Rubbishy Cookery

This week has been soup week chez nous, thanks to some minor but pesky dental misadventures with Mr. Rubbishy, and we all wish him a speedy recovery! In the meantime, the challenge has been to create new and healthful soups daily, and stretch my creative rubbishy cookery. I have embraced the challenge! Unfortunately, I’ve been so busy focusing on the matters at hand that I didn’t even think about this blog, until after I’d already cooked and we’d eaten this dish, which was unexpectedly easy and fabulous. A perfect recipe for the blog—but no photos! What to do? Get out the old art supplies and, in the spirit of the original Moosewood cookbook series, do some rubbishy drawings! Ingredients: In case my drawing and handwriting isn’t exactly the hyperrealism style of artistry you may have expected from this blog, the ingredients are: - 1-2 Tablespoons butter  - 1 onion chopped  - 2 carrots diced - 2 potatoes peeled and diced - 2 fresh bay leaves - 1-2 teaspoons dried thyme  - ...

  As mentioned in an earlier blog post (Recipe #11), you can waffle just about anything. And yes, you can use the word waffle as a noun and a verb. At least here, at Rubbishy Grammary. Ingredients: As you can see in the above photo, the only ingredients are leftover buttery mashed potatoes and a seasoned waffle iron. If your leftover mashed potatoes aren’t buttery, or your waffle iron isn’t seasoned, you will also need oil. If you want to get extra fancy, you could also add some sautéed chopped onions. I wish I had thought of that earlier. Oh well. Next time. Directions: Preheat your waffle iron, green light means go: Add your cold leftover mashed potatoes to the hot waffle iron: And waffle: Until hot and golden brown: And that’s it! Serve as is, or make it a proper breakfast with two over easy eggs and hot sauce: So good!

  When I was visiting Germany a few years ago, I found this delightful and simple dish everywhere. It was even the snack food sold at an otherwise foodless beer garden! That’s my kind of country! Ingredients: Missing from photo above and a late addition: salted butter! Directions: Boil your potatoes as so: In Germany, I always received a whole uncut potato in its jacket, removed from a big steamer and wrapped in foil. We’re going to just boil our potatoes, in their jackets, but cut into big chunks to cook faster. The water they’re boiling in is good and salty. When the potatoes are fork tender, drain them and plate them, with your quark handy: Hmmm… what’s missing here? Of course! Butter! Enjoy your delicious German snack or meal any time of day! Das schmeckt sehr gut! Tschüss!

  This is a very basic and delicious potato soup that was introduced to me in my young adulthood. One summer, my roommate’s boyfriend Scott spent a lot of time staying at our place, but he was such a delight we didn’t mind. In fact, he was like a 5th housemate. Except he didn’t pay rent.  But he did make us this soup. I can still picture the bunch of us sitting around, listening to tunes, bantering, and peeling potatoes for this soup. I remember Scott made it for us in the late summer when there was just the touch of a chill in the air. It was perfection. Good ole Scott. I wonder where he is today? Ingredients: Directions: Peel some potatoes, chop into cubes, and boil in salty water: Until fork tender: Then drain: Melt a good sized chunk of butter in the pot: Chop an onion into thin slices and add to the pot: And sauté until softened but not browned: Add milk to the pot and heat without boiling: Then return the cooked potato cubes to the pot: Heat through and, without boiling,...

  This is the closest thing I make to a real salade niçoise, and although it’s much more effort than the other, faker versions (see recipes #15 and #20) (and still not authentic), it’s well worth it! Ingredients: Directions: I’m going to make my hard boiled eggs in the Instant Pot because I have one and it makes perfect hard boiled eggs (as well as cool fun-house reflections on the mirrored interior), but you can certainly make them the old fashioned way on the stove top: Boil up some fresh baby new potatoes and green or yellow beans: The potatoes take longer than the beans, which are really just quick cooked to al dente or barely cooked, then plunged into cold water to stop them from overcooking, then drained well. The potatoes are cooked until a fork can easily pierce them, then drained well but kept warm. Chop all the raw vegetables and put into the salad bowl: Then add the canned tuna with oil, chopped hard boiled eggs, drained beans, drained (and still warm) diced potatoes, an...

  Disclaimer #1: this is not a Spanish tortilla, which I also adore, and is also a type of potato omelette. This potato omelette isn’t even close to the Spanish version, except for the eggs and potatoes. Disclaimer #2: I didn’t invent this dish. This particular recipe was introduced to me by my grade 8 bestie, Karen Crawford, who said that her father invented it by accident while trying to make a potato soufflé. This story doesn’t make any sense to me now, and I question my memory of these origins. Which means that I may also have altered the recipe over the past forty (40!) years. Which means I maybe can take some credit for its current incarnation.  However! This omelette made a huge impression on my little 13-year old self. It may be the first recipe I made an effort to learn to make by myself that came to me from outside of my family, and I spent a lot of time working on perfecting my techniques to make it taste as good as the Crawford family version. I remember making fai...

  As mentioned in a previous rubbishy post (see Recipe #15), I love a good authentic  salade niçoise… but this is not that. Like Recipe #15, this recipe is a salad that has been inspired by salade niçoise, but like all salads I create containing vegetables, canned tuna, and a passable vinaigrette dressing, that maketh not une vrai salade niçoise. But this one is, dare I say, closer to the mark? Ingredients: Note the two main additions to this version: a hard boiled egg and some leftover cold boiled new potatoes. There is also the addition of grainy mustard for the vinaigrette. We are still using iceberg lettuce so just be cool with it, okay? Directions: Wash and dry and cut up all the vegetables and add them to the salad bowl.  Cut up the hard boiled egg and cold boiled new potatoes and add them to the bowl. Add the tin of tuna with its olive oil: I mix the vinaigrette directly into the salad by adding a squeeze of grainy mustard, a sprinkling of red wine vinegar, more ol...