Omnomnomlette

Yo.

So, I thought a throw-together omelette recipe might be fun. I have two distinct omelette recipes, and this is the one for standard eatery. It's also subject to mad variation, down to 'whatever you have in the cupboard that sounds like it'll work'

Lemme just say first though: on a low income, eggs are your best mates.

A lot of people know that one of the first things to get cut out of a diet when you're eating on the cheap is meat, particularly whole, red meat. Uni days for some mean your meats are limited to mince and chicken.
However, y'all still need protein and amino acids for getting about. Eggs are good for this.

I was also going to upchuck a photo of aforementioned omelette, since I just cooked one.
The thought didn't occur until I was already halfway through the cheesy wonder of eggs though. So, apologies.

A basic omelette:

two eggs
dash of milk
salt
pepper

and then throw in whatever you have on hand. I keep peas, pre-sliced spring onion and cheese in the freezer, so all of those things went in.

Heat frypan up to something moderate. Middle. Chuck a little oil in.

In a bowl, crack in eggs, milk, S&P. Whisk together lightly. (And by that, I mean grab a fork and mix everything)

Once the pan's heated, pour in the eggs. Don't stir them - that's how we do scrambled eggs.

Sprinkle everything else on top, cheese last.

For this rendition, I also tried pouring the last of my mirin in - it's a type of rice wine I use for Japanese cooking, and the other omelette mix I do.

Lower the heat of the frypan a little and let it cook, running your utensil of choice (egg flip or whatever) around the edge occasionally to make sure the thing won't stick too badly.

Once the omelette looks solid (ten minutes, tops), remove from heat and turn onto plate.

Eat.

From go to whoa, it's about fifteen minutes.

A couple other notes:

You'll notice in this throw-together, that most of the items have a long shelf life - eggs can last in a cupboard for at least three weeks, and inside the fridge they can last even longer. I used to refrigerate eggs until I realised that it really wasn't necessary, as eggs have a plenty long shelf life even without it. I guess one of the main reasons for refrigerating your eggs would be if you accidentally got a fertilised one, but most of the time, store-bought eggs keep that on the DL.

ANOTHER THING:

This relates to what I just said, and remembered something else. When you're cooking with eggs, it always pays off to crack them into a cup or something before adding to the mix. I grew up with having chickens, and a mixed lot of them, so it wasn't uncommon to end up with a half fertilised egg. That business is gross, even for folks who are used to them. If you do not want to accidentally crack a half-formed chicken into your cake batter, then open the egg into something else first.
This also covers you if the egg is off.

Let me assure you on something. Eggs are like dairy. When they go off, they go off. There is no middle ground between an okay egg and a rotten one. So if you get an egg open, and you're not sure on it being okay, relax. If it doesn't smell like the mouth of the Pit, you're probably fine.
The yolks in eggs that are on the line are less stable and more likely to break when cracking your egg into something, so you have that going for you as well.

AND ANOTHER THING:

This isn't about off dairy or eggs.

This is protip.

Spring onions are delicious, but they're also expensive to buy in bunches, and if you live by yourself, you'll never be able to use them all before they go off.
However, if you're using them in cooked dishes, then their crunch factor isn't as important.

If I have to buy spring onions for something, what I usually do is pre-slice up everything that isn't used, chuck it in a plastic container and then store it in the freezer. When you need spring onions for something, just pull out a couple frozen ones and chuck them straight in. They have a moderate water content, so defrosting them and eating them as is would be gross, but they seem to work alright in cooked dishes.

All up, a dish like that would probs cost perhaps $2, maybe less. Cheese is expensive, and goes off disappointingly quick. I keep shredded cheese (even though it isn't as tasty) and store it in the freezer. Block cheese tastes better and is cheaper, but is also harder to separate when frozen. So there's that.

Hope you enjoy it - feel free to drop in extra additive suggestions/combinations in the comments if you like.

Brooke out.

