Cooking for one

gonebust

PN, not sure if you use a frying pan but how about this for using up spuds, and making something to stick your burgers between?

POTATO BREAD

easy peasey, boil and mash a pot of spuds. Add flour till you get a good firm dough. Roll out, cut into shapes and shallow fry in butter.

Served fresh from the pan, heaven. Chill and warm under a grill with a spread of butter, to die for. On their own, with eggs, bacon or black pudding. Pure loveliness


Saves buying bread

caronc

gonebust wrote: »

PN, not sure if you use a frying pan but how about this for using up spuds, and making something to stick your burgers between?

POTATO BREAD

easy peasey, boil and mash a pot of spuds. Add flour till you get a good firm dough. Roll out, cut into shapes and shallow fry in butter.

Served fresh from the pan, heaven. Chill and warm under a grill with a spread of butter, to die for. On their own, with eggs, bacon or black pudding. Pure loveliness


Saves buying bread

Yum "tattie scones" - work well with frozen mash too:D

[Deleted User]

Re the cooking for one, I eat different meals to my Mum, and so you could say that this household is more often than not a cooking for one at different times of the day lol.

Mum has no problem making up a little roast for herself some nights- she makes a few roast potatoes, a little yorkshire (from scratch) and puts them into a foil baking dish inside of a oven proof metal dish, and it saves on the washing up (no dreaded scrubbing!) She usually has something like a lamb or pork chop, and whatever veg she fancies (usually cabbage, cauliflower or peas - frozen or tinned).
Other small meals I've seen her make include mini shepherd's pie and veg (she makes enough for three portions) mini cornbeef pie (pastry from scratch, again enough for three portions) and her latest is yellow haddock (easy enough to freeze) with baby new potatoes and veg.
she's also happy with a egg on toast - poached, scrambled, boiled, or fried, with beans or bacon, or on its own. She's very much traditional english.

I'm a little different as I mention. For me, I work evenings/nights so I have to make sure I eat somewhat properly.
I make lasagna from scratch, the only thing I use out of a jar is the red pasta sauce, I make my own cheese sauce, and portion it accordingly, then freeze when cool enough. I do the same with pasta bakes, when I make them.
I've also found that the lidl ready to wok noodles freeze INCREDIBLY well, so I make big stirfries, and portion and freeze those as well.
I eat tuna salad a lot in hotter weather (homemade without dressing or mayo) or wraps with chicken, a spoonful of mayo, and salad.
I have ready meals on standby in the freezer (in case I CBA to cook at any point) and keep both healthy and unhealthy snacks in the cupboard. I am a chocoholic, that is my one big weakness; along with bread and cheese. I take after my maternal grandmother in that I can just eat bread and butter without thinking, I just love it!

I have to want eggs to have eggs. Drives mum nuts. lol

edit: just seen the quiche posts. My mum taught me how to make a lovely quiche, she got the recipe from slimming world, just make an egg base for the quiche as normal and add grated cheese, ham, and onion. Cook in oven for 30-45 minutes (until golden brown on top). Serve with salad on the side.

[Deleted User]

PasturesNew wrote: »

I've got a full/proper oven with (gas!!) hob .... too petrified to go near them. They scare me just because they exist in the house at all a lot of days.

Gas hobs are best. Electric hobs I have never used and dont want to.

moneyistooshorttomention

Whereas I could have had either gas or electric hob in my new kitchen - and I've gone with electric (which is what I've been used to anyway).

I've only ever used gas hobs in friends kitchens - never had one myself. To me - that's just as well - as I tend to get a bit nervous about the idea of flames and I havent got any "fears" as Pastures has. I'm not nervous enough I'd swop a perfectly good gas hob if the kitchen had been okay when I bought this house and that's what it had. But - as I've had the choice - then electric it is.

I found I got an "extra" I hadnt been aware of on my new hob (compared to the freestanding cooker I had before). That being there is a red light for each hotplate I use on the hob that comes on when I switch them on. That light stays on afterwards until the thing has cooled down completely. I find that a useful safety thing and reminder. I have got worried when I found myself accidentally leaving a hotplate on after I'd finished using it. Cue for me asking myself every time "Did I use to do this? #worry worry I am over 60 now worry worry# ". Followed by thinking "I think I've always been slightly absentminded - and it aint incipient dementia:eek::eek::eek:".

