Mastering the Art of Lazy Cooking

Super Lazy Potatoes Au Gratin

It really doesn't get much lazier than this.  The result of your laziness?  Super cheesy and creamy potatoes au gratin, homemade!

You get bragging rights with this one?  Yeah, I made it from SCRATCH.

I had a huge potato that was on the verge of becoming a potato plant on my counter.  I figured, before it started sending out roots and leaves, I should probably use it.  There are many things worse, but the guilt of having to throw away produce because you didn't use it fast enough is quite heavy on us lazy people's minds.  It is just a discomfort we don't need.

• One large potato (or 3 mid-sized or 4 small potatoes)
• 1 cup of milk
• 1/4 cup of water
• 1 cup of shredded cheese (your choice, but I used a pre-shredded bag of Mexican mix I had in the fridge)
• 1/8 cup grated parmesan cheese (or parmesan/romano mix)
• 1/8 cup butter
• salt and pepper if you want (I didn't, I figured we could add to taste once it was on our plates)

I used a small casserole dish (5x7ish?) for this.  You will really want a hand slicer, if you don't then this is a bit of a pain to thinly slice the potato by hand.  Then hand slicer is a must have in any lazy cook's kitchen.  (Check out the shopping list for other lazy essentials.)

Using the hand slicer, slice half the potato directly into the baking dish.  I alternated between the thinnest and second thinnest slice settings.  Once you have half in the dish, push them around a bit to even them out in the dish.  

Add the water and half the milk over the potatoes.

Slice half the butte and place each slice somewhat evenly - don't get full coverage but a thin slice of butter every here and here is good.

Sprinkle a couple shakes of parmesan evenly, and then add 1/4 of the cheese evenly spread.

Hand slice the rest of the potato on top of all this. Add the rest of the milk.  Add the rest of the cheese (evenly) and sprinkle the rest of the parmesan over it all.

Cover with tin foil, this allows you to put it into the oven and forget about it for a while without worrying if it is going to burn or not.  If you don't use the tin-foil, the top cheese will brown, crisp and burn before the potatoes are soft enough to be done.

I stuck it into the oven at 325.  I didn't bother to preheat, I didn't even know I was going to make this until it was half done.

It will start smelling good shortly after it is in.  Push past the urge to take it out at this point, it is still too liquid at this point.  You want to let it cook slowly, and let the potatoes soak up as much of the liquid as possible.  Remember, you were lazy making this, so you didn't  use flour as a thickener.

After about a half an hour to 45 minutes, it will be ready.  Take the foil off and continue to cook for about 5 minutes to let the top brown a bit.

Take it out and let it sit and cool for about 5 minutes.  This is allow for further thickening and keep you from scorching your tongue and the roof of your mouth.

It may not be as pretty as you get from Betty Crocker, but it is damn tasty.

Tonight's stew's secret ingredient?

I usually play around with the secret ingredient in my stew.  It is usually a beer of some sort.

Tonight, it is Spaten.  Different beers bring a different taste to the stew.  A red brings a nice bite, while Guinness brings a richer, fuller taste.  Spaten brings a rich, full bodied flavor with a bit of a bite.

I love making stew.  So simple.  So easy.

The only things I cook prior to dumping everything in the slow cooker is the meat and onions.  If you use frozen, chopped onions, there is no need to cook them.

I cut up the meat, dip in flour (thickening agent for the stew) and throw in a pan to brown the meat.

Then, some broth (beef, chick, veggie, don't matter).  A beef bouillon cube or two depending on taste.  Chunk chop a large carrot or two, 2-3 potatoes.  Add some garlic, garlic salt, a couple dashes of thyme (or not) and a couple of bay leaves.

Then, add a quarter bottle of the spaten.  Cover and cook for an hour or so.  Stir, add some more spaten to taste. 

Then, cover and cook again.  When the potatoes and carrots are super soft, it's done.  If you added too much water and it isn't thickening, leave the top of the slow cooker off.  

You might have soup that first night, but it thickens up good and proper for nice, thick stew left-overs.  I think it actually makes better left-overs.

 

Herb and Apple Pilaf

I know I said months ago that I was going to post this one, but I couldn't find the sheet of paper with my recipe and all my notes.  Found it!

We love this one.  I think I hurt myself eating this one, it was just so good!  I do remember that for a while I was afraid I epically screwed it up - I dumped a half a bottle of oregano in it accidentally. Stupid flip tops instead of screw offs.  But, I scooped as much of the oregano out as I could, and it turned out great! 

I had a bit of a hard time taking a photo of it, so it doesn't look as tasty as it did on the plate.

• 2 cups rice
• 10 or so sticks of raw spaghetti broken into one inch pieces
• 1/2 cup butter or 1/8 cup olive oil
• 1 can chicken or veggie broth
• 1 small can of mushrooms
• 2 stalks of celery (I use the hand slicer to slice)
• 1/2 frozen chopped onion
• 1 apple
• 2-3 shakes of Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 tsp garlic salt
• 1 tsp oregano (1 Tbsp is good too!)
• 3/4 tsp thyme
• 1/2 tsp basil

In skillet on medium heat, saute rice, spaghetti, onion and celery in butter or olive oil until rice is browned (about 10-15 minutes).  Stir very occasionally.

All the recipes for rice pilaf I have ever seen involves a casserole or oven safe dish to then move all the ingredients into and then cook in the oven.  WTF?  Why create all those extra dishes for yourself and take an hour to cook?

Leave the rice cooking while you cut the apple.  I use an apple slicer  to do most of the cutting and coring.  Then cut those eight pieces into chunks.