Recipe: Coconut scroll-lol-lols

These.

I think I started making these in year nine or ten when I was at home. Went through a phase of manic breadmaking during the school holidays and they. Were. Good.
Still are.

Anyway. I had resolved to make bread yesterday, which, once I consulted the Fridge and realised we had coconut milk that had to be used, kind of escalated a bit. It's per-serving, relatively cheap, and easy to make. Fast as bread can be.

Also, the bread recipe I'm supplying is one that I use for any time I am making bread. It's pretty good, so you might get redirected to this one in the future.

~50 mins prep time, plus proofing and rising time
(This is a good one for multitasking to, or if you have to study and want to get up and do stuff in between sessions.)
Makes 8 scrolls.

Bread recipe:

1 cup warm water
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 tablespoon yeast
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups plain white flour

Filling recipe:

Half a can of Cocount milk (or one of the little ones. Or double the recipe and use a whole one)
~1/2 cup dessicated or shredded coconut
~1/3 cup raisins or sultanas
~1/4 cup sugar
Some butter

I filled the scrolls in a manner akin to cooking rather than baking. More like "oh, about that many".

Grab a large bowl, cup and spoon measurements, a wooden spoon or spatula, sieve, small bowl and knife. Probably a chopping board too.

Make the bread first.

Grab the large bowl. Dissolve the sugar in the water, stir in the yeast. Give it enough time to do its own thing and foam up. It'll make the house smell like yeasty beer bread funk.

Once it has a small head, mix in the salt and oil. Then sift and mix the flour in one cup at a time until everything is combined.

Notes on breadscience:
If the ratio seems a little bit out and is too dry, add a small amount of milk. If it's too wet, add a small amount of flour. Make sure you are enthusiastic about combining before making that decision; it's very easy to end up with a monster that is continually too dry or too moist.

Is it combined? Good. Cover the bowl with clingwrap and stick it somewhere warm to rise for roughly an hour. Go study or something.

When you come back to it, it should have magically gotten quite a bit bigger. When it's about twice its initial size, flour up the chopping board and tip it out. Knead it until it's slightly stretchy but still soft.

Funfact: the more you knead bread-dough, the more like pizza base it will become (elastic but tough). The least-kneaded yeastbreads are cakes. So, somewhere between a yeast cake and pizza dough is good.

Cut the dough into 8. If you happen to own a rolling pin, or a glass jar/tumbler, roll the sections out until they're...dunno. About 20cm is the longest I think. A little rectangle of dough.

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C.

Melt the butter. Spread on the dough-rectangles. Sprinkle the dried coconut, raisins and sugar on. Roll the rectangle up from the short sides and put it in a floured breadtin.

Sorry. Should have mentioned the breadtin earlier. Also, a cake tin will probably do the trick too; you just need something with high enough sides to stop the bread from going places it shouldn't.

Once the breadtin has been stacked with scrolls of dough, pour over about half of the coconut milk, plus any sugar that might be leftover from the filling.

Sling it into a medium oven (160 degrees C) for about 40 minutes. Pull it out at twenty and pour the rest of the cream over it. Or save that for the moment when you pull it out to be served and then drizzle it over the top.

Like any cake, you can tell when these are done by poking one of the scrolls with a skewer or knife. If there's dough on it, the middle isn't cooked.

Don't expect these to stay around for very long. They're the goods.

I think...it costs probably about a dollar for me to make a loaf of the bread. So, a bit more to fill it.
The thing is that the fillers are the type of ingredient that you buy and then they sit in the cupboard for ages. The coconut was left over from when I made the cake from Portal for a mate's birthday. The raisins were from my first attempt at hot cross buns. So having them sitting in the cupboard meant I could create food from what was lying around.

Which is always good.

These go great at gatherings, at celebrations for a constructive day of study, or when you want to eat something warm and sugary.

Omnomnom.

