Archive for the ‘#1 Go-To Recipes’ Category
Creamy Hamburger Vegetable Soup (Slow Cooker)
This is absolutely delicious delicious soup. Link to the Shortcut is listed in the Recipe Notes section.
Ingredients
- 750 grams ground beef, (1 1/2 lb)
- 2 1/2 cups frozen mixed vegetables
- 2 1/2 cups potatoes, diced
- 4 cups chicken broth, fresh or from powder, (Shortcut)
- 1 can evaporated milk
- 2 cups Cheddar cheese, shredded
- 2 teaspoons garlic powder
- salt and pepper, as desired, to taste
- 2 tablespoons corn starch
- 1/4 cup cold water
Instructions
- Brown the ground beef in a large non stick pan, drain off excess fat then add to the slow cooker. Add the mixed vegetables, potatoes, and broth to the slow cooker, give it a quick stir then cover and set to Low for 5 hours or High for 2 1/2 hours.
- Stir the soup, turn the setting to High, and slowly stir in the evaporated milk, garlic powder, salt and pepper as desired, then the cheese. Place lid back on the slow cooker.
- Mix together the corn starch and the cold water until no lumps remain to make a slurry. When the cheese has melted in the soup, stir in the slurry, cover the slow cooker and keep on the High setting. Cook for another 20-30 minutes to thicken the soup a little.
- Taste and adjust salt and pepper to your liking.
- Ladle into bowls and serve. A salad or rolls on the side would make a perfect meal.
Notes
I will price this when I order beef again. For now this probably low cost per serving based on 6 servings.
Shortcut: Chicken Broth (Pressure Cooker).
Variant: 1. Use bean broth in place of chicken stock if you are making beans (Great Northern, Pinto, and Chickpeas make great broth) a few days before making this.
Provided by Slow Cooker Kitchen and theĀ link to this recipe is here.
United States.
United States.
Sauteed King Oyster Mushrooms
This is a simple and easy recipe, 4 ingredients, and this is for smaller King Oyster mushrooms, as they are more tender than the larger ones. King Oyster mushrooms have more of a texture than other mushrooms. No servings or quantities or times are given as this is a make with what you have or want to serve as a side dish. Link to the Shortcut is listed in the Recipe Notes section.
Ingredients
- King Oyster mushrooms, smaller would be better for this
- cooking oil, your choice, I use Ghee, (Shortcut)
- salt and pepper, as desired
Instructions
- Cut of the root end of the mushrooms if not done when purchased and give them a quick rinse. This amount here makes 2 servings. These are the prefect size for this dish.
- Slice each mushroom lengthwise, about 1/4 inch thick.
- The smaller ones on the left simple cut in half lengthwise, the ones on the right were cut into 3 slices.
- Heat about 2 tablespoons of oil of your choice, ghee is highly recommended, in a non stick pan on medium heat. When hot add the mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper as desired.
- Turn the mushrooms after allowing them to cook for a few minutes. The mushrooms will release a little water as well, and the key to nice and tender and juicy mushrooms is to keep oil in the pan, don't let the mushrooms dry out.
- Turn often, and add a bit of oil as they cook down, edges are starting to brown. Season with additional black pepper if desired.
- Perfect mushrooms.
- Serve as a side dish with any meal.
Notes
Low cost per serving.
Shortcut: Homemade Ghee (Slow Cooker).
Variant: 1.Ā Add a few sliced red Bird's Eye chilies with the mushrooms.
Common way to prepare King Oyster mushrooms. No secrets to this.
Slow Cooker Cabbage & Mushrooms
This recipe comes from a good friend and it is delicious. I made this on 13 Dec 2018, absolutely tasty and an excellent way to prepare cabbage.
Equipment
- Slow Cooker
Ingredients
- 1 head green cabbage, medium, cored, shredded
- 1Ā½ cups carrot, shredded
- 500 grams fresh mushrooms, sliced in half, (1 lb)
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 2 cups chicken broth, fresh or from powder, Shortcut
- Ā¼ cup spicy mustard
- salt and pepper, to taste, as desired
Instructions
- Grease the inside of your slow cooker crock with the butter and just leave the excess in the bottom of the crock. Pour in the broth and add the mustard, whisk to combine.
- Add the cabbage, mushrooms, and carrot to the slow cooker.
- Mix everything together, season with a pinch of black pepper. Cover the slow cooker and set to Low setting and let cook for at least 6 hours, and up to 10 hours. Using the High setting is not recommended or the cabbage will be crunchy.
- After I mixed and had the cooker on Low, I realized I had some White Crab mushrooms, so I chopped those and added them.
- Mix those in, and now I have this cooking, can never have enough mushrooms.
- When ready to serve, taste and season with salt and pepper as desired.
