15 Un-Recipes

 

 Pretending to be a creepy housewife who forces you to eat.

I cook almost every day. I think I'm a good cook, probably because I only make food that I love to eat. I also don't look up recipes...because, well, cooking is not actually my favorite thing and why would I want to spend more time on dinner prep actually following a recipe? Besides, washing measuring cups and spoons is not fun, and I rarely have the exact same ingredients that a recipe might require on hand. Sometimes I make something up, and it's not really a hit, and I don't make it again. But I've got a collection of go-to "recipes" that Angel asks for often.

*Warning*: Not all of these are healthy or whole-food friendly. But they are all tasty, if you have the same idea of tasty food as I do.

Here they are:

Chicken Fried Rice
Pan-fry chicken with onions, garlic, and assorted spices (chilies, cayenne pepper, black pepper, etc.) and soy sauce until fully cooked. Add cold, cooked white rice (slightly on the dry side is best if you don't want the rice to be mushy). If you didn't have enough sauce with the chicken for the rice you added, add more soy sauce till it seems sufficient. Make a hole in the center of the rice and drop a couple eggs in. Stir eggs into rice, chop green onions into rice, the meal is done when the egg is thoroughly cooked.


Deluxe Scrambled Eggs
Fry chopped onions and spinach in a little butter. When onions are tender, pour a scrambled egg mixture (eggs mixed with milk) into the pan and mix with veggies. Top with cheese while still in pan so that the cheese melts. Top with chopped tomato and avocado. WAY easier than omelets.

Chicken Fajitas
Chopped chicken breast in a skillet with onions, zesty italian salad dressing, Frank's red hot sauce, cayenne pepper, pepper. Cook till all liquid is gone, chicken is thoroughly cooked and slightly browned. Serve with tortillas and any and all fajita/taco toppings

Vitamin Stew
(This soup is so hearty that even my meat-loving husband doesn't think any meat needs to go with it).
Chop up about 10 different kinds of vegetables (i.e. cabbage, kale, spinach, tomato, potato, corn, zucchini, carrot, broccoli, cauliflower, onion), throw them in a pot with garlic, pepper, and cayenne, and as much water as you deem necessary for broth, and cook till done. Add 1 can of tomato sauce or paste if desired, otherwise you can just add a little salt.

Cream of Broccoli Soup
Boil broccoli, celery, onions, and garlic in chicken broth, or if you don't have that, water with a some salt and pepper added. When soft, put the veggies in a blender with a little of the broth, blend, pour into a different pot, add cream or milk, heat but don't boil, and serve. Topped with cheese, it's pretty amazing.


Chicken and Bean Soup
Prepare dry beans by boiling them for hours. In the meantime, put chopped onions and chicken breasts in the crock pot. Pull apart chicken breasts when fully cooked. Dump beans (usually either pinto or kidney or black beans) into crockpot, along with 1 can of enchilada sauce, 1 can of cream of chicken, and a handful of cheddar cheese. Done when all ingredients are mixed together and hot.


Roast'n'Gravy
Beef roast in the crock pot for forever. Sprinkle 1 packet dry onion soup mix on top. When fully cooked, pull apart with a knife and fork, stir in 1 or 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup (depending on the size of the roast), and cook until hot and tasty. Served with mashed potatoes, you'll get lots of compliments and inquiries for your recipe!


Fruit Crisp
Prepare the fruit. If it's a dry fruit, make a sauce, but certain apples and most berries don't need it. (You can add orange juice if your apples aren't juicy!) Mix oatmeal, ground flax, a little flour, cinnamon, brown sugar together with enough melted butter to make it crumble. Bake at 350 or thereabouts till done.

Breakfast casserole
Put frozen hashbrowns or fresh diced potatoes in casserole dish and place in a heating oven to thaw/cook while you mix together enough eggs, milk, and pepper to wet them all down. Pour egg mixture all over the hashbrowns, top with chopped ham (heavenly!) or sausage (also good!). Cook till nearly done, and sprinkle cheese on top for the last 10-15 minutes.

Best Veggie Side Dish
Baby bok choy pan fried with a little oil and whatever spices I feel like. Or zucchini, same thing. Or green beans or cabbage, but those are best fried with turmeric, garlic, and chilis. And I usually add a little water to help my veggies tender up. Neon yellow (due to the turmeric) veggies are the best kind!

Disappearing Chip Dip
This is the chip dip that I've caught friends eating as if it were a casserole. One layer of refried beans, topped with a layer of cooked ground beef, topped with a layer of that cheesy salsa from a can, topped with sour cream, topped with chopped tomatoes and green onions.

Carne Asada Tacos
Tell Angel, "Let's have carne asada." He makes it happen.

Best Hamburgers
Ground beef mixed with Worcestershire sauce mixed with black pepper mixed with tiny chopped onions (yes, onions cooked into the meat).

Veggie Hash
Chop potatoes, leave skins on, and begin frying for hash. Add summer squash, zucchini, carrots, sweet potatoes (any hard vegetable that fries well). When those are mostly soft, add onions...when everything is mostly done, add spinach or other desired green leafy vegetable, cook till spinach is tender. When the veggies are done, crack a couple eggs on top of everything, stir, and eat when the eggs are fully cooked. I didn't mention it, but it goes without saying, throw in plenty of spices, especially pepper, along the way. If you like meat in your hash you can add pre-cooked sausage or ham when you add the eggs, but I prefer meatless hash.


Baked Fish Filet
Salmon, cod, or tilapia filets, laid out on a baking sheet, sprinkled with all the spices I can think of, orange juice drizzled on top, baked at 450 till done. I chop onions into eighths and let them roast alongside the fish because Angel loves roasted onions. Can be served with brown rice--or whatever you feel like. I often put sweet potatoes in the oven about 45 min to an hour before I put the fish in, then I have an efficient and complete dinner just using the oven.

My cooking philosophy is always go overboard on the garlic.

No, wait, it's always add onions if I'm unsure whether Angel will like what's for dinner.

No, that's not it.

My cooking philosophy is straight from Pirates of the Caribbean 

"Recipes are more like guidelines than actual rules."

*Fine. I know they weren't talking about recipes, they were talking about the pirate code, but it's practically the same thing...