Supper of the Lamb: Day 3

Day 1 was the lamb with couscous and greens. In retrospect, this was the least interesting so far.

Day 2 was lamb with Diana Kennedy's Syrian yogurt sauce, far more sublime than the chicken version we've had (still good, of course). One of Frugal Son's high school friends (a picky eater from way back) showed up at dinner time. He deigned to eat some and pronounced it good.

Day 3 was lamb in Thai curry sauce. Even more sublime.

This is a totally flexible recipe as long as you have Thai curry paste and a can of coconut milk. The nice thing about Thai curries is that you can make it a sort of stew. You don't need to worry about overcooking as you do with stir-frying. You can use any combo of veggies you want (or even no veggies). In a pinch, even frozen vegetables would be pretty good.

We are STILL trying to use things up, so we sauteed scallions, cauliflower, pepper, and greens--all from our garden. (Cauliflower was an experiment and it got those little mold spots, which we had to cut off, shrinking the vegetable considerably.) When all was done, we stirred in about 3 TBS red curry paste (though yellow or green would be good too) and a can of coconut milk. Then we stirred in chunks of lamb and some of the broth that remained in the roasting pan.

Of course, we cooked our rice in a rice cooker.

It's this kind of meal that makes me reluctant to spend big bucks at restaurants. It was so easy and so good and so cheap. The conversation was excellent.

I should have taken a picture. We ate it all up. Luckily, Frugal Son eats a lot and fast and is still growing. Coconut milk is verrrrry high in fat.

Cheating! Good Deals for College Students Double Post

My first slacker activity of the new school year. I just posted this on the College Cooking blog. It's useful information, if you are or know a college student.

Sam's Club offers college students a $15.00 gift card with its regular $40.00 membership. Math majors: This makes the membership $25.00, right? You have to get this in-store, I think. Miss Em is going to join, with a parent as a co-member.

We don't buy much there, but it's worth it for cheese. Most of the goods are sized too large for college students.

Meanwhile, Amazon is working towards world domination by offering students free Amazon Prime. Needless to say, this is designed to get you to purchase your textbooks from Amazon. Prime means you don't need to get to $25.00 for free shipping. Plus, you get 2-day shipping.

So, students, in addition to whatever else you need: remember your rice cooker.

Our New Blog!

Well, not much ON the new blog, but check it out: College Cooking Crash Course. Frugal Son and I have been testing recipes and hope to figure out how to make our concoction into an ebook.

Though we conceptualized this for the dorm dwelling student, our "system" would be great for anyone who would like to cook with no trouble--not to mention, no stove. We've come up with a plan that requires one shop for more than a week of meals, one rice cooker, little prep, little cleanup. We're assuming little storage space too, as befits the dorm focus. And of course it's CHEAP. Really cheap.

Of course, with all the restrictions, you're going to get a one-dish supper--not a three course meal. Tonight we had an Asian rice dish topped with Thai-inspired peanut sauce. Not too shabby.

Any questions? Any interest? Any ideas?

College Dorm Cooking: The Good, The Bad, The Dangerous

Should I continue with this project? Should I--as blogbuddy Chance suggests--write an ecookbook? So far, I have started a pantry, including a freezer pantry, suggested some essential equipment, notably, a rice cooker, and test-driven a recipe-less concoction in the rice cooker. So far, so good.

I continue to look around for helpful sources. I was in Barnes and Noble last week and saw a slew of slow cooker cookbooks, with nary a rice cooker book. I check around the blogosphere. Let's go through my subtitle in reverse order.

THE DANGEROUS. There are many blog posts that suggest going against dorm rules so you can keep a toaster over, a Foreman grill, even a hotplate in your dorm room. Many of these have a jeering tone: "Hey, I'm an adult. Can't I be trusted with a hotplate?" Uh, no. I remember reading about a dorm that burned down because a student tried to dry her underwear with a blow dryer. And I remember being in college myself, trying to stay up all night, and falling asleep over my books.

Some of the posts advising hiding proscribed appliances in your closet are written by PARENTS. Please, parents, your child is just as likely to pass out as the next kid.

