Re: culinary staples
 

I can't recommend this book enough for learning to cook:

Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

It contains recipes for all kinds of italian foods, and many of them are very simple and quick.

If you have a whole foods near you they sell frozen raw shrimp that are prepeeled in bags that are really nice. Thaw them in ice water with salt and sugar. There are then a million simple things you can do with delicious shrimp to make dinner. While car camping in yosemite recently I made shrimp in a spicy tomato sauce from the cookbook above. Just sauteed some diced onions, serrano peppers, and garlic in a pan over the campfire. Then added some heirloom tomatoes and parsley and reduced for a few minutes. Then fry the shrimp in the sauce. That was a pretty great camping meal!

Re: culinary staples
 

This meal serves two:

Ingredients

1 large or 2 small boneless chicken breasts, sliced
1 medium zuchini, sliced
1 medium yellow squash, sliced
3/4 Cup chablis
2 packages ramen noodles, discard the seasoning packet
4 cloves thinly-sliced garlic
3 pats of butter

Sauté the sliced chicken breast in olive oil (I hate extra virgin, but whatever). After a couple of minutes, toss in the zucchini, squash and garlic. As that all cooks, microwave the ramen noodles to one minute short of done (I think it's 4 mins, check the package)

When the chicken and veggies are almost done, add the wine and deglaze a bit, add the butter and the noodles. Add salt and pepper to taste and allow the wine and butter to reduce a bit.

It's light and easy and takes about 15 minutes.

Re: culinary staples
 

Food always tastes even better when camping!

Re: culinary staples
 

steak on a bbq.

it is good. supermarkets around here sell pre-made salads to go with it.

Re: culinary staples
 

This recipe is good/easy/cheap enough that I keep red lentils around just for this.

Masoor Dal from Classic Indian Cooking by Julie Sahni

Take 1.5 cups of pink lentils (rinse in cold water until the water comes out clear)
put them in a pot with 3 cups of water and 3/4 teasp. of tumeric bring to a boil, stirring frequently lower heat to medium low and simmer for 25-30 minutes
add 2 teasp. of kosher salt (if you don't have kosher salt use 1 tsp. of reg. salt)

in a separate small saucepan heat 5 Tablesp. light veggie oil
add 5-6 cloves of fresh garlic (peeled and sliced longways)
fry 1-2 minutes until light brown but still soft.
pour oil immediately over the lentil puree.

Serve over rice

Re: culinary staples
 

This is the one I suggest whenever this comes up:

Baked fish - simple, fast, healthy

ridiculously easy (5 minute prep, 12 minute cook), no added fat, good for adding variety to your diet

tilapia filet (farm raised, relatively cheap)
lemon

cut the lemon into thick slices (3/8 of an inch)
arrange in baking pan to make a bed
salt and pepper the fish
place onto bed of lemon slices
add 1/4 inch of water to pan (so now your lemon slices are islands)
cover pan with aluminum foil

bake at 375 for about 12 minutes or until done (fish is opaque, flesh easily separates, not too tough or is overdone)

you can top it with your favorite salsa

or sprinkle some cumin and paprika onto the fish before popping it in the oven

baked trout

you can also bake trout the same way, but throw a sprig of rosemary inside the fileted trout

Re: culinary staples
 

[ QUOTE ]
Here's a dish that scores highly on all three of your criteria, Larb Gai, which is a Thai ground chicken dish. It's very delicious, there's no added fat, so pretty healthy, and it's essentially a salad -- preparation order doesn't matter, and you can adjust all proportions to your taste -- so pretty easy too.

Here's what you'll need.

*ground chicken (let's say about 1 lb)
* juice of 2 limes
* 2 tbs fish sauce (you can find this in most Asian grocery stores)
* 2 tsp hot chili powder
*rice (about 2 tablespoons of uncooked rice [not necessary but highly recommended], and then several servings of cooked rice to accompany the larb)
* 3 or 4 shallots, or a medium onion
* 3 or 4 scallions
* either mint, fresh cilantro, or both

To prepare it, start by cooking the ground chicken in a pot with maybe a quarter cup of water over medium heat. Just stir it with a spoon to break up any larger pieces, and cook until the chicken is cooked through. Drain and discard the liquid and set the chicken aside.

Take the two tablespoons of uncooked rice, and saute it in a small dry (don't add any oil) pan over medium heat until the rice toasts into a golden brown color. By saute, I mean you should try to keep the pan moving so the rice doesn't burn, particularly toward the end of the process. After the toasted rice has cooled, grind it in a coffee grinder, or if you don't have one, you could use a mortal and pestle. Like I said, this is optional, but it adds a really nice nutty flavor and a crunchy sub-texture to the dish.

Next, cut the shallots and scallions finely, and chop the herbs.

You're now ready to assemble the salad. You can't really go wrong with the proportions, just taste and adjust, but the proportions above should be about right (to my taste) for a pound of chicken.

You can either eat the larb hot or cold. I like it cold on top of hot rice.

Very interested in anyone's reaction if they try this recipe...it's one of my favorites.

good luck,

Dan

[/ QUOTE ]

I cooked something similar last night. I didn't follow Dan's exact recipe, but I strongly suggest adding a little bit of sugar to balance out the acidity. Toasting the rice is definitely worth the trouble.

Re: culinary staples
 

As far as effort to taste goes, this is probably #1:

Crock Pot Pot Roast

1 can of cream of mushroom soup
1 can of cream of asparagus soup
1 dry onion soup mix
3/4 veggie broth (you can just use water here too)
5 pounds pot roast (I prefer top roast)

Just mix the soups, mix and liquid in the crock pot. Put the pot roast in the crock pot, sprinkle with black pepper. Turn on low and cook for 8 hours, flip the roast over at 4 hours.

Enjoy.

Re: culinary staples
 

A couple of thoughts on this thread so far:

Larb gai rules.

Stevie's suggestion of baking fish in the oven over a bed of something you want to use to give it flavor is a pretty solid one as well. I'm not sure how many things it works with, but I did this the other day with chicken breasts laid over sprigs of fresh thyme and it did a remarkably good job flavoring the chicken. Also, lemon juice in general can go a pretty long way in making various bland seeming things quite tasty.

Re: culinary staples
 

I cook fish often. This is because my mom gave me a piece of slate, and it's the best thing for cooking fish. French fish expert Eric Ripert had a segment on Martha Stewart where he demonstrates how to cook on slate. It's the easiest thing in the world. All you have to do is go to Home Depot or wherever and get a slate and season it. Details on how to do this can be found here

Just lay the fish (skinless is best) on a plate, season with salt and pepper, drizzle olive oil over it, then lay slices of garlic over the fish with whatever fresh herbs you have - I use sage, thyme, and rosemary. Have the slate heating up as you do this on the stove. Then add a little more olive oil on top and lay the fish upside down with the herbs and garlic touching the slate. Depending on the thickness of the fish, you will want to flip it over at some point. The fish cooks slowly over medium - medium high heat and always comes out wonderfully. Whenever I make this I can't believe I did it, because I'm no chef (yet).

I learned how to make potatoes with this by just peeling them and cutting them into cubes (red and other waxy potatoes), throwing them into a pot of salted water, and then just bringing them to a boil then turning down the heat a bit to let simmer (takes about 10-12 minutes). You want the potatoes to get almost tender. Then I transfer them into a pan preheated with oil (let pan heat up for 3 minutes first). I let the potatoes cook for about ten minutes until they are mostly browned all over, turning them over in the last few minutes. In the first 7-8 minutes, you just want to leave them alone, then turn them around to cook the other sides. Then, add diced garlic and rosemary and let that go for about 5 minutes. At this point, you want to shake the pan up a bit to get the potatoes brown all over, covered with the rosemary and garlic. Once done, season with salt and pepper and together with the fish it makes a great meal. I generally eat this with corn because it's the easiest veggie to make.