Black beans on the crock pot:
- 454g of dry black beans
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 teaspoon of garlic powder
- 4 bay leaves (big)
- 1 piece of dried kombu
- 2 carrots, sliced
Add everything to the crock pot, with 6 cups of water. Cook for 5 hours on high. Once it’s done, add 2 teaspoons of salt and mix well.
I make this every Sunday, and eat throughout the week with fresh rice, salad, nuts, and some protein (tofu or soy in my case). It’s delicious and nutritious.
Are the beans dried? I imagine cooking canned beans for 5 hours will turn them to mush
You’re right! Dried beans, I’ll edit the comment, thanks!
In winter I find soups are great dishes with minimal effort. I chop up some root veg, roast it in the oven until it’s soft then mix it with some liquid and blend it. You can use whatever you have on hand (carrots, squash, pumpkin, sweet potatoes) and you can vary the liquid as well. I usually use vegetable stock but coconut milk works well. Add some spices to the vegetables when roasting or just stick with some salt. Then just serve with the nicest bread you can get hold of and eat!
In summer, I always enjoy pasta dishes with some kind of pesto. All you need for a normal pesto is garlic, toasted nuts, oil, an Italian hard cheese and basil. Pine nuts are traditional but cashews are more readily available (and cheaper where I live). If you’ve got a lemon, squeeze some juice in as well. The last month or so has been wild garlic season so I’ve foraged for the leaves and used it in place of both the basil and garlic. Carrot, beetroot and radish leaves are good too (plus others I haven’t tried that I’m sure will also work) or you can roast beetroot or pepper and blend them into the mixture. I just serve this with some pasta, vegetables and cheese (normally feta) and you can make the pesto quite quickly while the pasta is cooking.
Usually when I make soups I boil the veg in the water then blend. Does roasting it first improve the taste?
Yeah, like @Sentenial@lemmy.ml said, the maillard reaction makes stuff taste nice! Compare a boiled potato to a roast potato and see which is better - it usually takes more time to roast over boiling but it’s worth it.
This applies to meat as well. Imo there’s a big flavor improvement to a stew made with seared meat vs one where the meat was added raw to the stew.
Yes, especially if you use relatively highly heat to get some browning. Called the maillard reaction and makes food taste good. Browning a steak in a hot pan is the same thing.
Lentil soup with rice. My wife calls it her favorite comfort food.
What I do is:
Preheat a dutch oven with a little olive oil over medium heat
Dice 2 small/1 large yellow onion
Chop (don’t peel) 2 small/1 large yukon gold potato
Chop a couple of carrots and sometimes a couple of celery stalks
Start the onions cooking down first (sometimes adding just a touch of brown sugar)
After a little bit I add the rest of the veggies and a lot of cumin powder
Wait until all the veggies are getting a just bit tender/browned, stirring occasionally
Add a little bit of white wine and scrape off bits at the bottom of the pot
Add 4 cups water and 4 teaspoons Chicken Better than Bullion
Add more cumin, a bit a ground cardamom, ground coriander, and garlic powder
Let it boil a bit for the veggies to get even more tender
Add 1 cup red lentils and simmer
At this point I start cooking some white rice in my instant pot, takes about 15 minutes
Just about when the rice is done, the lentils should be soft, so take an immersion blender and blend until smooth (should still be a little chunky)
Salt and add bit of lemon juice and/or white wine vinegar to taste
Serve over the rice, garnish with some fresh parsley if wanted
Ok writing it out maybe not the absolute easiest dish – but I think its pretty simple and most of it is totally on auto-pilot. Totally delicious and the leftovers are amazing too.
You can make a super easy version if you’ve got an Instant Pot / pressure cooker - just chuck all the ingredients into a ceramic bowl (I do this instead of putting it in directly as it makes it easier to clean, plus, you can eat right off the bowl when it’s done).
To elaborate, I rinse the rice and lentils together (approx 1:1 ratio but I prefer a bit more lentils than rice, for more protein and a creamier texture), add twice the amount of water, then chuck in veggies (at its very basic just onions and tomatoes; optionally ginger, garlic and chillies), plus spices and seasonings (at its very basic I’d just add turmeric and salt; for more variety I’d add cumin, coriander powder and a pinch of asafoetida -> this is a game changer btw). Close the lid and let it cook for about 15 minutes and then rest for 5-10 mins. Take out the bowl, adjust the water consistency if necessary, garnish with fresh coriander and you’re done. Optionally serve with microwaved or roasted papadoms on the side.
Fast, easy, fuss free and healthy too.
Fried rice. It takes a good bit of technique, but I was able to practice a lot and get good at it while living somewhere where I had a high temperature wok burner. Now that I have the technique down, I can manage pretty well in an ordinary skillet on an electric stove.
Chilli is maybe not super super easy to make, but you can make a ton of it, freeze the rest and eat it every day / every other day in a different style, one day burrito, one day nachos, one day with rice, etc etc.
latte with oat milk + cig 👩🍳🤌
(suppresses appetite and tasty, honestly ditch the cig even, i haven’t eaten in days)
Here to introduce you some of the easiest comfort Korean food: Kimchi Fried Rice!
Stir fry some leftover kimchi with some salt and some soy sauce and some olive oil(you can skip that tho). Put cooked rice after 1-2min and cook for another 3 min.
If you don’t like Kimchi’s strong flavor this is definitely the way to try. There’s plenty of recipies online and honestly it’s a recipie that just couldn’t go wrong.
As a college student, I live off of that.
Slice up about a third of a can of Spam into slabs, and cook them in a pan until brown and crispy. Then cook up some basic ramen. After the Spam is done, make a simple over easy egg. Put it all together, and you’ve got a simple and pretty cheap meal thatll keep you full until Gabriel’s horn sounds
Japanese curry is always a nice comfort food.
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Kraft Macaroni and Cheese mixed with Ground beef. Not healthy, but very delicious.
Chopped up hot dogs is the way
Yes plus islands of ketchup
My college version of the creation was can of tuna + Kraft Dinner. Lazy, relatively cheap, and surprisingly good. I called it the poor-man’s tuna casserole.
Rice with Rice
Sometimes i like a little variation am go with pasta and rice
My favorite dish
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Hamburger gravy over rice is good delicious comfort food and you can mix it up with add-ins pretty easy
The basic idea is:
- Brown 1lb of hamburger, 80% or 93%, your choice, but don’t drain
- Dump in a can of condensed cream of mushroom soup
- Cook up 3/4c of white rice
Spread the gravy over the rice in a tupperware or pyrex container, stick it in the fridge, and later you can cut it out like a thick casserole and heat up. It looks gross but your tongue will love it. The hamburger gravy keeps the rice from getting crappy like it usually does in the fridge.
I like to double up the burger and rice but keep the single can of soup, and mix in a bundle of green onions, 16oz white mushrooms, 4 habaneros, a half a yellow onion, a couple cloves of garlic, and some celery or carrots or anaheim pepper slices or something for a little crunch. Still super easy to make but less salty, a bit of spicy kick, very yummy. Still will look pretty gross haha, but I swear it tastes amazing, your body will crave it.
Brown 1lb of hamburger, 80% or 93%, your choice, but don’t drain
I’m pretty confused as to what “hamburger” is here. Why do you have to drain it? I thought a hamburger was one of these 🍔
in this case, they just mean ground beef.
They mean the leanness of ground beef(hamburger meat).
80% lean meat / 20% fat.
And they’re saying to NOT drain the rendered fat from the saute pan that you create from browning the ground beef.
the grilled cheese sandwich ease/pleasure ratio is hard to beat.