THE BAD. I've already described some of these: ramen stroganoff, velveeta nachos, and the like. One recent discovery (no link--find it yourself if you want it) gave directions for microwave meatloaf, which consisted of 1/4 lb of ground beef cooked in a mug with various meatloaf ingredients. To me, this is simply useless. Assuming you don't have 1/4 lb of hamburger in a defrosted state, you need to trudge to the grocery, purchase your quarter pound of meat, pay, return to the dorm, and concoct your meatloaf.

The GOOD. Well, it doesn't exist. There are decent college cookbooks out there, but they are not dorm cookbooks. One I flipped through at Barnes and Noble gave the useful (I'm being sarcastic) suggestion that if you don't have buttermilk to make your muffin batter, you can sub yogurt. Gee, that's helpful for the average dorm dweller.

So this is what I think would be good.
First, a PANTRY. I've already started this. With basic ingredients, you can make any number of things quickly. It's the haphazard shopping that is a time-waster.

Second, a FEW recipes. Many blog posts on the subject advise buying your scholar a basic cookbook. Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything is often mentioned. That's a fine suggestion for someone like me, who loves to peruse cookbooks, but that sucker is over 900 pages long. I can just see your scholar flipping though, trying to decide. Remember: PARADOX OF CHOICE. So let's limit the choices.

My cookbook is written for my darling daughter, so my recipes will be her favorites. I remember reading Peg Bracken's I Hate to Cookbook, a fun read, though I never did cook anything from it. Anyway, she said: no one needs more than 28 recipes (or was it 30?). Well, I think that the college student needs even fewer.

These will be mine, decided on in consultation with my dear Lucy M.
1. African peanut soup
2. Thai coconut curry (shrimp, chicken, or vegetable)
3. Shrimp and corn soup
4. Burritos
5. Chilaquiles
6. Chile (beef and vegetarian)
7. Red beans and rice (of course!)
8. A magic spinach/ricotta dish that can be Italian or Mexican, depending.

None of these needs the stove; some can be put together and then microwaved. These--along with the rice cooker basics--provide plenty of variety. They are mostly one-pot meals. I seem to remember Peg Bracken also saying that you don't need to get all your nutrients in each meal; you can spread them out over time! Good point.

Anyway, I would be appreciative of any other ideas. Be looking for further development through summer.

Newsflash: Peg Bracken's book is being republished in a 50th Anniversary edition. Bracken is a great writer.

Polenta in the Rice Cooker: It Works

Soooo, I've already advocated polenta in the slow cooker. Now, fickle me, I am putting aside that cumbersome appliance for my new bff in the kitchen: the rice cooker.

Of course, I did this for my daughter's cooking adventures in the dorm next year. I was skeptical, but since cornmeal costs about 50 cents/lb, I figured I could take a chance. I put in one cup of cornmeal and two cups of water, stirred, added some salt. Turned it on. It was bubbling like crazy. I decided that maybe I hadn't added enough water, so I added another cup after a bit. Stirred again (watch out for the splattering polenta--it burns).

Much to my surprise, it was fine AND it stuck to the pot less than it sticks to the slow cooker insert. Mr. FS complained mildly about how long it took to get the stuck polenta off the slow cooker insert. (Yes, he does most of the dishes too.)

The reason I was skeptical is because the rice cooker goes against polenta rules. Polenta rules state long, slow cooking at barely a bubble, preferably for hours, preferably by your nonna, preferably in a copper pot. The slow cooker actually fulfills the first rule. Rice cooker cooking fulfills none: it brings the polenta to a boil very fast, then cooks furiously, then switches to warm. Who cares? It worked, no lumps, and no sticking.

By the way, in the interest of frugality, you don't need to buy that pricey grain labeled POLENTA. You can buy cornmeal.

I have a feeling that my rice cooker experiments will transform my cooking life more than my daughter's.

Any good toppings for polenta?

Frugal College Cooking: My First Rice Cooker Success

I was cruising through Roger Ebert's rice cooker blog the other day and discovered some words of wisdom. He was discussing Asian dishes, and said that, no, you can't make a stir fry, but you can throw a bunch of Asian type stuff in the pot--he specifically mentioned pineapple--and see what you will see.

As I had half a can of pineapple in the fridge, I was inspired to try, especially since I knew the pineapple would be en route to the compost pile pretty soon.

Here's what I put in: about 1 cup of rice, 1 1/2 cups water, small handful of chopped leeks we have in the freezer. A little salt. Turned on the pot.

After a bit, I added 1 chopped pepper from the garden, some of that moldering pineapple, and some of that Asian mini corn that comes in cans. I had an open can of that too, from the clean out the pantry project I've been discussing for several months now. I added a bit of soy sauce and some hoisin too.

The switch flipped to warm, and I had an idea: why not break an egg over it, as in that Korean dish whose name escapes me*. So I did. I flipped the switch on again.

I checked to make sure the white was cooked and hoped the yolk would be runny. Then I bestowed the dish on Lucy M, the reason for all my experimentation. The yolk was runny.

We added some of that neat hot sauce with the rooster on it.

And, Readers, it was good!
Thank you, Mr. Ebert, you are right. The pot knows what to do.

P.S. Lucy said the only part she didn't like was the pineapple.
*The Korean dish is called bibimbap.

P.P. S. I've already linked to this, but will do so again, in case you missed it. My mentor has a cookbook coming out:

Frugal College Cooking: Rice Cooker Cookbooks

As usual, I am in a weird position vis a vis the zeitgeist. I am always a little too early or a little too late. Now it is the zeitgeist of rice cooker cookbooks.

There are two decent extant rice cooker cookbooks. I've gotten both at the library, which purchased them at my request. (Thank you, bookbuyer!). Decent, but not quite what I'm looking for. What I'm looking for: first, decent recipes that don't overuse oversalted convenience foods for the harried scholar. Second, recipes that use the RICE COOKER as it was meant to be used and don't tell you to try to saute an onion in the rice cooker (or brown meat in there). Others present recipes that depend on first sauteing something on the stove and so on, and if you can do that, why bother with the rice cooker. Perhaps what I'm looking for does not exist?

The first, which sounded very promising, is by the person who writes those excellent slow cooker cookbooks: This book is great for the grainhead: it tells you how to make almost every kind of rice imaginable (wehani, anyone?), plus every other grain from the common to the obscure. There are not all that many recipes that meet criterion #2 above.

The second sounded even more promising: This is a little book from a local small publisher. In fact, the author IS the publisher.

The Louisiana origin is, of course, a good sign. Some people here say they don't like to travel outside the state because "the food is bad." (I am not making that up.) But Louisiana cooking has a kind of split personality. There are lots of good local raw ingredients, especially seafood (sadly, thanks to BP, this may not be the case much longer). Still, if you look at the classic Louisiana homecooking books, you see many recipes that rely on canned soups, velveeta, and the like. So you'll see a recipe for shrimp or crawfish fettuccine--made with velveeta. Or crawfish enchiladas--made with cream of mushroom soup.

This book allows for searching, so I suggest you take a spin. Some recipes have you brown in the cooker. Another--for shrimp fettuccine--tempted me, but it called for pasta, water, shrimp, and a pound of Mexican salsa cheese (that weird orange stuff that comes in a jar). I decided not to subject my poor shrimp to that cheese.


I also discovered two books on the horizon. Like anything on the horizon, these may prove disappointing when met in reality. Still, I have put in a request to the agreeable bookbuyer at my library. Both are scheduled for publication in the next few months.

The first is guaranteed to be a good read, since the writer is a writer, Roger Ebert: I discovered Ebert's blog on rice cooker cooking last year, when I first started on my quest. He seems to have the right idea. For instance, he says he sometimes starts with a can of fairly healthy canned soup and then doctors it up--adding beans, veggies, rice, and so on, all of which would reduce the vile canned food quotient. Second sounds great, but who knows?

Check out Ebert's blog if you have the chance. It is a pleasure to read, but there are hundreds of comments.Actually, the comments are great and Ebert's responses to the comments even greater. (I have recently learned about Ebert's medical problems, which are such that he can no longer eat. Yet he still writes and is even putting out a cookbook. He must truly be an amazing person.)

The second book on the horizon is an "Everything" book. . Again, very promising; again, the proof will be in the pudding.

I've noticed that for newer books, Amazon no longer includes the SEARCH inside the book I mentioned in a previous post, but LOOK inside. The latter is much more limited, obviously, since Amazon controls what you see. Sadly, I will be able to do much less testing of cookbooks before purchase.