Recipie Swap Thread for us hungry folks! :-)

I will start with a simple one.
Red/ Yellow/Orange bell peppers
Soy sauce
Seasoning salt
Basil
Oragano
Olive oil
Baby spinach
Baby sweet tomatoes
Crimini mushrooms

In a pan on med heat, put 2 tbsp of olive oil, 2 tbsp of soy sauce, and 1 tbsp of the herbs and mix together until the herbs have absorbed the oils as best as possible.
Dice up peppers and mushrooms and drop into hot pan.
Cook veggies until soft and serve on a plate covered with baby spinach and whole tomatoes.
Season salt to taste.

( for those interested- Fat = 14g, Sat fat=0, Carbs=4, Taste=10! )

Chicken with onions and green chiles. Serves 6.

3 whole boneless chicken breasts
1 onion, sliced into half rings
2 jalapenos sliced with seeds
1" piece of ginger, peeled and julienned
1 clove garlic chopped

Sauce:

2 Tbsp tomato paste
1 Tbsp dijon mustard
1 Tbsp lemon juice
a little water
1.5 tsp garam marsala
1.5 tsp ground cumin
.5 tsp cayenne pepper
1 cup heavy cream

Oil for frying
1 stick cinnamon, 6 whole cloves, 6 whole cardamom pods

Preheat oven to 350 F. Heat a heavy skillet and add some oil and the whole, hard spices. Cook the chicken in batches until just browned. Season with salt and pepper and place in baking dish in a single layer.

Add a little more oil, the onions, chiles, and ginger, and saute until onions are soft. Remove with slotted spoon and place on top of chicken.

Now the sauce. You can mix the first seven ingredients ahead of time if you wish, but don't add the cream until now or it will curdle. Mix thorougly. Put a little more oil in the pan if needed, and add the garlic. Saute about 20 seconds and add the sauce, all at once. Cook until slightly thickened, stirring constantly. Pour over the chicken without disturbing the onion mixture.

Finish by baking for 20 minutes at 350. Serve with rice.

I'm game. My recipes will be angled towards bachelors and the cooking challenged. My forte

I don't have a recipe, because I always go just by feeling when it's an original creation, but one very popular salad I make for clients is quinoa, blanched fresh asparagus, and crumbled nori (sometimes I add cooked edamame or peas as well) in a light Japanese-style dressing based on mirin, rice vinegar, soy and sesame oil.

Mine are usually vegitarian too.

Put into a medium sized bowl:
a cup or 2 of halved grape tomatoes
a couple of minced garlic cloves
a big handful of chopped/torn basil
a smal handful of crushed pignoli/pinon nuts
a couple of tablespoons of olive oil
a couple of teaspoons of balsamic vinegar
pinch of salt

Toss and eat with toasted, sliced baguette or as I do when I get lazy, a spoon.

I just changed my mind...errr. My cooking isn't suited for this thread.

Go ahead.....

Here's my bachelorette recipes. Breakfast one day this week was corn chips. When I do feel the need to buy meat, I buy turkey and sautee it in olive oil with nothing more than a shake of salt.

Now I feel more at ease

One of my favorite recipies.... microwave Boca chicken patties crumbled on romaine lettuce with grapes and balsamic vinegar. Talk about bachelor cooking!!!!


Tarragon Tofu

1 block Tofu
1/2 cup dried Tarragon
2tbsp Olive Oil
2 tbsp Seasoned rice vinegar
Seasoning salt
Garlic powder


In a pan on med-high heat pour your olive oil and rice vinegar and warm.
Take the block of tofu, slice into 1/2 -1/3 inch slices and place in warm oil. COVER with tarragon ( may require more then 1/2 cup ) , Garlic powder and seasoning salt. Turn over tofu and repeat after 20 minutes of cooking on one side. Repeat steps and cook covered for 30 minutes on med-low heat.
Serve warm with romaine lettuce, baby tomatoes, or rice, steamed veggies, diced blanched red/yellow/orange peppers etc...

