice.
Watch out for the recipe in the next posting.
A rice cooker or rice steamer is a self-contained tabletop kitchen appliance for cooking rice. There are electrical and gas powered versions. The term can also refer to a container designed for cooking rice in a microwave oven. Dedicated rice cookers date from long ago in human history. A ceramic rice steamer dated to 1250 BC is on display in the British Museum.
Definitely the use of rice cooker is not only to cook rice. It can be a steamer as well and a good device to reheat or keep food warm. No worries of food getting burnt. What I do is to put inside it water and a ceramic bowl that contains the food I am reheating. Well there's a challenge do of bringing out the bowl tendency you get to have to feel some burning sensation in your fingertips.
With the help of a rice cooker, I consider a fantastic device to cook those lazy one-meal dish (e.g. my own version of risotto or paella). Where you I have kanin and ulam at the same time (rice and dish viands all-in- one). And most of the time I would just make use of canned goods to add to the rice.
Watch out for the recipe in the next posting.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Lazy cook comfort food is junk food
From wikipedia
My comfort food is junk food.
Why comfort food because I have accomplished something so my way to congratulate myself is by eating junk food that I like. Also, when I want to feel comfortable like watching films so I indulge eating such stuff, especially when it is sooo cold that all I want is to curl up in my bed and shut myself in the comfort of a warm bedroom. It is also my motivation food, particularly when I engage in a new and challenging tasks like writing papers, I need them to encourage me to do such work.
So what are those junk food - potato chips, chocolate cakes, chocolates, soda drinks are among my favorite.
So what about you what are your favorite junk foods? Some also come up with unusual mix of eating them, have tried those unusual mix of junk foods?
Definitely, a lazy cook's comfort food is junk food.
Junk food is an informal term applied to some foods that are perceived to have little or no nutritional value (i.e. containing "empty calories"), or to products with nutritional value but which also have ingredients considered unhealthy when regularly eaten, or to those considered unhealthy to consume at all. The term was coined by Michael Jacobson, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, in 1972.[1]
Junk foods are typically ready-to-eat convenience foods containing high levels of saturated fats, salt, or sugar, and little or no fruit, vegetables, or dietary fiber; junk foods thus have little or no health benefits. Common junk foods include salted snack foods (chips, crisps), candy, gum, most sweet desserts, fried fast food and carbonated beverages (sodas)[2] as well as alcoholic beverages[3][4].
My comfort food is junk food.
Why comfort food because I have accomplished something so my way to congratulate myself is by eating junk food that I like. Also, when I want to feel comfortable like watching films so I indulge eating such stuff, especially when it is sooo cold that all I want is to curl up in my bed and shut myself in the comfort of a warm bedroom. It is also my motivation food, particularly when I engage in a new and challenging tasks like writing papers, I need them to encourage me to do such work.
So what are those junk food - potato chips, chocolate cakes, chocolates, soda drinks are among my favorite.
So what about you what are your favorite junk foods? Some also come up with unusual mix of eating them, have tried those unusual mix of junk foods?
Definitely, a lazy cook's comfort food is junk food.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Oatmeal Soup - Light meal for Lazy Cook
According to Wikipedia:
Aside from having it for breakfast I discovered that it can be made into soup. A good friend of mine introduced it to me one time we had a nice lunch together. She's an artist and creative as well with her dishes. She made me this soupy oatmeal soup with some nice green veggies. Well since oatmeal tends to become thick what she did was to put only small amount of oatmeal in a large amount of water, some seasoning and the veggie toppings. Thus, the soup got its thick and rich flavor.
Since then I do not use my oatmeal as a breakfast (with muesli) but also as a soup dish for other meals. Well when I fast and would like to do so dieting it is a good alternative for my rice eating habit. I have tried lots of soup using oatmeal be it thick soup or the light and thinner soup that goes with other dishes. I surprise myself every time I come up with some nice oatmeal dish/soup concoctions. I have not noted those recipes though. But I will come up with new discovery soon.
Well I can also bake good oatmeal cookies plain, with choco, with raisins but that's when I am inspired and not too lazy. Oatmeal is a lazy cook's fast, delicious and nutritious alternative soup or light meal.
Do let me know if you have tried one and have recipe to share.
Oatmeal is ground oat groats (i.e. oat-meal, cf. cornmeal, peasemeal, etc.), or a porridge made from oats (also called oatmeal cereal or stirabout, in Ireland). Oatmeal can also be ground oat, steel-cut oats, crushed oats, or rolled oats.
Aside from having it for breakfast I discovered that it can be made into soup. A good friend of mine introduced it to me one time we had a nice lunch together. She's an artist and creative as well with her dishes. She made me this soupy oatmeal soup with some nice green veggies. Well since oatmeal tends to become thick what she did was to put only small amount of oatmeal in a large amount of water, some seasoning and the veggie toppings. Thus, the soup got its thick and rich flavor.
