Cooking And Ptsd - How To Make It Easy

[intothelight]

Southwest Black Bean & Corn Soup

One box of vegetable stock
One can of black beans
Two cans of corn
Chopped onion to taste
Cumin
Salt
Chili powder
Red pepper flakes
Cilantro
Instant mash potato flakes

Throw it in a crock pot on low for six hours or high for three or four. Use seasoning to taste. Serve with sour cream, avocado slices, and cheese or anything else you want. I added some tortilla chips for some crunch.

 

[Friday]

Another semi-hack

When I'm doing well & CAN cook (when I'm doing badly I can burn water) I tend to cook a whoooooooole lot of inexpensive/ easy to reheat/ food that then lives in my deep freeze. Most of these things can be found premade in the freezer aisle in the US, or can be bought at ethnic markets. Food allergies & a shoestring budget means buying out of the freezer aisle isn't always possible, & that paying $10 for a bag of 25 gyoza or tamales just seems silly, when I can spend $10 and make roughly 200 gyoza or tamales.

Clearly, making 200 of anything? Is a bit of a pain in the ass. Again, when doing well, I used to have cooking parties once a month where we'd get 5-10 people together and all bring ingredients. So instead we'd each spend about $20 make a couple thousand, all told. (And work our way through a few bottles of wine / halfbacks of beer :P). And would have 5-10 flavors, 50-100 each, 250-500 in total, for each of us... of whatever we were making. We may have been poor, but dayum we ate well! <grin> And nothing is as big of a pain in the ass with good music, good friends, and a BAC a wee bit over the legal limit ;)

I miss my deep freeze, my kitchen, my friends*. But I still cook a LOT of food, when I'm having a good day, and freeze remainders. So when I'm having a crap day I can just take something and nuke it in the microwave, or sautée it for a few minutes, & voila. No effort food.

* For a few years I didn't have power or water, so I moved my deep freeze to a powered storage unit, and used the kitchen at various churches/synagogues. Which are good life-on-the-edge or life-in-transition hacks.

 

[Nessa7]

Eggs in tomato sauce

Option 1: You make a traditional pasta sauce and poach the eggs in it. I like it with spinach and lots of basil.

Option 2: For more of a shakshuka, cook sweet peppers, cumin, paprika, and harissa (or really whatever spicy thing you have on hand) in the tomato sauce. I like it with eggplants instead of the peppers, too. Sometimes I add tumeric, nutmeg, and/or all spice. You could add just about your entire spice cabinet and it would taste good.

I'm assuming you could do chiles, but I think all green peppers are gross.

Option 3: To make eggs in purgatory, prepare the sauce with red pepper flakes, olives, an anchovy, garlic, and oregano. I also hate capers, but you can add those, too.

Any kind of beans taste good in these, and you could also scramble your eggs.



If you're in the mood for something less healthy, a hot cocoa packet in refrigerated oats is delicious. Letting them soak overnight actually turns the dehydrated marshmallows into something resembling real marshmallows.

 

[Lola Nocheprieta]

I love adding shit to Trader Joe's frozen foods. They have a mix called melodious blend, which is green (French) lentils, green garbanzo beans, tomatoes and olive oil. It's like a pilaf. I take 1-3 heirloom tomatoes, half an onion, a bunch of parsley, and cut all that up and nuke it for about 2-3 minutes. Then the added veggies are not so raw, but are still really fresh. It doubles or triples the amount of food and I eat it hot or cold.

 

[Friday]

@Lola Nocheprieta

Have you tried mixing (skillet or soup pan or microwave) TJs creamy tomato & roasted red pepper soup (box) to their (frozen) chimichurri rice???? IDFK why, but it ends up tasting like butter chicken / chicken tika masala (minus the chicken). <swoon> Of course, I suppose one could add chicken. This was one I had a hard time actually getting into a bowl, and would tend to eat straight out of the pot.

 

[Fadeaway]

Well, I had made a long post when this thread first started but it appears my post is MIA. That is what I get for trying to post on a wannabe smart phone.

2 chicken breasts diced
2 large broccoli crowns cut up.
1 package cream cheese.

In a large skillet fry up the chicken then ad a cup or so of water, add the broccoli, cover and steam until tender. Then add the package of cream cheese and stir. I add a little bit of garlic powder for seasoning as well.

About 4 eggs
1 tomato
two cups of raw spinach

Dice the tomatoes and ad the spinach and tomatoes to scrambled egg batter and cook like you would scrambled eggs. Makes great Pita pocket filling.

 

[Friday]

Cream of Carrot Soup

Special Tools : Whirling Wand of Death (immersion blender), or a masher or some sort (potato masher, for example, or a fork if you really want a cramped arm).

- Carrots of almost any quantity (double handful to a kilo)
- Beef Stock (or veggie stock)
- Garlic Clove(s). For a and full of carrots use 1. For a Kilo, a few.
- Cream/Milk (or fav non-dairy milk)

Put carrots in pot. Add beef stock to about 1 cm over. Add garlic. Cover. Boil those suckers to mush, and stock almost dry. Takes a little while. Add cream (or more stock, or water) to cover, and purée... Or mash before adding liquid. Can be served hot or cold.

((I've occasionally just waited for the carrots to cool, dumped the carrots into a ziplock bag, then just squished them with my hands in the bag, added liquid, and shaken the bag. I love immersion blenders. Just don't always have one. Or electricity.))

If you're feeling fancy, and can eat cheese, asiago cheese on top goes amazing with the hot beef&carrot. Really fancy, pour into ramekins, top with cheese, and run under the broiler or use a cooking-torch to melt the cheese over. For cold cream of carrot, a dollop of creme fraische. Voila.