everybody has a grille 9not those pussy gas grilles that aint cookin, thats just draagging your stove outside)

chicken in a tinfoil hat

MAKE A SMALL AMT OF CHICKEN BROTH-I even use that Pennzys concentraate , its good

take a huge amt of double thickness ALuminum foil and speray it with a flavored pAM

place 2 chicken thighs per person, pepper ed only

take a generous handful of green beans per person
2 potatoes per person
one half big onion per person
2 sliced portabellos per person
a generous handful of tarragon
pepper

place the chicken on the bottom and layer the veggies . Put the tarragon on top and begin rolling up the foil into a package. put about 1/4 cup of the broth on top
close up the package and punch some fork holes on top

place on a rack above the coals 9dont load the grill with charcoal only about 10 bricks ll do.

Close lid and let it cook for about 30 min. . There should be a nice brownness on the veggies and the chicken. And, its an easy cleanup.

adjust your own flavors but dont omit the tarraqgon its a nice presence to the chicken

<reading along happily!>

oh that reminds me I need to update my thread...

pesto is very quick and easy to make and you can make variations in the recipe as you wish.

Throw in a food processor (or blender - that's what I own):

2 cups rinsed, fresh basil leaves
3 cloves garlic
couple tablespoons olive oil
a small handful of pine nuts
pinch of salt.

And blend. You can use it right away (I think it's good in the fridge for a week or two) or freeze some in icecube trays to use later. Each cube of pesto is a generous single portion of pesto. The recipe above will make about 6-7 portions.

The variations can include:

~ More or less of any of the ingredients above.
~ Toasting the pine nuts in a dry saute pan over medium heat for a few mintures.
~ Adding fresh rosemary, parsely, cilantro, etc to the mix.
~ Adding hot pepper flakes or ground hot pepper.
~ Adding grated parmasan cheese.

You use the pesto as a dressing for chicken, as a spread for bread, and of course with pasta. Spinach and tomatoes go nicely with pesto as does feta cheese.

Yummm, I love pesto!

I'm drying tomatoes right now. I bought too many and I didn't want them to go to waste. I cut each of about 20 small tomatoes into three slices (1/2 inch?) and laid them in a baking pan lined with parchment paper. They filled the pan. Then I sprinkled first 1 T. sugar over them, then 1/2 T. Celtic sea-salt (the big chunks) and finally ground some black pepper over it all. I scattered thinly chopped fresh basil leaves (about 8) on top of everything. This will dry in my oven at 250F for at least four hours (drying is not an exact science). It is smelling yummy already. I'll probably freeze them once they're dried. I love to add dried tomatoes to pasta dishes, but they're also great in poultry stuffings.

Meanwhile, I just pulled out a pan of dried blue berries which are even easier to process. Wash blueberries, scatter in a baking pan - no need for parchment paper. Put in 250F oven and leave for an hour or two... then turn off the oven and prop open the door for a day or so. If they aren't dry enough, turn the oven back on for an hour... then turn it off as before. These do well stored in an airtight bag -- either frozen or not. We use them for snacking, granola, or whatever sounds good. They're pretty expensive to buy, but are so inexpensive fresh and are among the easiest things to dry.

were knee deep in blueberries

What do you do with those blueberries, Farmerman? Freeze 'em?

we are in an RV in the woods next to a huge blueberry barren that isnt commercially harvested, today Mrs F wants us to make jelly. our property borders a blueberry barren so we either eat em or let the bears have em. Its a nice sight, the blueberry bushes are starting to show a little fall color .

Piffka - I didn't know how to do dried stuff before - cool!

So will a more experienced and frugal cook on a2k help me>

My wilted, wrinkled tomatoes are languishing in the fridge. Can I salvage them? Do tomatoes ever truely go bad?

How does one know exactly when meat (in this case turkey) is too old to safely eat? Does the shelf-life depend at all on whether the meat is naturally raised?

Farmerman -- That sounds like heaven. I've never heard the term blueberry barren but I imagine it is like a cranberry bog. Speaking of fall color... I saw some gorgeous, bright red poison oak this morning.

Littlek -- Dried foods are loaded with flavor. I hope you try it.