Rubbishy Cookery

  If this recipe sounds familiar, it’s because it’s one of three of my rubbishy recipes featured in this best selling cabbage recipe book: On page 28: But here you will get the full recipe with step by step photos! Ingredients: As you can see from the photo above, all of my ingredients today have seen better days and are looking a little shabby. Some wasteful folks might even toss such pathetic odds and ends, but not us! We will make them shine in this simple and tasty slaw! Panch phora is a mixture of 5 spices, traditionally an Indian spice mix and usually consists of cumin seeds, brown mustard seeds, fennel seeds, nigella seeds, and fenugreek seeds. I used to have a supplier at the local farmer’s market but she has vanished and now I mix my own from individual spices and toast them lightly in the toaster oven: Missing from today’s mix is the nigella seeds, and I can’t really notice their absence. Everything else is pretty essential. Directions: Finely chop your cabbage without ch...

  Today I will show you how to make a versatile  quinoa salad. Ingredients: The list of ingredients is irrelevant because you can add almost anything to this salad and it will be fine. There’s quinoa, of course, but the remaining ingredients can be whatever you have on hand. Someone gifted me the package of Veggie Sticks Salad Topper, so in they go. We had cucumbers in the garden, so giddy up. I forgot to put feta cheese in this photo, but it makes an appearance because I thought of it later. And so on. Ignore the defrosting tofu burger sitting on top of the toaster oven. That’s not in the salad but will be eaten on the side. But who’s to say it couldn’t go in the salad too? Who’s to say?? Directions: First, we make the quinoa, and we make it pasta-style by boiling a big pot of water. We also start, simultaneously, by boiling a little pot of water for the frozen shelled edamame: Simultaneously, we roast up some frozen corn kernels in the toaster oven on fairly high heat for as...

  Who doesn’t love poutine? Ingredients: Note the power ingredient: You certainly don’t have to use authentic Québécois cheese curds, but then it’s not poutine. It’s what one university pub menu from my Alma mater called “fries with cheese and gravy”. Directions: I won’t lie: I’m taking a major shortcut here today using frozen fries, but they’re pretty darn good. I’ll do up some homemade fries in a future post. Also I’m cheating with the homemade gravy by copying from memory (from years, possibly decades, ago—so it may actually be quite different) a published gravy recipe from one of the famed Moosewood cookbooks, or so I think? First, pop those frozen fries into the oven. I’m making a single serving on a hot summer day, so I’m just using the toaster oven: And bake according to the bag’s directions until golden brown and crispy. Start making the Moosewood-plagiarized gravy by adding some canola oil to a saucepan and, when warm, add sliced fresh mushrooms: You’ve got it on medium-hi...

  I am literally making up this recipe as I go. Improv rubbishy cookery at its finest! Ingredients: This last minute side was inspired by what was in the fridge. Choose your own adventure! Directions: Chop your vegetables up real good: Then add a big glob of instant slaw dressing (a.k.a. mayo): Mix everything together and you’ve got slaw! I just thought how extra good it would taste and crunch with bits of bacon…