cooking. sigh. i SUCK at cooking. good thing my hubby didn't marry me for my kitchen skills. i have always wanted to learn to cook, because i have a GREAT appreciation for food....i can usually follow a recipe if it doesn't require a lot of "technique" if i'm left alone to concentrate. this is not always a sure thing though...i remember the time i followed a recipe for poppy seed "bread" (it's supposed to be more like a cake) and ended up with something that would have been suitable material for building bricks.
woot, ramen stuffs. one of the VERY few things i can cook in such a fashion as to render the result even remotely edible.
ramen 1: boil water, add ramen noodle brick, stir till the noodles loosen (i hate overcooked noodles, yuck), drain...stir butter/margarine/whatever oily thing you like, don't look at me! into noodles until coated, sprinkle the flavor packet over everything while stirring well....open a can of tuna, drain, and stir into ramen. eat. usually one pack = one serving, at least around here.
ramen 2: boil water, add 2 ramen noodle bricks, stir till the noodles loosen, drain...open can of condensed cream of chicken soup, add to noodles....open can of mixed vegetables, drain, add to noodles....stir until it's a gloopy mess and eat! you can also add a can of tuna or chicken if you feel the need for meat. will usually serve 2 people, more if they're light eaters.
the only other thing i know how to make without a recipe or by attempting to follow the directions on the box: "samurai" soup! it's called "samurai" after the RHPS quote of "samurai electrician!" because it involves throwing stuff into a pot and using no skills whatsoever. directions: brown about a pound to a pound and a half of meat, generally beef although i've used venison in this and it was tasty...heck, i even used ground turkey once and it was okay. it can be ground meat or stew meat, or you can buy large hunks and chop them yourself, whatever. depending on the meat you use, you can drain it if it's REALLY greasy (i.e., cheap hamburger meat really needs drained, eww) but as it has been stated previously, fat = flavor. next, using a REALLY REALLY BIG pot, put in your browned meat and:
2 - 3 cans of whole peeled tomatoes (squish 'em as they go in, use your hands if it doesn't squick ya, otherwise you can use a utensil)
2 - 3 cans EACH of your fave veggies, i usually use corn, green beans, and a couple of the big fat cans of "thick-cut" mixed veggies...or you can use a couple of bags of frozen stew veggies, or what have you....basically, you're looking at a LOT OF VEG HERE! oh, and pour it all straight in....don't drain any of it, you're gonna want the liquid anyhow, and why waste the vitamins?
4 cans condensed vegetarian vegetable soup....gotta have the alphabet pasta, hehehe
add herbs and spices to your own personal taste....i generally use something on the order of a screaming buttload of garlic powder, some seasoned salt, a good bit of pepper, and sometimes some onion flakes (depends on if i'm using mixed veggies that have onions in 'em or not - i HATE onions, i only use 'em for a little flavor). i will often add these things at several points during the process, some on the meat, some in the soup, it all depends.
at this point your big-ass pot should be almost full of soup...probably with more liquid than it looks like there should be....no biggie, because a goodly amount of liquid will cook out in the next 30 minutes to an hour. this is also dependent on personal taste, some like their soup "soupy" while others like a thicker stew-y kind of soup. you pick. you should heat this potful of yummy until it's sort of bubbling, i don't know if it's actually boiling or not, but bubbles are going "bloop!" at the surface when it's been cooked enough. i usually let it cool for about 5 minutes before i try to eat it (with lots and lots of crackers), but that's just me. ta-da! it's soup.
hopefully i haven't horrified any real cooks out there with my ham-handed kitchen molestations.
