mC's "Cooking for Dummies" Thread

[Penfold]

I'm having a gammon steak tonight with fried eggs and chips.

[meerkat]

oh that sounds good!

[Kin Arad]

Kin... make a simple spag bol... but with a twist.
Boil a large pot of water to boiling point, add a generous shake of salt, and put in some fettucine (nicer than spaghetti.... break it in half and stir it til it boils again... stir it a bit at the beginning so it doesnt stick together) Let it cook for about 15 minutes or whatever it says on the packet.... you may have to add more water during the cooking. ...don't let it boil dry. Add boiling water from the kettle. It is cooked when its not hard not soggy soft.
While its boiling.....
Fry up a large finely chopped onion in some olive oil. Take it out and fry up some (1 or two unpeeled) diced zuchinni. Take it out and fry up some diced bacon (cut off the rind and throw it away). Brown some minced beef (and actually minced pork is better for this if you want) about 500 grams. When you brown the mince keep breaking it up with a wooden spoon or whatever so it doesn't cook in clumps, and turning it, stirring it.
Throw it all back in the pan and add about a teaspoon of minced garlic (you can buy it already minced in a jar). Add a can of chopped tomatoes (we buy one that had oregano and basil already in it) but you can add fresh oregano and basil at the end of the cooking .... looks smarter and snobbier and tastes so much better... just chop it roughly.
Turn the heat down abit and let it simmer and reduce a little (so its not watery). Stir it.
Wash the fettucini in hot running water and let drain. I like to put a tiny bit of olive oil over it.
You can serve it in two bowls on the table and let everyone serve themselves OR you can pile the fettucine in a large bowl or platter and pile the sauce over it and put a few sprigs of basil on top (Dead posh). OR you can finely slice a tomato and lay that over the top of the sauce.
Serve with a simple fresh green salad (if you don't have salad dressing olive oil and lemon juice is lovely), a french bread stick on a breadboard cut into about one inch slices, or better still buy some pre-prepared garlic bread you have put in the oven while you cook the meal (it usually takes about 15 - 20 minutes... read the label)
Basically its chop, fry, brown, add, wash, serve. Easy.
Its hard to give a recipe if you don't know what level someone is at cooking hey? (Hence why I said to boil the water before you add the fettucine) Sorry if I am talking down to someone who already knows alot of this, but sometimes the "obvious" to others who have cooked alot is not obvious to a new cook.
.

Thank you soooo much!! This is perfect!!
And no you not talking to someone who knows a lot on this - my success rate for making toast is around 2% but i blame the toaster

[michelanCello]

OK, I only dug this thread up because I want to share a yummmie recipe with you guys which I discovered saturday in my granny's cookbook (she's never even made it! ). It's super simple and I've tried it already and it's just mmmm

CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES

OK, here's what you need:

200 g dark chocolate
1,5 dl cream (not the clotted one, the one that's still liquid)
5 dkg butter
vanilla (either real, or just the sugar, or flavour, or whatever )
dark cocoa powder


Warm up the chocolate au bain marie so that it doesn't burn down. When it's almost done, boil the cream and add it to the chocolate (you can take it off the fire now), stir, add the butter, ow, and add the vanilla there somewhere. Now let it cool down and put in in the fridge to let it coole down more. In the end you'll have a clay-like chocolate mass, which you can roll into little balls (it takes a lot of time for the chocolate to get that solid, you best do it the evening before, leave it in the fridge and start rolling in the morning ). When you have the balls, you roll them each in the cocoa powder et voila, there you have it! Needs to be stored in the fridge (if it lasts that long ). I managed something like 15 middle-sized balls from these ingredients, you can of course double the quantity if you want more
And now I think I'm gonna make some

[ChristianBecker]

5 dkg butter

What happened to 500g? 5 dkg must be the weirdest unit I've seen in a while.
Sounds good, though.

[michelanCello]

5 dkg butter

What happened to 500g? 5 dkg must be the weirdest unit I've seen in a while.
Sounds good, though.

I don't know, we always use dkg for butter, g for sugar and flower...

[ShadowNinjaCat]

Sounds nice mC.
Made something similar for a party once.But we'd roll some of them in coconut powder too.We also put rum in the choc mixture.
Didn't last very long at the party.

[Dotsie]

I once made some using crushed digestive biscuits (like a wheat cracker). They weren't as sweet and they were lush!

[ChristianBecker]

I don't know, we always use dkg for butter...

Well, you speak a language that is unique (some used to throw Finnish in as well) amongst European languages, so probably that is why.

[michelanCello]

Or maybe we're just simply weird

[Tonyblack]

So, tell me mC . . . who are these dummies you are cooking for?

[michelanCello]

So, tell me mC . . . who are these dummies you are cooking for?

Yeah, yeah, we've heard that one before... Should've been Cooking Tips for Dummies like me

[ChristianBecker]

Or maybe we're just simply weird

Not knowing much Hungarian, I still believe there is no one counting in such a strange way as the French, though. In comparison, dkg is merely a bit eccentric - at least it has a kind of logic.

[janet]

My daughter is still not sure when water is boiling Where did I go wrong ?
Woohoo for the chocolate truffles recipe! Jest slap it on them thighs

[Penfold]

My daughter is still not sure when water is boiling Where did I go wrong ?

I'm sure I mentioned it before, somewhere and some time ago, but we used to have a Kitchen Porter at work, whose job in addition to cleaning and washing up, was to cook the staff dinners. When making spag bol for us, he used bottles of tomato ketchup instead of actual tomatoes (it was tasted disgusting). Another one would put his hand into the deep fat fryer to see if the oil was hot enough.

TOP TIP: Do NOT try either of these.