Welcome to Gaia! ::

cool article!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/31/AR2006083101561.html

How to use a "ramen noodles" seasoning packet! There's 5 tips here.

Also, to save time on weekdays, take a weekend now and again and dedicate it to cooking. Buying larger quantities of food is often cheaper than buying smaller, especially if the best-before date is drawing close.
Feed the freezer with lunchboxes containing one or more portions. If you're two or more in the family, it's easiest to reheat all portions at once, but it can also be good to have a few single-portion lunchboxes for days you eat alone.

I wanted to write a bit more on eggs, they take hardly any time to cook and you can do a lot with them. ^_^

Hard-boiled eggs
Take eggs, put into boiling water, boil for 10 minutes (any more and they'll go grey around the outside of the yolk and won't taste as good).

---Tips: to stop them from cracking, use a pin or needle to carefully make two small holes in the flatter end so air can escape. As soon as they've finished boiling put them under a running cold tap so they stop cooking and to make the shell easier to remove.

Also, you can make a large batch of these and put them back in the fridge for later. To differentiate between hard-boiled and raw eggs, take one and spin it on the table. Raw eggs wobble and stop after one or two turns, hard-boiled eggs keep spinning evenly for a while.



Soft-boiled eggs
Put into boiling water and boil for exactly 2 minutes. Repeat above-mentioned cold water trick, then eat.

---Tips: If the eggs are too large or too small, they might not cook properly for softboiling. To be more precise you can heat the eggs by running them under hot tap water, then boil for exactly 1.5 minutes. When eating, you can put a bit of butter and salt into the egg yolk - it tastes awesome. whee


For any egg-cooking that involves breaking the eggs and mixing them before cooking, it's advisable to wash the eggs first, and also to break each one into a small bowl before mixing them in the main bowl/pan to check for freshness - this way one bad egg won't spoil the whole meal.

Fried eggs
Put a bit of butter on a frying pan, set to medium heat, when butter is hot crack eggs open onto pan. Salt to taste, cook for as long as you want (usually a minute or two is enough), then remove from pan and eat.

---Tips: You can break up the yolks and mix them with the whites a bit while it's cooking if you want them to not be so separate. You can also fry things on the pan before pouring the eggs out on top - pieces of bread, slices of tomato, slices of sausage, bits of bacon, last night's noodles... whatever. It's a good way to make bacon safe for eating if you think it's starting to go a little off - just fry it till it's crisp and crunchy.


Omelette
Whisk well eggs with some milk in a bowl (enough milk to make the mixture a pale creamy pastel orange-yellow colour). Pour into a pan with butter in it on high heat, cook till firm and golden-brown, about 10 minutes (flip it over when it's getting firm to make sure the bottom doesn't char).

---Tips: omelettes can also be cooked in a buttered dish in the oven on moderate heat, and then don't need to be flipped over while also cooking more evenly. As with fried eggs, you can put herbs on top or put small pieces of anything that doesn't need to be cooked through much into the omelette mixture for extra taste.


If you can spare the extra money, consider buying free-range rather than cage eggs - apart from the ethical issues, free-range eggs are claimed to be more nutritious and better tasting.




Simple salads:

Salad one:
Chop up some tomatoes and cucumbers, roughly even amounts. Salt/pepper to taste, add olive oil (a tablespoonful or two, doesn't matter how much as long as the vegetables aren't drowning in it), mix and serve.

Salad one variant:
Same as above, instead of salt/pepper and olive oil add a large dollop of sour cream.

Salad two:
Chop up some cucumbers, use an egg slicer to make small cubes out of a few hardboiled eggs. Add sour cream, mix and serve.


Yeesh, that was long. xd

Is fried chicken/KFC not fast food?

Anyway, I wanted to say about the tap water;

My tap water smells bad and tastes...no good. I do have a filter now (conviently my roommate bought one just after I bought 4 jugs of water) but it's still good.

I also wanted to add my own dish (yay!)

Stirfry!

Easy, even I can do it and I have cooking issues.

Pick your favorite vegitables like;
Peppers
Onions
Carrots
Celery
Mushrooms

Fry these in a pan until they start to darken. You can add chicken or beef or cook ramen noodles and put them on top. Look into different sauces like sweet and sour, it's rather good. Also, garlic works well with it. You can make tacos with them if someone doesn't want them plain, or like I said put it with ramen noodles or rice.

Hope this can help someone! heart

Imitation grilled cheese
(For those that have little siblings who love grilled cheese, but don't know how to make it)

1 Microwave
1 Toaster
2 Bread slices
Cheese

Put two slices of bread in the toaster.
Put cheese in between the two toasted bread slices.
Microwave sandwich for 10-20 seconds to melt cheese in.

Even though this is an old thread, there's lots of good ideas, and here's a recipie I do:

Tuna Noodle Casserole

1 can tuna (drained)
1/2 package egg noodles
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 small can mushrooms
1 cup milk
Potato chips (can be substituted with those French's fried onions)

Cook the noodles, and drain. Place them in a baking dish (the noodles should make a thin layer. It's typically the common rectangular size you'll find... I can't remember the measurements). Crumble the tuna on top of noodles, evenly spread. Evenly distribute the mushrooms. Mix the milk and cream of mushroom soup (it will be lumpy), spread over the dish. Crumble potato chips on top.

At this point, the casserole can be covered and left in the fridge for up to 24 hours.

Heat the oven to 375. Cook in oven for 30 minutes.

This dish serves a family of 4, and is easily doubled, and the ingredients cost around $5-$10. I used to put it together right after I got home from school, then cook it while doing my homework or something later.

Even for a cooking phobe, something that seems fancy like twice-baked potatos really isn't hard at all. Scrub a few potatos, p***k some holes in them with a fork and then put them in the microwave to cook. When they're done, cut them in half, scoop out the insides (leave about a half inch border of potato still attached to the peel so that it keeps its shape) and put them in a bowl. Then just add some butter, milk, and whatever you like in your potatos and get to mashing. I like to add cheese to mine. French fried onions are also yummy, but I've found they work better as a topper than a mix-in. And you can always experiment with herbs and spices.

After everything's mixed up, divide the mixture back into the potato skins, top with cheese (or not, if that's not your thing) and pop them into the oven for a little bit. (This step is to melt the cheese on top and to get the potatos all the way hot again since adding milk and such will cool them down.)

The bulk of the time it takes to make these is just getting the potatos cooked, but you can just throw them in the microwave and then go do something else.

You can also use this to get two dishes out of one process. Instead of adding your mashed potato mixture back to the skins, just serve it as a side of mashed potatos. You now have potato peels that you can use to make potato skins with as a snack. Add some cheese, bacon bits, sour cream, whatever you like and then toss them in the oven until everything's all melty and yummy.


Crock pots are also a wonderful investment if you want to cut down your time in the kitchen. Just throw your ingredients in before you go to work, turn it on, and it'll cook away while you go about your daily routine. Then when you come home in the evening, you'll have a hot meal ready and waiting for you. Crock pots can be used to make chili, soups, cook baked potatos, cornish hens, dips, and tons of other stuff. There are even inserts that you can get and you can make a cake in your crock pot while the actual dinner is cooking. They're awesome little things!