Rubbishy Cookery

  I’m lifting another one of my rubbishy recipes from the hit bestseller cabbage cookbook: Last seen here in Recipe #35, and is now internationally famous: But never mind all that hoopla! We won’t let fame go to our heads, will we? Nevair! So it’s the third night of Hanukkah 2025, the news is beyond dreadful, I’m sick with laryngitis, and I’m already done with latkes. I needed a comforting, healthy, easy, and rubbishy dinner tonight. Soba noodles in the pantry, I’m gonna make my famous dish from the cabbage cookbook: Ann so loved my rubbishy contribution to the book she gave me a generously praising paragraph intro and named the dish after me!  Let’s go! Ingredients: I know it’s called Cabbage Noodles in the book, but I don’t have any cabbage today. The main point of this recipe is to use whatever vegetables you have on hand. The main ingredients are the soba noodles, the soft cooked egg, the tamari, and sesame oil. I would go so far as to say that the chopped scallions and to...

  This recipe could be subtitled: Or, how to use up refrigerator dregs and leftovers before going on a trip. Here we go! Ingredients: The photo above shows the ingredients I intended to use (chopped quarter green cabbage, big hunk of salted butter, one egg that turned into two eggs, and leftover Jasmine rice) when I started this meal, and it was simply going to be buttery stir fried cabbage with reheated (or waffled, see Recipe #11) rice and a fried egg. But then I got thinking about turning everything into a one pan meal and decided to go a different route, so out came these guys: That’s tamari sauce and toasted sesame oil in the photo above. Here we go! Directions: Melt big hunk of butter in the hot pan, add chopped cabbage and stir fry: Get the cabbage nicely cooked and wilted and a bit browned: Then add the cold leftover rice and incorporate: Get the rice nice and warm and browned a little, and stir in some tamari sauce and toasted sesame oil: Stir it all together then crack in...

  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...

  Warning: this post isn’t just rubbishy, but it’s also sad and pathetic in tone and spirit.  This is a great recipe for when you have a nasty viral respiratory infection. And possibly still recovering from a lower limb injury. Should you find yourself in that most unfortunate situation, but still able to cook. Kind of. Also, if this was a major part of your childhood: If this book in particular, and Maurice Sendak in general, weren’t a major part of your childhood, run don’t walk to your nearest library and check it and him out. I’m just assuming that this recipe is going to turn out well, because of my confidence and current health pickle. I’ve never made chicken soup with rice this way before, nor have I ever made chicken soup with rice in the dead of summer, but here we are. Ingredients, part I: Ingredients, part II: Very important ingredient close up: Yes, this is a quick and easy chicken soup, and fits in well with the blog’s rubbishy cookery theme. In an ideal world, it...