Recipe: Cobbled-together Bruchetta

Bruchetta is one of my favourites for four delicious reasons.
Minimal ingredients. Takes about fifteen minutes to make. As long as you own a knife and an oven, it is pretty easy.
The only problem with this one is that I usually make it and then eat half of it before I remember that it needed a photo for the blog.

Exhibit A. I'm not sure why I sliced the tomoto.

So. Anyway:

15-20 mins prep time
Serves 2 (this stuff does not make good leftovers)

4 slices bread (cob loaves, sourdough or turkish bread taste best, but it works just as well on sandwich bread)
1/2 an onion
1-2 cloves of garlic
olive oil
2 tomatoes
Savoury herbs (eg. basil, the glass jar of 'mixed herbs', oregano/thyme/etc)
          (not essential but it does make it better)
Salt and Pepper

If you want something a little more extravagant:
baby spinach
feta cheese
olives
balsamic vinegar
pesto
ham or something

Gather:
chopping board and knife and turn on the oven to a low heat.

I appreciate that phrases like 'low heat' aren't on the oven itself. This irritates me too from time to time. 120 degrees should be fine

Put a little bit of olive oil on both sides of the bread slices and stick them on a tray in the warm oven. Leave them in there for five minutes.

While it's toasting away. Dice the onion. Thinly slice the garlic. Or use a garlic press if you have one. (Bec and I don't). Dice the tomatoes. It's okay if you pour off a bit of the juice; it'll only make the meal soggy.

If you happen to have ham, then grab a small quantity and shred it.

The bread should have finished toasting by now. Pull it out and (if you have pesto, spread a little bit on it now). add the onion and garlic. Herbs if they're there. A bit of salt and pepper. The ham and the tomotoes.

Back in the oven for another ten minutes.

If you have those other ingredients on standby, chop the feta into small cubes and mix it with the baby spinach and olives. Put them on the plate.

If not, I'd recommend finding the extent of everything in the kitchen that the tomato juice got on and cleaning it up. This is still a mighty dish without the presence of salad.

DING! Goes the oven as you leap like a puma to the oven. Pry it open and force it to give up your prey. Remember that writing a recipe in poetic tense is way more fun than imitating a robot and move the slices of tomato-heaped delicious to your plate.

Utensils are optional.

Oh. The balsamic vinegar? Drizzle a little on top if you want. It will be more delicious if you have not previously tried eating the crumbs at the bottom of a pretzel packet. (Salty.)
Add extra salt and pepper if you want.

Consume.

Cost? Um. Probably less than $5, if you're not buying salad. $2.50 per serving.


Protip: Because the plug-in oven that Bec owns is too small for four slices of bread at once, I toast two at a time. Also, this means that by the time you finish the first slice, the second is ready and above all, hot.

If you happen to have tomato paste, that can be substituted for the pesto. We have some in the fridge because my grandfather gave it to us.

One of the other reasons why Bruchetta is such an excellent recipe is that it is mostly constituted of things you have on standby in the pantry anyway, except the tomato.

Recipe: SpagBol

Believe it or not, there is Spaghetti hiding under there.

This was Dinner last night. A mighty staple in our lifestyle, because it's one of the things that is easy and usually turns out alright.
Also, did you know that tomato-based dishes actually taste better after a day or two in the fridge? Tomato-based science, I think. Or maybe it's the 'acquiring food with minimal effort' effect. Anyway, away we go:

15-20 mins prep time. Depends how fast you can chop stuff.
Serves ~4 (We tend to make our food to have leftovers for lunch the next day.)

~450g mince
1/2 an onion
1 clove garlic
1 thing of tomato paste (yoghurt tub? Or a tablespoon or two)
1 can tomatoes (chopped or whole.)
1 bottle of pasta sauce

(If you want to stretch the recipe, like any good uni student)
1 carrot
(We had some roasted Capsicum in the fridge that I made a few days back. Some of that went in too)

Also, Spaghetti. People like different ratios of spag to bol, so I'm going to leave that volume up to you.

