Asklemmy

I've got a simple recipe for meatloaf that I got from my dad, and he got from his mum. I'll lay it out below.

700g mince 5% fat

~45g oatmeal

1 large egg

1 medium red onion

1 pack streaky bacon

3 good squeezes of ketchup

10g brown or demerara sugar

A splash of olive oil

Fresh ground pepper to taste

Mix mince, egg, and chunky diced onion, add oatmeal to make the mix a bit drier, should be able to make a small ball and not leave any on your fingers. Line a metal loaf tin with the bacon so the strips hang half out over the edge. Pack the mince mixture in tight. Mix the ketchup, sugar, and olive oil. Spread half over the top of the mince, then wrap the bacon over the top and spread the rest ofthe ketchup mix. Crack pepper over top to taste. Cook at 170°C for ~30mins, probably less. Pull it out when internal temp hits ~70°c as residual heat will finish the cooking while it rests for 10mins.

Yogurt dill dip. I use this recipe. It's an incredibly flavorful dip, sauce, or salad dressing. I made a batch of six cups recently for a family & friends dinner where it worked as dip for pita chips, topping for meat, dressing for salad, and topping for broccoli.

Here's a carbonara dish:

Ingredients

• 500g/1lb pasta

• 1 brown onion, finely diced

• 2-5 cloves garlic

• 1 capsicum

• 1 punnet white button mushrooms, thinly sliced

• 2 egg

• 1 cup grated cheese - plus extra for serving

• 1/2lb / 100g shaved ham (or bacon), roughly chopped

• 1 courgette, grated

Steps:

1. Bring a big pot of salted water to the boil (plenty of salt) Cook pasta in pot of boiling water for until just tender (depends heavily on which pasta, check back of pack for cooking time, and take a minute or two off then eat a test piece to see if it needs more). Reserve 1 cup pasta cooking water, then drain. Return pasta to put with a drizzle of olive oil to prevent sticking. Set aside.

2. While pasta is cooking, heat a little oil in a medium frying pan on medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic, and cook for 2-3 mins until softened. While onion cooks, remove core and seeds of capsicum and thinly slice.

3. Add capsicum and mushroom to pan with onion and cook for 2-3 minutes, until just tender. While capsicum and mushrooms cook, whisk egg in a small bowl. Add cream, salt, and first measure of cheese then mix to combine. Set aside.

4. Add ham and courgette to pan with mushrooms and cook for 1-2 minutes, until warmed through . Reduce pan heat to low-medium.

5. Add 1/2 of the reserved pasta water and cooked, drained pasta to pan and stir to coat. Add egg/cream mixture and mix well to combine. If you would like more sauce, stir through more pasta water. Allow sauce to gently heat through for about 1 minute - don't overcook or egg will go lumpy. Season with salt and a generous amount of black pepper.

To serve: divide creamy carbonara between plates and sprinkle over remaining cheese.

Personally I leave out the mushroom (no one in our house likes it) then cover in tomato sauce (kind of like ketchup). Probably some sort of crime to do this though.

Haystacks, easy to prepare and pretty tasty!

Pan-fried tofu and garlic with a dash of soy sauce.

Mine changes every few months, depending on energy levels. Right now it's scrambled or boiled eggs with toast.

In the winter I was obsessed with making a cabbage & random vegetable soup. I just shredded the cabbage, cut up and sauteed various veggies in olive oil (carrots, potatoes, parsnips, celery root, etc), put in spices (pepper, thyme, paprika, bay leaf, and whatever else seemed fun), then added the cabbage and waited until it lost some volume, added hot water/stock, boiled for 30-40min. Towards the end I might add some bell peppers or broccoli or other vegetable with a short cooking time. After removing from the stove, I did a couple pulses with the immersion blender to thicken the soup while leaving whole veggie bit inside. Finally, I topped with lemon juice after serving.

bhel puri

Chili. Not a ton of work but always delicious. Best bang for the ~~buck~~ work.

Just crack an egg or two on a pan. Grate some cheese on it (not sure on the English name of the cheese I use, but not all of them will work as well). Depending on how I'm feeling that day I might cut up some sausage on top as well. Season with a fuck ton of salt and black pepper.

You can either eat it directly off the pan with slices of bread or throw it inside two large slices of bread and eat it like a sandwich. If you're going for the second approach make sure you cook the egg well, otherwise you're gonna be making a mess.

pasta with spinach sauce. I've always got some frozen spinach chunks in my freezer, so it's a matter of defrosting, adding sour cream and some garlic and letting it simmer for a while, and I'm ready to go.

This is one of my goto's if I want something quick

Low Sodium Ribeye Fajitas

edit: could also use chicken breast instead of ribeye. I just made it that way last night.

