*munch*

[venta]

Quite often I find myself in the situation of only having around half an hour to cook and eat my tea when I get in from work. So, realistically, I want to be able to cook whatever-it-is in 15 minutes or under.

I'm not really a huge fan of microwave meals - they're usually insubstantial and/or tasteless. I have no objection to instant-style things so long as they're nice (a current stand-by is Ainsley Harriott's instant cous-cous mix... the Moroccan one in particular. Takes around five minutes, and makes a reasonable snack meal).

However. I'd rather cook stuff. Quickly. And (here comes the crunch) I want to use moderately non-perishable ingredients, because I'm never together enough to have worked out what/where/with whom I'm eating in time to have done the requisite shopping. Our house is usually reasonably well off for standard vegetables so they're OK, but fresh meat/fish is right out. Tinned stuff is OK. So is dried. Things which live in jars full of olive oil and pretend to be fresh are very much approved of :)

So, last night was a mushroom and artichoke heart omelette. Took under 10 minutes to cook, and was made from things which were hanging about in the cupboard/fridge.

Anyone got any suggestions ?

Comments

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

Here

Although I typically make mine with supreme of chicken, since it's hard to get decent veal now I'm further from the Italian butcher in Holborn. And I roast, rather than saute, since it holds together better like that...

[venta.livejournal.com]

Oh aye. I do that sometimes, but I call it chicken-breast-with-prosciutto-round-it :)

Having read the recipe, it recommends using instant polenta. Can you get instant versions which are nice ? Last time we tried it, it came out somewhere between a bad roux and angry semolina.

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

:-) It's the sage thats the essential thing: everything else is variable. (I make mine with serrano ham rather than parma, since the former's darker and richer)

RecipeSource recipes are very variable: a lot of them are totall shit, and some of them contain bad elements. Like instant polenta...

But that might just be my feelings towards polenta: it's pretty nasty, unless you make it very thick, so that you can slice it and grill it with a ton of olive oil... Angry semolina is an accurate description of the wrong sort of polenta! :-)

[lathany.livejournal.com]

Last time we tried it, it came out somewhere between a bad roux and angry semolina.

But was it sexy, angry semolina ?

;-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

No.

Or not in my view, anyway. I'd hate to appear to be passing judgement on all the semolinaphiles out there.