Do not strain the mushrooms.  Instead, drain the can of mushrooms directly into the rice in the skillet by opening the lid half to three quarters.  Once drained, then open the rest of the top and dump them on the cutting board.  Roughly chop the mushrooms.  I took my knife and just hacked away like a mad woman.

Combine the apples, mushrooms and the rest of the ingredients with the rice in the skillet.  Mix well.

Cover and simmer on med-low heat for about 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, stir and taste.  Add any additional spices to taste. Recover and cook for another 5 minutes if it is too watery or the rice needs further softening.

Variations

• We love the mix of sweet and savory with this dish, but if you want to cut the sweet, try dropping the apples.  The level of sweetness also depends on the apple you use.  Try a green delicious vs. a red vs. a granny smith, etc.
  
• The next time I do this, I want to add either some raisins or dried cranberries, or maybe both!

Chicken Pesto Pasta

I made this while quite bitchy, so I put very little thought into it and even less effort.  Sorry, no pictures of this one.  The camera batteries are dead, and you can't make me go upstairs, find the charged batteries and charger, come back downstairs, replace the batteries and charge the dead batteries; for the lazy cook is not just lazy in the kitchen!

I have been thinking of making pesto for a while, but have just been too damn lazy to do so.  Plus, I have been on cooking strike since the kitchen has been so messy.

• 1/4 tsp garlic
• 1/4 tsp basil
• 1/8 tsp garlic salt
• 1/8 tsp oregano
• 1/8 tsp dried minced onions
• 1/8 tsp ground sage (if you have it)
• 1 chicken breast
• spaghetti noodles
• olive oil

I have all my meat frozen, in ziploc bags of individual servings.  For chicken, that means one breast per bag.  Thaw the chicken in warm water in a bowl in the sink.

Heat a skillet on a med-high heat with a dollop of olive oil.  I didn't even wait until the skillet was hot, I just slapped that breast on in there. 

Fill a large pan with water for the noodles and turn on high, wait for it to boil.

After about 2-3 minutes, flip the chicken.

I have a mortar and pestle, so I ground up all the herbs and spices.  I then added a little extra basil and oregano on top of it all (without grinding it in), so the pesto is a little more leafy and pasty.  

Flip the chicken after another 2-3 minutes.  Then, after those 2-3 minutes, take the chicken breast and cut it up in cube-like chunks.  It will most likely still be pink and make-up-sick-uncooked, so throw all the cubes back in the skillet.  Go ahead and turn the heat off, the skillet and stove is hot enough to finish the cook job (unless you have a gas range, then turn to low).

The water should be boiling now, so go ahead and throw in some spaghetti.  We have a bit of a dilemma here, matt made 2 helpings of the wheat-free spaghetti a couple of weeks ago using the little plastic spaghetti helping measurer with the holes in it, and it was barely enough to feed him.  I just used six helpings, according to the little doohickey, which will make two bowl fulls of dinner.  Regular spaghetti acts differently, so use what you think you should.

Cook the spaghetti as per the directions on the box. 

Stir the chicken chunks to get them evenly cooked.  The stove cooled perfectly just as the chicken was done, so it is on the stove waiting for the spaghetti to be done.

Once the spaghetti is cooked, strain, rinse and put back in pot with a tsp of olive oil.  (I had to come back in and add this next step for folks like my mattman who will only do what the directions say to do...)  Don't forget to turn the heat off.  The radiant heat will be enough to keep everything nice and warm.

If you aren't totally lazy like me, then mix the herbs in a small bowl with a Tbsp of olive oil, otherwise, slowly add it to the spaghetti, stirring so it gets evenly mixed.  Don't forget to throw in the chicken.

Then, do a quick taste test, add any salt, garlic, pepper, other stuff in there as you see fit, then serve it up!

Muddy Bird Nests

This is one of the simplest desserts you can ever make, and only dirties a spoon and a mixing bowl.  It is a variation on the classic chow mien noodle bird nest dessert that includes butterscotch morsels and marshmallows.  Me making it was torturing matt.  He could smell the chocolate, but when he went into the kitchen, there was no sweet morsel to be found (because they were in the fridge).  Sorry for the lack of pictures, I was just mixing things together on a whim, and therefore wasn't thinking that the creation would end up on this site.

• 1/4 cup butterscotch morsels
• 1/4 cup chocolate morsels (we prefer milk chocolate, but use whatever floats your boat)
• handful of mini-marshmallows (I only had the regular large size and just used the kitchen scissors to cut them up into smaller chunks - very sticky!)
• 2-3 spoonfulls of your favorite peanut butter
• 1/2 cup chow mien noodles

Line a baking sheet with either tin foil or waxed paper, and make sure you have enough room in your fridge to put the baking sheet somewhat flat.  Ours is resting on several items kinda' askew, but flat enough.

In a microwavable mixing bowl, add the chocolate, butterscotch and peanut butter.  Microwave for two minutes on med-high heat.  Stir, then continue to microwave on high for 15 seconds at a time, stirring in between each heating. Do this until most all the morsels are melted. 

Remove from the microwave and let sit for a minute.  It is VERY hot, so don't try to stick you finger in for a taste! 

Add the chow mien noodles, and stir so they are all nicely coated (you may want to use more or less noodles, depending on how well they get coated).  Add the marshmallows, some of them will just melt, so don't stir too much - just enough to easily to get them mixed in.

Spoon onto the baking sheet, mine made about 15-18.  It will all depend on how big you make yours. 

Put the baking sheet into the fridge.  It won't take long for them to set, so after about five minutes, if you just can't stand to wait, they should be ready to eat!