Hooray for you, Mari Sasano.

Tonight, because of my all-day shopping excursion and of his studio visit, I ended up not making dinner. I already ate a little plate of snacks (OK, OK: Earl’s french fries, with gravy) at West Ed. So I’ll make spaghetti carbonara tomorrow. Tonight I had just a green salad with a vinaigrette of rice vinegar, soy sauce, olive oil, and a grating of fresh pepper. For a protein, I boiled an egg.

A perfectly boiled egg is wonderful. As a kid, I loved boiled eggs but for some reason my mom never got the hang of it: either the shell would stick to the whites and not peel smoothly, or the yolk would turn green. The answer, I found, was in The Joy of Cooking. When I was a teenager, I read it cover to cover and laughed when I came to a recipe for boiled egg. Who needs a recipe for that?

Just goes to show, you don’t know as much as you think you do. It’s not just a matter of throwing an egg into a pot and boiling the water. A simple trick turns out a perfect egg: start with the eggs in cold water, bring to a boil. Time it according to how you want it done: 2-3 minutes for soft, 5 minutes for hard-boiled. Then turn the heat down to low for 10 minutes, then plunge them into cold water.

The eggs peel like a dream, and the yolks are sunny yellow. Tonight I had them with only a bit of salt, and they’re perfect.

When our landlord was taking us on a tour of his house, one of the selling points was the pressure cooker. Not surprisingly, he also invited us to go ahead and use any portion of a very large stash of beans, lentils, and garbanzos stored in large jars in the basement.

What a wonderful offer! Of course, I am now an expert hummus-maker. But it is not until this week that I’ve worked up the courage to use the pressure cooker. What stopped me were imagined scenarios involving too much pressure exploding the pot into stainless steel shrapnel and scalding hot beans and liquid. I needn’t have worried. It’s not that way at all.

The most amazing thing is that I forgot to soak the beans (kidney and black) for the recommended four hour minimum. So I just threw ‘em into the pressure cooker and let it go for half an hour. Turns out, that’s more than enough time to cook beans properly! I can’t believe what I had been missing! It’s a whole new world!

So anyways, a chopped onion, celery, carrots and mushrooms into the pot for a quick sautee, throw in a can of tomatoes and the beans with cumin, chili powder and whatever else I could think of (in hindsight: easy on the cumin), and done. The pot lasted me a solid week of good eating, served with a side of corn bread, sour cream and chopped cilantro.

You shouldn’t be afraid of making a nice lasagna when you have a craving. Sure it’s an obscene amount of food for just one (or two), but really: you can freeze some of it, or eat lasagna for a delicious leftover lunch for several days, or invite some pals to share it. For not much more than $10, you have a massive amount of food!

There are two kinds of noodle. There’s the kind you boil ahead of time, or the kind that cooks in the pan. There’s nothing wrong with going for the easy, cook-in-the-pan kind, but you’ll need more sauce and I find it can be a bit runny. Anyhow, tonight I cooked some spinach lasagna noodles for a nice veggie lasagna.

I layered tomato-based sauce (sauteed onions, yellow and orange pepper, a can of crushed tomatoes, s&p, oregano) with some frozen chopped spinach (boiled quickly in salted water with a half jar of pesto in there for yumminess) and ricotta cheese. You could also use cottage cheese, but oh! Ricotta! Then I covered the last layer with some slices of mozzarella, then popped the deal into the oven. I’m waiting for it now, but when the cheese is melted and a little golden, it’ll be done. You can vary the vegetables, or put a meat sauce instead of spinach. I just decided to go meatless tonight because I had a Teenburger for breakfast.

Impress your friends! Be the envy of the potluck! But do it!

This dinner idea is so good it deserves ALL-CAPS. BURRITO!

It’s so easy and so good. I make it veggie, ’cause meat is kinda redundant here. You need some tortillas, a can of refried beans, and whatever you want in it. I like fried onions and peppers (an orange one, in this case), sour cream, salsa, chopped cilantro, a little rice, and some avocado slices. I warm up the refried beans (and yeah, I should totally learn to make it from scratch), put a dollop of each ingredient into the tortilla, then wrap ‘er up.

Too easy! And everyone loves them. EVERYONE. It’s barely work to put it together. It’s a PARTY!

This is adapted from a Stilton and mushroom pie from Meat Free Mondays, except I couldn’t get green peppercorns or  Stilton from the store and used goat cheese instead. It’s so delicious!

