Reading Food

So guys, I'm calling on my friends to suggest some easy to prepare dishes that will help me break away from ramen, but won't take hours to make. I want good food, but slaving away in a hot kitchen is a no-no for now. Would you awesome people suggest some quick and dirty recipes for great food?

I should be ashamed of myself.

I've found that many kinds of vegetables can easily be added to most bachelor recipes. If fresh veggies are a nuisance to keep around all the time, see if you can get a bag of frozen peas, broccoli and/or carrots. They can be microwaved or prepared in hot water (just add your choice of spices and a hint of butter if you like).

In general, you can keep eating most of your favourite stuff and still improve it by buying high-quality raw materials. I.e. buy pasta made of whole grain and fresh eggs instead of the cheapest 'made in unknown country with mysterious ingredients' kind.

If you like meat on your sandwich, try poultry (particularly turkey). It contains almost no fat and much less antibiotics / growth hormones than most red meat.

Instead of deep-frying stuff, try putting stuff in the oven (this works fine with almost everything made of potatoes - fries, croquettes, everything you'd use as a side dish).

Keep a bowl of fresh fruit around for the small snacks between your meals.

Eat a small salad for starters (green or tomato). It's healthy, and I've heard it said that eating a salad or apple 10-15 min before the main course will get your digestion running more smoothly for what comes after. Pre-washed and pre-cut salad with dressing from the bottle isn't quite as perfect as freshly plucked salad with herbs from your own garden, but it's still good for you and prepared in under a minute.

Eat regularly and avoid satisfying a big hunger by eating lots of fat or carbs. Repeated feelings of hunger will tell the body to start saving for bad times, and when your blood sugar level shoots through the roof it will release a lot of insulin to get it back to normal levels. This is done by taking the sugar out of the blood and saving it in your fat depots - in short, when you're starving and you eat 5 Snickers, most of that energy goes straight to your belly, and after the sugar peak is gone you're hungry again. In extreme cases this can also lead to hyperinsulinism and diabetes.

Also, drink a lot of water. It fills your stomach and is not as bad for your health as Coke & friends. (It also saves you money!) If water is just too boring for you, add a squirt of lemon juice and ice cubes, or keep an appropriate supply of selfmade iced tea in the fridge. (Fruit tea is good as you needn't add a lot of sugar until it tastes okay.)

I'm not a nutritionist, but this are my suggestions. Have fun, and good appetite :-)

"*sigh* Some men are really hard to manipulate!" - Orchid

This post was edited by null on Jun 04, 2006.

Also, I've found this (probably universally known) recipe to be both rather easy and very tasty.

The cool thing is that you can very easily vary the ingredients according to your preferences and/or what you find in your fridge.

Specs:
Time - 15-20 minutes
Work - not too much
Tools - pot + sieve for the noodles, wok + spatula, chopping board, knife

You need:
Dead chicken, about 50-100g per person
Noodles - long spaghetti-like 'chinese' noodles are the most appropriate, but any relatively thin kind of noodles will do.
Carrots, about 1 medium-sized per person
Sliced champignons (you English people call 'em "button mushrooms"?)
1-2 eggs per person (remember to buy the free-range kind)
Soy sauce

The actual work
Cook the noodles. While they boil:
Cut the dead chicken into small parts.
Slice the carrots - make very thin slices if you don't like them 'al dente'.
Heat the wok up and add some oil. (I prefer thistle oil as it's relatively neutral, heat-tolerant and not too unhealthy. I think my brother who is a cook prefers peanut oil. Whatever rocks your boat, I really don't think it's that important.)
When the oil is hot, add the meat and sear it, then add the carrots and the mushrooms, and let it fry for a while.
Then shove the stuff into one half of the wok and crack the egg(s) into the other half. Scramble them until they're half-solid, then mix everything and stir it for a while.
Season with 'Asia mixed spices' or whatever is available.
If your timing is right, the noodles are done about now - add them, too.
Now just let the whole thing fry for a while and stir it every now and then.
When it's almost done, add a generous amount of soy sauce, stir everything well and let it sit for another minute or so.

Serve while playing a Shonen Knife CD. It's not a Japanese dish, but the sound of most other Asian bands is likely to ruin your appetite.

"*sigh* Some men are really hard to manipulate!" - Orchid