Seasoning: (adjust to taste, I don't do these exact amounts every time)
* 1 tsp cumin
* 1/2 tsp oregano
* 3/4 tsp garlic powder
* 1/4 tsp onion powder
* 1/4 tsp pepper
* optional: dash of red pepper flakes
mix together seasoning ingredients in small bowl

* 1 ribeye steak, sliced
* sliced red bell pepper
* sliced green bell pepper
* sliced onion
* optional: sliced jalapenos
* olive oil

( I'm usually lazy and buy fajita pepper and onion mix at Kroger that's already sliced )

Fry your slices of steak in some olive oil until they're about halfway cooked and then add the bell peppers and onion. When it's near done add in the seasoning mixture. Serve on tortillas with sour cream or however you like it. Quick prep and cook time!

I like to make a stir fry with hokkien noodles Start with some frozen stir fry vegetables and some oil. Once the veg is mostly thawed, I'll add some kind of protein, usually eggs. The egg gets scrambled then fried in a large skillet on med-high heat until it starts to brown, then flip and repeat. Don't move the egg around while its cooking, it should be like an omelette. Roll up the egg and cut into thin strips and mix with the veg, add the noodles and cook for a minute. Stir in your sauce of choice, usually I use teriyaki or black bean sauce.

Done in <10 min

I've gone vegetarian, but my old go to for a special meal that took basically no effort? Boiled pot roast.

You take a pot. Any kind as long as it fits the roast. You put the roast in. Add seasoning. Add water. Let it boil for a few hours. When you're ready to eat it it's probably long since finished. Yeah, you can put it in a crock pot or an oven pan or whatever but I didn't have those. Used this method to make corned beef brisket as a Christmas thing for awhile.

Now that I'm vegetarian? Hamburger helper. Fry some vegetarian hamburger. Add pasta. Add water and seasoning. Let simmer til done.

@Npenplz
I make toast and put an easy cream sauce (fry some flour in butter, add milk or half and half and salt/pepper) and deli ham and boiled eggs on it. My mother used to make this for my brother and I as young children.

Roast brussel sprouts:

• quarter brussel sprouts until you have enough to cover the bottom of a cast iron or carbon steel oven safe pan without crowding; a glass casserole dish will also work
• toss in cooking oil of choice, salt, pepper, herbs of choice, e.g. herbs de provence
• 420F for 30 minutes, stirring at 10 and 20 minutes, optionally sprinkling with shredded parmesan at 20 minutes

End result should be crisped on edges. Probably the side dish I've made more than than any other.

French toast with a little Nutella and bananas

Easy: tuna salad sandwich. Not cooked tho

Cooked easy: Reina pepiada. Venezuelan arepa, really easy to make. You'll need arepa flour, stringy savoury cheese, rotisserie chicken, avocado and herbs. Hardest part is making the batter pancakes. Not venezuelan though, so don't think this is authentic.

Beer cheese Mac and cheese no measuring required (all ingredients are sold/packaged in the exact amounts needed for this recipe)

Ingredients :

• 12oz can/bottle of beer (lagers or ales work best, avoid dark beers)
• 8oz package of cream cheese
• 1lb bag of shredded cheddar
• 1lb box of elbows or whatever pasta you want

Steps:

1. Cook the pasta (I'm assuming most people already know how to cook pasta) and perform the rest of the steps at the same time while the pasta is cooking
2. Pour entire bottle/can of beer into a large pot and bring to a boil.
3. Turn heat down to medium-high and wait for the foam (if any) to settle a little bit
4. Put entire package of cream cheese into the beer, use a wooden spoon/spatula to break it into smaller chunks as it melts, until it is mostly melted
5. Add the shredded cheddar a little bit at a time until the entire bag is in the pot
6. Continue to stir and break up chunks until all the cheese and cream cheese is melted
7. Turn heat to low for the beer cheese, and finish cooking the pasta if not already
8. Mix in cooked pasta into beer cheese pot

This serves 4-5 people, but it leftovers pretty well so don't be afraid of having extra

As this is sort of a basic recipe, its easy to add optional extras too it as well. Some of my favorites are diced jalapeno, crumbled bacon, bits of steak, or broccoli

Although not a dish, I really enjoy making a good loaf of vegan banana bread. Using chia seeds as an egg replacement really does the trick.

I'm not sure how healthy banana bread actually is, but honestly it just tastes too damn good to not eat...

I made coffee jelly recently. It was really easy to do, the hardest part being the whipped cream (my arms 😭). And when I finally got to eat it I'd realised that I found my favourite dessert. Thank you Saiki K for introducing me to this heavenly flavour 🙏 (even though it took me over a year to finally get around to making it).