Since then I do not use my oatmeal as a breakfast (with muesli) but also as a soup dish for other meals. Well when I fast and would like to do so dieting it is a good alternative for my rice eating habit. I have tried lots of soup using oatmeal be it thick soup or the light and thinner soup that goes with other dishes. I surprise myself every time I come up with some nice oatmeal dish/soup concoctions. I have not noted those recipes though. But I will come up with new discovery soon.
Well I can also bake good oatmeal cookies plain, with choco, with raisins but that's when I am inspired and not too lazy. Oatmeal is a lazy cook's fast, delicious and nutritious alternative soup or light meal.
Do let me know if you have tried one and have recipe to share.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
The refrigerator - Lazy Cook's Best Friend
A refrigerator (commonly called a "fridge") is a cooling apparatus. The common household appliance comprises a thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump—chemical or mechanical means—to transfer heat from it to the external environment (i.e., the room in which it is located), cooling the contents to a temperature below ambient. Cooling is a popular food storage technique in developed countries and works by decreasing the reproduction rate of bacteria. The device is thus used to reduce the rate of spoilage of foodstuffs.
A refrigerator maintains a temperature a few degrees above the freezing point of water. Optimum temperature range for perishable food storage is 3 to 5 °C (37 to 41 °F).[1] A similar device which maintains a temperature below the freezing point of water is called a "freezer".
The refrigerator is a relatively modern invention among kitchen appliances. It replaced the icebox, which had been a common household appliance for almost a century and a half prior. For this reason, a refrigerator is sometimes referred to as an "icebox".
Survival of a lazy cook is hugely reduced sans this important cooling apparatus. For a lazy cook like me I would cook in bulk and then store the food for days and weeks. Take for example Spaghetti and its sauce. I cook one pack of the pasta and then re-cook a ready made pasta sauce in a jar. Well I recook the sauce since I want it my style. For spag sauce it should be gracious amount of olive oil, mushroom and herbs, that way the jar of sauce become doubled. So I can have my pasta at least every other meals or every other day or spread over weeks.
So aside from stocking my own prepared food and dishes, it also contain other ready to eat food and left-over meals to make-over for another dish. So if you are a lazy cook and loves to eat, a ref is a must. Indeed, a ref is a lazy cook's best friend.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Lazy cook loves to reheat like eating Hopia
I just recently received from my good friend from the Philippines several packets of Hopia.
From wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopia)
Hopia (traditional Chinese: 好餅; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: hó-piáⁿ; literally "good biscuit") is a popular Filipino bean filled pastry originally introduced by Fujianese immigrants in urban centres of the Philippines around the start of the American civil occupation. It is a widely-available inexpensive treat and a favoured gift for friends and relatives. There are two types, the flaky type which uses Chinese puff pastry and the cake dough type which uses a soft cookie dough similar in texture and taste to the wrapper dough for fig newtons.
Since they have been stocked for several days or months they would become dry, coarse and tough. One way to make them tastier is to steam them a bit then after bake it for a minute. I believe it will be different if you microwave it (anyway I do not have microwave) and it relieves me of microwave paranoia.
So the hopia once steamed and baked becomes more juicy and oily; it brings out the aroma of the flavor enhanced by crispy sesame seeds covered flakes.
Lazy cook loves to reheat and eat, try it with your hopia
Friday, January 7, 2011
I can cook
I can definitely cook.
At an early age being the eldest I was told by mom to learn how to cook. Going to the market was something that I despise though especially the endless haggling for discount, but it is all strategy, charm and PR which I would not bother. And so whenever I am asked to go to the market I would really have to prepare myself with such ordeal. For that reason I never became a good cook.
They said only when you appreciate the marketplace can you become a good cook - so they say. You ought to personally see, feel, touch, listen, smell, taste and perhaps make use of the sixth to the nth sense those necessary ingredients that you will use in your cooking.
Lazy cook I may call myself but creative one or should I say experimental... I could really turn the kitchen as a workshop, a canvass, or a laboratory. That's when I became vegetarian that I discovered my creative talent for cooking and even baking too, definitely those are separate skills some can cook but not bake or do not have passion for baking (they do not have oven to bake - plausible excuse).
A bowl-full account of my cooking skills and eating transitions:
at age of 6 - playful me staying late playing at neighbors houses, I eat alone for dinner so I end up eating rice with soy sauce and oil which I enjoyed. Largely carnivorous.
at age 7 - Living with my aunt in Ilocos I came to appreciate ane enjoyed eating vegetables.
at age 8 - I am mom's apprentice, peeling veggies preparing and pounding spices
at age 12 - I cooked my first Ilocano dish with the help of a relative, common name would be inabraw but a different one since it includes alocon, kamote, talong and the staple seasoning bagoong.
high school - reheating a week supply of mom's prepared baon ( I was studying and staying in another city)
college - never cooked since my uncle and the family I lived with is such a good cook.
after college/meditation - for 9 years I turned vegetarian and so I learned creative/meditative cooking
turn of the millennium - becoming an OFW in Riyadh, KSA I discovered the beauty of one-meal-dish that I have learned when I was vegetarian, started eating fish
2005 - first time of stay in Korea, the pleasure and pressure of hot and spicy food, Korean influenced cooking
2006 - I started eating just everything, rediscovered meat eating...
