Cendri's College Cookbook Part 2

[crankyoldman]

More stuff. Some of my favorites. And yes beer is suitable cooking ingredient.



Cheap & Cranky Carbonara

Traditional Carbonara involves much more expensive ingredients and is actually one of my favorite Italian dishes around. It's probably all the fat, which I love (won't lie, it's going to be hilarious when my metabolism catches up). So this is my best approximation considering I just use a rice cooker and a microwave.

Ingredients:

1/2 clove of garlic (or a small clove)
Several slices of thin Cooked Deli Ham (like for sandwiches)
Butter
Olive Oil
Parmesan cheese (yes, the kind you shake on spaghetti works fine)
Ramen or Angel Hair Pasta (or even spaghetti)
Optional, Mayonnaise and Black Pepper

Directions:

Cook noodles, while preparing your sauce. You want warm noodles. (In my first attempt, I cooked unflavored ramen in the microwave).

Put olive oil (and butter if you're me) in a pan (or bottom of your rice cooker bowl) and put some minced garlic in there. Toss in cut up bits of your ham and brown it up a little. Mostly you want it to be less floppy and watery and harden up a little and take on the lovely garlic flavoring a bit. Once you've gotten those where you want them toss in butter, some olive oil (your measure of each depends on how much fat you like and of what kind). Turn off heat. Drain and throw in noodles, parmesan, and in my case mayonnaise (it acts like the egg does in the traditional recipe... I usually have mayo around, but not always have eggs). Measure isn't exact, so do it to taste.

Mix it all up good and enjoy the calories. Top with black pepper if you're feeling pretentious.

Waste Not Flat Beer Stew

Sometimes you wake up and realize there is a half a beer sitting on your counter that you didn't drink last night (likely because of the several empty beer bottles next to that one...). And it's flat. Don't toss it, use it to make stew.

Ingredients:

Flat Beer (or not flat if you're not going to drink it)
Beef Stock or Broth (they are your best friend, these things. yes)
Small Potatoes of any variety
Sweet Vegetables like vidala onions, carrots, corn, whatever you have on hand or in cans
Orzo (or rice or barley)
Salt and other seasonings

Directions

Microwave potatoes to get them softer. Once this is done, chop them up. Whether you keep the skin or not is up to you (I don't), but you have to microwave them with the skin on. Make sure to poke them first, or they might explode (been there).

Combine beer and beef stock and spices you want (I tend to use seasoning salt, a black/red pepper combo, garlic, and ginger... yes ginger). Toss in orzo and harder veggies (like vidala onions). Heat covered to make sure orzo cooks. Add in softer vegetables and potatoes when onions start to look less solid or when the orzo is starting to get a bit less firm. Simmer. Eat whenever it all looks done enough.

A note: beer will make things more bitter the longer you cook it. To counteract this, I used sweeter veggies, and made sure the potato was a little cooked beforehand, as it is a SPONGE to bitter. Worst comes to worst you can toss a little sugar in (I did the first time I made it) or make sure you have more stock than beer. Experiment.

Comments

[crankyoldman]

I know, my mom uses one a lot. However, they are on the unapproved appliances list at my dorm. So I make do with a microwave and rice cooker (which is under the slow cooker type but without the pressure).