- Use a slotted spoon to remove from the slow cooker, serve as a side dish any meal.
Notes
Shortcut: Quick Chicken Broth (Pressure Cooker).
Variant: 1. Use pork broth or stock in place of chicken broth.
Soup Fixings in a Bag
This is a Thai thing and throughout Asia, and I am assuming a product like this is available in the US. Many village markets will have the 'fixings' in a bag, you add meat to make broth, add the contents of the bag, and you have a nice soup. Instead of buying the fixings separately, some vendors buy all the various ingredients, assemble the bags, and everything is used. They make stir fry bags the same way. And the beauty of these bags is the price, just 15 Baht (46 cents) or 25 Baht (78 cents) with the egg tofu tube.
Ingredients
- 1 bag soup fixings
- meat, of choice, pork, chicken, and fish is commonly used
- broth
- 1 tube egg tofu, optional (it may or may not be in the bag)
- salt, as desired, to taste
Instructions
The Soup Fixings
- This is a typical bag of soup fixings. This contains bok choi, carrot, pumpkin, mushrooms (Enoki, Oyster, or Ear Wood), bottle gourd, and winter melon. The ingredients vary by who is putting this together, many folks have their own types of flavors they add which makes soup bags different from village to village, or stall to stall in a market. Many of the bags will also contain a tube of egg tofu, which will increase the price of the bag by 10 Baht.
- Remove the tube of egg tofu from the soup fixings bag, and add the soup fixings to a colander and give that a quick rinse. To use the egg tofu, slice off one end of the tube and pinch the other end and the tofu will slide right out. Slice the tofu into about 1/2 inch slices, set that aside.
Using Chicken, Pork, or even Sausage
- For chicken, cut several breasts into cubes or even boneless thighs. For pork ribs, cut the ribs between each bone, for pork shoulder, just cut into cubes. Pork loin may be a bit to lean for a soup. For sausage, just slice into 1/2 - 3/4 inch pieces. Amount is up to you, 250-500 grams (1/2 - 1 lb) is a good choice.
- Add the meat to a pot and add 1 quart of water and more if needed to cover the meat by an inch or so. Bring the pot to a boil and hold that for about 2-3 minutes.
- When the water is boiling in the pot, there, you are making the soup broth, see, very easy, then add the rinsed soup fixings but not the tofu. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook until the carrot is tender and meat of your choice is cooked through.
Using Fish, Shrimp, and or Imitation Crab
- You can use any boneless skinless whitefish of your choice, cut into bite size pieces. For shrimp, peel, devein, and remove the tails. For imitation crab, just remove the packaging wrappers and cut into 1 inch pieces.
- Heat about a quart of water to a boil with two broth cubes, either vegetable or mushroom cubes work well.
- Once the water is at a boil, add the rinsed soup fixings, reduce to a simmer until the carrot is just tender, then add the fish, shrimp, and or imitation crab. Simmer until the fish flakes easily, just a few minutes. This can be served as a main dish as is, with rice on the side, or as a side dish.
Broth or Stock without Meat
- Simply add about a quart of broth or stock, chicken, pork, vegetable, mushroom, or even bean broth to a pot and bring to a boil.
- Once the water is at a boil, add the rinsed soup fixings, reduce to a simmer until the carrot is just tender. This can be served as a main dish as is, with rice on the side, or as a side dish.
Notes
Low cost per serving.
Commonly used throughout Thailand and Asia.
Simple Fried Mackerel
Mackerel is an oily fish and is delicious without any sauces or special ingredients. This is the classic English way to prepare mackerel fillets with skin on. Three ingredients and about 2-3 minutes of cooking time is all that is needed. Overcooking mackerel will result in dry fish, so we do not want to do that.
Ingredients
- 2 mackerel fillets, skin on, pin bones removed
- salt, as desired
- olive oil, as needed
Instructions
- Here is my mackerel, these come frozen, two fillets to a pack, no bones are removed. First thing I did after this photo was remove the rib bones.
- Check the fillets and see if the pin bones have been removed, run a finger down the center line of each fillet, you will feel pin bones sticking up. Remove with needle nose pliers or just make an angled cut the length of the fillet, without going through the skin, on each side of the row of bones, then simply remove the strip of bones. Pat the fillets dry with paper towels. To make it easier to handle the fillets, cut each fillet in half crosswise, giving you 4 pieces, if desired.
- Heat 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil, I used ghee, in a non stick pan. When the oil is hot, season the flesh side of the fillets with salt as desired. Place the fillets in the pan skin side down, if the fillets are curling upwards, just use your fingers and hold them down flat for a few seconds to make sure the skin maintains contact with the pan (this ensures nice and tasty skin). Cook for 1-2 minutes depending on the thickness.
