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The Barbecookbook II

04:37 / 21.06.02

I just got my wisdom teeth out, and even though it's only been about a day, I already dearly miss solid foods. Since I get the impression that many of us on the board are pretty broke at the moment, I have come crawling with growling stomach, to plead for another recipe swap. My fiance and I have been living off a regular weekly rotation of burritos, spaghetti, and shepherd's pie. I'll take anything. Sorry about the desperation, it's partly the drugs talking, I think...

05:44 / 21.06.02

Virtually everything I'm learning to cook comes from here.

My latest experiment, however, is just a basic veggie stir fry, with or without tofu, with peanut sauce added after two or three minutes.

Blend 3 Tbs. of peanut butter (crunchy is recommended, but I've been using smooth fresh-ground peanut butter from the whole foods store) with 3 cups of water, then add a Tbs. of soy sauce and 1 tsp. sugar. I've also discovered that throwing mostly-cooked spaghetti into the stir fry near the end (when the bean sprouts and cabbage go in) actually works pretty well.

The Apple-Picker

13:46 / 21.06.02

Cooking Light has some pretty great recipes.

But if you just got your wisdom teeth out, aren't you supposed to be eating only extremely soft and mushy *cold* or room temperature things? Something that I practically lived on when I had my wisdom teeth removed was banana milkshake. Just a banana, milk, and wonderful wonderful vanilla ice cream, of course. Jell-O.

Oooh. This is not something for the recently toothless, but this is a *very tasty* salad:

2 cups (2-inch) cut green beans
2 cups chopped tomatoes
1 (15 ounce) can no-salt-added chickpeas (garbanzo beans), rinsed and drained
1 (4 ounce) package crumbled feta cheese
Zesty Lemon Vinaigrette
1 (1 1/4 pound) eggplant (I think you crazy British-type people call them aubergines), cut into 12 (1/4-inch-thick) slices
Cooking Spray
6 (1/4-inch-thick) slices zucchini
6 red bell pepper rings
2 cups thinly sliced fennel bulb (about 1 large)
4 cups gourmet salad greens
2 cups plain croutons

1. Steam green beans, covered, 3 minutes or until tender. Rinse under cold water; drain well. Combine beans, tomatoes, chicpeas, feta cheese, and 1/4 cup Zesty Lemon Vinaigrette.
2. Arrange eggplant slices in a single layer on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Brush eggplant with Zesty Lemon Vinaigrette. Broil 12 minutes or until lightly browned [much sooner than 12 minutes in my oven]. Remove from baking sheet. Let cool.
3. Arrange 2 eggplant slices, 1 zucchini slice, 1 each red and green pepper ring, and about 1/3 cup fennel slices among 6 plates. Top each with 2/3 cup bean mixture, 2/3 cup greens, and 1/3 cup croutons. Drizzle with remaining vinaigrette.
Yield: 6 servings.

Zesty Lemon Vinaigrette
1/2 cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons flatleaf parsley (fresh)
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon chopped fresh or 1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds, crushed
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
2 garlic cloves, minced

Dump it all in a jar and shake shake shake.

(This is a Cooking Light recipe).

14:30 / 21.06.02

I'd suggest learning how to cook various kinds of Asian foods, as rice, tofu & curry are about as solid as you can probably get right now. Here's a bunch of recipie threads from the Giant Robot board:

Ghetto Japanese Recipies
Sushi For Dummies
Vegan Recipies thread
Regular Recipies thread
People Who Can't Cook

There's plenty more there if you feel like looking for it. Hope you get well soon, sister.

14:34 / 21.06.02

I lived on smoothies when I had my wisdom teeth out.I recommend using 2-3 bananas, some pineapple, and any other fruit you want. I add soy milk (and/or rice milk), some juice, flax seed oil, spirulina, and fresh mint leaves. Blend to mush (whatever consistency you like...), chill, and enjoy! (Although just chilling the bananas beforehand is easier)

I also really highly recommend investing in a whole lot of canned coconut milk, 'cause you can make quick, easy, and tasty curries with it. (Good luck finding a brand that doesn't have sodium meta bisulphite in it, though. Does anyone here even know what that is? I tried searching food additive databases, but didn't come up with anything...)I'm also really big on plantains right now, and eat them in just about everything (including burritos, which I also eat pretty regularly): They're cheap and nutritious, and, when fried in olive oil, they taste like GOD.

I'm pretty poor as well, and I've found that Ital (Rasta) recipes are really good and the ingredients are cheap and readily available at any West Indian grocery store. I forget how to do links, but here's the URL of a great recipe archive:

http://www.earthcultureroots.com/recipes.html

It should be noted that, for many Rasta folk, adding salt to one's food is prohibited, so salt is omitted almost entirely from these recipes.

15:22 / 21.06.02

Oh, and gazpacho is summery mush, and ridiculously easy to make:

Peel and de-seed 1 and 1/2 lbs of ripe tomatoes (about 4 large tomatoes)

Peel and chop an approx. 9cm. chunk of cucumber.

Chop up one green or red pepper.

Chop up 2-4 cloves of garlic.

Toss it all in a bowl, with 2 and 1/2 Tbsp of white wine vinegar and 5 Tbsp. of olive oil (I add flax oil, too).