With those red lights - no risk of me standing by the cooker and absent-mindedly putting my hand down on the hob when it hasnt cooled down yet. Also I can just glance back as I leave the room - to check if there's any lights on on the cooker or no and I've not forgotten to switch off since I had this one.

Pastures - would you find an electric hob "easier" to use?

Anne_Marie_2

With all this talk of quiche, am going to have a bash in the halogen today, will be cheese and onion, as well as make some gazpacho.

I've got a gas hob and an electric oven here. Although I had a gas cooker for years before, this hob has taken a bit of getting used to, as it's bottled gas, and gives off a fiercer heat than what I was used to. I use a diffuser thing these days when things need to simmer for a bit. Ideally, I'd like a dual fuel hob. Need to have gas, as we do get power cuts from time to time, but really fancy induction.

Needed air con on last night after all....breeze disappeared and couldn't sleep. No breakfast so far, only plenty of coffee, so will be brunch by the time I get round to eating.

PasturesNew

I liked the quiche so much yesterday I've just made another one... well, two.

I made it, twice the size of yesterday's. But I didn't have the right sized dishes, so ended up having to split the mix across two when I wasn't happy that the mix came right to the top of the dish so would have overflowed. I've popped one in the fridge to cook later - the other one's already baked in the oven, it pinged just 2-3 minutes ago, so I'm just waiting a bit before I take that out. They're something best "left to sit and mellow", so I'll eat that in a bit... it might not get as far as lunchtime as I am one of those people who has to eat food when it's tempting

This one's cheese, red onion, red pepper, oregano. The next one will be the same as it was all mixed up at the same time.

Quick photo - you can see where I've filled the dish, then had to scoop some out to split it between two, so it's made a bit of a mess.

https://s1.postimg.org/i8vxkmtdb/Quick_Quiche.jpg

8ocaxr41c

Hollyharvey

PasturesNew wrote: »

I liked the quiche so much yesterday I've just made another one... well, two.

I made it, twice the size of yesterday's. But I didn't have the right sized dishes, so ended up having to split the mix across two when I wasn't happy that the mix came right to the top of the dish so would have overflowed. I've popped one in the fridge to cook later - the other one's already baked in the oven, it pinged just 2-3 minutes ago, so I'm just waiting a bit before I take that out. They're something best "left to sit and mellow", so I'll eat that in a bit... it might not get as far as lunchtime as I am one of those people who has to eat food when it's tempting

This one's cheese, red onion, red pepper, oregano. The next one will be the same as it was all mixed up at the same time.

Quick photo - you can see where I've filled the dish, then had to scoop some out to split it between two, so it's made a bit of a mess.

https://s1.postimg.org/i8vxkmtdb/Quick_Quiche.jpg

8ocaxr41c

Ok, I have serious food envy now That looks lovely, and it has everything in that I really like. I may have to make one tomorrow. It won't be today now because I have got some lamb out of the freezer for dinner today.

Hollyharvey

I can't use a gas cooker at all. I have a fear of the flames. I think it stems from when we had 'town gas' held in those massive storage tanks. I used to walk past one on the outskirts of the town where I lived and the smell of gas was terrible. I was always scared it would explode.


Then when we changed over to north sea gas from town gas a fitter had to come and adapt all gas cookers to be able to use the north sea gas and I always thought that I could smell it.


When I go to friends/family who use gas I can't smell anything anymore but I wouldn't cook on it. I am scared of catching a tea towel or clothing on the flame.


I have all electric cooking and an induction hob which is great because you get the instant control that you get with a gas hob but there is no hot rings/plates so I feel really safe with it.

PasturesNew

Nearly 40 years ago I went to an 18th birthday party and the girl's mum made a load of quiches. Two in particular were really scrummy and I asked for the recipes - and got them. I made quite a number of those and ate the lot (mum/dad/sibling were never interested in eating food I made).

I have, over the years, lost those recipes, which is a shame, but they were straight forward (e.g. not involving cream, which we never had at home and I've never bought) and, being 1970s recipes, didn't have any odd ingredients in at all. I know we only had "basic food" in our cupboards and I made these with what we had, I never had to buy in anything special.

All I remember is that one was a sweetcorn quiche and the other was tinned tomatoes and chopped onions. I've got some sweetcorn in the freezer, which, of course, needs using up, so I might give sweetcorn a bash next week.

As a food to make, especially with pastry, quiche is something that takes longer to cook than I'd like, which is why I've tended in recent years to just buy one randomly.