Useless non-cook with some spare ingredients...!

kunekune

Oatbran - if you eat meat, this is really good as an alternative to breadcrumbs in home made meatballs
Lasagne sheets - could you make a vegetarian lasagne, adding some of the lentils to the savoury mixture? if the problem with lasagne is that you hate making white sauce, there are alternatives, such as cottage cheese, that work quite well
Red lentils - lots of things to do with these already mentioned
Butter beans - another nice thing is to serve them instead of ordinary mash. Heat up the butter beans in water in a pan, drain them, add a dollop of plain yoghurt and some grainy mustard, and mash with a potato masher.
Millet grain - you can use this like rice to make risotto.
Quinoa - ditto though I suspect SL is correct about its best use!
Roast pine nuts - cook broccoli lightly, drain, and put aside. Melt a mixture of butter and olive oil in a frying pan, put in the pine nuts and broccoli and stir-fry them for a minute or so.
Sunflower seeds - makes a nice trail mix with other nuts/seeds/dried fruit. Or toss it with some oil and tamari and roast it for a few minutes while it catches the flavour, then use as a snack
Bouillon powder (vegan) - great stock, you can use this every day
...and icing sugar: mix with cinnamon, toast some bread on one side, turn over and butter generously ,then put the cinnamon sugar on top and toast until bubbly (actually I don't know if this will work with icing sugar but it's worth a try!).

bluemoon_3

Red lentils are incredibly versatile and a good 'bulker' - soup is the first thing that everyone thinks of, but you can also make a great pasta sauce. There is a recipe in the book 'Vegan Planet' that I make regularly and someone has posted it on this website. Scroll down until you find 'Fettucine with red lentil sauce' - but obviously you can substitute any pasta you fancy. I usually use tagliatelle.

As for pine nuts - pesto! The basic pesto is pine nuts, basil, parmesan and olive oil, but there are a LOT of variations (the Rose Elliot book 'Vegetarian Pasta' has some lovely recipes). It's a snap to make.

Butter beans are also called lima beans - it gives you another name to use when googling.

KiKi

Gosh - thank you everyone!

Stephen - I did indeed know it's pronounced keenwah. I've seen Gillian McKeith...!

Kunekune - there is no problem with me 'hating' making white sauce...the problem would be that I have no idea in the slightest how to make white sauce, and if I did make it, it would end up resembling something not too far from the custard family.

I couldn't even tell you how to make the most simplest of foods, this is my problem!

But thank you all - I shall try your ideas out.

KiKi

noonesperfect

KiKi wrote: »

Gosh - thank you everyone!

Stephen - I did indeed know it's pronounced keenwah. I've seen Gillian McKeith...!

Kunekune - there is no problem with me 'hating' making white sauce...the problem would be that I have no idea in the slightest how to make white sauce, and if I did make it, it would end up resembling something not too far from the custard family.

I couldn't even tell you how to make the most simplest of foods, this is my problem!

But thank you all - I shall try your ideas out.

KiKi

Hi Kiki don't put yourself down!

You know that cooking by numbers site I told you about earlier? Go back to it. Once you've clicked on the tomatoes, to the left of the screen you will see "skills by numbers". Might that help?

I know it isn't OS,but you can always cheat by buying a jar of white Dolmiio sauce (if it's on offer of course ). Making a smooth white sauce isn't the easiest (I had cookery training some 30 years ago and I still panic about lumps!!)

If you're keen to learn maybe there's a short local night-school course you could join.

Stephen_Leak

If we are honest, we all started at the "burning corn flakes" stage, and are still quite capable of doing so, given the right (or wrong?) circumstances.

(Dr.) Gillian McKeith: They say to never trust a skinny chef, and I've seen more meat on Lester Piggott's whip!

White sauce: It is one of those few things, where the hassle of making it from scratch outweighs all other considerations. Ready-made may not be OS, but, if it is on offer, it still in line with MSE principles.

Yes, don't knock yourself. Try this recipe: it must be the simplest one imaginable, that still actually involves some cooking - spaghetti al forno (it sounds posh, but it means spaghetti and cheese. Unsurprisingly, the ingredients are just dried spaghetti and cheese. For the spaghetti, use 100g (if you are skint or on a diet) or 125g (if you are flush or feeling piggy) per person. For absolute authenticity and to impress, I suppose you ought to use parmesan or peccorino cheese, but any old "mousetrap" will do the business.

Boil some water in a big saucepan (for pasta or rice, too much water is good, too little water is bad). When the water is boiling, turn down the heat to halfway around the cooker knob and add the spaghetti and a drop of olive oil (it stops the pasta sticking). Cook for about 5 minutes (it will give the exact time on the packet).

The only thing you can do wrong here is overcook the spaghetti and turn it into stringy wallpaper paste. Spaghetti cooks very quickly, so you cannot wander off and leave it - as the Italians say, "Pasta likes company". Just keep fishing bits out and seeing if they are OK. Even if you serve it up undercooked to someone else's taste, just inform them that some Italians actually like their pasta "forte" which, in this context, translates as tough!

Cooked pasta cools down very quickly so grate the cheese while the spaghetti is boiling. Now, I fully appreciate that, in the wrong hands, even a cheese grater can be a deadly weapon. If there is a chance that a trip to the local A&E department might be required, it might be a good idea to grate the cheese before you put the water on to boil. Any bits of fingernail or even finger can be regarded as extra protein, but they do make the dish unsuitable for vegetarians.

When you reckon that the spaghetti is at the right consistency, drain it though a sieve or colander. Put it straight back into the warm pan, sprinkle the grated cheese over it and then gently toss it all together until the cheese has melted onto the spaghetti. Serve immediately.

Then sit back and consider that, whilst this dish may be simplicity itself (dare i say foolproof?) and only costs pennies, it is also healthy, nutritious, and truly Italian. And you did all this yourself, so therefore you can no longer be the world's most useless cook.

KiKi

Stephen - I can do pasta and cheese. It was my staple diet - along with tomato ketchup - for three years. Now I live on Quorn sausages and veggies (throw 'em in a steamer), and the odd half can of tuna. Oh, and jacket potatoes I can do. With beans and all. Go me.

But you're right - no finger should be grated, as I am indeed vegetarian. Not only that, if it were my finger it would also make me a masochistic cannibal.

However, back to my cooking: you're looking at a girl who put frozen corn on a baking tray and separated them all out to put them under the grill (I'd seen my mother do a similar thing with sausage rolls).

I also made rice crispy / chocolate cake things. Most people would put them in the fridge to make them hard and edible. I put them in the oven and ended up with flapjack.



But I will use up the ingredients as per your suggestions as I do want to use up the ingredients...I hate throwing things away and I like to try new stuff when I have the time!