I ignored the pastry recipe from the website, since I don’t have a kitchen scale to weigh my flour. I whizzed a quarter cup of butter together with maybe a cup and a bit of flour, an egg, and a little soy milk. Something like that; don’t hold me to it!

The filling is a chopped onion, about a pound of Crimini mushrooms, a couple spoons of tomato paste, a little soy sauce and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer with a cup of veggie stock, fill the pie crust, add dollops of cheese, top the pie, brush with a beaten egg, bake.

Anyhow, it’s wonderful. You can make it vegan easily by using shortening and omitting the eggs and cheese.

When my parents lived in Indonesia, they had friends who were also Canadian ex-pats who were Pakistani. My mom got this recipe from them. It’s easy and really good– the chicken melts off the bone.

You take a bunch of chicken pieces (I used drumsticks) and brown them in a little oil. Remove them, then fry up a little minced ginger and garlic, add a chopped onion, and season with cumin, turmeric, and chili powder. I used spice rack pre-mixed curry since there was no chili powder. Add the chicken in again with a spoon of Better than Bouillon (or a chicken cube). Cook over very low heat, covered for an hour. Be careful not to burn it like I did. VERY LOW HEAT! Otherwise, that’s it.

In the last half hour or so, I put in some broccoli so I would have a vegetable. It got overcooked. I served the whole mess over Basmati rice (cooked perfectly!) and a spoon of mango chutney. Delicious!

I ate the last of the spaghetti, but here’s another one that’ll last for days: stew. Cheap and easy and perfect for a cold day.

Mine is really simple. I sweated a chopped onion in olive oil and a knob of butter. Then I added the veg (carrots, potatoes, a red pepper) and the meat chunks, which were dredged in seasoned flour (and by seasoned, I mean I added a bit of salt and pepper). In went a can of tomatoes and some water and the rest of a very old bottle of red wine, about half a bottle I think. Sage, thyme, cayenne, a bay leaf, salt and pepper and a spoon of Better then Bouillon.

All that simmers for a few hours on low! I am eating this with a brilliant loaf of bread I got from Treestone Bakery, which was a jawdropping $9.75, but I suspect it will be worth the price. And besides– the total cost of the stew is something like $7, and it will be good for several meals!

It is an eternal faunt of goodness. Nearly, anyways: a giant pot of spaghetti lasted me an entire week! I will never get tired of eating spaghetti. And it cost NOTHING (nearly).

A pound of farmer’s market ground beef at around $4, a few veggies (mushrooms, yellow bell pepper, onion), seasonings (S&P, basil, bay leaf) and a bottle of tomato puree made enough sauce of two packages of pasta. A little Romano cheese and a salad on the side– a perfect comfort meal that NEVER ENDED. (it just did this morning– yes, spaghetti for breakfast!– but still.)

There is no excuse for not cooking at home when spaghetti, the best meal of all, is this easy.

I got a creme brulee set for Christmas, so I decided to bust ‘er out for New Year’s Eve. It seemed simple enough: beat a half dozen egg yolks with seven tablespoons of sugar, whisk in two and a quarter cups of heated cream with a two tablespoons of Cointreau and a teaspoon of vanilla. Bake in a pan of water for 25 minutes.

Well, I think I am cursed by the custard gods. I had to bake them for an hour before they set. However, once they were done they were fine. But then! The recipe I was using said to brulee the suckers with brown sugar. The little torch burnt it, rather than creating the hard candy shell. Not that burnt sugar is necessarily bad, but there was not crunch on top. So the next morning, I tried again with fine berry sugar, and it was PERFECT.

If I knew how easy this was, I would’ve tried sooner. Creamy deliciousness!

Usually I’m pretty good about meal planning and I have every ingredient necessary for a few days’ worth of meals. But I’ve been kind of lazy recently. I’m sure we all have. Holiday food has been poured down my gullet like a fois gras duck, so my own cooking has become haphazard.

What to do? Look in the fridge and freezer. I had a filet of catfish, a yam, broccoli. I peeled and sliced the yam, tossed it with some olive oil, salt and pepper and threw that all in a baking dish into a 350F oven. A few minutes later, the broccoli (washed, cut into pieces and seasoned) joined the yam. Then I greased another baking dish with olive oil, laid the fish out and spread some pesto on it. Into the oven! About 15 minutes later: dinner!

Easy. And very good!