 

[Fadeaway]

@Friday, I just went shopping today and realized I made it home with carrots I wasn't going to use because I put stuff back to buy a deeply discounted turkey.

Now, I know what to do with the carrots plus it sounds like it would go good with turkey.:happy:

 

[Friday]

Fattoush / Israeli Salad

Tomatoes
Cucumber
Onion
Mint
Torn up flatbread or baguette
Olive oil / Lemon / Salt & Pepper
Sumac (optional)

Chop up veggies, stir in bread (or reserve to use as bread-spoons), drizzle over olive oil & lemon. Sprinkle with sumac. Also goes well with a dollop of yogurt or creme fraiche

Chicken Waldorf Salad

Chicken (cooked any way, I use leftovers, mostly)
Apples
Grapes
Celery
Walnuts
Mayonnaise

Roughly equal proportions, more of what you like best, less of what you don't.

Chop up everything, except grapes unless you want to chop them, dollop some mayo over, stir to combine.

 

[Friday]

Stuff On Toast

Also known as Bruschetta ;) At least when vaguely Italian. Not all of these are.

- Baguette or any kind of crusty bread, sliced
- Stuff
- Toaster (or baking pan under broiler)

Unless otherwise noted (*)... Take whatever ingredients, combine in bowl, spoon onto bread, and run through toaster or on a cookie sheet under the broiler. Anything with cheese, sprinkle over top before toasting. All meats are already cooked / a great way to use up leftovers &/or make 1 serving of meat feed a whole lot of people. There's a whole lot of these. Essentially, just take stuff, chop it or stack it, put it on bread, and toast it :cool:

Spoiler: Lots

VEG
- Chopped Tomatoes, Shredded Basil, Olive Oil, salt&pepper
Optional : Shredded Parmesan or Peccorino Romano. Minced garlic

- Canned Cannelini Beans, rinsed. Thinly sliced purple onions. Olive Oil. What looks like a ridiculous amount of kosher salt. Half mash everything in bowl, and allow to sit and marinate for about half an hour, before spooning over toast.

* Toast bread lightly. Drizzle olive oil. Then stack Fresh basil leaf, tomato slice, slice of fresh mozzarella.

* Pesto smeared on bread. Tomato slices on top of pesto. Shredded Parmesan or Romano. Toast.

- Chopped tomatoes. Cooked mushrooms (whole or chopped). Olive oil. Minced garlic. Lemon Thyme. Toast.

- Grilled Onions. Chopped mushrooms. Parsley. Toast.

- Grilled Greens w/Garlic, chopped. Shredded Parm. Cracked pepper. Toast.

- Baba Ganoosh (grilled eggplant + tahini, mashed into a paste)

- Ricotta or Vegan Basil Ricotta. Toast.
Optional, dollop on top of a smear of basil pesto or red pepper pesto

BEEF
- Thinly sliced Beef, roasted red peppers, shredded Parmesan or Ricotta over.

* Thinly sliced or chopped beef, dollop of chimichuri

- (Philly?) Thinly sliced beef, chopped green peppers & onions, Swiss cheese (or cheeze-wiz)

PORK
- (Cuba?) Chopped Pork, splash orange juice, olive oil, minced garlic, grilled onions, dash of cinnamon or allspice.
* (Tiny Open face Cuban Sammie?) Smear mustard on bread, stack ham slice, pickle slice, spoon ^^^ on top

CHICKEN
- Chopped Chicken, Chopped Onion & Peppers, Olive Oil, Salt & Pepper, pepper jack cheese

*(France?) Mayo, Chicken, Ham, Swiss cheese or Grueyere. Smear, layer, toast.


SWEET
* (SoCal?) Fluffer-Nutter. ChocolateHazelnut butter, marshmallow fluff, chocolate shavings or cocoa dust. Toast.

* Peanut-butter, Banana, Honey. Smear, stack, drizzle. Toast. Optional, chocolate shavings, cocoa dust, honey comb.

- Fig Spread. Small Chunks of Brie.

SHRIMP
- Seared shrimp (chopped or whole), fresh chopped tomatoes, onion, basil, olive oil, Parmesan. Toast. Optional, creamy goat cheese, or crumbled feta cheese.

- (Mexi?) Seared shrimp (chopped or whole), pico de gallo (tomatoes, onion, cilantro / fresh corrinder, jalapeños, lemon, lime), Spanish cheese. Optional, mix salsa with fresh veg.

- (Cajun?) Seared Shrimp (chopped or whole), chopped green peppers, minced celery, chopped onion, cracked pepper, smoked paprika. Optional, splash of bourbon.

- Ditto ^^^ using andouille sausage instead of shrimp. Or both sausage & shrimp.

ETA
@Lola Nocheprieta
Something I did when the kids were little was just keep chopped veggies & leftovers in mason jars in the fridge. They'd pull the jars out, spoon what ones they wanted into a bowl, stir, spoon into baguette slices. Layer their fav cheese. Voila. LMAO. Some of the kid-concoctions made me blanch, but they sure liked them. Why on earth anyone would mix sauerkraut with pico de gallo and chocolate is beyond me. :wtf: Shudder.

 

[Lola Nocheprieta]

Omg, I am so f*cking hungry now.

@Friday, I will have to try your TJ hack! Also, re "stuff on toast," your suggestions are veddy fancy, but my dad used to call that SOS (shit on a shingle.) I like your moniker better!

@Fadeaway, that creamy chicken with broccoli sounds good and easy, I'll have to try that.

Did I mention how hungry I am?

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

Lets all head over to @Fridays for brunch........:laugh::laugh::playful::wacky::joyful::hug::hug::hug: