ONE POT WONDERS

Yum!
Keep 'em coming!

A big garlic fix tonight - I must have needed it- feeling a bit run-down.
Anyway, I lightly sauteed garlic, chili & parsley in olive oil, then added (drained) tinned tuna ... Heated through, added my just cooked pasta & mixed together, then tossed with more chopped parsley ... Yum!
But I cheated: more than one pot!

Msolga, as a small kitchen person too, I can empathize.

As an alternative to potatoes, have you tried squash? I cut an acorn squash in half, scoop out the seeds and stuff. Take a cereal/soup sized bowl, put about 1/4 cup of water in it. Place your squash half in the bowl cut side toward the water. Microwave 5-6 minutes, dump out of leftover water. Slather with butter and spices if you like.

Makes a quick meal, and the other half will keep in the fridge for several days.

Hey, Sublime, that sounds easy!
Another good thing to do with big pumpkins in the microwave is to pierce them all over & cook at full in the microwave till the whole kitchen smells beautifully of cooked pumpkin. It's great as a side vegetable with other food & a wonderful base for a soup! Just add stock & herbs & seasoning! Very nice!

ps .. As a small kitchen person, what are your standby meals? I'm curious.

I wish I could say that I'm creative, but my "stand by's" are pretty boring.

I like to embellish on pre-packaged meals. I make "hamburger helper type" things with spicy sausage (instead of boring burger), use Knorr sauces (making scalloped potatoes this way is sooo easy, with just one pan!), well, you get the idea.

I make BBQ ham sandwiches by using thin sliced deli ham, your favorite BBQ sauce with onions, peppers and spices, heat until your veggies are cooked (5 minutes or so). You can make this is small or big batches, depending on your needs. This also reheats well.

Thanks for the ideas, Sublime!

I just thought of a couple more.

I love sausage, so if you don't quit reading.

In a medium-ish sauce pan, I throw a few sausages in a rice pilaf mix. Cook according to the directions on the box (minus any butter or margarine, the sausage drippings will take care of that for you) and you're done. If the sausage is frozen, cook it in some water a few minutes, then throw the rice in.

A 1 lb. pound rope of kielbassa and a bag of a frozen veggie mix you like has endless possibilities. I usually mix up a sauce mix with soy, water and corn starch, and whatever spices strike your fancy.

Another easy fave around here: Buy some nice sliced roast beef at your deli, or use some leftover steak you have. (I have even used some leftover hamburger patties for this) Warm the meat in a small sauce pan with some boullion. Saute peppers, mushrooms, onions, garlic (in whatever combination you like). Heat oven to broil, or if you don't have broil 350 degrees or so will do.

Split some hoagie style sandwich buns.

Open the buns up on a baking sheet. Add meat, veggies, and a few slices of a cheese you like. Heat in the oven until the cheese melts. Serve the leftover buollion as an au jus type sauce if you like.

Here's what I did today. Took a 2 lb. chunk of good quality beef shoulder chuck. Browned it in my iron/enamel braising pot on the top of the stove. Removed, set aside. Added a little oil, added chopped onions and carrots and half a dozen whole peeled cloves of garlic, slightly crushed, and "softened" them (not quite brown). Removed, set aside. Threw in 1/2 cup of red wine (plonk) to deglaze pot, reduced wine a little bit. Added 3/4 cup of canned chicken broth. Added two tablespoons of tomato paste. Stirred. Added a piece of unsweetened (not semi-sweet) chocolate, melt, stir. Put the beef and veggies back in. Put lid on pot. Put in 375 degree oven for... until the beef was very tender but not falling apart -- about 1 1/2 hours. OR you can do it over a slow flame on the top of the stove. Man it was good. While you're preparing it, add your favorite herbs or nice freshly ground pepper or whatever you like. A little salt helps too. Okay okay, you have to clean up the onion clutter, but that's it! I'm very popular with my dogs tonight -- they had some too!

My favorite food is one-pot food. Would like to recommend a book: One-Pot Cooking by Mary Reader. Originally out of the UK (Salamander Books), in America it's published by Berkley's HP Books.

