Culinary adventures and failures

"How do you make such delicious food, Philip?" said no one ever. However, I'm not going to let that stop me from telling you how I cook such, ummm, delicious food.

Until a few days ago, I had barely used my kitchen.  I am still struggling with basic tasks like cutting food not fingers, and operating appliances.  My wounded hands are a constant reminder of this incompetence.  Still, progress is being made.

And with this progress in mind, today I present a topography of the peaks and valleys of my culinary experiences.  Every meal discussed costs around a dollar and provides at least 500 calories.

My biggest win: Garlic Fried Yams

These are genuinely delicious and fairly easy to make.

Chop garlic. Slice yams. Don't slice fingers (I always forget this part). Fry garlic with yams in way more fat than you think you need. Add salt.

Approx 500 calories for only $1, and over 100% of your recommended intake of Vitamin C.

Breakfast: White rice with eggs, chicken and hot sauce

Again, approx 500 calories for only $1. It requires a lot of hot sauce to make it taste decent, but is a fairly good breakfast and is very quick to prepare if you use cooked rice and microwave the eggs.  The chicken is optional.

Pinto bean bolognese

This one is a little more expensive and time-consuming to prepare.  I cook it in bulk at the start of the week and reheat as needed.

The recipe: Rinse pinto beans. Soak beans overnight. Drain beans and boil for 2 hours.  In the meantime, fry ground beef (I use the cheapest, nastiest stuff I can buy - anybody who can afford to shouldn't), shred carrots, simmer tomatoes with a dollop of margarine, and fry garlic.  Drain beans, add salt, a few splashes of hot sauce and combine.

This is surprisingly tasty and provides about 500 calories for $1.20.  Use fewer tomatoes and / or less meat to reduce the cost, or combine with rice.

Failure: Oatmeal biscuits

In my dreams, these were incredibly cheap treats that were going to eliminate my sugar cravings.  I combined 4.5 ounces oats with 3 ounces of sugar and 4 ounces melted margarine and then baked it for about 15 minutes.  The result was sweet, oaty crumbs.

This cost only $0.88, which works out as 1620 calories per dollar. More than half a day's calories for only $1!  Which is great if you love crumbs.

Rice pudding

Having a lot of rice, and having had little success with making sweet things, I thought I should give rice pudding a try.  

It's fairly easy to make. You slowly boil half a cup of white rice with 3/4 cup of sugar (in retrospect this is too much sugar). Once the water is all absorbed, add 2 1/2 cups milk and cook until it reaches the desired consistency.  It tastes good, but was very sweet.  The recipe claimed it made six servings, but I finished it in one.

It costs $1.12 and provides 1050 calories.  It tastes like cheap rice pudding, which of course it is.

And finally: Chicken soup

Umm, yeah. And it burned my hand.