Cooking with femi94ce

[femi94ce]

Hey y'all,

A couple of guys in the chatroom asked me to share this, since supper at my house is usually prepared from fresh ingredients, fast, easy and tastes great. I know a lot of y'all are single guys, and would probably never feed yourselves this well, but you can always use a few of these recipes to impress your girlfriends. They're dead easy and you will end up looking like Bobby Flay.

Here's the deal - I hate anything that has to go in the oven if it's not warming over. Roasting, broiling, all that stuff - way too much fuss and mess.

I cook stovetop, toaster oven, slow-cooker or crock pot, sandwich grill and microwave.

If you have recipes any to share, post them here.

Enjoy!

FF

[femi94ce]

This is great for when the grocer puts those small shrimps on sale. I know you might think shrimp is expensive, but when it's on sale it's often cheaper than chicken. I stock up and freeze. It's good for about 2 months.

The ticket to wine cooking is real easy : cheap white wine from a box. The days are gone where that stuff is poison. Buying 5 liters of a half decent brand in a box and keeping it in the fridge makes fun cooking - one for the pot and one for me.

This recipe you can substitute or add chicken or andouille sausage. If you're ambitious in the chopping department, you can also add diced green red and or yellow bell peppers.

Time to prepare : 20 mins.


Y'all will need -

wide shallow frying pan
1 pound of shrimp - peeled, deveined, heads off (feeds 2 hungry, 3 not so hungry)
dried onion flakes
granulated garlic powder
ground cayenne pepper or red pepper
butter
1 cup of dry - medium wine (red or white works equally well, different outcome but both taste great)
salt

1) On medium heat, pour 1/2 cup of water into the pan and a spoonful of butter. Can't overdo the butter so don't worry.

2) Sprinkle the onion flakes over the water so they evenly cover the surface.

3) Lightly dust the granulated garlic over the water so it evenly covers the surface.

4) Even more lightly, tap a few sprinkles of the cayenne pepper. More if you like heat.

Allow the water to boil almost completely off the onions. Don't let it get dry, you just want to soften and partially cook the onion flakes.

When the onions look like bubbling mush, dump 1 cup of white wine on them and sprinkle a pinch or 2 of salt.

Put the shrimps (and/or other added ingredients) in 1 layer on the pan and give them a couple of turns as they get pink. Let the wine boil down about 1/2 way. about 5 - 7 minutes.

Serve over brown or white rice, or pasta, or grits (see next recipe).

Enjoy!

FF

[femi94ce]

Hey y'all,

Here's the deal about grits, rice and pasta: big sticky mess to clean up every time. I hate the mess, so the fewer times I have to clean up the better. I raised a kid by myself, I know a thing or two about sticky messes.

The secret to fast and easy rice and pasta:

COOK ONCE - FREEZE MANY

I do a big ol' pot of each of them. When the water's boiling, it's just as easy to cook a pound of pasta as a handful. Same with rice. Use the instructions on the package. For extra zest, creat a "boil" by adding dry ingredients to your boil water (see grits below).

I use sandwich-sized plastic bags and freeze what I don't use in 2-person size servings. This way there's enough for 2 if I have company, and enough for me by myself if I'm really hungry. When I need to reheat I'll pull a bag and dunk the contents in boiling water (washes off a lot of the starch), or I'll reheat in the microwave.

GRITS:

For those of you not from below the Bubba Belt, grits might seem foreign and tricky. But they're a great low-fat, hi fibre substitute for potatoes and they are as easy to make as instant potatoes. You can refrigerate leftovers and fry them up later with onions and garlic, just like leftover mashed potatoes. I don't like my grits too runny for this reason. Southerners would call this sacrilege, but I call it "European" .

INSTANT "CAJUN BOIL" GRITS for 2 hungry 3-4 not so hungry

Time to prepare: 10 mins

y'all will need:

2 quart pot
2 cups water
1/2 cup INSTANT yellow or white grits (I use organic, but it doesn't matter)
Dried onion flakes
Granulated garlic
2 chicken bouillon cubes OR 2 tsp chicken bouillon powder (Bovril, OXO, Knorr or whatever)
ground cayenne or red pepper

On high heat, put water in the pot, dump in bouillon, and sprinkle onion flakes enough to cover the surface. Dust surface with garlic and cayenne pepper. In the south, we call this dry seasoning combination a "boil" - a bunch of seasonings added to the boiling water to impart flavor to the thing that's being boiled.

When water is boiling, start to sprinkle the grits lightly over the surface just like the other ingredients. Continue to sprinkle until they're all added. If you do this you will have perfect, non-lumpy grits every time. Let me just say - NOTHING is grosser than lumpy grits - so a little patience here is a good thing.

Reduce heat immedaitely to low and cover with lid. Simmer for 5 - 7 minutes.

Serve RICE, PASTA or GRITS with CAJUN SHRIMP IN WINE REDUCTION

Enjoy!

FF

[femi94ce]

The Shrimp in Wine Reduction appears to be hung up with the moderators - I hope it will get released because I don't want to type it again.

FF

[flysei]

Hey Femi,

Are you trying to "SELL" the recipe?

[femi94ce]

This one cooks up in a crock pot. You can dump all ingredients in the pot before bed or before work and 6 - 8 hours later it's done. I LOVE my crock pot. They're not super-duper expensive, but if you're strapped, there's always someone getting 2 as wedding gifts trying to unload one on craigslist.

Prep time: 10 minutes

Y'all will need:

2 16oz cans UNSEASONED diced tomatoes (forget the stuff with italian seasoning we're going to do our own)
1 or 2 6oz cans baby clams
1 large onion chopped or 1/4 cup of onion flakes
3 big garlic cloves, crushed or 2 tsp granulated garlic powder
1 pound of white fish (frozen or fresh - I use haddock but y'all can use anything white like cod or halibut or even catfish)
1 tsp or more ground black pepper
2 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp ground oregano
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 cup of parmesan cheese
salt to taste

Dump all the ingredients in the crock pot except the fish. Cut the fish into large chunks and put it in last. It will break into smaller pieces as it cooks down and you don't want it too fine.

Put the crock pot on low to cook in 6-8 hours, high to cook in 4 hours.

Wake up or come home to a great stew.

Serve as a soup sprinkled with parmesan cheese and (garlic!) toast, or if you want to add extra heartiness and convenience, add a bag of your thawed frozen pasta to the mix.

Enjoy!

FF

[femi94ce]

OK y'all are not going to believe how good this is and I do it in the broiler tray in my toaster oven. Cleanup is practically zero. I do this one maybe 3 nights a week it's so easy.

Farm raised salmon isn't very expensive, but I don't like to use it because it's really fatty and the color is artificial. I don't know what they feed those fish that they have to inject pink dye into them to get them a normal color, and they get so fat. It's up to you what you want to use. I use wild caught pacific or atlantic in season. On sale, wild caught is comparable price to a steak, so that gives you some idea.

About dill weed: it's a weed. It's cheap as dirt if you can get it at a roadside stand or farmer's market but gets pricey at the supermarket. It's even cheaper if you grow your own. It's a weed. Needs virtually no care. It will sprout just about anywhere you plant it. Before it dies back, I load a bunch into freezer bags and it will carry almost all the way through the winter.

If you can't use fresh or frozen, don't use the dehydrated stuff, just leave it out.

Time to prepare: 5 minutes

Y'all will need

1 pound fresh salmon (feeds 2 hungry, 3 not so hungry)
coarse salt
coarse grind black pepper
butter
fesh or frozen dill weed
capers
white wine
aluminum foil

Cut the salmon into 2 or 3 pieces equal size.

Line your toaster oven broiler tray with 1 sheet aluminum foil large enough to come up the sides and have the ends meet in a "tent" enclosing the salmon.

Place the salmon in the foil lined tray. Put a generous gob of butter on each piece. Sprinkle with coarse salt and coarse ground black pepper (fresh grind is best), and a few sprigs of dill weed. Pour wine in bottom of tray, about 1/2 cup.

Close up the foil around the salmon, fold over edges to keep moisture locked in. The wine will poach the salmon inside the pouch.

Bake in toaster oven at 325 degrees for about 25 minutes or until all the alcohol is evaporated from the wine.

When serving, pour the juices onto the plate around the fish, and sprinkle with a few capers.

Serve with RICE done in CAJUN BOIL.

Enjoy!
FF

[NickB]

seafood obsession?

[femi94ce]

I live with 2 people who won't eat carcase meat.

Fish, shellfish and poultry OK. 4-legged, not so much. I'm outnumbered, and I got tired years ago of cooking for people who left half of it on the plate.

If y'all have any good, easy meat dishes, post away!

Cheers
FF

[Fetor]

Originally Posted by femi94ce

If y'all have any good, easy meat dishes, post away!

Go to store. Buy meat pie hot pocket. Put in microwave. Heat. Cool. Eat. 4 mins.