- Once the skin is crispy and golden brown, turn the fillets over and remove the pan from heat, let cook for 30 seconds to 1 minute.
- Serve skin side up immediately. Enjoy with sides of your choice.
Notes
I have frozen mackerel fillets in the freezer, don't know what I paid for them, not too much, but I will verify this when I go to Tesco in town again. For now I will say Low cost per serving.
Colcannon
This is a traditional Irish dish of mashed potatoes and boiled cabbage. This is a delicious side dish, my wife and I loved this, the spring onion really adds to this.
Ingredients
- 4 large potatoes, peeled and cubed
- 4 cups green cabbage, shredded
- 4 tablespoons butter
- Ā½ cup spring onion, sliced, white and green parts
- ā cup milk, warmed
- black pepper, as desired, to taste
- fresh parsley, chopped, for garnish
Instructions
- I just used 1 head of cabbage, cut into quarters, cut out each core section, slice each quarter, done.
- Add the potatoes to a pot and cover with 1-2 inches of water, bring to a boil and cook until fork tender, about 15-20 minutes. In another pot, add the shredded cabbage, cover with water and bring to a boil, cook for 10 minutes or until tender. What I did was turn on heat to the potatoes, then after 10 minutes, turn on the heat on the cabbage, when the potatoes are fork tender, the cabbage will be done as well. Or you can pressure cook the potatoes, and there is a link to those instructions in the Recipe Notes.
- Drain the potatoes and mash, drain the cabbage. Warm the milk in a small saucepan.
- Heat a large non stick pan and melt the butter. When the butter is hot, add the cabbage and spring onion.
- Stir to mix and cook for 1 minute. You are warming this through, not really intending to cook the spring onion.
- Add the potatoes and mix, add just enough of the warmed milk to make a creamy texture. Season with black pepper as desired. I used half the milk first and mixed, then added the rest of the, perfect consistency.
- Garnish with the chopped parsley. Add a knob of butter (1-2 tablespoons) on top of the mash, ready to serve family style right from the pan.
- Enjoy!
Notes
Shortcut: Mashed Potatoes (Pressure Cooker).
This recipe was awarded aĀ Blue RibbonĀ on theĀ Just A Pinch Recipe Club.
Fish in Coconut Milk
This is a quick recipe with minimum ingredients. Nothing short of an excellent way to prepare white fish! I made this on 8 Dec 2018 and used two large Pangasius fillets, my wife and I really loved this, this will be a regular for sure now. Link to the Shortcut is listed in the Recipe Notes section.
Ingredients
- 2-3 whitefish fillets
- 1/2 cup fine bread crumbs, (Shortcut)
- 1/2 - 1 teaspoon paprika
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 1 1/2 cups coconut milk, or to cover
- fresh parsley, chopped, as desired
Instructions
- For the fish, good choices in Thailand would be Pangasius (Shark Catfish), Barramundi, and Tilapia. For those in the US / Canada, good choices can be Tilapia, catfish, whitefish, bass, drum, cod, grouper, snapper, redfish, etc.
- Rinse the fillets, don't dry them, and to make them easier to manage in a pan, cut each fillet in half crosswise to make 2 smaller fillets.
- Mix together the bread crumbs and paprika in a shallow bowl. Roll the fillets in the crumbs to coat them well. I used two large fillets, each cut in half to make 4 pieces, easier to manage.
- Heat the butter in a large non stick pan on medium heat. In a separate saucepan, heat the coconut milk to a near boil.
- When the butter is hot, brown the fillets on each side, work in batches if needed, then when all are browned, return all the fillets to the pan.
- By this time, the coconut milk should be at a near boil, or boiling, pour that evenly over the fish in the pan. The fish should be covered or near covered, let this simmer for 3-4 minutes, the fish should easily flake with a fork.
- Sprinkle with parsley as desired and serve.
Notes
Low cost per serving.
Shortcut: Bread Crumbs.
Recipe adapted from Just A Pinch Recipe Club, Martha Price, and the original recipe isĀ here.
United States.
United States.
Fried Golden Pomfret Steaks
I have seen these fish, Golden Pomfret, at Tesco in town a few times, did some recipe research and bought two of them yesterday and prepared them for dinner. This was a new type of fish I and my wife have not had before. The recipes I read were everything from simple to more seasonings than you could shake a stick at. I kept it simple. You will learn some fish anatomy with this guide as well. This is an excellent tasting fish but on the costlier side per serving. Link to the Shortcut is listed in the Recipe Notes section.
Ingredients
- 2 whole Golden Pomfret
- lemon pepper, as desired
- tempura flour, as needed
- lard, or cooking oil, for frying, Shortcut
Instructions
- From the store, these were frozen and on display. Two Golden Pomfret, these are ocean fish. First thing we need to do is clean them, and this is easy as they have tiny scales. You can do this in the kitchen sink under running water without making a mess. Rinse the fish off, then take a spoon and scrape from the tail to the head, the skin will be smooth where there is no scales, this takes just a minute or two per fish. After they are scaled, rinse them off one more time.
- Now we are going to cut each fish into steaks, fishmongers worth their weight in salt will know this as a troncon cut. A troncon cut is a fancy way of saying steak cut or steak fillet cut. First thing, cut off the dorsal fin, the long part of the fin on the back, then cut off the pointy fin on the bottom, the anal fin. Now cut just behind the pectoral fin, the fin on the side, right behind the head, cut straight through at a bit of angle, as shown. Continue to make cuts, about 3/4 inch wide and you should have 5 pieces of 'steaks'. Discard the head and tail. Now remove the innards from the first 2 or pieces, then cut the belly flap straight through. For the 2-3 pieces with the innards, remove the liver from the backbone, for this fish, this is actually easy and it comes out cleanly, discard that. I thought this photo was humorous.
- Here is what I have from 2 pomfret. This is destined more as a sampler to see what these fish taste like.
- To cook, all I did was sprinkle lemon pepper on all sides and rub that it.
- Next was to roll in tempura flour until fully coated.
- Heat lard or cooking oil, about Ā¼ to Ā½ inch in a large pan. When it is hot but not smoking, add some flour coated fish, work in batches. For the last 'steak', lay that on its side and cook that way. When the bottom is nicely browned, use tongs and turn each piece over.
- When the other sided is browned remove to paper towels to drain.
- Serve with sides of your choice. Three pieces with sides makes a nice meal for one person, if making these like for a fish fry, think about 1-2 fish per person.
Notes
Fair value per serving. Each fish is 65 Baht, $1.96, each fish weighs 300 to 400 grams (11 to 14 oz). For 3 servings, this is about $1.32 per serving, which is excellent for visiting family that may not be familiar with this type of fish. This will be a once in a while fish for us now.
Shortcut: Lard.
Basic Stir Fried Mushrooms
This is just a basic guide. I used two types of mushrooms which I had on hand and needed to use, and quick, but you can use any mushrooms, any amounts you want. The sauce is key for a good mushroom stir fry, no amounts given this is a taste as you go guide. If you have no mushroom sauce, worries, just use Soy and Oyster Sauces. Enjoy.
Ingredients
- 110 grams fresh white button mushrooms, (3 3/4 oz)
- 100 grams fresh Shimeji mushrooms, (3 1/2 oz)
- olive oil, as needed
- soy sauce, as needed
- oyster sauce, as needed
- mushroom sauce, as needed
Instructions
- Here is the mushrooms I used. Finally found a place that has local grown white button mushrooms. The other package is Shimeji mushrooms.
- The mushrooms are rinsed and excess water shaken off. The buttons were halved and the larger ones quartered. The Shimeji, the root end of the bunch cut off and discarded, and the bundle just cut in half and separated.
- Heat a non stick pan with a tablespoon of olive oil, when hot, add the mushrooms. Cook, stirring often until wilted and their water is released. Takes just a few minutes.
- Sauces used, left to right, Oyster Sauce, Mushroom Sauce, and Light Soy Sauce.
- When the mushrooms have cooked down, now you add the seasoning, the sauces. Just add a splash of each sauce, stir fry to mix, taste, and adjust the sauces as desired. Soy sauce being the salt aspect, Oyster sauce will be the important sauce to adjust. You basically cannot go wrong with this.
- Serve as side with any dish, in this case, fried Pomfret and white beans with bell peppers.
Notes
Low cost per serving.
I just winged this knowing what sauces to use. Lee Thayer.
Thailand.
Thailand.
Mashed Potato Cheese Puffs
This is an excellent, and tasty, use for leftover mashed potatoes, which I always have when I make them as very few in the family like them. The bonus is I always have the other ingredients in the fridge. I made this on 3 Dec 2018, delicious and well liked by the family.
Ingredients
- 2 cups leftover mashed potatoes
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon flour
- 1 tablespoon spring onion, chopped, or chives
- 1 cup Cheddar cheese, shredded, plus more as needed
- salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 180 C (350 F) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Add all the ingredients to a mixing bowl and mix to combine.
- Place mixture by heaping tablespoons on the parchment paper like you are making cookies.
- Bake for 30 minutes, then sprinkle more Cheddar cheese on each potato puff and bake about another 10 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the puffs are golden brown.
- Remove from oven, allow to cool for a few minutes, serve as a side with any main dish. Enjoy.
Notes
Low cost per serving.
Recipe adapted from Just A Pinch Recipe Club, Monika Rosales, and the original recipe isĀ here.
United States.
United States.