Summon your chopping board, knife, grater, saucepan/frying pan/electric wok, saucepan/rice cooker, wooden spoon and kitchen essentials (Well, the salt, pepper and olive oil. The garlic should already be out).

Put some water on to boil for the spaghetti. (We don't have an inbuilt stovetop at our place, so we use the rice cooker instead. If that's the case with you, fill 'er up and set to 'cook')

Dice the onion
Slice the garlic
Grate the carrot

Set the saucepan/wok to a medium heat and pour in a little bit of oil (like, a tablespoon or something). Roll it around. Throw in the first three ingredients. Stir them around a little bit.

Keep pushing the root veggies around until the onion is close to brown. Add the tomato paste.
Once the onion is browned, add the mince. Brown that too.

Add yon can o' tomatoes and pasta sauce.

Turn the heat down a little and let it simmer. Stir it from time to time.
Pull out the Pepper and Salt and condiment it to taste.
If for some reason your pantry happens to house things like bottles of herbs/mixed spices/bayleaves, then feel free to add these. Herbs that go best with this mix are Oregano, Basil and Thyme. One or two bayleaves are plenty.

If you happen to be the multi-tasking type, then while you are making the Bolognaise, keep an eye on the water. When it hits boiling, throw in the spaghetti.

If you happen to be in the mood for express Spaghetti, you can speed up the waiting process for boiling water. Boil the water in a jug first; then pour into the spaghetti-making device. Crank device to eleven, and the water will be boiling in no time.

So, make spaghetti. Drain and wrangle into bowls. Apply bolognaise to it. Apply more salt or pepper if you're keen. Also, cheese if that happens to be in the fridge.

Don't eat so quickly that your guts try to have a riot.

Price? Roughly $7.80. Per Serving, it's closer to $2.

Tips:
It doesn't take too long to figure out that the most expensive thing on a uni student's food docket is meat. However, going full-vegetarian requires careful planning and a willingness to part with the concept of Bacon. If that isn't your plan, then I suggest working out how much meat you actually need. Also, knowing what time the deli people in the food store go around and mark the meat for quick sale can pay off. We paid half price for the mince used in this recipe.

Also, if Onions make you get all emotional, I'd recommend sticking the offending vegetable under some running water. It rinses off all the fume-laced juices.



Do you have any comments or suggestions? Let me know!

Five things that are not a meal but you should have anyway

The plan with this blog is that I'll make the recipe and give you exact information on how long it takes to prepare, how much of things to use and roughly how much the meal will cost.

So, while I've got a fistful of meals on standby, I can't really upload any of them just yet.

Instead, I present to you; "five things that are not a meal but will make meals a lot better"

The first one is Salt.

Last year, Bec the housemate and I went to Aldi. I bought salt in a container like this. It was less than $2. It's got about a quarter left in it still.

It goes without saying that salt is just one of those things that you keep in the pantry. Makes food taste...salty. Also, it is good for emergency antiseptic (when dissolved in warm water) and toothpaste, when you do not have any. Still, don't swallow it. Tastes like warm ocean. Mmmm.

Something worthwhile knowing about salt is that you need it in your diet to prevent cramps. That is, iodised salt, or better yet, sea salt. There's a few dozen minerals in there aside from sodium and chloride. That said, celtic sea salt is somewhat high up the pricy salt list.
Advice? Get something cheap, but don't get table salt.

Also, don't eat too much. It freaks out arteries over time.

Next Item. Salt's best buddy.

Pepper.

And this is how much my Dad loves pepper.

I bought the pepper at the same time as the salt. From Aldi. For the same price.
I understand that there are not as many pepper fans out there are there are salt-people. I don't mind a bit, but at the same time, will stop to remove whole peppercorns from the spaghetti bolognaise that my Dad makes. Partly because there are so many, partly because I find no joy in eating whole peppercorns. That is irrelevant.