Blend! Blend as you've never blended before!

If it's not liquidy enough, add some water. Then add as much salt and pepper as you want. Cover and chill for as long as you can: The colder it is, the better...

16:54 / 21.06.02

Rice steamer or pot for boiling rice. Cover rice with just enough water to cover first joint of index finger when fingertip rests on top of rice in pot. OK. Rinse rice first if you feel like it.

Throw in handful (approx 1tsp) whole fennel seed. Add a couple squirts (2Tbsp) olive or other oil. Put water on to boil.

Oh, and Grant Kitchen Wisdom:
frozen bananas are the smoothie maker's friend. Peel 'em, break 'em up, and put 'em in tupperware. Then freeze the bejeezus out of 'em. Mmm.
When water has boiled away (approx 20-40 minutes), rice is done. Add a few handfuls (I dunno, 2 cups?) frozen peas onto hot rice. Cover pot. When peas are bright green and thawed, garnish with liberal splashes of sushi vinegar (rice wine vinegar will do) and light soy sauce (the green bottle kind).

Eat with anything.

There is also a salad dressing that goes very well with this.
bit of soy sauce
bit of rice vinegar (equal parts)
jigger of light oil
jigger of oil off the top of natural peanut butter, if you got it
chopped bunch of fresh basil
teensy bit wasabi

Is so good. So very good.

The Return Of Rothkoid

21:53 / 21.06.02

I think I still have a whole chunk of the old barbecookbook entries hanging around my computer - I'll dig them out and add them on the weekend... the initial thread died, didn't it?

23:12 / 21.06.02

Rothkoid- The initial thread left with the last incarnation of the board. I have it printed out as well.

Apple-Picker- I, tragically, am eating mush. Pudding, pudding, yogurt, applesauce, soup, cottage cheese. However, being a complete masochist, I'm still looking at tasty recipes that I can't have at the moment, because once I'm healed up I am going on such a meat binge!

Goodness Gracious Meme

15:45 / 23.06.02

poor you, I sympathise. and join the 'skint' posse...

and, assuming that you probably want quick, really easy and mushy food for now... my friend's almost-instant-cheat's-carbonara:

bung pasta on to cook.

meanwhile heat olive oil, salt, pepper and lotsa garlic in a pan.

add and fry chopped (parma if you're moneyed) ham (quorn if you're me) until it softens.

add cream and white wine to taste and simmer for five minutes.

to serve:

pasta in bowls, spoon over ham/cream mixture and cover with grated cheese (mature cheddar is yum and tasty, parmesan is dear but delicieuse).

haven't tried it , but reckon adding walnuts/to the mix could be v.tasty.

stuff face.

16:39 / 23.06.02

When I'm not sure what I want to eat I often end up cooking my "anonymous pseudo-turkish casserole". This involves

- onions
- courgettes
- peppers
- aubergine
- anything else including meat if you feel like it
(all diced into fairly large chunks)
- lemon juice, from lemons
- olive oil
- fresh parsley, chopped
- mint
- oregano
- tinned tomatoes
- garlic, sliced or chopped
- chillies

You put the veg in a pan with a splash of olive oil and cover, cooking on about gas mark 2 for say fifteen minutes and stirring/shaking occasionally so they don't stick, until onions are softened. Then you add the garlic, chillies and herbs and stir around for another minute or two. Then you add the rest, and simmer it for as long as you like, at least half an hour but it can be until midnight. Eat with flatbread, couscous, pasta, anything.

Everything gets quite soft so if your teeth are fucked, it's perfectly manageable. The only thing is you should check occasionally whether it's boiling down or not, and add a bit of water or lemon juice or other liquid if it does, to stop it burning. Oh, a splash of booze doesn't hurt either, red wine or beer, added at the start.

If you live near turkish shops and can get red pepper paste, that's an excellent addition too. If you find it's not rich enough for you, you can add more olive oil, and some people might find a little salt improves it too.

Banana milkshakes should be made with bananas, full-fat milk, nutmeg, cinnamon, and brown sugar. You might even want to add a drop of vanilla essence as well. (Never bother buying vanilla pods, vanilla essence contains all the active taste ingredients and is considerably cheaper.) I've not tried cream in a milkshake but I can see it might work...

01:14 / 24.06.02

My yummo easy pasta recipe:

Cook up chunks of pasta (I like big spirals but whatever)

Chop an eggplant into chunks, like an inch size cubes or something. Cut a red pepper into strips. Chop up an onion and some garlic.

Fry up your onion and garlic, then add the eggplant and lots of oil (pref. olive but whatever, really). When the eggplant is cooked - like, nice and soft and brown-ish - add the capsicum. When it and the pasta's cooked, you're ready - mix it through, eat, yum. If you have fresh basil, rip it up and mix it in as well. Good stuff. Maybe not for wisdom teeth, but still good.

12:57 / 25.05.06

Every time I bake flapjacks I use a different recipe and lose it straight after. Does anyone have *the* flapjack recipe for perfect flapjacks? Preferably crunchy on the outside, chewy in the middle?

The one I'm using today is 150g oats, 100g butter, 2 tablespoons of golden syrup, and 2 tablespoons of demerara sugar.