Cutting Corners Cooking

Or “How to Fool Your Other Half That You Love Them by Serving Visually Pleasing Food”.

 

Or “How to Cook When You Feel Lazy”

 

Or “How to Cook a Decent Meal if You Are a Mum with 3 Monkeys…I mean, Kids. And an Ape…oh no wait, a Husband”

 

Or “How to Cook 6 months Leftovers and Not Have it Look Like 6 Months Leftovers”.

 

I’m joking. I don’t cook 6 months leftovers.

 

No really, I don’t.

 

Guess what these are:

 

 

The answer: broccoli and mushrooms with fried rice omelette.

 

I love cutting corners!! How long did you think that took? Assuming that you have the normal 4-stove oventop, that’ll take you less than 15 minutes.

 

Let me bossily tell you how it’s done. Heh.

 

What you need to make this pretentious serving:

• 1 tbsp butter. I’m sorry if you’re on diet but rice doesn’t taste as nice without butter.
• 2 cups of leftover rice from yesterday’s. (When I served rice with veggie curry).
• 2 tomatoes, savagely diced, while dancing and singing along to “Smell Like Teen Spirit” (“Here we are nooooooowwwwww, entertain uuussssssss!!”)
• 1 onion, diced. This one, less savage. Onions are evil.
• Salt, pepper and season-all. Go wild, however you want it.

(Or if you want to cheat, grab those fried rice seasonings. You can get it in Asian food store. )

 

First, you fry the rice! Woohoo!

Melt butter in pan/pot/wok. Saute onion. Add diced tomato. Pretend to stir if anyone is watching, just so that they think you are really cooking. Dump the rice in. Now you have to stir, unfortunately. Then add salt, pepper and season-all…and whatever seasonings you want. It’s your tastebud not mine.

 

That done? Now omellete time.

1. Fry egg in a pan. When it’s all fried and firm, take em out and put in a flat plat or cutting board.
2. Scoop fried rice to the middle.
3. You might want to wait til the fried egg cools down a bit before attempting to wrap it.
4. Wrap up as you would wrap tortillas/fajitas…you get the idea.
5. Pour sweet chilli sauce or tomato sauce on it.

 

Note: Either you pin the folds with toothpicks (I don’t know if it will work, never try it but doesn’t hurt to give idea, eh?) or you can just be as lazy as me by swiftly turning it around to block the folds. Hehe. Or you can roll it up if your egg is wide enough to do so. Messier though.

 

If you are feeling a wee bit fancy, pull some weed from the lawn, chop em up and sprinkle over the omelette. Just make sure you yourself don’t attempt to eat those weeds up as well. They are strictly for decorating purpose only.

 

Oh, you can warn your other half about the weed too. Optional though. The warning, not the weed.

 

Now that’s done and over with, let’s get on with the veggies

Butter/olive oil for light frying

Broccoli

Mushrooms, sliced.

2 teaspoon Worchestershire sauce/soy sauce OR oyster sauce

A pot of chicken stock

 

1. Pour chicken stock in a pan and bring to boil. Turn off gas.
2. Soak broccoli in boiled chicken stock for 5-8 minutes.
3. While you’re waiting for your broccoli,
4. Heat butter in a pan and stir-fry the mushrooms. Add broccoli and stir.
5. Add Worchestershire sauce or soy sauce. My personal favourite is oyster sauce.

(Or season it as you see fit, just bear in mind that chicken stock comes salty so you might want to control yourself. Alternatively, you can just add a few tablespoons of the chicken stock you used from the broccoli for this mix).

 

Stir em up a bit to make them behave and then you’re done!

 

Note: I suppose you can use beef stock but it taste weird with broccoli to me.

 

The presentation, cos that’s what matters most

Arrange omellete fried rice and veggies on a flat plat and tadaaaaaa! It’s better if you add salmon cakes, tuna patties or potato patties.

 

The easiest tuna patties recipe will come soon.

 

And now for dessert

For dessert I served my favourite hypocrite food, Tiramisu. Hypocrite, because I don’t like coffee – the essential ingredient in Tiramisu.

 

I’m giving you the easiest Tiramisu recipe you’d ever encounter. My favourite blogger, Pioneer Woman, also has an easy tiramisu recipe that anyone can do. But dude, let it be said here that I once again repeat mine will be the EASIEST you’d ever encounter. There are no mentions of eggs anywhere in my recipe.

 

You’ll need only 3 ingredients: milk biscuits, vanilla fruche/fromage frais, and strong coffee. If you’re feeling fancy, add in some cocoa powder in the list as well. You can find fruche or fromage frais in the dairy section in the supermarket, near the yoghurts. Fruche and fromage frais are usually displayed next to each other so knock yourself out. I usually take about 15 minutes to decide, driving my shopping-allergic boyfriend crazy.

 

The original recipe calls for ladies finger. Pah, ladies fingers begone! If you can’t find any ladies finger in your local supermarket (or you have no idea what they are but are too ashamed to admit it), just replace this with any plain milk biscuit. You know, those biscuits you dunk into your morning coffee/tea/hot chocolate? As long as they are absorbent, flat shaped and milk flavoured or plain flavoured, that should be ok.

 

This will take about 3-4 hours to set, so make sure you make it ahead of the proposed serving time. Oh, and also? Ban any humans from walking into the kitchen while you’re doing this. They’ll want to dip their fingers in the mix, or grab a biscuit. You should also ban any pets that can melt your heart with just one pretended sappy look as well. Continuously feeding said pet with biscuits is not going to do you good.

 

(P’s pet dog whom I spoil to no end. So spoiled Hero dub him ‘cat on steroid’. Hero is probably jealous cos this cute little thing gets more cuddles love and cuddles than him! And more snacks as well.)

 

On with the recipe:

 

1. Line a square shallow pan with cling wrap or aluminum foil.

This will make it easier for you to lift the tiramisu out of the pan later. If you don’t, you’ll have to dig out servings from the pan. If you’re like me, a pretentious and vain food hostess, that is a messy no-no. I like my Tiramisu (or any food) served as if it is fit to be photographed in a food magazine. But hey, if you’re eating it on your own, who cares about lifting it out of the pan? Just tuck in!

 

2. Make 2 mugs of strong coffee according to your taste. One for you to drink, and the other one are for this recipe.

Take note: strong coffee only. Doesn’t work well with usual coffee.

 

3. Dunk biscuits into coffee until they are soft. Be careful to not get it extra soggy.

Line and cover the base of the pan with the soaked biscuits.

 

4. Then cover biscuits with a layer of vanilla fruche/fromage fraise.

 

Repeat the biscuit dunk in coffee steps and line up another layer of soft biscuits.

 

Repeat fruche/fromage layer.

 

And so on and so forth until the pan is full, or until you’re satisfied that you will have 3 weeks of caffeine high with the mix. (If you have no idea how this layering works, you can see the visuals in The Pioneer Woman’s Tiramisu recipe)

 

Pop it into the fridge for 3-4 hours til firm.

 

When it’s time to serve, pull it by the clingwrap/foil, slice and wah la, instant caffeination!

 

Okie dokie, now I’ve done the blogging public good I’m off to hit the books. Oh hey, did I mention that my new job is in a bakery? BLISS! I love it too much!!