Also should add that Farberware now offers a no-fear AUTOMATIC! pressure cooker (it's on Amazon if you want a description, raves and recipes). It's terrific. Instant real food. You could do my chuck recipe in about twenty minutes. Works for one-person-plus- leftovers meals.

Thank you again, Sublime!

Hello there Tartarin!

Ah, I see you're something of a one pot gourmet, as well as a book reader extraordinaire! That sounded delicious. But, you know, I've never used chocolate in anything bit dessert dishes. (Obviously not as creative as you! ) So, sorry to sound ignorant, but why do you use it? What affect does it have on the taste of the food you've described? I'm willing to be persuaded!
Love your generous use of garlic & wine! Yum!

The French use chockie in stews sometimes and the Mexicans use it very creatively in mole sauces. I use it because it gives a little kind of depth and interest to the sauce. You don't notice it as chocolate, just as a kind of deeper taste. Most of my cooking is experimental! I read cookbooks but I don't follow them -- I get an idea and pursue it. Believe me, experimenters can make some really awful stuff (uh, don't mix chocolate and beer!) -- but then sometimes you make some really good stuff too! I figure if I can make my dogs smile on a rainy day (which it is today), I must have done something right!

Tartarin

You shared your gourmet concoction with your dogs? How very generous of you!
Aha, now I understand about the chocolate factor! I will experiment soon & report back (unless a dire failure! )

Never feed chocolate to an animal. Period.

Good point, cjhsa. Never do. The chocolate (less than 1 tsp in a 3-4 quart dish) was in the sauce. The dogs got the meat and veggies. They are fine. BTW: not all dogs have a reaction to chocolate. I've known owners who give a daily ration of chocky to their pups. Amazing but true! ...though I'd never do that, being persnickety about what I feed 'em. (You should see what they feed themselves, though, out here on the prairie. Deer poop is top of their gourmandizing list.)

Yeah, what is it with the poop eating anyway? Almost worse, when a dog barfs, they will eat that too.

A rustic meal that is simple and it tastes good too.

Roast everything in one pan in a regular oven. Bake at 400 to 425 deg. with no lid:

The ingredients should be fresh (not frozen) and cut to medium/large sized pieces:

Potatoes, vegetables of choice plus pieces of Italian sausage, smoked sausage or ham. (If any of the vegables are the quick cooking types like zucchini, wait for 20 min before you put them in.)
Use salt, pepper and oil. Garlic and onion optional. If you use garlic, use whole peeled cloves and the onion should be halved or quartered.

This should take about 45 minutes depending on the volume of food in the pan and how big the pieces are. It's better to go with a big flat pan so the edges of the ingredients get crunchy. Experiment and you will come up with the taste combinations that you prefer. Sometimes I use herbs, sometimes I don't.

Oh, I'm going to try that, couzz!
Sounds healthy, quick to prepare AND delicious to me!

I have one that is weightwatchers/healthy/ very low fat
It is sort of like goulash, but more stuff is in it, its a meal in one pot
and it tastes wonderful
Substitute turkey smoked sausage for smoked sausage
1 c. elbow macaroni
large can crushed or diced tomatoes, or fresh
1/2 lb ground turkey - cooked
whole bag of mixed vegetables, frozen or fresh
box frozen snow peas or fresh
box frozen spinach or fresh
1/4c frozen onions, or fresh
carrots, diced, sliced or whatever
1 jar Ragu, robust type with onions, garlic, vegies
After cook gr turkey, cook macaroni, put all
together in big pot simmer 1 - 2 hours low
It tastes WAY better on the 2nd day~

mmmmm, I just made a great dinner and just have to tell some one about it! I bought a latke at a local healthy food store, cut it open and placed it at the bottom of a cast-iron skillet. I shredded some basil, sliced some cherry tomatoes (no seeds), liberally drizzled with olive oil. Then I added a crumbled layer of f rench feta and topped with a coat of egg substitute. I threw it in the oven to bake - yum! One pot wonder to boot!

a potato pancake (shredded potatoe, maybe some onion, in a flat patty and pan-fried. I think of it as an eastern european thing - not exclusively a jewish thing. Dag, the Slovak, concurs.