2010 - I gained so much weight from eating
2011 - I discovered I like food movies, it is as pleasurable as eating, so I start this new blog...
Favorite foods/dishes (among others, hmmm...)
Bicol food (Mom from Bicol and learned cooking Bulakenia style)
- as a kid I love mom's kare-kare, estofado, adobo and the like
- Bicol foo would be laing ( my aunt and lola too cook so well, they have their own style)
Ilocano
-dinengdeng, pakbet, kilawin and all those fresh from the garden/farm veggies - rainy season we have mushroom too. I also had chance to bait for wild birds and farm pigeons as well as dig root crops.
Chinese
- a staple food for pinoys - pansit it is - well pansit canton by Lucky Me is such a big hit. I like the buns, siopao as well
and other Pinoy or well fusion dishes...
Italian
- spaghetti of course and pizza
Indian
- dal, chapati, pakora, paratha, gulab jamon and all other sweets
Middle East
- kapsa rice (I did not eat chicken then), I had a chance to taste a camel's meat but did not.. sadiki a famous drink among pinoy brewers (hahaha)
Korean
- Bibimpap, samgyetang, samgeupsal, kimbap among others
And other delicious food, I love to eat.
I like sweets, nuts, pastries, etc.
Find us on Google+
At an early age being the eldest I was told by mom to learn how to cook. Going to the market was something that I despise though especially the endless haggling for discount, but it is all strategy, charm and PR which I would not bother. And so whenever I am asked to go to the market I would really have to prepare myself with such ordeal. For that reason I never became a good cook.
They said only when you appreciate the marketplace can you become a good cook - so they say. You ought to personally see, feel, touch, listen, smell, taste and perhaps make use of the sixth to the nth sense those necessary ingredients that you will use in your cooking.
Lazy cook I may call myself but creative one or should I say experimental... I could really turn the kitchen as a workshop, a canvass, or a laboratory. That's when I became vegetarian that I discovered my creative talent for cooking and even baking too, definitely those are separate skills some can cook but not bake or do not have passion for baking (they do not have oven to bake - plausible excuse).
A bowl-full account of my cooking skills and eating transitions:
at age of 6 - playful me staying late playing at neighbors houses, I eat alone for dinner so I end up eating rice with soy sauce and oil which I enjoyed. Largely carnivorous.
at age 7 - Living with my aunt in Ilocos I came to appreciate ane enjoyed eating vegetables.
at age 8 - I am mom's apprentice, peeling veggies preparing and pounding spices
at age 12 - I cooked my first Ilocano dish with the help of a relative, common name would be inabraw but a different one since it includes alocon, kamote, talong and the staple seasoning bagoong.
high school - reheating a week supply of mom's prepared baon ( I was studying and staying in another city)
college - never cooked since my uncle and the family I lived with is such a good cook.
after college/meditation - for 9 years I turned vegetarian and so I learned creative/meditative cooking
turn of the millennium - becoming an OFW in Riyadh, KSA I discovered the beauty of one-meal-dish that I have learned when I was vegetarian, started eating fish
2005 - first time of stay in Korea, the pleasure and pressure of hot and spicy food, Korean influenced cooking
2006 - I started eating just everything, rediscovered meat eating...
2010 - I gained so much weight from eating
2011 - I discovered I like food movies, it is as pleasurable as eating, so I start this new blog...
Favorite foods/dishes (among others, hmmm...)
Bicol food (Mom from Bicol and learned cooking Bulakenia style)
- as a kid I love mom's kare-kare, estofado, adobo and the like
- Bicol foo would be laing ( my aunt and lola too cook so well, they have their own style)
Ilocano
-dinengdeng, pakbet, kilawin and all those fresh from the garden/farm veggies - rainy season we have mushroom too. I also had chance to bait for wild birds and farm pigeons as well as dig root crops.
Chinese
- a staple food for pinoys - pansit it is - well pansit canton by Lucky Me is such a big hit. I like the buns, siopao as well
and other Pinoy or well fusion dishes...
Italian
- spaghetti of course and pizza
Indian
- dal, chapati, pakora, paratha, gulab jamon and all other sweets
Middle East
- kapsa rice (I did not eat chicken then), I had a chance to taste a camel's meat but did not.. sadiki a famous drink among pinoy brewers (hahaha)
Korean
- Bibimpap, samgyetang, samgeupsal, kimbap among others
And other delicious food, I love to eat.
I like sweets, nuts, pastries, etc.
Find us on Google+
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