Pepper and tomato are like, best buddies. Pepper and most soups, too. It's good for adding a little bit extra to the food, and you don't have to like it a whole lot, but sticking some in the food does make it slightly more awesome.

Also, the grinder I bought with the pepper in it last year looks like it's good for another year. It was about $2, and it's cracked pepper. Which tastes more like pepper and less like a sneeze, which is the essence of ground pepper. But that's up to you. Ground pepper is pretty affordable, after all.

Did you know that in the old days, pepper was worth its weight in gold? All the spices were.
Why? They were actually pretty good at making past-use-by meat eatable. Fun fact.

Third thing?

Believe it or not, Stock Cubes.

They'll set you back a couple of dollars.
We had beef ones until we ran out, and now there's chicken stock cubes in the cupboard.

You can buy stock in liquid or cube form, but ultimately, the cubes are cheaper and keep for longer. Stock is useful for adding flavour when you don't have a lot of other things to add. Stock cubes just have to be rehydrated; crumble one into a cup of boiling water and add it to whatever you're going to add it to.

I can't think of anything interesting to say about stock at the moment.

Fourth item?

Garlic

Garlic has many uses. It can be used to stave off vampires, potential dates and make your house smell of awesome when it is being fried.

We use garlic in a lot of things, and those lot of things don't have a whole lot of garlic in them, so it's not too strong. But it, like every other flavour-device in this post, is good at flavour.
Also, it's less than a dollar for a bulb, one of which we use in a bit over a month. And that's because we run out of it, not because it goes off. Don't store it on the bench, or in the sun.

Last item, and possibly the only one that will cost you over $2.

Olive Oil.

Olive oil is one of those things where the best will cost you a lot more than the uni-student equivalent. So, Extra Virgin olive oil is probably not on your shopping list. It's not on mine either.

But, we use it a lot. Heating and nonstick and flavour (more about that bit later). It's about a medium on the 'grease-type things you can use', between butter and peanut oil.

How to say? Um. You would use butter to fry things that are supposed to be either sweet or a lower temperature fry. Olive oil is good for most meats and things you cook in a pan. But, it goes carcinogenic at higher temperatures, so it's wiser to use peanut oil or something with a higher heating temperature for insta-cook.

On a side note, olive oil is also good for treating earaches. Warm a little bit up (and I mean barely lukewarm), lie down with the sore ear up and get someone to carefully pour a couple millimeters in. Stick some cotton wool in after it. It softens angry eardrums.

...You know, I wasn't planning on sticking bonus non-food-related material in the blog. But if something vaguely handy pops up, I'll probably put it in. Hope it has not put you off the thought of food.

If it has, think of caramel. No, wait. Don't.

Ah well.

Brooke Out.

This might sound like the beginning of a bad joke, but...

Welcome to Cheap, Fast, Easy.

Far from being some crude joke, the blog title revolves around food.

Last year, I began study at University. Living away from home has its benefits, but one of the newest pieces for a lot of young people who suddenly move out of home is the challenge of feeding themselves.

A year in, I'm going alright. But it's the start of the year again, and I've got mates moving out of home to study at uni also.

Fearing that they might spend the next few years subsiding on noodles, this blog was started. In it, I plan to blog recipes that fit the criteria of being easily-made, quickly-made or inexpensively-made. All of those are kind-of crucial for University living.

So, read on.

You don't have to be a university student to enjoy this style of cooking, either. A lot of these recipes I picked up or modified from dinners back at home, and they're enjoyable either way.

Oh. Also. I might put up other bits from time to time that relate to food but are not by themselves, and of themselves edible. But they help a lot.
 
I can't think of much more for a first post.

I hope you enjoy these recipes. The feedback in this blog will be constructed to allow anyone to post. Far from it to be an invitation for spambots, if you have suggestions or questions, or you wish to tell me about how the food went, let me know. Collective knowledge is the most useful, after all.

Have fun!

Brooke out.